Officially Unofficial Tiger Game.com Official Thread

[jbanes]

I know there's a lot of hate for the Tiger Game.com, but I recently purchased one from a fellow AAer and thought it would be fun to analyze just what went wrong.

 

 

Hardware

 

Looking at the hardware, it actually doesn't seem that bad. The four-way directional pad is well designed and comfortable, the four buttons are easily reachable, and the screen is capable of producing some rather vivid monochrome visuals. Even the touchscreen, while of low resolution, is useful as shown by Solitare, Lights Out, and the game show/board games that people like so much.

 

Sure, it has a rather large footprint. And the batteries don't last all that long. (Am I the only one who thinks the voltage cutoff might be a little too sensitive?) But whoever designed the hardware must have been thinking to themselves, "This thing is going places!"

 

 

Bundled Software

 

Even the bundled software suggests that the handheld console was made with loving care. The built-in Solitare is servicable, and holds up decently well against superior versions on the more expensive Palm Pilot. The Calendar and Phone Book were also neat little apps, but obviously constrained in order to keep the unit's price down. It's quite possible that future revisions of the system would have increased the functionality of these apps as the hardware got cheaper. The Lights Out pack-in cartridge is a great puzzle game despite the horrid UI design of its controls. (Nothing that can't be figured out with a few minutes of twiddling.)

 

 

Third Party & Licensed Titles

 

So what is it about the Game.com that suddenly makes well-known game producers forget how the heck to make a videogame?!?

 

I received Jurassic Park with the system, and purchased a cheap (but NIB!) copy of Williams Classics from a local gaming store. Putting aside for a moment that the first level of Jurassic Park is completely pointless, why is it that your character can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time? I can make the character walk forward, crouch, shoot, and jump, but try to do any combination thereof and the system becomes unresponsive! It's almost like there's an intentional delay built into the controls. The game isn't entirely unplayable, but it certainly makes it more of a chore than a challenge.

 

The Williams Arcade games suffer from similar control issues. Joust feels like swimming through water, while Defender/Stargate are an exercise in holding down the (unnaturally rapid) fire button and hoping you don't hit any 1 pixels specs of enemy fire! Sinistar had me bouncing all over creation with no real control over my ship. (Ooo, look! There's a crystal! Better go... erm... ugh.. no, that way! ... wha-?... WTF? ... ARRGGGH! WHY CAN'T I AVOID ANYTHING?) Robotron is probably the most playable (even though the controls are oddly wired to some sort of sub-pixel movement) except that everything on the screen is an undecernable blob. Is that a human, a robot, or an invinci-bot? Oops, too late! Why didn't they use the wonderful grayscale abilities of this console to show the robotrons in more detail?

 

 

Final Thoughts

 

Since so many people have said good things about Resident Evil, that will probably be the game I pick up next. But so far the Game.com has left me wondering what the console does to zap 20+ years of game design experience from companies that should have known better? Is there some sort of technical limitation that actually made the system inferior? (e.g. Did it use a framebuffer without hardware acceleration?) Even if there are technical limitations, why didn't developers try to work around them? This wasn't the "Graphics over Gameplay" period of computer gaming in the late 80's/early 90's. This was 1997-2000! It was well understood by that point that tight controls were necessary for a good game.

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on just what went wrong.

[jboypacman]

I offen thought that the GameBoy was just to much for the Tiger Game.com to compete with.More games means varity for gamers and GameBoy had just tons of games.Also any game system needs a killer app to get it over with the masses.GameBoy had Tetris and as far as i know the Tiger Game.com didnt have that one great game that people wanted to play.Also am not for sure how marketing was for it either.Was it shown much on TV and how was it placed in the department stores?Was it placed with the Video Games or with the Tiger handhelds that seem to have there own area in the store(I know this because i worked for Toys'R'Us for a few years).Also it seems that they were wanting to create a sort of multi-facet system with PDA features as well as playing games.Most people who would want a PDA would go buy a PDA(Adults)where as kids could care less about a phone book and Calendar.I think Tiger had a good ideal but in the end it was doom to fall to the mighty Nintendo GameBoy.Well at least thats my thoughts on it.

[Bill Brasky]

The Gameboy Color came out just after the game.com launched. I thought the game.com hardware design was very cool. That it could connect to the internet way back then was a big deal, had a touch sensitive screen, pda features, was way ahead of it's time. That blurry screen killed it though. If thay had put more stationary type games on it like Qbert instead of fast scrolling games like Sonic that just exposed the systems weaknesses they would've been better off.

[jbanes]

I offen thought that the GameBoy was just to much for the Tiger Game.com to compete with.

 

I'm not sure it's that easy. Looking back at the Game.com, I'm evaluating in a market vacuum. And I still find that it's best enjoyed like a B-Movie: Play it to enjoy its badness.

 

Did the market competition of the time play a greater role? IMHO, no. The Gameboy was very much seen as a kids device, while the Game.com was targetted toward the older market. Palm Pilots did little to fill that market (save for puzzle and board games) leaving Tiger with something close to a Blue Ocean market. Even their licenses were quite good for the time, targetting "older" properties like Mortal Kombat, Duke Nukem, and Resident Evil. In those areas, Tiger did everything right.

 

Yet the execution of the actual games, marketting, and overall follow-through were horrid. (I won't even go into their online strategy.) What would have ever possessed their programmers or partners to fill out their licenses with such dreck? Someone in QA should have been saying, "The controls need to be more responsive; use more detailed sprites; what is the point of this driving level?" Etc.

 

If you dig down deep, Tiger covered over everything they did right with bad software. Bad software that should have been caught with quality control and some sort of standards compliance. (Does the button arrangement on JP seem random to anyone else?)

[jbanes]

That blurry screen killed it though. If thay had put more stationary type games on it like Qbert instead of fast scrolling games like Sonic that just exposed the systems weaknesses they would've been better off.

The one thing to keep in mind, however, is that the original Gameboy also suffered from screen blurring. I remember trying to play Mario Land 2 and having trouble indentifying objects due to smearing while scrolling. Yet the original Gameboy was quite popular, despite its shortcomings.

[Tempest]

The only thinig really interesting about the Game.com is that they were going to port Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to it, and that it actually looked pretty decent considering. I'd like to see how the prototype played however...

 

Tempest

[jboypacman]

You know jbanes this sounds almost like the Nintendo DS vs the PSP.Everyone thought the PSP was going to rule(internet,movies,games,ect)but the Nintendo DS proved them wrong.The DS took off like wildfire and PSP while has just kind of putted along.As powerful as the PSP is people perfer the DS.

[jbanes]

You know jbanes this sounds almost like the Nintendo DS vs the PSP.Everyone thought the PSP was going to rule(internet,movies,games,ect)but the Nintendo DS proved them wrong.

An interesting comparison. Especially since Sony's biggest failure is in providing fresh and innovative games. Sony has also shot themselves in the foot in other ways (*cough*UMD*cough*) that could have been avoided.

 

Still, I'm not sure it entirely tracks. From what I've seen, the PSP's games were not frustrating. They were just rehashes of PSX and PS2 stuff, which made them a lot less interesting to the target market. And it's not like the PSP has outright failed. It just isn't selling as well as its main competitor. The console market has always been highly competitive, but it's rarely been a zero-sum game. So there's room for Sony to profit alongside Nintendo's efforts.

 

From the research I've done, it sounds like the Game.com started off with poor launch titles (great names, just poor execution) and then failed to improve the situation. The titles underway when the system was cancelled sounded interesting (C&C Red Alert would have been cool!), but would they have actually played any better than the games released before that? I just don't know.

 

Either way, the failure of the Game.com appears to have more to do with Tiger than with Nintendo. There are some really good products that you can say failed because they came out at a bad time, or had too much competition. You can't say that with the Game.com. The software library has very few redeeming qualities.

 

Personally, I'd love to track down the Tiger exec(s) in charge of the Game.com and wring some answers out of him/her. "Why didn't you fix the games before letting them out the door?!?"

[jboypacman]

It was a good ideal that just didnt make and like you said that does happen.Who knows what would of happened if they had done it right out the gate so to speak.

[thomasholzer]

I whip mine out and play with it once in a while.

 

game.com complete:

 

 

 

notice the Euro release of the G.c featured two games, Lights Out and Batman & Robin

 

btw, the internet feature still works

Edited December 11, 2006 by thomasholzer

[jbanes]

game.com complete

You're missing the Pocket Pro.

[EmOneGarand]

game.com complete

You're missing the Pocket Pro.

He posted his collection in another thread, I think he knows that Since I mentioned the same thing. Several horizontal lines on my Game.Com's screen died I don't know how that happened, it'd been sitting in it's box for awhile.

[EmOneGarand]

Theres a community devoted to cracking the Com, Game.Commies I believe. I would love to see some real homebrew for the Game.Com.

[EmOneGarand]

The only thinig really interesting about the Game.com is that they were going to port Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to it, and that it actually looked pretty decent considering. I'd like to see how the prototype played however...

 

Tempest

I actually got to speak to a developer from Tiger about the Game.Com, some of the titles that were stated to be in development such as SOTN were in workable states. At one time they concidered an Oddworld port but that was killed because it didn't seem like a game that would work on the Com (I don't see why not) also Mutoids would have been an interesting RPG game as well.

[Jess Ragan]

What went wrong with the game.com? Well, Tiger had a whole lot of toasters lying around, and someone in the company thought they could pull out the microchips inside and use them as processors for their latest game system. Then, when the sales figures for the game.com came in, Tiger realized that they should have just sold the toasters.

 

JR

[rorysl]

btw, the internet feature still works

 

It does? I have a game.com and was thinking about picking up the web link but I had no idea if it would actually do anything... so..what does it do?

[Dusk2600]

it was probibaly the asshole who you bought it from's fault

 

happy to see you are using it for the good of the community

[Dusk2600]

"I whip mine out and play with it once in a while."

 

 

me 2

[Dusk2600]

I received Jurassic Park with the system, and purchased a cheap (but NIB!) copy of Williams Classics from a local gaming store. Putting aside for a moment that the first level of Jurassic Park is completely pointless, why is it that your character can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time? I can make the character walk forward, crouch, shoot, and jump, but try to do any combination thereof and the system becomes unresponsive! It's almost like there's an intentional delay built into the controls. The game isn't entirely unplayable, but it certainly makes it more of a chore than a challenge.

 

i agree, when i plugged that game in i was like wow this is nice looking then i tried playing it and that was that.

[jbanes]

it was probibaly the asshole who you bought it from's fault

So you're the Tiger exec who told everyone to use poor controls in their games?

 

i agree, when i plugged that game in i was like wow this is nice looking then i tried playing it and that was that.

Yep. I plan to get past the second level one of these days. But I'll need a few hours to do it.

 

It's weird because it's pretty close to a decent game. If the controls were more responsive, it might have even been reminiscent of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. It's so sad to see a game so close and yet so far.

[Ze_ro]

The Game.com isn't so bad in my opinion, except for the screen, which has such a brutal refresh rate that any games with fast action (ie, Sonic Jam) to just blur to the point where they are basically unplayable. I'm not sure if the later versions of the system had this problem, but the original certainly does.

 

Also, I don't know how much memory the cartridges had in them, but there are a number of games (ie, Mortal Kombat Trilogy) with absolutely horrible animation.

 

However, the system is definitely well suited to slow-paced games such as Wheel of Fortune and Solitaire. Would have been nice to see more puzzle games and board games on the system, but Tiger was too busy trying to compete with the big boys to carve out that niche.

 

--Zero

[christianscott27]

I chalk it up to the angry midget ad campaign. For some reason Tiger went with a garishly dressed midget screaming at high school slackers about how they could go online and play games and do something social... It got your attention but not in a good way, it was cool like one of those "Playing extreme sports is my anti-drug" ads.

 

here we go...gotta love youtube

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb64KFF4TuM

Edited December 12, 2006 by christianscott27

[EmOneGarand]

You have to remember what part of the gaming industry Tiger had started with and had been a big part of... the LCD gaming market. Their programmers were use to programming for LCD games, that was one of the issues with the games, they got it right when RE2 came out but it was too late by then. Mortal Kombat Trilogy was just a rush job, they didn't fix the major bugs (Noob Saibots Fatality is one of the biggest ones.. they forgot to program it lol...)

[TailChao]

You have to remember what part of the gaming industry Tiger had started with and had been a big part of... the LCD gaming market. Their programmers were use to programming for LCD games, that was one of the issues with the games, they got it right when RE2 came out but it was too late by then. Mortal Kombat Trilogy was just a rush job, they didn't fix the major bugs (Noob Saibots Fatality is one of the biggest ones.. they forgot to program it lol...)

They were also very used to LCD game hardware design.

The Game.com's LCD is the most obscure design you'll ever see in a handheld game, achieving its bizarre 5-shade display by rapidly displaying multiple 1-bpp images. This really explains why the blur was so bad.

Not only that, but the CPU was vastly crippled, there's a total lack of any graphic acceleration, and the sound hardware had to be completely driven in software by the (already) stressed CPU. Let's not forget that the touchscreen actually wasn't all that precise.

 

The GameBoy was miles above the Game.com hardware-wise, all the Commie has going for was its high resolution and massive obscurity. I have no idea why I find the device intriguing and constantly battle with the awful titles, but perhaps its just my assumption that if I don't play it, the hardware will go bad. Albeit like an old piece of fruit.

[EmOneGarand]

You have to remember what part of the gaming industry Tiger had started with and had been a big part of... the LCD gaming market. Their programmers were use to programming for LCD games, that was one of the issues with the games, they got it right when RE2 came out but it was too late by then. Mortal Kombat Trilogy was just a rush job, they didn't fix the major bugs (Noob Saibots Fatality is one of the biggest ones.. they forgot to program it lol...)

They were also very used to LCD game hardware design.

The Game.com's LCD is the most obscure design you'll ever see in a handheld game, achieving its bizarre 5-shade display by rapidly displaying multiple 1-bpp images. This really explains why the blur was so bad.

Not only that, but the CPU was vastly crippled, there's a total lack of any graphic acceleration, and the sound hardware had to be completely driven in software by the (already) stressed CPU. Let's not forget that the touchscreen actually wasn't all that precise.

 

The GameBoy was miles above the Game.com hardware-wise, all the Commie has going for was its high resolution and massive obscurity. I have no idea why I find the device intriguing and constantly battle with the awful titles, but perhaps its just my assumption that if I don't play it, the hardware will go bad. Albeit like an old piece of fruit.

Well the touch screen wasn't very responsive because it has a rather small area of sensitivity, I'd assume a larger grid touchscreen would have jacked the price up. I never had any of the gripes with the hardware that everybody else had, I never actually compared it to the GameBoy due to the low price and obscure licenses I loved it. It's a niche handheld at best and if they had released several of the original games such as Mutoids I think it would have had some better success in it's last year.