Marble Madness (1992)

Would be a serviceable conversion of Mark Cerny's iconic roll-'em-up, but Game Gear's screen crunch strikes again to deliver an experience which is, at times, borderline unplayable. You can rarely see more than about a marble's length in front of of you, so your missions to reach the bottom of the various courses become ridiculously difficult, which leads to intense frustration when combined with the game's tight time limit and somewhat squishy-feeling controls. If you have the courses memorised it's probably okay, as it generally looks the part and doesn't handle dissimilarly from the arcade original. Unfortunately that screen issue is crippling and resigns this cartridge to the "observe great caution" pile. **

Marko's Magic Football (1993)

Another footballing platformer much like The Hurricanes, this game could easily be mistaken for the Mega Drive version at a glance. This is a game that looks good as hell, with beautifully detailed visuals and smooth animations. Unfortunately it suffers from the absolute worst viewing window I've ever seen in a Game Gear game, with the main sprite of Marko himself being so comically, ludicrously oversized that you can barely see where you're going at any point whatsoever, not to mention how unwieldy the central football attacks are anyway. It's a shame but this is a strong case of visuals over gameplay, though even the sound takes a back seat, with no in-game music and truly weedy sound effects. A bit of an embarrassment for DoMark. *

Master of Darkness (1992)

This is a comely little Castlevania clone, and I mean a direct clone; it's you (one Dr. Ferdinand Social) versus the Master of Darkness (do you see), climbing suspiciously similar stairs and whacking suspiciously candle-esque masks with your weapon to collect the subweapon ammo hidden inside. Look, it simply is a classic Castlevania game, complete with a bleedin' clock tower. It's a good one, though, surprisingly lengthy and involved for a Game Gear title of this quality. While it's not perfect - the weapon system could definitely have used another pass - it's near as damnit at times, with the only things letting it down being some occasionally frustrating difficulty spikes and a typically zoomed-in view. Thankfully the view issues are far from major, here, and don't serve as an obstacle to enjoyment outside of a very few short segments. ****

Mega Man (1995)

Hmm. This compromised hodge-podge of Mega Man 4 and 5 (with a dash of 2) isn't horrible, but it's not really up to much either when you consider the source material. There are seven stages total, with only the first four selectable in any order. It's standard Mega Man, only... somewhat worse in every single way, thanks to dodgy hit detection and unimpressive visuals that really aren't a million miles from the NES; and that's fine on NES, but Game Gear can do better. Still, there's fun to be had, as Mega Man's general gameplay can't really be entirely ruined if it's just kept to its simple best, and U.S Gold's effort assuredly is that. Nothing to write home about but far from the disaster you may be inclined to believe. ***

(Next: Mi)

• sega
• game gear
• Stuart Gipp
• Game Gear Directory