Tiger Electronics Handhelds

[Greg2600]

I had them as a kid, kept some, and have bought some more since. Why? I don't know, they're all pretty bad. But they were fun enough for car rides before the Gameboy came out.

[+Gemintronic]

I had a ton of Tiger Electronics games as a kid. We got rid of most of the Tigers but I kept the Game-N-Watch ones. I recently (last year) repurchased Electronic Mouse maze on Amazon. This was one of my favorites, and one of the few that wasn't based on some type of arcade or movie IP:

 

I did keep the four Nintendo Game & Watch units I had: Donkey Kong, Mario Bros (bottle factory), Super Mario Bros (yes, 8 unique worlds on an LCD handheld), and Cement Factory. The Mario Bros and Donkey Kong were both dual screen clamshells.

 

Seems now that they are making the little Mini Arcades, some with segmented LCDs, backlit vfd style or frontlit monochrome, some full color video, accurate and not so accurate ports of arcade and NES games. It's almost like the old days of handhelds have returned, this time based on arcade IP. Mattel Football is even back. It's definitely a cash cow bonanza of retro nostalgia right now.

 

I had this as well. I actually rolled over the level counter. I think all it got you was a crown icon

 

The Game Panic Atari 2600 game me and John Hancock made was a tribute to these handhelds.

[mbd30]

When he does the "James and Mike play" videos, he is actually a pretty funny laid back dude. I do not watch AVGN videos because I don't like that persona.

 

I like AVGN, but have you seen his videos about films and film history? That is where he really shines. People who write him off because they don't care for AVGN should check those out.

 

You'd expect him to just make fun of bad movies as he does bad video games, along the same lines as the Nostalgia Critic, but he doesn't do that at all.

[Torr]

That guy looks like he's pretty much done playing the Angry Game Nerd. "Okay, here's some history on Tiger handhelds, a few swear words, a guy wearing a cowpie on his face, a little more profanity, and now a yell of frustration. Aargh. Are we done? Good, because I'm done."

 

You've summed up every video since episode 100.

 

I too am pretty sure he tired of doing that shtick now. But... it's what people want.

As someone else said watch his other videos. They're much better.

Long Story short, the AVGN was a simple side project he did once because he was bored and it took off like wildfire; Movies and Film History are his TRUE Love, and it shows in the videos he does for them.

[Andromeda Stardust]

That guy looks like he's pretty much done playing the Angry Game Nerd. "Okay, here's some history on Tiger handhelds, a few swear words, a guy wearing a cowpie on his face, a little more profanity, and now a yell of frustration. Aargh. Are we done? Good, because I'm done."

 

When he does the "James and Mike play" videos, he is actually a pretty funny laid back dude. I do not watch AVGN videos because I don't like that persona.

HE was funny for a period. But eventually his angry swearing teenager manchild persona stopped working. A lot of his older stuff was funnier. YEah the JAmes and Mike series are good even if it gets a fraction of the views the AVGN videos do. JAmes and Mike you get to see his true colors come out, and he's honestly a cool dude when he's not swearing at the camera and pretending to rage dump on games.

 

I did get the AVGN movie on BluRay. IT's a cult classic for sure, ranks right up there with the "so bad, it's good" category. And they made "Eee Tee" look like a damn mutated green muppet (think severely disfigured Kermit) to skirt around copyright. And right around the time the movie came out, they were doing the real ET brurial dig, which I thought was ironic.

[Tanooki]

Back on track, ever check out that limited run of what they called Super Sound for the original tiger handhelds?

 

I have one, Sub War and it's surprisingly a nice increase in what they did for audio at the time. Instead of your basic beep and boop sound you actually had some decent little low quality audio effects instead. For the subs you had your sonar, firing weapons, being hit by weapons, stuff like that. It gives the game a nice little added hint of depth, and on the whole one of the more enjoyable games since it plays well to a LCD panel so it's actually entertaining and inviting to play.

[Cynicaster]

I remember saving up my own money to buy the Tiger handheld version of Double Dragon, because I was such a huge fan of the arcade game at the time. I was on the school playground at recess and I told my friend that, after school, my mom was going to take me to the store to buy the game. I still remember his response: "How could they fit Double Dragon on there? I don't think it'll be any good." I played the game for a while, because that's what you did back then when you had limited access to games, but my friend was right.

 

Very shortly after I got the game, the Game Boy was released and that was the end of my dalliance with Tiger handhelds.

 

I still enjoy AVGN and IMO the quality of his videos is pretty steady. For example, kind of tangentially related to this thread, I really enjoyed his episode on Game Boy peripherals and that was a quite recent one.

[Pixelboy]

I was a "Coleco Tabletop kid" BITD. Had Pac-Man and Galaxian, and I borrowed Donkey Kong and Frogger from friends on multiple occasions. I also played a lot with a Donkey Kong multi-screen Game & Watch before getting my hands on a GameBoy and then never looking back.

 

So I avoided the whole range of Tiger electronic handhelds. None of them look very good (although Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3 are mildly interesting) but I can give kudos to Tiger for trying to push the concept forward with as many different games as possible.

[Twin_power]

One of my favorite Tiger handheld games was the Tiger Playmaker 3-in-one. You had three game options of Hockey, Basketball, and Soccer. It's a two-player game.. Me and my twin wore it out. To change the game you would slide in the face plate of the game you wanted to play.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I noticed the other day browsing eBay, they had Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Sonic 3. Were any of these any good? The idea of playing a Sonic LCD sounds like blasphemy. But the Super Mario Bros Game-N-Watch was amazing. I played it religiously as a kid, but of course it was developed by Nintendo themselves and all 8 worlds were accounted for. I doubt any of the Tiger games had the same level of care put into their development. Mouse Maze was the only one I fondly remembered as a kid, and I repurchased it a couple years back.

 

I do distinctly remember "beating" both Jurassic Park and Little Mermaid LCD games. Little Mermaid I gave to a girl at church when I was a teen. She was a several years younger than me and I thought she'd enjoy it. Eventually we got rid of all the tigers but kept the Nintendo Game N Watch ones. I need to install new batteries in Super Mario and Donkey Kong. It's been a very long time (decades) since I played them. And yes, we did remove the old ones...

[Tanooki]

I'll throw out a no on Sonic 2 at least, not tried the others but ended up getting Sonic 2 once for a couple bucks so I tried it. It's a true try hard, a try hard that fails and comes away miserable for it. You basically run along, eventually get some programmed in loops, and you have this really poor/weird timing by appearances sake where an enemy pops up and you have to pop that one big button to make Sonic do this jump and you have to crack it just right or you eat it. There are no rings to throw everywhere on a LCD so I can't remember if it fakes it in a ring counter or it's a one hit death like many others. It's just not fun. There are strange ones in a perverse way that are amusing because they suck as they still kind of work well like Street Fighter Ii which is just bizarre, but Sonic isn't one of them. You'd think that Sonic Team post-Genesis did the developing as they're just miserably rotten.

 

As far as a level of care goes I found some to be reasonably fun in their own limited ways even if they took heavy (Castlevania II) or lighter (Mega Man 2) liberties with the content. CV2 was this strange left to right platformer where you'd just whip stuff, not really worry about items, and kill a boss but it was fun. MM2 though had all the robots, not too many enemies, but had all the weapons and the one sucky thing was if you had the wrong gear for a stage the boss was invincible which ended it but otherwise was quite faithful enough. Double Dragon, Karnov, Ninja Gaiden were pretty solid. Gauntlet took liberties but was actually pretty entertaining too. I can't speak to a whole of lot of them, used to know more but forgotten to decades of time. One would be Batman which I think I remember was fun but no idea why for example.

[Punch187]

Anyone looking for super double dragon???

 

[SiberianSpForces]

Recently picked up the Wizards and Warriors and Ironsword Acclaim LCDs. They are neat for what they are. ? The first one needs a new piece of polarized film, as it's warped, but it's still playable. I'll have to snap more pics when I get some unpacking done. Here's a shot of Iron sword.

[Tanooki]

You should try and get 1943 as it's really well done, has a variety of stages too.

[King Atari]

I certainly had Tiger handhelds as a kid, along with Konami, MGA, and even [a single example only] Remco. Thanks to the power of secondhand, Coleco and Entex also entered my life back then. Konami had the TMNT factor going for them, and they put out a (in my recollection) surprisingly decent LCD facsimile of a side-scrolling beat-'em-up in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. Boy did I play that one!

Tiger always seemed like the 'biggie' though. Not only were they ubiquitous and cheap, but they had licenses for seemingly everything. If it was popular, there was a good possibility there was a Tiger iteration already on shelves or coming soon. I mostly stuck to the actual handhelds, but I did (and still) have a much-loved Batman wristwatch - it's probably long dead internally, but back then, the very idea of stuff like that just felt immensely unique and cool to a kid. Even if in reality it was, uh, still a Tiger; looking back, they really weren't very good. For the most part, anyway. And yet, they still managed to attain a special vibe about them to me - even after I got a Game Boy. Maybe those marquee (bezel?) graphics and all-in-one aspects subconsciously recalled dedicated coin-ops? That's what the TV commercials at one point touted these things as, after all! Pocket-sized arcade games! (Yeah, right.)

 

Of course, the fact they were cheaper than Game Boy or console games and I was a grade schooler with even less money than I have now (which is really saying something) probably helped, too. Well, helped my parents. Still, the fact remains that in the period before I had a Sega Genesis myself, Tiger's Sonic 2 handheld was as hotly desired on my part as any "real" game. I played that thing like crazy, too.

 

During our big huge lock down several months back (something I fear we're in store for again soon), I took the opportunity to dig through boxes, bags and bins of childhood stuff. Lotsa great rediscoveries during those digs, and it was during them that several old Tigers were unearthed. One of them, Street Fighter II, was something I picked up way later at a rummage sale (I gave it a spin, but couldn't decide if the controls were only partially working or if it just played terribly in general). The others though were childhood acquisitions, including the aforementioned Sonic 2 along with Ninja Gaiden II. Gaiden's screen got smashed beyond (?) repair at some point, which is just heartbreaking, though Sonic 2 still functions correctly. (Or at least as well as it ever did.) I also unearthed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Dimension X Assault (which always felt extra unique because it was a Tiger release - as opposed to the previous Konami TMNT LCDs) and Batman Returns - both of which were actually my brother's. I tried to finagle them from him via text message, but no dice.

 

Nowadays, I collect [vintage] handhelds of pretty much any ilk from pretty much any manufacturer. There's still something particularly exciting about coming across the Tigers though. Mostly due to nostalgia, no doubt. For example, I recently came upon their LCD rendition of Anastasia at a thrift store, and despite having zero interest in Anastasia before or since, it was still absolutely going home with me upon first glance. And you can be sure that if I stumble across the Bo Jackson, MC Hammer or Full House Tigers somewhere, well, you just may hear me flipping out from wherever you happen to be. (Side note: as a TGIF kid, I kinda find it stunning that Tiger immortalized Full House as a handheld, but Urkel never received similar honors - that dude was so ever-present at one point, a Tiger handheld dedicated to him almost seems like a forgone conclusion!)

[Tanooki]

You're right about TMNT.  Their Gradius was largely on the nose too as was Top Gun.  I'm just going to say I agree, can't type well slashed my finger but you're right about how Tiger felt big yet eveywhere and cheap.

I know SF2 fairly well, the controls probably worked as it is less than obvious doing the special move.

[7800Knight]

I had two of them - Mega Man 2 and Ninja Gaiden.  Beat the first one, not the other though.

 

I've also played Double Dragon and Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest.

[Cobra Kai]

On 12/7/2020 at 8:23 PM, SiberianSpForces said:

Recently picked up the Wizards and Warriors and Ironsword Acclaim LCDs. They are neat for what they are. ? The first one needs a new piece of polarized film, as it's warped, but it's still playable. I'll have to snap more pics when I get some unpacking done. Here's a shot of Iron sword.

These are the ones I had. I had Airwolf, Bigfoot, Knight Rider, and this one for sure that I remember. It's too bad, there were certain game items that I kept around for a long time, and when I moved out on my own, some things just didn't make the cut. My handhelds just didn't hold my interest enough to keep them, unfortunately. Now, of course I wish I had them, I got a lot of good playtime out of these before I bought my Lynx.

 

I remember the Knight Rider game being very good. It was kind of like Road Blasters really.

[masschamber]

I love tiger lcd games, though I don't know if it despite the fact they're terrible or because of it

[BassGuitari]

On 12/8/2020 at 3:34 PM, King Atari said:

Konami had the TMNT factor going for them, and they put out a (in my recollection) surprisingly decent LCD facsimile of a side-scrolling beat-'em-up in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. Boy did I play that one!

I had all three TMNT games as a kid (well, the main Konami ones). TMNT II: Splinter Speaks was my favorite of the bunch back then, but I think I would just find it obnoxious now. ? I reacquired TMNT 3: Shredder's Last Stand sometime in the late '00s and, for the life of me, can't understand why I didn't like it more as a kid! I agree with your take on it; of all the LCD handhelds that attempted to approximate a side-scrolling beat-'em-up, TMNT 3 had to have been one of the better ones. I never could beat it growing up, though--the Stone Warrior boss always f@#$ed me up. And it was weird that the game was called Shredder's Last Stand but didn't have Shredder in it. ? Still, I think it's a great game (as LCD handhelds went), and I keep it handy in my gameroom among my other favorite handhelds, should the mood strike.

 

I wish I could revisit the first TMNT game, actually. As a kid it was probably my least-favorite (mind you, the margin between them was slim; I was obsessed with any and all things TMNT ?) because you could only play as Leonardo, the only enemies were mousers, there weren't any bosses, it was more like an obstacle course than a beat-'em-up, and it wasn't really obvious what you were supposed to do in the game (okay, duh, rescue April...but how?). But looking back at it now, I think I would appreciate its gameplay style, rooted in early '80s single-screen arcades. The underwater part where you get keys and bombs would probably kick my ass though. ?

[King Atari]

On 3/17/2021 at 1:16 AM, BassGuitari said:

I had all three TMNT games as a kid (well, the main Konami ones). TMNT II: Splinter Speaks was my favorite of the bunch back then, but I think I would just find it obnoxious now. ? I reacquired TMNT 3: Shredder's Last Stand sometime in the late '00s and, for the life of me, can't understand why I didn't like it more as a kid! I agree with your take on it; of all the LCD handhelds that attempted to approximate a side-scrolling beat-'em-up, TMNT 3 had to have been one of the better ones. I never could beat it growing up, though--the Stone Warrior boss always f@#$ed me up. And it was weird that the game was called Shredder's Last Stand but didn't have Shredder in it. ? Still, I think it's a great game (as LCD handhelds went), and I keep it handy in my gameroom among my other favorite handhelds, should the mood strike.

 

I wish I could revisit the first TMNT game, actually. As a kid it was probably my least-favorite (mind you, the margin between them was slim; I was obsessed with any and all things TMNT ?) because you could only play as Leonardo, the only enemies were mousers, there weren't any bosses, it was more like an obstacle course than a beat-'em-up, and it wasn't really obvious what you were supposed to do in the game (okay, duh, rescue April...but how?). But looking back at it now, I think I would appreciate its gameplay style, rooted in early '80s single-screen arcades. The underwater part where you get keys and bombs would probably kick my ass though. ?

TMNT II was the first one I had, I'm pretty sure I got it for my birthday one year - might have been kindergarten. I loved it at the time, but like you, I can pretty much figure it would just annoy the life out of me now. Plus, and I'm going strictly from memory here, the game play was probably the least interesting of the trilogy.

As for the other two, I recall my brother getting TMNT at the same time as I got TMNT 3. I was familiar with the first one already (I remember some kid bringing his to school and letting me play), and I did like it, both because it was "the original" and because it was, I imagine, an approximation of the infamous dam stage in the NES game in my eyes. (A feeling that, I guess, was only bolstered by the identical artwork.) I was, and still am, incredibly fond of that first NES game (not everyone loves it, but I do), so that initial Konami entry found a natural place in my heart. (Eventually my brother traded, or maybe even just gave, it to me, and it remains in my collection to this day.)

 

Oddly enough, I think TMNT 3 was my least favorite back in the day, or rather, perhaps more accurately, what I considered the least important. It had neither that "original" thing going for it nor the nostalgia birthday fondness of TMNT II. This, of course, has changed considerably in the years since. Indeed, I'd rank it among my very favorite LCD handhelds nowadays! (I'm a sucker for beat-'em-ups, and frankly, I'm not sure one was ever presented better in LCD handheld form.)

While on the subject (and connecting nicely back to the original topic at hand), Tiger later released their own TMNT LCD handheld: Dimension X Assault. It talked, too! That one always seemed like something unique, or maybe even a little like novelty, to me, mainly because Konami was behind the TMNT handhelds prior. My brother had Dimension X Assault, and fun fact, I used the big giant statewide lock down a year ago to rummage through boxes, bags and bins of old childhood stuff languishing in my basement (hey, no time like the present!), during which that very game was eventually unearthed. (Unlike that first Konami TMNT handheld though, I wasn't able to wangle Dimension from him; it was duly returned to him eventually. No sour grapes on my part, but I'd sure like to find one for myself at a thrift somewhere...)

Edited March 20, 2021 by King Atari

[+jgkspsx]

We had a lot of Tiger handhelds when I was a kid. My favorite was the Star Trek TNG one. It’s just a three lane dodge and blast but it is curiously addictive. I was (mysteriously) really into Tiger. I got the holographic Daytona (which was awesome but it died), most of the games for the R-Zone (Panzer Dragoon is remarkably full featured, and Daytona is awesome; the many fighting games, not so much); and yes, the dreaded game.com. Maybe they were dying anyway, but the game.com seems to be what killed them. Although it is terrible, it was weirdly impressive, and I am sad that all of the screens are dying.

 

EDIT: this thread baited me to get out and play my R-Zone, and I ended up bumping this poor old thread about that very strange system: 

 

Suffice to say I do not stand by my comments about Daytona being awesome.

[Tanooki]

On 3/20/2021 at 5:11 AM, jgkspsx said:

We had a lot of Tiger handhelds when I was a kid. My favorite was the Star Trek TNG one. It’s just a three lane dodge and blast but it is curiously addictive. I was (mysteriously) really into Tiger. I got the holographic Daytona (which was awesome but it died), most of the games for the R-Zone (Panzer Dragoon is remarkably full featured, and Daytona is awesome; the many fighting games, not so much); and yes, the dreaded game.com. Maybe they were dying anyway, but the game.com seems to be what killed them. Although it is terrible, it was weirdly impressive, and I am sad that all of the screens are dying.

 

EDIT: this thread baited me to get out and play my R-Zone, and I ended up bumping this poor old thread about that very strange system: 

 

Suffice to say I do not stand by my comments about Daytona being awesome.

Nice job on the bump.   It's only a decade and a half old why not?

 

I was a fan too, not crazy, since I had Gameboy since 1989 Christmas, but I did like some that got it right in some way to be entertaining still within the scope.  That Daytona holo one you had was the VRTX thing, I got one of those a few years or so back at a goodwill for a buck and played it a lot, but let it go eventually, kin dof wish I hadn't as it's now worth like $30 or so last I looked (2020.)  But hey the response here is more about your dust off...

I love the R-Zone for it's unique dumpy 80 Tiger classic style mixed with the ghetto virtual boy halfass appeal it attempts.

 

You're right on those games.  Currently this is what I've got for the thing, I think you'll notice stuff you mentioned, and this is in many cases here some of the high points of the system.  I'm planning in time to get more, just need to kind of be strategic with it.  I did with this one, had to buy another system and 9 games to get it, but I already had 2 of them and a system.  Just sold them on ebay for $75 so given what that 9 set me back I came out well ahead of the curve.

[+jgkspsx]

Ah heh heh, did you just JUST sell them? Because I am probably the buyer

[Tanooki]

Ahhh so it is you, I just wrote you on there wondering which forum, then I got to thinking about these posts and boom.  OH well, fees.   You should be pleased with that one, I took good images and described it well so you'll know what to expect.