Game.com

[Zadoc]

I have always had a fasination with collecting obsecure or uncommon game consoles.

The Tiger Game.com is perhaps the biggest bastard of portable handheld gaming... well, maybe not as big of a bastard as the R-Zone (which I also own), but close enough.

I am not really sure that I have a desire to ever complete my Game.com collection, but I picked up a system and a bunch of sealed games off of eBay for $16.00 after shipping.

I was just wondering, who else owns one of these, why, and what do you think?

[tholly]

i own one

why - because im a collector and its a video game system

what do i think - well, it sits in its box, is never touched, and i think i spent at most 5 minutes trying it out, so....i guess i don't think too highly of it...

[ryborg]

I was just wondering, who else owns one of these, why, and what do you think?

I own one, complete in box, along with all of the common U.S. released games. My game collection tends to favor failed systems, criminally atrocious games, and overall gaming industry jokes. I got mine ass-cheap on ebay, too, several years ago. I believe I paid more for shipping than the actual unit.

As a gaming system, it blows. I can't imagine any situation where I ever play this again, aside from showing friends exactly how badly it reeks. As a PDA, it is borderline broken, and worse than the $2 PDAs local banks used to give you in 2001 for signing up for their crappy checking accounts. I think writing down important phone numbers on the bottom of a cinder block would be more handy than regular use of the game.com.

I never got around to using the modem, but I can only imagine the horrors experienced with it.

EDIT: This post got me into the mood of doing some more reading about this classic system and I noticed this on wiki: "Game.com (pronounced in TV commercials as "game com", not "game dot com" ...)"

Is that true? I've always called it "game dot com." I know wiki is hardly perfect, but I've never heard of that before or seen any of the commercials.

EDIT 2: Okay, apparently it is true: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkfvN5Z7L_c

That's terrible. I didn't think it was possible to make a bad name that much worse. Should I now call google.com "googlecom" and ebay.com "ebaycom"?
________
Vaporizer (http://twitter.com/vaporizer)

[tom]

i like my Game.com
hardest game to find was WoF2

http://videogamecollectors.com/gallery/album345

All games are below average, but so were all games on Sinclair Spectrum, they never complained

[Nebagram]

Yeah, I've got one, and after spending a couple of minutes trying to play fighters megamix, it's safely on the 'collect only, no playing' list. Better luck next time Tiger...

[scooterb23]

I have a system with all the games. I'd honestly say that it's an occasionally played system for me, because sometimes I'm in the mood for a puzzle type game, and it did them really well.

If it was around today, you know it'd have 50 Sudoku games for it

[cyberfluxor]

tom:
Nice little getup you have going for your Game.com.

ryborg:
My friends and I have always called it "the Game Com" and never have really heard someone put the "dot" in there, interesting. It's funny when you think about all the various minor ways some of us say things, especially when it's a product.


As for the Game.com itself, I've only had 1 friend that ever owned one and he got it for Christmas many many moons ago in the 90's. It wasn't the best thing ever but I remember going over there and playing it in the living room having a decent time. If you aren't a real picky gamer and just want something to occupy your time without another selection it's alright. I just believe people expect a lot more out of it, which is understandable.

[gamesniper]

I have a loose one with a couple of games: Megamix, Lights Out, and Batman and Robin that I bought at a pawn shop for $10. Not a great handheld, but an interesting conversation piece. I won't work to get more games for it, but if they fall in my lap, I'll take a look.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

I had grabbed one of these at a yard sale a couple of years ago. It came with Lights Out, but unfortunately, no stylus. I picked up Fighters Megamix at Kay Bee toys when they were going out of business, but haven't tried it. I do like the game's ability to have 2 games plugged in at once.

JY

[Kamisama]

I've got one and like 12 games. Want to complete this sometime but it's not like I have to do this right now. Played with it a few days after I got it.
Well I always say "Game Com" without dot, I never say digitpress dot com aswell, only digitpress com. ^^

[jpark203]

I bought one of these back in the day because I thought it looked "cool." I quickly realized it was not. lol The system itself is just too darn big, and most of the games were horrible. I always found the built-in touch screen solitaire enjoyable though.

[Ze_ro]

The Game.com has it's good points and it's bad points. The bad points far outweigh the good points unfortunately... the way the screen smears when any amount of action is taking place pretty much ruins most action games (Sonic Jam), and I'm not sure whether it's due to system limitations or programmer incompetance, but the animation in many games is absolutely horrible (MK Trilogy).

On the plus side though, the low-res touch screen works fabulous for games like Wheel of Fortune and Scrabble. The system could have been great for puzzle games and other casual-type activities, but Tiger insisted on porting as many already-established licenses as they could get their hands on. Of course, the chances of having the system profitable off board games and game show ports is also pretty unlikely, but at least the system was good at them.

I have to say though, that the port of Resident Evil 2 is surprisingly good. I'm curious to see how the Castlevania game would have turned out, although my guess is that the screen smearing would have likely ruined it.

--Zero

[j_factor]

I have a Game.com myself. I guess I got one because it had a port of Fighters Megamix. Too bad it's unplayably bad; Sega would've been better off making a Game Gear port or something.

At one point I actually used the address book feature, before I had a cell phone. This turned out to be a big mistake -- when the battery died, I lost everything, including a few numbers I didn't have written down anywhere else.

I actually think that Lights Out is a pretty good game. Joust in Williams Arcade Classics is fine (the rest have too much slowdown), and Henry is fun for about 5 minutes. And that's the entire library right there. I couldn't stand the port of RE2 or Duke Nukem.

Overall, Game.com is just a series of decent ideas and bastardized games. R-Zone was indeed worse, however.

[GizmoGC]

I have a Game.com myself. I guess I got one because it had a port of Fighters Megamix. Too bad it's unplayably bad; Sega would've been better off making a Game Gear port or something.

At one point I actually used the address book feature, before I had a cell phone. This turned out to be a big mistake -- when the battery died, I lost everything, including a few numbers I didn't have written down anywhere else.

I actually think that Lights Out is a pretty good game. Joust in Williams Arcade Classics is fine (the rest have too much slowdown), and Henry is fun for about 5 minutes. And that's the entire library right there. I couldn't stand the port of RE2 or Duke Nukem.

Overall, Game.com is just a series of decent ideas and bastardized games. R-Zone was indeed worse, however.

Surprsingly enough we never got any prototypes of games released. There were MANY in development including an unamed RPG, Castlevania SOTN, Furby, Gigapets (with rumble), Boxing game, Madden...many many more. I use to belong to the newsgroup years and years ago.

[Kamisama]

Too bad it's unplayably bad; Sega would've been better off making a Game Gear port or something.

Note that all or at least most of the games were developed by Tiger afaik. They just bought the licenses.

[Slimedog]

Ever notice how every game plays like an LCD handheld? You can tell the same engineers were designing game.com games. Also, my system actually says "game com active" when you boot it up, so I never had any questions about how to say the name. Maybe thats just the pocket versions.

I've got a complete collection and have played all the games for it. If you are looking to play something, avoid the platform and fighting games (most of the library). RE2 was playable and Duke Nukem as well. Probably the most playable games were Solitare (built in), Scrabble and Lights Out.

The system could have been ok if the games would have been designed to its strengths, but whoever designed the games obviously never had to play them.

[Jorpho]

Mr. Provinciano managed to get a video capture device working:
http://www.bripro.com/low/gamecom/index.php

[SegaAges]

I got one from wal-mart a long time ago, mainly because I knew nothing about it, thought it was better than a gameboy (before I played the games), and it was on clearence. Some games are good, but try to play lost world on there to see the system shine (saracsm). Some of the games would do that. You would play the game and when the game scrolled, the entire screen got blurry. Granted, I only own 8 games, I think, but not all of them were bad. I got Tiger Casino once for free when I bought a game off of tiger.com (RE2), and then they lowered all of their prices 2 days later.

[Asylum Seeker]

All games are below average, but so were all games on Sinclair Spectrum, they never complained

Sacrilege! Take that comment back before I beat you over the head with a Sinclair C5.....the original spectrum was always good as a door stop.

[CRV]

I sold my Game.com Pocket Pro and games to someone here.

[Pantechnicon]

I bought a game.com last year, CIB, from a DP'er* for $1 :-P. I definitely got what I paid for in this case.

Pros - Multiple cart slots, decent sound capabilities.

Cons - B&W display, too heavy.

It's not a great system by any stretch, but it's not wholly craptacular either. If Tiger would have put this out in 1989 against the 1st gen Game Boy it might have stood a shot. But for the mid-to-late 90's, releasing a portable system with a crappy B&W display was corporate suicide. I can see a bunch of marketing wonks arguing that the Internet connectivity features would offset any potential disdain for the graphic capabilities. Yeah, right... it's 1997. Playstation and N64 are establishing 3D gameplay as the norm and Nintendo has finally announced a long overdue Color Game Boy. It's not as if anybody cares about graphics, right...right?

"But...but...we've got 14.4 dial-up!" :smash:

File that one under the "What the hell were they thinking?"

I actually just found a couple of new games for mine while travelling for Christmas: Midway Arcade Classics and Sonic Jam. The guy at the game shop I was in was horrified: "Dude...you actually have a...a....uh....whatever these were for?"

I couldn't resist: "Oh, you bet. It's a great system: It's got integrated communication capabilities, multiple cartridge slots, stylus-driven gameplay and built-in productivity software. Bascially, Nintendo ripped off every innovation the game.com had already developed 8 years prior, put them in the DS, and called them their own." He just looked at me like I was insane LOL.

* - for the record, that DP'er was not CRV.

[l_lamb]

I've got a complete set of games, the two web utilities, two original game.com systems, a pink Pocket Pro, and a Pocket Pro Light. I never did get the carrying case. It's marginal with puzzle and game show games but the action games suck hard. Just put in Duke Nukem and you'll see. The screen in motion is as blurry as those Vtech kid's computers from 10 years ago. Plus the fairly large dots and the grid pattern on the screen are distracting. I only have it for collection purposes.

[blue lander]

I've got the Game.com and a couple of the Game.com pockets. The screen on the smaller ones is better, but the joypad on the larger one is far superior. One of the better handheld joypads, actually.

As everybody's already said, Most games were awful LCD-style games and the few that were decent were ruined by screen blur or bad controls (Sonic, for instance. The gravity's so strong you can barely climb a normal hill)

I have the modem cable, and I used to use the thing as a miniature dumb terminal. Not a very good one since it can't emulate a VT-100 and because you have to use the stylus to type on the screen, but at least it was portable!

[bangtango]

If you are getting the system for $5 or less, Wheel of Fortune and Solitaire (built-in) make it worth your money.

[rbudrick]

Does the modem still work on it?

I've got the Game.com and the green remade smaller version f it and a handfull of games. I've often wondered if one made an adapter to hook to the TV to play these games and avoid the blur, if they would have been playable. I really think many games would have been so much better if there wasn't that damned blur. I wonder if Brian Provinciano will ever release his plans he made for that Game.com to VGA adapter.

And I'd give my left asscheek to have the SOTN proto for that, if it was more than 50% done.

-Rob

[tom]

Yes, the modem still works (as of 2005, when I last tried it out).

[Kamisama]

Afaik you can connect only to one ISP, which is one by Tiger, and does not run anymore of course. Thats at least what I have heard.

[rbudrick]

Afaik you can connect only to one ISP, which is one by Tiger, and does not run anymore of course. Thats at least what I have heard.

OMG11! l337 haxors unite! Get t3h gamcom back on t3h interwebz!!!

-Rob

[tom]

>>>>>Kamisama said: Afaik you can connect only to one ISP, which is one by Tiger, and does not run anymore of course. Thats at least what I have heard.<<<<<

No, you can use any dial-up you choose