Yeehaw! Tapwave Zodiac collection = Complete!

[neuropolitique]

I know it's not a huge library of games, consisting of only 8 unique titles, but it is still one I'm happy to finish. The last two games were really the only difficult games to grab. Namely, Tiger Team: Apache vs Hind and GTS Racing Challenge. I've never seen these two games up on eBay, bundled or individually. It was not until mkuo7 offered them in a recent sale thread here on DP that I was able to snag them. Thanks man!

Off to play these two new additions.

[PapaStu]

Scwheet!

Congrats on completing a system collection. Now get back to work on that GB Collection! :D

[Steve W]

I'm considering getting a Zodiac. A CompUSA near me is closing, and they've got them down to $130. I'm not only thinking of picking it up just to add another portable game player to my collection, it's because i'd like something to stick a Wi-Fi card into to websurf at hotspots, and also use a global positioning adapter to use it as a GPS tracker and car navigator. Are those possible with the Zodiac?

Tiger Team-Apache vs. Hind and GTS Racing Challenge are both at my local Fry's Electronics for $19.95 each. I wasn't aware that they're hard to find. They've got heaps of them. And the CompUSA has a lot of games for it too, around $16 before the 10-20% discount they're running.

How's the Zodiac for emulation? Another thing i'd like to pick one up for.

[mkuo7]

I know it's not a huge library of games, consisting of only 8 unique titles, but it is still one I'm happy to finish. The last two games were really the only difficult games to grab. Namely, Tiger Team: Apache vs Hind and GTS Racing Challenge. I've never seen these two games up on eBay, bundled or individually. It was not until mkuo7 offered them in a recent sale thread here on DP that I was able to snag them. Thanks man!

Off to play these two new additions.

when I bought the system for $299 the two games came bundled with it as a deal. unfortunately the company stopped selling them. congrats on the cool collection!

[The Plucky Little Ninja]

Hey a system collection is a system collection. Give us some pics.

[fishsandwich]

How's the Zodiac for emulation? Another thing i'd like to pick one up for.

It's great with most of the 8-bit emulators I've tested (WSC and NGPC need the most work while GG/GB/GBC/NES/SMS are close to perfect), very close with Genny, and not too far from pretty decent SNES emulation. There's even some half-ass PSX emulation depending on the game.

You can get wi-fi on the Zodiac if you have the card (I think.) I don't think you can do GPS but I'm no expert.

I'm one game away from a complete Zodiac collection... I think I found the last game online today.

[Steve W]

Which game is it? Between CompUSA and Fry's Electronics, there's a few Tapwave games floating around my area. Maybe I can locate it for you.

[fishsandwich]

Which game is it? Between CompUSA and Fry's Electronics, there's a few Tapwave games floating around my area. Maybe I can locate it for you.

Hey there Steve...

Thanks for the offer! After I read your post I went online to Frys and found it and ordered it. I think it should be fine. HOWEVER... I'll gladly take you up on your offer if it doesn't work out. You know how these online ordering things can be damned unreliable. I ordered MUSHA from EBgames.com one time since it was displayed for $7. I showed up as "backordered" when I checked on it. It eventually arrived... 8 months later!

Many thanks... I'll let you know!

[Steve W]

Heh.... I used to mail order comics in the early '90s, and one place sent my order after I waited 6 months. Unfortunately, the order was wrong. I sent it back, and got another shipment 2 months later. That order was wrong. After phoning them and asking them why they keep sending me the wrong stuff, they finally completed my order... 3 months later. Bringing it to a grand total of 11 months. I ended up losing money on shipping the bad orders back to the company, and all they did was send me a $2.50 store credit slip to make up for it. So I know how much it sucks to wait for an order.

This Wednesday, before going to bed, I ordered a Trogdor shirt off the Homestar Runner web site, and it showed up Friday afternoon. A day and a half to go from Georgia to Texas. It amazes me how much the Post Office has improved over the past decade or so.

[JB Lars]

Congrats! and Bastard!

I put in an order with Allack to get those two games, they happily took my money, and four months later… no games! They refunded my money and told me they were very unlikely to get those two back in stock. Dammit. So I have all but those, plus the retail display with demo loop. I have a bad feeling about ever finishing this one up. sigh…

But I'm being a downer. Congrats again!

[fishsandwich]

Congrats! and Bastard!

I put in an order with Allack to get those two games, they happily took my money, and four months later… no games! They refunded my money and told me they were very unlikely to get those two back in stock. Dammit. So I have all but those, plus the retail display with demo loop. I have a bad feeling about ever finishing this one up. sigh…

But I'm being a downer. Congrats again!

Count me in... I just got GTS Racing in the mail this morning. I now have a complete Tapwave collection. It certainly took damn long enough.

It turns out that GTS Racing and Tiger Team (those two hard-to-find games) are just a website and a credit card away. Go to www.outpost.com and do a search for "GTS Racing" and "Tiger Team" and you'll find them. They just say "game card" (with no picture) and that had me worried that they were just loose cards but both games come complete in standard Tapwave packaging and are sealed with a security tag. I got Tiger Team from them awhile back but GTS racing wasn't listed on their site. It is now. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, guys!

The games are $20 each. A little pricey compared to the other Tapwave games but if you're want to complete your collection it's the easiest and fastest way.

GTS Racing is better than Tiger Team and makes great use of the lovely oversized Tapwave screen.


http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f17/allensnow/zodiac.jpg


As you can see it's not a big collection to put together... just 8 games. There are a variety of assessories you can get for the Tapwave... I'm big on the leather carrying case. I doubt I'll get any more of the extras. Six of the games are cheap and readily available off Ebay (Z-Pack Adventure is the hardest of the six to find but it only took me about a week to locate) with the other two being available on the outpost.com website.

There are two Tapwave versions... the only differance is internal memory and both versions play all the released games just fine. It's a great machine for emulation and the screen is superb. The SNES emulation is good and there's even some PSone emulation going on (depending on the game.) The Tapwave plays many Palm Pilot applications and software development is still active. "LJP" is the name of the multi-system emulator that's still being updated and upgraded.

Get them while thery are still plentiful and reasonably cheap!

[Steve W]

It looks like all those games are available locally. My local Fry's Electronics even has a GPS tracker device for Palm OS5 machines (although it's over $200), a Palm manufactured Wi-Fi card (no mention on the package whether it's Zodiac compatible), and Tiger Team and GTS Racing. I'm going to hold off on buying a Tapwave until after the Oklahoma Videogame Expo, though. I'm probably going to be blowing a lot of cash there, don't want to deplete my finances too soon.

[B - Mark]

I have any questions for neuropolitique:

- What are your favorite games for Zodiac?

- Do you plays Doom for Zodiac?
This game is good?

Answer me, please.

[metarog]

I just completed my Tapwave Zodiac game collection last week and yet again Tiger Team and GTS were my last two. I got them for $20 each on Amazon still sealed. I am only missing the tough to find cradle in package to have all the original Tapwave accessories too. Here is a pic of my stuff-

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/metarog/Tapwave%20stiff/DSC00732.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/metarog/Tapwave%20stiff/DSC00735.jpg

[Steve W]

I never managed to buy copies of Tiger Team and GTS. Once I found out how hard to find they were, I ran over to the Fry's that had shelves heaped with them and they were all gone. All the local Fry's Electronics had tossed their stock down a deep dark well. Oh well, I have the others at least. I even have that Atari compilation you've got there too. The cool thing about it was I could not only play it on the Zodiac, it also worked on my Symbian OS phone, namely my Nokia N-Gage QD.

[T2KFreeker]

What is that Sonic case? I am lost here . . .

I have a Zodiac as well but have never seen that one.

[metarog]

What is that Sonic case? I am lost here . . .

I have a Zodiac as well but have never seen that one.

The first pic are all the Zodiac specific games... the games in the second pic are Palm OS SD card games. The Sonic one is called Sega Classics which I got for a few bucks and although the games show up on the launcher they do not work on the Zod. The other 3 in that pic are Madden 05, Atari Retro and Game Essentials.

[tom]

Sonic is a PDA game for PALM OS
http://roomofdoom.powweb.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=202682&g2_serialNumber=3

[Swamperon]

Ah so it's a port of Genesis games?

Including Shining Force II is pretty awesome.

[slapdash]

the games in the second pic are Palm OS SD card games. [...] The other 3 in that pic are Madden 05, Atari Retro and Game Essentials.

All on SD? Hmm... I may want to look for a couple of those. :-)

What's on Game Essentials? It appeared to me to just be SimCity... [EDIT: ah, there's one on eBay right now!]

[Steve W]

Atari Retro is on a MMC, not an SD card. MMCs are compatible with SD card slots, but not the other way around. They did that because a lot of Nokia phones (like the N-Gage) used the older MMC slots, so they put the game on MMC for compatibility. The Zodiac can still read it, even though it has an SD slot.

[T2KFreeker]

Sad that the Sega card will not work. Would have been cool though!

[metarog]

Steve W is right about some of these being MMC... there is a Rayman for Palm which I know will work on the Zod and am still trying to find. The other SD/MMC Palm video games I know of are Pocket Express Entertainment which has Lode Runner and Tetris and Popcap Puzzle which has Bejelewed... the others are all board or card games.