Tiger comes into the portable gaming market wit their latest creation, Game.Com. Competively
priced with Nintento's Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket, Tiger is looking to steal some market
share from the very popular Game Boy.
Let me first say a few things about Tiger's TV marketing campaign. Now, I have nothing against
dwarves or midgets. If you want to be politicaly correct, they prefer to be called "little
people", which I find to be insulting to them. The statement of "it plays more games than
you slackers have brain cells" may be true of the so-called teenage actors in the commercial,
but with less than 20 titles available(closer to 12), Tiger shouldn't go around making such
insulting statements. They suggest a HUGE library, but that simply isn't true. Also, someone
shouts out asking how much it costs, the little person shouts back "Next question!" I find
that rather insulting. While initially priced at $69.99, the price dropped to $49.99, making
this very competitive with the Game Boy Pocket's pricing. I personally find Tiger's web site
on the Game.Com to be informative and useful. While not the best designed and relying too much
on outside software(Shockwave, for example), they do get the information out to those who
want to sift through it. I personally don't like using plug-ins and do everything I can to
to avoid them, but that's my philosophy on web site design. To those who insist on using
such plug-ins, I support you, I just don't like doing that for my pages.
The Game.Com is unlike any other portable gaming system. Game.Com is set up in the "landscape"
format, D-pad on the left, screen in the middle, buttons on the right, like a Game Gear. First
inspection you notice that it has a larger screen than a Game Gear, Lynx, Game Boy, Genesis
Nomad or TurboGrafx Express. The second thing you notice is there are 4 action buttons. While
the Lynx also has 4 buttons, they are really a second set of A B buttons. The Nomad has an
integrated 6-button controller. The unit itself is very slim, a little thicker than the Game
Boy Pocket. Lastly, you notice the touch-grid screen on the Game.Com, which that alone should
push the price up and over that of a Game Boy. That's where the included stylus comes into play,
although as anyone with an Apple Newton, USRobotocs/3Com Palm Pilot, Windows CE machine or
any other touch sensitive screen PDA, you can just as easily use a finger to make input or
selections. As with the better PDA's, the Game.Com gives you a convenient place to store
the stylus.
The Game.Com has many unique features that set it apart from all the other portable cartridge
based portables. Game.Com has a back-up battery, which will make sense in a few moments. This
device attempts to cross the line between PDA and game system by incorporating a suite of
typical PDA functions right into the system itself. Game.Com's trendy internet-sounding name
even boasts being able to access the internet. So, let's break the Game.Com down in order to
discuss it's many unique features.
As I said before, the Game.Com has a touch sensitive screen and a stylus. When you play the
included game cartridge of "Lights Out", you'll quickly see why this system has a touch
sensitive screen and stylus. When using this screen, you'll notice the touch grid, which
does help to explain the reason behind Tiger being able to sell such a device at such a low
cost. Rather than the entire screen being touch sensitive on a pixel by pixel basis. Game.Com's
screen is broken up into touch zones. As a result, don't expect any art packages coming out
for this unit, input is severly limited. In my personal experience using the Game.Com, I
personally found the stylus to be too short for my liking. Even the Palm Pilot's stylus
is only a half-inch longer, but yet that one is more comfortable for me to use. Tiger does
really lock their stylus in place when you place the stylus in the holder. I'm sure the
motivation was to ensure the stylus would not fall out when the intended market carries this
device around.
All of the other portable gaming systems require a cartridge in order to function. The Atari
Lynx even tells you to "INSERT CARTRIDGE" when you start it up without a game. Game.Com has
TWO cartridge slots, but you don't have to use either of them to start using the Game.Com.
Tiger has included a suite of PDA-style programs burned into ROM. Game.Com gives you a phone
book, a calendar and a calculator. If you don't have a PDA and don't mind the large size of the
Game.Com, then you may be able to save some money right there. If that wasn't enough, they
built Solitaire(Klondike) into this system as well. This makes the Game.Com the first portable
gaming system that doesn't require cartridges in order to start gaming. Other unique features
include a menu screen that allows you to access all of these functions. The last two functions
on this menu screen are the cartridge selector and the High Score record. Game.Com keeps
track of high scores right on the device rather than on the cartridge. To save your calendar,
high scores and other information, that is why the back-up battery is included. The cartridge
select allows you to choose from the two inserted cartridges. You may insert a game into one
slot or the other, even leave one slot open. Other functions on the Game.Com are the Menu
button, the Sound button and the Pause button. Sound and Pause should be obvious. The Menu
button can quickly allow you to terminate a game in order to get to the main menu.
Game.Com is the first internet compatible portable gaming system. Tiger says this device is
internet-savvy, but before you jump blindly onto that bandwagon, the web site and the manual
contradict each other greatly. The manual talks of a modem being connected directly to the
device, while the web site claims you have to connect your Game.Com to your PC(sorry Mac
folks!) and through your dial-up PPP or SLIP connection, you get internet access, albeit
via a text-only interface. I don't see why Tiger doesn't implement some gateway or bridging
software to go along with the internet package and include a GUI web client. Since the
Game.Com does not have a TCP/IP stack, it is limited to text-only access to the internet
or anything. Still, this is a very unique feature. I sort of like the idea of having a dedicated
dumb terminal hanging onto my network, I have a ton of applications for this sort of device.
Now onto the questions most people want to know:
How does it sound?
How is the screen?
These are two questions that should always be addressed on every portable gaming system.
I'm an audio guy, so let me answer the sound question first. Most of you have complained about
systems not being loud enough, while I've never had a problem hearing any of these in even
the most crowded and noisy of locations. Perhaps I listen better than the rest of you. Then
again, I have to rely on my ears to for my audio hobby which I treat more as a second career.
I'll admit the Game.Com isn't the loudest system, but I can clearly hear the sounds, beeps and
even VOICE coming from the tiny speaker located in the upper-left area of the device. Tiger
claims their system is the only portable with speech, although Tiger isn't trying to say
the device speaks, they are talking about little clips of voice. I'm sure all of the other
portables are capable of this feature, just none have bothered to implement it into their
games. The Genesis Nomad does have this capability, but then again, remember this is a
Genesis at heart, and games such as NBA JAM, NBA JAM TE, Boogerman, and the Mortal Kombat
series all have such voice clips, and those are just selections from my collection. The
Game Gear has a voice clip in Mortal Kombat II, although it's only the word "fight". While I'm
no expert on my TurboGrafx Express or the TurboGrafx line in general, it is a 16-bit system and
I see no reason why my TGE couldn't do voice if it was on the HuCard. Jimmy Connor's Tennis for
the Atari Lynx has at least one voice clip. It would not shock me if the Game Boy had voice
clips, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody has put voice clips into their cartridges. Even
the short lived Virtual Boy had some voice clips in their Galactic Pinball cartridge.
As always, the quality of sound is largely determined by the staff creating the game and working
hard to optmize for the system being developed for.
Now I have to address the screen. There's no point in playing if you can't see the screen. As
I've mentioned already, the Game.Com offers the largest screen of all the portables. This
screen appears to be a passive B&W display. Like the Game Boy, you're going to need an external
light source to light the screen. I'm sure this was done in part to make the system affordable,
and second to make it energy efficient for the 4 AA batteries that power it. While using only
the default selections available on the unit, I was able to get an adequate setting that seemed
to work fairly well for everything. I do notice I need more light that I would as compared
with a Game Boy. When it came to games, I have to say that so far I've been less than impressed
with the results I've seen. I will review titles in another location, but I have seen an overall
consistency: lots of blur. This suggests to me that the Game.Com screen is extremely passive.
When the action gets fast, the system bogs and the screen becomes very hard to discern details.
This problem could be as simple as the programming of the titles. Since the system is so new I
think it would be unfair to dismiss this system based on this. We must consider that even
though the Game Boy uses a passive display, millions of these units have been sold and a
complete re-engineering of this system even took place.
I try and stay an unbiased as possible, but as much as I'd like to stay neutral, my biases
towards or against each system come out a little bit on these overview pages. I bought
my Game.Com on January 24th, and that one was defective. I will not hold that against Tiger
as I've had similar experiences with other equipment, ranging from the very inexpensive to
a few thousand dollars, defective units happen from time to time. I quickly exchanged it on
Sunday during the Super Bowl(I don't really follow sports) and was able to start properly
enjoying this new game system. I see a lot of potential for this device, but a lack of titles
for it, which is typical for any new system.
It all comes down to "well, should I buy one?" I can't answer that. The first question is:
Can you afford it?
And then:
How much do you really want it?
Of course, you can use those questions regarding any gaming system.
My motivation for buying a Game.Com:
As you can tell, I collect portable gaming systems.. If this system takes off, I'm the first
on my block and the guy with information. If it fails, I have a collectors item and I'm out
a few bucks.
Now, should you, the casual gamer, buy one? Again, I try to stay neutral, but in this one
I've got to go out on a limb a tad. To be honest, I don't see the system being properly
utilized just yet. If you really want one, then don't let me stop you. If you're not sure,
hold off a while and wait for more titles to come out and people like me to risk our money
on buying games and reviewing the titles to help you. If you've got the money just
burning a hole in your pocket, you can get a Game Boy Pocket and a couple of games for the
same price as a Game.Com and a couple of games, which I think at this point in time would
be the better way to go. My opinion will change over time but which way has yet to be determined.
![[Game.Com]](game_com.jpg)