The Game Gear Directory: (Odds & Ends)

Gear Works (1993)

Gear Works? I flippin’ wish! Nah, this one is resolutely in the “not for me” pile, and I have to confess that I gave up on it rather early. It’s a puzzle game about fitting gears together so they rotate properly, and it’s rather fiddly to say the least. You’ve got to use a sort of peg board space to ensure your contraption ultimately works, and in doing so you’re beset by weird little monsters that you can smack down with a gear or by switching over to a fucking gun, which is jarring as heck in a cart like this. I don’t know, you might enjoy it more! I found it a very slow experience, all the way down to the utterly interminable start screens before you get into it. This is a good fit for the Game Gear in terms of being a single-screen, WYSIWYG sort of business, but I just found it boring. I still don’t know what the bombs or oil do, but I can’t imagine that their gameplay applications are so interesting that they’d realistically elevate the experience. Again, though, you may get more out of this than I did, as it seems to do what it’s doing rather well. It’s just… I don’t care about cogs, mate. **

The GG Shinobi (1991)

Proper feelings of joy flooded through me when I played this game. I knew it was good, because I’ve played it through before, mouth agape at its sheer quality. But this time around I liked it even better, figuring out some more of the game’s little nuanced and how you can apply them to utilise superior tactics depending on the situation. Thing is, I think this might be the best Shinobi game, and that’s a weird thing to say considering how important Master System Shinobi was to me as a kid, how much I adore Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi, and how bloomin’ brilliant Shinobi 3: Return of the Ninja Master obviously is. What marks this handheld title out is the way you can choose which stage to tackle, in order to rescue one of your colour-coded ninja friends from each location. Once you’ve saved them they’re added to your playable roster, and each ninja has a different weapon and ability to take advantage of. The graphics are clean and crisp, the level design is varied and wonderful. Is it absolutely perfect? No, as there are a few occasions where enemies will fire at you from both off-screen and above, which is not especially fair. But it’s not a game about fairness, and the player agency in picking a level to tackle means that it gets away with this by virtue of incorporating that frustrating experience into a cartridge far more than the sum of its parts. Everyone with a Game Gear should own this. *****

Shinobi 2: The Silent Fury (1992)

The focus here has shifted from action to exploration, and while it’s still a hugely enjoyable game, I didn’t think Shinobi 2 lived up to its predecessor. Levels feel a little like afterthoughts, with the returning multiple playable ninjas required in order to revisit them to search for hidden crystals. If you enjoy that kind of gameplay – combing a stage for collectables when you may not yet have the means to access them yet – then this is a very solid, very well-made example of such. Me, though? I want my Shinobi to be a linear action game, not Banjo-Kazooie. Once again it looks fantastic, of course – the parallax on the Canyon stage is frankly astonishing – but overall I find the package just a smidge less satisfying than the first Shinobi game for the Gear. Not enough that I won’t give it four stars, though; you should absolutely play this. Just play the OG first. ****

Sonic Drift 2 (1995)

Colour me shocked. I was absolutely taken aback by how much I enjoyed this. I’d sampled Sonic Drift 2 before as part of one of the ten trillion Sonic compilations on Gamecube, but I’d always dismissed it compared to the likes of Tails Adventure. And I was wrong to do so, because Sonic Drift 2 is actually a bit of a banger. And I don’t mean in the sense of a crap car, I mean it’s very good indeed. The visuals are absolutely outstanding; bright, colourful and clear despite being miniscule even on the Game Gear screen. While the top half of the view is taken up with an overview of your current track, it doesn’t feel intrusive because you absolutely need to use it to plan your corners. And the cornering feels great, with a high skill ceiling and a superior sense of speed. It’s bloody hard, too – even the earliest races will have you sweating. There’s a Super Mario Kart vibe to it all as you chuck weapons at one another with a tap on Up, and the variety of settings and modes will keep you entertained. I never, ever expected to give this one full marks, but having gained the context of the Game Gear’s actual library, I don’t see how I could not. *****

Striker (1995)

Another attempt to clone Sensible Soccer, but completely lacking its flair and breeziness, Striker is just another faceless footy game in the seemingly neverending torrent of them on Game Gear. Some nice crowd noise can’t mask the utterly moronic AI of your teammates, who will congregate by the opposition’s goal and never once do anything even remotely threatening to be somewhat useful. Meanwhile, the “enemy” AI will simply steamroll you, never missing a shot or losing possession once they have it. Am I whinging? Yes, a bit, but it’s an unbelievably irritating game to play and I would rather throw on almost any other footy title. That said, it does have a surplus of teams, cups and such. There’s some love poured into it for sure. But it’s not enough, and it’s not worth any more words. **

Yogi Bear in Yogi Bear’s Gold Rush (1994)

I’m cheating slightly here, because this game was never actually released. It was intended for late ’94 but for some reason got pulled. It’s out there, though, in both monochrome Game Boy and dumped ROM form for Game Gear, and – without mincing words – it’s quite sincerely one of my favourite games on the system. It’s an incredibly simplistic platform game that sees you switching between Yogi and Boo-Boo to take advantage of their respective strengths, making your way through secret-packed levels collecting pic-a-nic baskets. And it’s a joy, from start to finish, because it’s been designed by fun people who like fun. Yes, it’s from the creators of Alfred Chicken, you do not want to get me started on that. But at any rate, for Christ’s sake play this, if you like platformers. *****

Note: These entries have been copied to the relevant previous instalments of the Game Gear Directory

(Next: Wrapping Up)