Game Gear

Mortal Kombat 3 – 28 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/18/2023
Posted in: Game Boy, Game Gear, Nintendo, PC Reviews, PlayStation (PS1), Retro Consoles, Sega, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Sega Saturn, Sony, Super Nintendo. Leave a comment

Publisher: Williams Entertainment

Developer: Software Creations

Release Date: 11/1995


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I remember MK3 very fondly growing up as a kid. I remember seeing ads for it everywhere. Specifically a cardboard standee in a Walmart with the giant logo. My parents had a friend bring the Saturn version over once during a really bad storm. I remember seeing the arcades as well. I wound up renting it for Super Nintendo and had a blast. I mostly loved the much darker and more mature tone the series took. MKII felt more cartoony and stylish while MK3 felt like it pushed the first game’s realism even further.

Sadly does not transfer over to the Game Boy version. I don’t know why they bothered at this point. Probe dropped the ball after the pretty decent MKII and made MK3 just about as bad as the port of the first game. Back are the smaller sprites, sluggish animations, unresponsive controls, and weird speed issues with jumping animations. Animations seem to speed up and slow down making the game just slightly better than a Tiger Electronics version. The control scheme is mostly intact, which isn’t that bad, but we also get the running mode which is useless on such a tiny screen with a low frame rate. A new developer took the helm here and went with a 512K cart this time which still could be bigger. Sure, we get four stages, but they’re ugly and the music sucks too.

Once again, we get quite a few cut characters. Liu-Kang, Stryker, Nightwolf, Kung-Lao, Jax, and Shang Tsung are all missing. That’s nearly half the roster. Every character has their Babality intact, but only a single Fatality and Mercies were kept in. It honestly doesn’t matter with how insanely slow the game plays. It feels like everyone is wading through mud. It’s just so unacceptable at this point as many Game Boy games looked and played so much better.

There is nearly no redeeming value in playing this atrocity. It’s the worst version of the game and at this point, 8-bit versions should have already stopped. We’re almost into 1996. 32-bit systems have been here for a couple of years now. The Game Boy is already almost 7 years old. I can only say this is for people who are curious or are collectors of Mortal Kombat games. Otherwise, stay away.

Mortal Kombat II – 29 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 03/02/2023
Posted in: Game Boy, Game Gear, Nintendo, Retro Consoles, Sega, Sega 32X, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Sega Saturn, Super Nintendo. Leave a comment

Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment

Developer: Probe Software

Release Date: 10/27/1994


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Mortal Kombat II is considered the best of the 2D games and to another group the best in the entire series. It’s sad how some think the series peaked so early on when it had so much more to offer. Next-generation consoles were here and the series needed to adapt. This game was strung across three different generations. 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit systems. That’s a lot of systems to make a game work on. This would be the last in the series for the original Game Boy. Already 6 years old at this point in time. Sadly, Probe didn’t use a larger cart so we do have some cut content again here.

Thankfully, the gameplay part was fixed. This is by far the best MK game on Game Boy. It’s fast-paced, fluid, and responsive and plays similarly to the console versions. The control scheme is the same as the first game which works. Holding down away and towards plus punch or kick can do sweeps and roundhouses. The visuals have also improved with larger sprites on screen. Fatalities are intact as well as Babalities, however, Friendships were stripped. We still get a stage fatality on Kombat Tomb, but many stages were still stripped. We get The Pitt II, but no stage fatality there which makes no sense. We also get Goro’s Lair again, but it’s just a solid wall of gray bricks. Horray? Yeah, the stages suck here.

Also gone is Kintaro, but we do get Smoke and Jade as hidden characters which is kind of cool. Sadly, Johnny Cage is also missing from this game as well including Raiden, Kung Lao, and Baraka. Why did Probe cut Johnny Cage every time? While the gameplay was a serious issue in the first game the lack of content is the worst offender here is the awful stages. They were acceptable in the first game, but with a larger cart, they could have fit all of them. There is also still no gore or blood unless you count Candy Bonz bouncing on screen as gore.

Overall, this isn’t the best fighting game on the Game Boy, but it’s the best game in the series on the system. Fighting games just weren’t great in the 8-bit era and it shows here. I’m glad Probe improved the gameplay and made animations feel much faster, but we are only getting a part of a whole game.

Mortal Kombat (1993) – 30 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 02/28/2023
Posted in: Game Boy, Game Gear, Nintendo, PC Reviews, Retro Consoles, Sega, Sega CD, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Super Nintendo. Leave a comment

Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment

Developer: Probe Software

Release Date: 09/1993


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This is my favorite video game of all time. Hands down. While later games in the series are better and have more depth, the first game is just so raw and visceral. It had a weight to the fighting that other games didn’t have while still feeling fluid and well-balanced. This was translated well to home consoles on the Genesis, SNES, and even MS-DOS despite their own flaws. Even the Game Gear version did well. However, I don’t know what I’m seeing on the Game Boy. I don’t think it’s the lack of power in the system as the Master System and Game Gear versions are 8-bit and still play really well. The Game Boy version is just so bad. I can look past the visuals. They look pretty okay despite being a monochrome color. What isn’t excusable is the cut character. Johnny Cage isn’t present at all. Why bother if you can’t include the already small roster?

That’s not the worst part. The controls are also forgivable as the Game Gear and Master System also only have two buttons to work with and they manage. Holding away or towards plus the punch or kick button will do things like roundhouse kicks or sweeps. The special moves are also intact including the fatalities. There are also many cut stages. We only get The Pit, The Courtyard, and Goro’s Lair. All of the stages could have been included I’m sure. This is only a 256kb game which is unacceptable when 8MB cartridges were available. They could have put all of the content on here. But, again that’s not the worst part about the game.

It’s just downright unplayable. The characters feel like they’re fighting in molasses, animations take 2-3 seconds to complete, and there’s just a serious delay in everything. The health bars are terribly done, there’s no blood, no gore, and no Test-Your-Might either. The game is severely butchered and cut back for no reason. The manual is more interesting than the game itself. It’s written in the form of a comic book with great illustrations. That’s pretty sad.

There’s almost no redeeming value in this game other than for collectors. There are much better versions let alone 8-bit versions out there. This is by far the worst version of the game ever made, and I feel bad for anyone who paid full price for this game in the day. Maybe a Game Boy Color version could have come around and done better, but it never happened. While the game looks the part, and the character sprites are decent, the sluggish and unresponsive gameplay just doesn’t work. It’s too bad because the control layout works fine and is used on other 8-bit systems as well. I can only recommend this is pure curiosity and nothing more.

Sega Game Gear – 32 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 02/25/2023
Posted in: Game Gear, Hardware, Retro Consoles, Sega. Leave a comment

Release Date: 04/1991

Colors: Black, Red, Blue, White, Yellow, Coca-Cola

MSRP: $149.99

The Game Gear was a system that was revolutionary at the time and really tried to do some brave stuff compared to the Game Boy. First off, it was competing with the Game Boy. Sega really thought they could deliver a different system to appeal to their already hardcore audience and they kind of did. Sega succeeded in making a good handheld system, but with many flaws and some that the Game Boy didn’t have to deal with.

First off, the handheld’s orientation is what handhelds would eventually end up becoming. The horizontal length that Atari set as standard with the Lynx, Sega took off with and it just became the standard. Sega’s ‘tude branding leaked out onto the Game Gear and their leading IPs pushed the system. Sonic the Hedgehog was great on the handheld as well as other Sega DNA-style games. Sonic Pinball, Streets of Rage, Ax Battler, The Lion King, and many others. This felt like a Sega handheld. Sadly, it was 8-bit and not 16-bit like its older brother. Despite coming out two years after the Game Boy the only leading tech they had was a backlit screen, and barely at that.

The Game Gear screen is notoriously bad. While it is backlit it’s also blurry and just doesn’t look that great. You still need to be in a dimly lit room, but you can at least see the screen. Props to Sega for beating out Nintendo on that front. Because of this, the system chewed through 6 AA batteries. Yeah, I’m not joking. The battery life was maybe 4 hours all because of this screen. The internal hardware was the same as the Sega Master System so it was competing for that 8-bit handheld crown. It’s nothing technically impressive outside of that screen, and those with bigger hands will appreciate the chonkiness of this beast.

In today land, the Game Gear is a much harder system to use and play as it has leaky capacitors which usually destroy the sound. You will find many Game Gears with low volume issues and many people will just chuck these. You can also install a McWill LCD mod, but these aren’t drop-in and are much more expensive than Game Boy drop-in LCDs. There is a new mod by retrosix that uses a new screen PCB with a drop in LCD but still isn’t a drop solution. However, just like any older handheld, this is a must-have mod at minimum for playing a Game Gear today.

We judge older systems based on their library and the Game Gear has a surprisingly robust library for those who like the Sega DNA from the 90s. Games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat, Paperboy, The Simpsons, Ax Battler, Gunstar Heroes, Puyo Puyo, Streets of Rage, Wonder Boy, Castle of Illusion, Ristar, and many more may sound familiar to you. If you love the Master System or Genesis then this handheld is a must-have for you. If you don’t care for those systems you aren’t going to find much difference here in handheld form. Sega really mushed the Game Gear as a portable console experience rather than a separate handheld experience like Nintendo did. The games sound and play really well and any fan of Sega couldn’t ask for anything better in portable form.

With that said, the system has a lot of faults including full-on hardware faults that we suffer from today. Unlike the Game Boys, you can still enjoy those today without any mods, but the Game Gear really needs a screen upgrade. That CFL tube in the system drains batteries and you actually improve battery life with a new modern upgrade. There were various accessories such as battery packs and TV tuners for the system, but most of those are obsolete these days and won’t work. There are also two different models of the Game Gear. The original model from Sega and then a budget release from Majesco. These models have rounder front shells and make modding the system more difficult.