The Game.Com Is The Weirdest Handheld I Have Ever Seen
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ม.ค. 2025
- The GameCom is a handheld released by Tiger Electronics back in the 90s to combat the Gameboy from Nintendo. In a way Tiger actually came up with some great ideas, but executed them poorly. In fact a lot of the ideas were eventually used in future handhelds like the Nintendo DS. Tiger Electronics also managed to get some big name games for the GameCom. Unfortunately none of the games seemed to play well at all.
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This video should have come bundled as a pack in with the system as it's easily the most entertaining thing about it
Lol damn right
Oooooffff!!!
Being the ONLY console launched at E3 1997, hotly anticipated and STILL managing to utterly tank is pretty damn hilarious though
Shut the fuck up
Modern Vintage Gamer shut up it’s decent console
No manual? Tiger was really ahead of the times back then.
no brain cells left for manuals..
Justin Bowman They did have manuals. When he said no manuals, he was referring to modern games.
IDIOT, NEXT QUESTION!
RaLLyKaTz OoO Most collectors, I think. You were one of those kids that wrote your name on the back of the cartridge, weren’t you?
@@danielevans7439 lol what does that have to do with manuals?
I had completely forgotten about the gamecom! I got one for my 11th birthday and i absolutely LOVED it. When i hear "gamecom active" i had a rush of nostalgia i haven't experienced in a very long time. I had wheel of fortune and the sonic carts but never any of the internet stuff. For an 11 year old, the thing was amazing. At this point in my life i didn't have a computer (they were still pretty rare, especially anything portable) and so this thing was awesome. I remember mostly playing lights out and solitaire while also typing in my family members phone numbers since at the time cell phones with built in phone numbers weren't really a thing a kid would have. Thanks for putting this together, brought back some great memories!
You know what? Im starting to like you. You never wear a hat or a beanie and denim jackets and you take a breath in between your sentences. You show us your real true self. I couldn't find a game channel to sub to but finally subbed. Love your work
He's one of the few gaming channels I'm subbed too lol
He's also one of the few gaming channels that doesn't rely on unverified claims, present misinformation or biased opinions. Always interesting, always insightful.
Just to be clear, the hat that a lot of people on TH-cam wear and a lot of douches today, is not a beanie. It's a knit cap or stocking cap. A beanie is a brimless baseball cap often with a propeller on top.
What's wrong with denim jackets?
I agree. I really love his channel!
Could you imagine developing for something like this? It must have been more of a nightmare than playing it....
If i remember correctly there was an article somewhere. Where the devs were best friends at different companies and when companies like tiger present them to make games for their devices they would talk about how bad they feel putting their main games on inferior hardware knowing it wasnt even up to code but it was a technical achievement in a way too
@@Pinkarmada01Interesting. I can definitely see something like that happening. A technical achievement for sure, but I wonder if that ever paid off...
Sonic jam should had run at 10mhz, not 4mhz, no wonder theres sooo much slowdown & input lag, eventrough that would,ve halved batterylife while increasing the blur on the screen, thing is the gamecom screen was never designed with fast games in mind.
I felt like I was watching a mix of styles between yours, the Gaming Historian, and LGR in this video. I liked it, can't wait to see more
Before anyone was talking about fps, this system died because of lag. Seeing systems like this reminds me how awesome the Gameboy was for delivering solid gameplay, even though it’s graphics were nothing special.
Sonic on that thing ran at 5fps, it was terrible couldn't even bare to continue it.
An 8-bit CPU on that thing? No wonder it chugged. The Game Gear was basically a handheld Sega Master System with a lower res screen (you could even get an adaptor for it that let you play actual Master System games on it).
It’s almost like Nintendo modeled the bottom half of the original DS on this thing.
Or a gameboy advance?
Always hard at work. I appreciate the vids
He really is. Hey Spawn Wave, are you ever going to take some time off of the channel? Only time I ever see you miss a day was Christmas.
Man I remember getting this for Christmas, what a trip down memory lane
I don't even remember hearing about this. My friends all had gameboys and I had a game gear. Watching your video I think I know why I've never heard of it before.
This thing was out like 7 years after the gameboy and gamegear. Granted gameboy was still Nintendo’s current-gen handheld when this released, but I still would call it a stretch to call this a competitor to it
I saw one in Toys R Us back then. I messed around with it for about a minute. I wasn't impressed.
@@fixman88
That's the thing I lived near a Toys R Us and I would buy stuff on clearance or when it got really cheap.
Even at whatever cheap price they were asking I deeply regret buying one. There's a short list I have of horrible decisions I'll regret forever, this is somewhere in that.
The commercial is unforgettable
Sega: "lmao Sony is a joke"
Also Sega: "let's put sonic on this thing"
That really surprised me. They had the Game Gear, so why would they allow a Sonic game on their (theoretical at the time) competition?
@@fixman88 The Game Gear was basically dead by then. I actually just checked the dates - Sega officially discontinued the GG the same year as this came out. And since Sega didn't have any plans for another handheld, it would actually make total sense for them to jump onto another platform trying to compete with the Gameboy. And then they'd also go on to support SNK's Neo Geo Pocket a year or two later.
@@jasonblalock4429
Yeah that Sonic game was giving me horrible flashbacks to that Sonic game on GBA that was full of horrible slowdown and audio issues ect.
You've gotta make more of these retro console, handheld videos dude I love them! Nice switch up and gives the channel more variety (which is already awesome). Keep up the great work Spawn!
I'm liking these new types of videos where you tell us the console's background before opening it. Keep up the good work! Awesome video as always
Calling your customers idiot's is not a good marketing strategy? EA should have remembered that when marketing Battlefield 5.
Or any game
Quiet you sexist idiot, if you don't like it just don't play it lol good ole ea.
Ah, those Tiger electronics things. My favorite one was probably the Ninja Gaiden one. My mother's too and she kept playing it long after I got my hands on a GB.
Still have it somewhere in the collection.
Your tear downs are so informative and interesting as a fellow 90s gamer. I didn't even know this console existed growing up. Am glad I got a Nintendo Gboy back then now that I've seen this video.
I worked at "Media Play" in the 90s. We found 2 systems in the stockroom way after it had been discontinued. We scanned them and they came up at $0.01. So I grabbed one. Lights out was definitely the only good thing about it.
I love gaming on a handheld website
Lol wut?
@@mikebarnes7441 game.com geddit?
This makes literally no sense
Interesting...I've never heard of this handheld console.
What I really want to see is a breakdown of the Atari Lynx, which was well ahead of it's time. Also ahead of it's time was the Panasonic 3DO home console, another breakdown you should do.
I had a gamecom! I loved that you could put two games in the system at the same time.... I mostly played lights out.... it was not a good system. Still have it, full with box (the box had a handle, so it was good for storage haha)
*_AVGN joins the chat_*
"What were they thinking!?"
This game make me wanna shit out poopy ass diarrhea dicks!!
*"A whole Tiger Video Game Console!"*
I picked one of these up in the early 2000's for almost nothing. Ended up giving it to my mom because she liked playing Solitaire at work. Puzzle games were about the only playable games on the system.
Consumers: “I have a legitimate question!”
Tiger: “MORON!”
Also, that D pad is so loose it almost qualifies as a joystick.
And the fact that there are two slots gave me a second of hope that they thought of making bigger games and using that second slot for extra ram/memory/data...but nope.
Oh damn! You mean introducing a lackluster, hell of an inferior product to the market, and calling your customers idiot and moron, isnt a recipe for a win?!?!?!
Hahaha!!! Such a funny story/video!
Thanks Jon! 😉
YES! I owned one of these as a kid, even though I knew it was bad I loved it. Ahead of its time!
David Howe Same!
Yup! 😂😂😂
@ David Howe
Ahead and somehow also way behind.
The only game I owned for this turd was Duke nukem 3D, it sounded okay (for it's time) but played like a slideshow.
I will always love the Gameboy, but the game.com will always be a mistake. It was a mistake to make it and I will always regret buying one.
There are literally dozens of us that grew up with this piece of shit. I had Sonic Jam and it was pure suffering, and I played it anyway. LOL, kids these days have no idea how good they have it with things like the Switch.
I remember being so excited to get on the internet with it but it turned out it needed a pretty specific kind of modem to use, so despite having the software to go online I never did.
Awesome video! We had the Tiger Ninja Turtle one LOL!
What a throwback...I remember wanting one of these as a kid.
You know I actually had one of these as a kid. Got it from a free clothing center oddly enough. My dad sold it not long after I got it.
I had dozens of the old Game & Watch styled Tiger games. I also had a Zelda video game watch. I played the watch in school all the time.
This is up there with the N-Gage and Gizmando but worse somehow
N-Gage was pretty cool actually
I still can't believe people hadn't mod an emulator onto a Tiger handheld shell, would turn that nice little device into a badass handheld emulation system. Imagine playing Mortal Kombat MAME on the Tiger Mortal Kombat LCD handheld system with them cool artworks on there. Instead we kept seeing too many Game Boy ripoffs.
8:42 ''blast processing'' is not just a made up phrase, it is real. Not heavily utilised, but it is real.
Faster ram speed or something like that right?!
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu It expanded the colour palet beyond what was the Genesis normally capable of.
Never had a Game.com, but yes, I did have a ton of the original Tiger Electronics toys. Bowling was always my favorite.
It's one of the reasons why the Tiger episode is one of my favorite AVGN episodes.
64-bits
32-bits
16-bits
8-bits
4-bits
2-BITS
1-BIT
HALF-BIT
QUARTER-BIT
THE WRIST GAME!!!!
That Jurassic Park Tiger game you held in the beginning gave me a wave of nostalgia!
I had one!
Saw it at a Target around the holidays and thought it was the coolest thing at the time. My Mom then sneakily went off and bought it for me that day, as my "big" Christmas gift that year.
With it, I got the racing game seen at 1:59, but mainly ended up using the device for Lights Out and Solitaire. Those two, much like the mobile puzzle games of today, were great for being able to play them while chilling on the couch with music on in the background.
I love how you filmed the hand cam portion with that wild headband setup 😁
Thought I was on LGR's channel for a second.
What's LGR?
@@DeltathRiylaan Lazy Game Reviews, he generally covers old games, retro stuff and the like, with the odd mini-documentary in there. Good stuff if you like this kind of content.
GREETINGS
Yeah I wish It was on lgr, ya know where this video probably should have been made. I definitely didn’t sub to spawn for retro reviews. I’m frankly kinda saddened to see this channel take the bread of other dedicated channels like lgr and piss on it for a channel boost. I may unsub if they keep doing videos like this.
@@nomadscheap-n-nerdy9901 Jesus could you possibly be more needlessly dramatic?
My childhood consisted of Tiger Electronics games, Surge, Sunny D, Ecto Cooler and Dunkaroos.
It must have been super annoying to watch TV in USA in 90's with adverts like this.
You should have seen the 90s Nintendo ads.
Those and the Sony ones were some of my favorite.
The 'tude era as it's known was awesome. So over-the-top and "edgy" what a time to be alive.
It seems like the pattern is, handhelds or consoles that failed had great ideas but were ahead of it's time. Dreamcast has the VMUs, Gamecom had the touchscreen and the Game Gear had, well backlit display that ate batteries like crazy. No wonder Nintendo plays it safe most of the time. Their competitors in the 90s tried to do too much too fast.
Compared to the other two games.com will always have a place as one of the most terrible over-hyped pieces of garbage ever.
I've never heard or seen anyone ever getting onto the internet or successfully doing anything like that with it.
I love these retrospectives you do! Really awesome. I dont remember this system at all!
I had one in the late 90s with a racing game. Didn’t know that a sonic game and a Jurassic park game was made for this system.
The most amazing thing on the game.com is always say fuck you everytime you turn it on
Tiger? The rice cooker company? Pog.
Best part of my child hood.... crappy handhelds lol. I thought it was amazing... until right now.
I love this sort of history/retrospective style video. Great job!
Tiger in the 1990s: Wouldn't you like to play video games on your PDA and share highscores via the internet?
Everybody in the 1990s: go away Tiger, we hate you
Tiger in the 2010s:
Everybody in the 2010s: plays video games on their PDA an shares highscores via the internet
Isn't tiger electronics dead?!
I'm fairly certain they are at this point.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu they were bought by Hasbro in '98 and created their most successful device: The Furby.
Today they make "FurReal"-Pets, Disney merch and everything labeled "Yahoo!".
I have never heard of this system before.
Seems like they did a bad job trying to explain it.
Idiot!
They made a bad job about making it, period.
Ha! I still have my game.com and Duke Nukem 3D. I totally agree with your point on manuals! I remember game oh games used to have beautifully detailed manuals while game gear would have black and white manuals... hate that they don’t include any now!
I had one of these pieces of crap. Not sure why I loved it. Maybe I wanted to believe it was as cool as my brother's Game Gear. I can only remember having the packed-in Lights Out and the William's Arcade Classics compilation, and playing Joust most of the time.
I wanted one of those so much back then.
What was wrong with me...
Gamecom has exactly one great idea I wish Nintendo adopted; being able to hold more than one game at a time and letting you choose to load which game from the OS
What a pleasant surprise for a video drop on a Sunday afternoon. Thanks for sharing. Love these types of videos there some of my favorites.
I always called it Game Dot Com.
And damn those games are worst than I thought they would be
Me too. I thought I was alone. I was a younger kid kid when this thing came out. Got a Gameboy and really didn't care for ome of these (or the Sega).
I still my original Game.Com I got as a child when it came out. I never finished any of the games and mainly just used its calendar and calculator function. Although I did like playing MK Trilogy on it. I remember getting Batman and Robin, playing it and then returning it. So much potential but failed. The ads on TV for it were also a bit deceptive.
Oh they were highly deceptive, the sad part is the much superior neo Geo pocket would come out with the same basic functions (minus the touch screen/stylist) right around that same time I also owned one of those (and sold it like an idiot) but the games were so good it's a shame the game boy was just too dominant and unstoppable nothing stood a chance against it.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu I always wanted a Neo Geo pocket color as a kid. After the Game.Com my parents refused to purchase it even when it on sale, but as an adult I now own one 🤗
I actually used to have the smaller version with the backlight I actually enjoyed it the two games I remember playing the most was Frogger and Jurassic Park... sadly though the hardware died on me and no longer works.
I have one with six games, and I kind of enjoy it. Playing it's games remind me of their older handhelds, which that Jurassic Park was my favorite. I wish I was smart enough to give it a much better screen and overclock it so it wouldn't ghost and lag so much. But a FPGA console would work much better, but there would never be enough people out there interested in such a device.
I’d seen one of these maybe two or three times as a kid, though I was fully enveloped in the Game Boy environment, growing up with the GB Pocket, then Color, then Advance, then the Advance SP before moving to the DS, which I still have the vanilla system to this day, though scuffed up on the outside sadly. I also have my brother’s GB Color that one of my parents’ found while going through old stuff that was being stored. Still works and it had my cartridge of the Pokémon TCG still inside of it. That still works as well surprisingly.
That's lucky. I too grow up the same way completely all about game boy. I sadly did take a very short and disappointing detour to the game.com.
It's a horrible best forgotten tiger electronics piece of complete garbage. Nothing about it was good or even interesting. It's single selling factor (aka the .com part) I've never seen or heard anyone anywhere who is actually on the Internet or did anything online with it.
The era of handhelds between the discontinuation of the Game Gear and the release of the PSP is interesting to me. Nintendo pretty much was it. We may be seeing a bit of history repeating itself now that the Vita is done.
Jesus this screams "What do people currently like?" Shoved into a box
Got one for Christmas as a kid. Really wanted Duke Nukem 3D on a handheld so I begged for a game.com. Never actually got the one game I wanted for the console but I got a handful of others. William’s Arcade classic was the best game by far that I had because the classic 2d arcade games like Joust and sinistar worked well enough. Lights out was a solid puzzle game but I got s Gameboy color a couple years later and never looked back.
Let me help you, I only owned Duke nukem (and the packed in lights out) and it was a smeary slideshow.
The sound was impressive, but literally every other aspect sucked.
It would make me SO happy if Jon did a video like this for the Vectrex.
I have one, but the screen ghosting is so bad that it's impossible to play anything asides from Lights Out and Solitaire.
This is my favorite kind of video Spawn Wave does! Discussion and teardown of obscure gaming tech!
I had this system and Duke Nukem. You couldn't even turn around in Duke Nukem. You were always facing forward.
Same here was the only game I ever owned/played on it.
I remember the sound was actually pretty impressive but everything else was absolutely horrible.
Besides those Tiger handhelds the first handheld I got was the Game.com. I got it for free. My grandmother worked at a thrift store and used to bring home a bunch of crap for us. I remember I was excited because it had internet capability possible. Unfortunately the games sucked. Btw I have two sealed Game.com games. I have Mortal kombat trilogy and some other games compilation.
On one hand that's a terrible way to get into gaming on the other hand getting it free from a thrift store is probably the best way to enjoy the game.com.
I actually had owned a game boy for years and years and years and I still bought one of these on the cheap. It was not good, it wasn't then and it really isn't now.
It’s the neo geo pocket color’s better-known obnoxious distant cousin
When I was a kid, a friend of mine had a game gear, my mom, God bless her soul couldn't afford one for me, and got me one of these. It was the jankiest god-awful system I had ever held. I was relentlessly bullied over it in school, but I played it every day because my mom bought it for me, and I wanted her to see me happy. Good times. Side note, I only had lights out as you said it came with it.
Funny story, I had forgot about this device, deep in my repressed memory bank. I recently got a steam deck and was thinking the design of the steam deck reminded me of an old system I had and the name came back to me which let me to run a youtube search on it for nostalgia and to see if it was indeed as bad as I remember it being. Wild to think how far we have come.
Tiger should have just got a license to distribute the Wonderswan in America.
I'm trying to remember was that made by bandai?!
Amazing that that never made it over but the neo Geo pocket did.
is this Gaming Historian?
Nestor gonzalez salazar yeah I saw this video and instantly was put off. So many other channels make this their main line of videos and I just feel like it’s out of place on this one. Personally, he should stick to tech news just because this video feels like a steal from another channel well....more like a steal from 2 dozen channels
@@nomadscheap-n-nerdy9901 what are you on, and where do you get it
Dude you had me dying with that what they want to print manuals 😂
actually blast processing isn't just a made up marketing phrase by sega. It is however not the feature it was marketed as by sega. There is a great video by DF Retro about it.
Slightly faster ram right?!
Or ram bus whatever.
I had one of these! I had a cartridge for it that had a bunch of old arcade games on it, i spent hours playing defender, joust, and lights out ❤️
I've actually had one of these since I was a kid, Lights Out and Henry were pretty fun on the system.
I wish they had played to the system's strengths more. The ghosting is awful and all, but I think a port of something like Shining Force would have been pretty cool.
One thing had wished more systems had taken from this is being able to have multiple physical games inserted at once. It was something I had wanted on my Game Boy after getting this xD
I was one of the 300k saps that bought that thing back in the day! I had Lights Out and Fighters Megamix and never bought another game for it. I remember enjoying the Saturn version of Megamix way more(it probably sold less than the game.com version, ouch! It's a legitimately good game), only passing on Sonic Jam because I was sick of the ports. In hindsight the ports were only beginning, if I bought that and got the screen tearing ghosting mess that was shown here I would have been pissed.
I remember getting this at launch and was confused at the get go. Didn’t know what it was lol
Man, you thought the D pad is the worst in this system. You need to look at the Retron 5 controller. Their D pad win in the worst of all time. I hate it so much that I don't even play the Retron anymore, till I can get the 8bitdo controller.
Damn. I used to have one with resident evil 2. So many memories. I still loved my gameboy more though.
Honestly though the best games on this handheld are the pack-in (Lights Out)/built-in (Solitaire) games it came with. Everything else are just pure garbage. Also Tiger even attempts to trick the customer into buying their version of Resident Evil 2 by misleadingly putting a screenshot of the zombie from the Game Boy Color version of Resident Evil 1 (which sadly never got release) on the back of the box.
The whole problem with the game.com was it was built on lies and hype.
Once people got one and realized that's all it was they chucked it in box/drawer/closet bought a game boy and never looked back.
Dang I got this and a bunch of games when KB Toys went out of business. Never opened any of it. Maybe I'll put it up on eBay...
I would. This thing disappoints like you would not believe.
I can't think of one single other device that's nearly as horrible as this.
This looks like a consolized version of their "educative" toy laptops. They suffered the same screen ghosting and bad sound.
Remember when Resident Evil 2 was a Game.com exclusive? Yes, really.
The email function was more of novelty since you had to hook it up to an external dial up modem and make it behave with your ISP. No web capability; however, I was able to call up and browse BBSes with it...sort of cool for a few minutes at least. You could also transfer high scores to a database run by Tiger. Still have all of it including the communications stuff...it was all next to free on close out about a year after its release.
I had one of these!!! Thanks for the memories and your work on the videos.
I still have my Castlevania II Simon's Quest Tiger Handheld!
I just found the manual for this system in some random box in the basement. I never would have remembered owning this thing if it were not for that manual!
Nobody:
Literally nobody:
Game.com: **exists**
SEGA: *"Wait, that's illegal."*
This is the channel where you can imagine someone in the back asks are you good at your job?!
when you read off a script, your delivery and cadence changes. practice reading the script as if you are just making it up as you go. your old style of delivery was much more engaging.
alternatively, you can create a list of things you want to mention, like quick bullet points, put them in order that you want to discuss them, and then adlib. using the script will reduce time spent editing, so do what works for you. just be mindful of your delivery.
I had a game com back in 99/2000!
That commercial went full 90's. Never go full 90's.
love your videos
Man, Techwave is thee best channel on TH-cam... actual fact
I took one of these apart once. I found it at my grandparents. They lent me a hammer and a screw driver.
You had me at hammer.
I was really hoping spawn wave would give it the "hammer treatment".
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu the only thing working that was fun was the solitaire, and as there were better options, it was time to see the insides.
Best channel on youtube great video.
Lol i saved my allowance so i could have one my first year in high school. I actualy used it as a terrible PDA. Would show it to girls and they would put their phone numbers in it.
I love this video, please bro, do a Gizmond next.
And the N-Gage
Also, Atari's Lynx and Tapware's Zodiac.
It came to soon and to late at the same time in different aspects.
But the killer reason is the horrible frame rate + the ghosting. I can live with the later, it gave me nostalgia of my first game boy, but a decent frame rate is key.
The game boy was undisputed king of portable consoles at that point.
This thing stood no chance, even less once people saw that everything had been either hype or lies.