Christmas with the SEGA Game Gear

A Guest Blog by Steven Parky Yates (aka Fats McClane)

I had a GameGear.  Odd place to start, but stay with me, you'll see why I started here. I loved it. I remember having a knee high pile of Fleetway Sonic The Comics in an open stackable box cupboard in the corner of my room, piles of drawings I had copied from it strewn across the floor and posters of Sonic I had asked to be kept for me from stores and even a bank (think it was TSB infact I know because I literally found it online - pictured right ) hanging from my wall above my Sonic the Hedgehog covered bed.

As we see, I was a Sonic fanboy without even knowing what a fanboy was. I was eight years old and was a countryboy. Living in a place with maybe eighty people tops but only sixty in the actual village I tended to go on very long walks, feed ducks and game.

Problem was most games I had were for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.   was given a Game Gear later, but was not up to date with the technology that was around at that time, so home consoles was a lost concept on me.

I saw kids play at school with their Gameboys, well I said play...we couldn't see the screen if we stood next to them, and we were soon shooed away by the irate gamer. 

I wanted one so bad, I once borrowed one and played Mario 6 Golden Coins and loved it so much, but at the same time wished a certain hedgehog was on it.  

Thanks to me miss-spelling 'Gameboy', due to being a rush and writing my Christmas list on a car journey, I was given a Game Gear, I had never even heard of this and was disappointed when I opened the paper hiding it. I hid my sadness and went to my room with it. 

I was told it needed to stay plugged in to play, which a gameboy did not so was angry my friends wouldn't be able to see me being cool at school, and the size of it was huge.  But soon as I plugged it in and inserted Sonic the Hedgehog 1 into it...I was blown away.

Graphics were clearer, true, BUT there was COLOUR!  I was so impressed I turned it off and on again just to see Sonic jump the SEGA logo....it was blue! Not black with a green background. It actually said SEGA through my speakers!  After this I was always on it, playing Shinobi, Sonic and Streets of Rage. I had been bitten with the gamer virus and was not wanting a cure, just another fix.

It was at this time I competed with my then best friend to see who had the best gadgets, and who was the better gamer (in the long run I am winning -  as he has become a boring old man builder and I still melee the hell out of nubstepz on Halo!)
He had same things as me, so we would head to head alot, Micro Machines on the GameGear being the favourite with laptimes. One day I came to visit him...he had it up on his television. I was in awe. He handed me a black controller with three buttons on it and told me to carry on while he went to the toilet. Three buttons?  I instantly knew which button made me go, and I was soon playing the game, not thinking anything of it except that maybe he had bought a cable of some sort that allowed him to play the game on the television.

When he returned he asked me 'So?  What dya think?' I said love it man, he nodded and pointed to the black box under the television. 'My Megadrive...So....when you gettin' one?' I gasped.  He explained it was a GameGear that was better...but could be played on the tv and with better and longer games.  I didn't believe him until he slotted Sonic 2 into the console and switched it on.  I was pretty much close to killing him and stealing the machine he had.  The graphics so clear, so colourful, so....AMAZING!  I wanted it so bad!  

Hiding my contempt by not flushing the toilet when I went to the toilet and returning home, I nagged constantly about the console my friend had. My mother must have heard the constant whining because at Christmas she didn't get it me.  Instead I was given more GameGear games and a chair that was made by a neighbour who loved to carve.  I was screaming internally and said I loved them.  My mother said to go and get the mail, there was unopened Christmas cards in them so I went into the next room, trying not to cry.  When I returned there was a MASSIVE box before me.

'Oh, we forgot this one' she said'must have been behind the couch'.  I fell to my knees, heart was racing and all eyes on me.  I didn't dare raise my hopes again, but it was not far away.  I ripped it open in the corner on the bottom....and saw in blue the Logo,....SEGA!

I ripped the rest open and there it was!  My 16bit dream console.  With Sonic waving his finger in the corner.  I cried.  I was a tough kid but seeing something I had desired for over four months infront of me made me well up.  My fingertips brushed its top and I whispered 'thankyou' through a wall of tears.  My mum laughed and said 'do you want me to set it up?' I laughed, 'stupid question!  Of course!!!!' In less than five minutes I had slotted the first game in, Sonic the Hedgehog 2.  I wept slightly as I ran through the 1st level, the music so much better, the colours streaming across my screen in clear blocks, and the fact it was more of a game than I had ever played.  

I look back at that Christmas as one of the best (until I got my N64 but that's another story) and why? It resembled to me at the time why I liked Christmas. It was a gift, granted. But it was a day I remember, even now, twenty one years later.  It was a gift that made me realise I had been listened to, it was a corner stone in my gaming hobby and it made me appreciate everything that went into it being made and the people who got it for me.  

So I hope this Christmas if any of you get a 3DS, WiiU, Vita, Xbox One or PlayStation 4, that some of you, will feel not just happy, but complete with a sense of accomplishment.  And I hope it inspires you and doesn't burden you.

A Guest Blog by Steven Parky Yates (aka Fats McClane) for his great gaming memories and this special Christmas Guest BLOG