The year is 1991. Movies like Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Boyz n the Hood, The Scilence of the Lambs, The Addams Family, and Beauty And The Beast premiered in theaters. Shows like Dinosaurs, Home Improvement, Taz-Mania, Darkwing Duck, Samurai Pizza Cats, and Nickelodeon’s 3 premiere Nicktoons Rugrats, Doug, and The Ren & Stimpy Show premiered on TV. Songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Bring The Noise by Public Enemy and Anthrax, Unbelievable by EMF, It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over by Lenny Kravitz, and Groove Is In the Heart by Deee-Lite topped the charts. Video games like Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, The Simpsons Arcade, Another World, Neverwinter Nights, and Road Rash came out. Sega launched games like Streets of Rage, Toejam & Earl, Quackshot Starring Donald Duck, Rad Mobile, and uh, oh yeah… an obscure little game that just never took off called Sonic the Hedgehog. (Stay tuned for that anniversary coming up.) Sega had done something else even more significant on this day that very same year, though. (Okay, maybe not more significant than Sonic, but stay with me here.) They launched their one and only dedicated handheld gaming console: The Game Gear.
On April 11th, 1991, the Game Gear first hit store shelves only in test markets in New York City and Los Angeles. On the 26th of that same month, it launched in the rest of North America. At the time, Game Gear went up against Nintendo’s Game Boy and Atari’s Lynx, and wound up sitting comfortably in second place behind the Game Boy in sales and popularity worldwide. Still, the Game Gear retains its place in video game history as a memorable handheld with its own line of enjoyable games available nowhere else.
So grab your own Gear if you got one and join us past the break as we continue this little trip down memory lane in full color.
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