The end of the game.com

I put myself through the horror of recording the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night soundtrack – via real hardware of course – so if it tickles your fancy you may now listen to it online, or download it. I personally recommend neither option.

• November 5, 2022

Let's have another interview, eh? Today it's Brian Rubash, who was the Director of Web Marketing at Tiger Electronics from 1997 - 2002. A very enthusiastic fellow indeed, Brian was kind enough to spend several hours on the phone with me back in 2019, rapping about the game.com and his favorite company. It is, so far, the longest and most detailed interview posted to the website, so be sure to give it a good read!

• October 21, 2022

I should probably be packing a suitcase for my imminent trip to Japan – especially since I've been unable to visit for the past three years [!] – but what the hell: Let's make the game.com a priority.

I'd be a Halloweenie if I missed the “opportunity” to announce the discovery of the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night prototype (or as I like to call it, “Simfauxny of the Naught”) in time for the upcoming holiday. So... BOO! I'm announcing it.

Go to the unreleased games page, where you'll find a link to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Click that link, et voilà: Drac is back. I've also added the game's icon to the cartridge icons page.

BTW: In case you're curious about the origins of this prototype, I invite you to read some of this website's recent updates: a few of which snuck in just now! *wink*

• October 10, 2022

High time I added some new interviews, isn't it? After all, I had two former Tiger employees on the horn back in June of 2020 [!]. Why not finally share our convos with the world?

First up is Anthony Grimaud, who was the Regional European Sales Director at Tiger Electronics from 1995 - 2002. Then we have Marc Rosenberg, the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Tiger Electronics from 1987 - 1998, and Executive Vice President of Marketing from 1998 - 2003. Give 'em some applause!

These gentlemen were kind enough to share their unique, firsthand insight into the ups and downs of the game.com, and of Tiger in general. The resulting interviews – which I've just finished properly transcribing and editing – are the most in-depth and extensive yet, to appear on this website!

• September 25, 2022

The 1999 Tiger Electronics toy fair catalog recently landed on my doorstep with a big ol' thud, which would have been fine – if I didn't have to scan it. Sadly, duty calls. So I brought it inside, snipped its binding rings, carefully removed all of its game.com related pages, aaaaand... D'OH!! The pages were too wide to fit any of my scanners! Grrrr! Thanks, Tiger: you have screwed me again.

But, whatever. After a bit of disgruntled scanner shopping, I found myself in possession of a brand new Plustek OpticSlim 1180 jumbo flatbed scanner (very expen$ive): perfect for the task of properly archiving the aforementioned catalog pages.

And... HEY!! There's some interesting stuff here, y'all: namely info & pics for a slew of unreleased games. So have a look!

• September 1, 2022

This... is... dreadful.

I tried playing Castlevania yesterday, only to be quickly overwhelmed by its broken controls. Realizing I'd need to be smashed in order to smash through this game, I picked up a bottle of merlot and returned to the catastrophe this evening.

I can tell you this: The game is fairly well along. It appears all of the story text is present at least, and I was able to play all the way through to ~~Marble Garden Zone, where Tails showed up~~ Marble Gallery. This is where I unfortunately seem to be stuck though – at least for the time being – as there doesn't appear to be any way to progress.

Further analysis will be required in order to find out just what percentage of the game was actually completed before corporate gave it the axe. But I need a little break first.

• August 30, 2022

Guess what??

Chicken butt.

Also! A certain anticipated game binary is now in my possession. Wow. I never thought I'd be excited to play a Castlevania game. They're not really my thing. *shrugs*

Hey, wait! I definitely never thought I'd be excited to play a game.com game: They're REALLY NOT my thing! But, here we are. For you see, today is Symphony of the Night... day. And where the game.com is concerned, the stakes have never been higher. *rolls eyes*

So let's have a try! (How bad could it be?)

• July 13, 2022

Osman sent me a video of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, recorded directly off his game.com pocket pro. Watching it was a surreal experience.

The Castlevania games are extremely popular, and well known across the world. It's mind-boggling to think that Tiger Electronics came so close to publishing one of these legendary games for their dinky little handheld, only to have it cancelled at the last minute.

That being said, it's about what you'd expect from a game.com game: laughable music, hideous visibility, and bargain basement gameplay. It would not have been a system saver, folks. (Then again, nothing could have saved the game.com!)

• July 9, 2022

Sick of having it serving no purpose, trapped at the bottom of a big plastic tub for the past year and a half, I dispatched my seemingly blank Castlevania: Symphony of the Night test cartridge to Osman Celimli (a bosom chum I'd previously cajoled into writing a Supervision emulator), for some good ol' fashioned technical analysis. So he popped it open, did a few simple repairs to the PCB, and...

You know what? Turns out there's a “game” on there after all! Well I'll be doggoned. Good thing I didn't sell it, or trade it for a bag of potato chips.

As you may well know, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was... *gasp*... never released for the game.com! (A tragedy indeed.) A handful of teensy screenshots was all that we, the “fans,” ever saw. But that all changed today, for better or for worse.

What's next? Osman's somehow got to conjure up the nerve to actually try playing it. Good luck with all that.

• July 15, 2020

When I discovered that the UK version of the game.com Internet package featured a slightly different box, manual, and cartridge label than the US version, not to mention additional inserts, my initial reaction was, “No. NO! NOOOOO!!” I bought it anyway, knowing full well I'd have to scan everything. Yuck. But now the dirty deed is done, and the downloads are waiting for you over on the scans page.

• January 8, 2020

Added some details and screenshots for Holyfield Boxing, NBA Live '99, and Small Soldiers to the rumored games page. This info was mostly scooped from the archived website of developer Handheld Games.

• January 4, 2020

This has been in the works for far too long and today, I'm nauseous to announce that:

“The end of the game.com” rides again.

Yep. My formerly threadbare website about a handheld game system that's even less enjoyable than the Supervision [!!]... is back. Now bloated with far more information than you'll ever care to know, to experience it is a grand adventure in masochism. (Though still less painful than actually playing game.com games.)

If you're wondering why I've wasted so much time building a virtual shrine to such a useless piece of plastic stuffed with shoddy electrical components, it's simple: I did it because I knew no one else would. Amen.

• January 3, 2020

Welcome to 2020, where we're still discussing the game.com. Today I wrapped up the Internet and Web Link pages (at least for now), added the theme music for Henry + a whole pile of recorded sound effects from the various games, and uploaded two advertisement scans.

• November 26, 2019

Oh, bother. I hadn't yet made high-quality scans of all the cartridge labels, so I did 'em tonight. Scanning things is boring, and scanning game.com things is boring + dumb.

• November 25, 2019

Ho ho, what do we have here? Why it's a Castlevania: Symphony of the Night test cartridge! Gear. So, with moderate excitement, at approximately 2:10 this afternoon, I slapped that baby into my pocket pro aaaaand... nothing. The “Please insert Cartridge” message appears, and it's game over. Well, that's not too bad; I mean at least this way, I can't be disappointed by the gameplay.

• November 9, 2019

I've completed the system info page. My, my, have I been a busy bee this year. But it ain't time for me to toot my own horn just yet! There's still a few more things for me to get around to, namely the Internet and Web Link carts, before this allegedly “new and improved” website can be slapped online for people to not enjoy.

• October 3, 2019

The introduction portion of the introduction page has been written and added. One would think I'd have done that part first, before all the scans and recordings and whatnot, but one would be wrong.

• September 26, 2019

I started on the music pages a few days ago, but had some troubles with the layout. It was fairly nerve-wracking and I had to distance myself from it for a while. But today I got it all figured out and they're done now. Hallelujah.

• September 20, 2019

The music recordings I made from Fighters Megamix back in January have now been cleanly pieced together. It wasn't difficult work, but it was painful work. The music is just so bad that having to listen to it over and over during the splicing process was cruel and unusual punishment. What a sad, sad story: but I brought it upon myself!

• September 6, 2019

After doing absolutely nothing game.com related for a while, I came back to it this morning. *shudder* I started on the music page, and both started and finished the rumored games page. To confirm titles for the rumored games page I had to do a lot of skimming through old Usenet posts made by then-employees of Tiger Electronics. It was weird and kind of depressing to see just how desolate the game.com newsgroup was, even back when the system had first hit the market. Poor bastards never had a chance.

• June 7, 2019

I interviewed John Young, the high school teacher from Canada who at one point donned an orange suit to briefly become the face & attitude of Tiger's game.com television ad campaign. The commercial he starred in is the very one that piqued my interest in the game.com when I was a teenager, so it was kind of cool to rap with him about it.

• May 29, 2019

Realizing I'd forgotten to record a song from Sonic Jam (curses!), I went back and recorded it. Then, for good measure, I played through the entire game to make sure there weren't any other tunes I'd overlooked. There were not. It's an awful game, playing it makes me sad. Thank goodness for Tails & the cheats.

• May 26, 2019

I managed to track down the guy who programmed gclink, a nifty command-line utility that interacts with the game.com via its now otherwise useless Web Link cable. The download links had all been dead for the past 18 years [!]. Thankfully, he'd kept backups of the source code and was kind enough to share it. This is a good starting reference for anyone studying the transfer protocol.

• May 23, 2019

Most of the cheats listed online are genuine. Some few are not. That's fine. What really grinds my gears is that two of the passwords for The Lost World: Jurassic Park are incorrect, meaning I had to play the game again (argh!) in order to get the right ones myself. Work with me here, people! I don't want to play the games anymore!!

But speaking of playing the games: I recently nabbed the brief ending sequence for Scrabble, and today I recorded the quick, “horny” (horn-based) tune that plays during it. I also went back and got a more convenient recording of the 3-minute [!] song from The Lost World: Jurassic Park, that will require no splicing. So there's that.

• May 13, 2019

I managed to endure an entire single player game of Jeopardy! only to find out there's a little victory ditty at the end, which I hadn't recorded yet. D'oh! So I connected the game.com to the computer, sat through another round of the game, and recorded it. Whee!

But! It reminded me that I also hadn't recorded the otherwise unused music that only plays when there's a second cartridge inserted in the system. See, Jeopardy! prefers to live alone. So if it sees a neighbor, it hangs at the title screen. You can't play, but to make up for it the game gives you a “bonus feature” (i.e. glitch): you get to hear a few short tunes that otherwise go unused. (It's not worth the trouble.)

• May 8, 2019

To avoid the risk of passing on bum information, I've been testing out all the game.com cheat codes floating about the 'net. If I cannot personally verify a cheat code, it will not appear on this website.

Mucking about with cheat codes is not enjoyable. But at least I don't have to go and collect all the level passwords for Duke Nukem 3D, because the programming for the entry system was never finished. Finally, gross negligence on the part of a programmer is a boon to me, instead of a detriment. Hurrah!!

• May 6, 2019

Spent a few hours working on the new website framework today, and it seems to be done now. Sort of. I guess. Can't seem to get a couple of the background colors quite right. Argh. The devil really is in the details. (And the game.com is the devil's handiwork.)

• January 24, 2019

I began to record terrible music yesterday, and continued doing so today. It feels like a colossal waste of time, perhaps because it is. Some things I have noticed so far:

1).		Duke Nukem 3D's Lunar Apocalypse and Shrapnel City level tunes both have a rendition of the title theme sneak in partway through them, which sounds really out of place and – in my opinion – breaks the flow of the melodies. I never noticed before, probably because when actually playing the game there are constant digital sound clips interrupting the music so it's hard to follow.

2).		Thanks to the game.com's lovely automatic power-off after 3 idle minutes “feature,” I could not easily capture The Lost World: Jurassic Park theme in one fell swoop. Why? 'Cuz it is longer than 3 minutes, and to keep the machine on I have to press a button now and then. When a button is pressed, a digital sound clip plays which interrupts the music. This means that, despite the recording now being done, I'll still have to go back later and properly splice it together from “clean” parts of the music.

3).		To record the stage themes from Fighters Megamix, I had to... link two systems together. sigh It's nigh impossible otherwise, because in 1P mode the CPU is going to be getting in kicks and punches frequently, which interrupts the music with a digital sound clip each time. In 2P mode, however, both players can just stand there and do nothing (which equals the ideal game.com playing experience). At least I have another link play test update: endured five consecutive Fighters Megamix matches without any alleged connection errors.

4).		The game.com BIOS plays an annoying little ditty just before the 3 minute power-off window closes. Were YOU aware of that?

• January 22, 2019

Did you know I had one of my game.com systems modified? Well you do now. Why would anyone need to mod a game.com, you ask? Certainly they are already perfect enough straight out of the box. (Chuckling ensues.) I'll tell you why: Because one of the many things that stinks to high heaven about the game.com is the poor audio quality. Don't ask me why but I want to record music from the games and offer it here for download. As a purist, recording directly from the system itself is the only way to go. Trouble is this: The speaker and headphone jack alike produce MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF STATIC. So, rather than make recordings of what the game.com actually sounds like, I decided it would be (slightly) less painful on the ears if I instead made recordings of what the game.com should sound like.

Luckily [?] for me, an electronics whiz by the name of Dave Nelson (no, not the news director of WNYX) was bold (and crazy) enough to take on the challenge of... improving the game.com. He removed the 5,000 screws holding the hunk of junk together, and went to town making modifications to the main board in order to do what Tiger couldn't be bothered to do: something right. The result of the surgery? A game.com that doesn't sound (entirely) like dog doo. Sure, the musical capabilities of the game.com are still lousy, but at least now I (and soon, you!) can finally hear that lousiness without a MASSIVE AMOUNT OF STATIC to go along with it. Isn't that awesome?

Oh and by the way: Due to the game.com being completely unshielded, it is prone to picking up radio frequency interference. During my recording sessions, I have to find just the right spot to set it, where it won't have a radio station bleeding in. This is not fun.

• January 17, 2019

Back home now, and decided to do some follow-up link play testing with two original model game.com systems, to see if they fared any differently than the pocket pros. (Why do I do this to myself?) I linked the systems together, popped Jeopardy! and Scrabble into their dual cart slots, and prepared to be disappointed. And disappointed I was! (Natch.)

Jeopardy! ...refused to get past the title screen. No amount of button pushing nor screen tapping could get it to respond on either machine. Remembering that Frogger and Centipede both have problems when a second cart is inserted, I popped out Scrabble from both machines and started again. Okay, now Jeopardy! responds. I guess it too likes to fly solo.

I figured I would give Jeopardy! the ideal environment to NOT crash in: after getting the game started and allowing the CPU player to score – thus giving it control of the board – I decided to carefully set both systems down on the bed, and walk away. (Which is exactly what I should have done to begin with.) With the systems lying untouched, there would be no movement to potentially interfere with the cable connection. If the link mode failed, it would purely be because of the software.

So how did it work out? I walked away, and I kid you not: 15 SECONDS LATER, one game.com turned itself off and the second one reported a link error. THE GAME.COM COULDN'T FACE PLAYING ITS OWN SOFTWARE ALONE. Just... embarrassingly sad.

And what about Scrabble? Well this time, Scrabble actually detected the link cable and I was able to start a game. But, not wanting to play Scrabble alone, I just fiddled about for a minute or so before saying, “GOOD ENOUGH,” and finally putting all this game.com link play nonsense to bed.

Remember, folks: I did all this so you don't have to.

Oh. Yeah. And the link cable got stuck in one of the systems at the end of it all. Tried my best to gently ease it out, but it wasn't playing ball. Had to end up wrenching the hell out of it, and a tiny piece of the plastic broke off. Good.

• January 16, 2019

So we get to the top of the mountain tonite and I ask my buddy, “How about we play some more game.com?” He winces and deadpans, “Can we have a drink first?” This is how every conversation about the game.com should start, by the way: with a drink. Anyway we have the drink, and then I announce the two games we'll be playing: Jeopardy! and Scrabble. He sighs, a natural reaction to the circumstances.

First up on the link play festivities? Jeopardy! And it works. For a while, that is. My buddy and I get totally “owned,” as the saying goes, by the CPU player all through the first round - in part, because the game expects some of the answers to be entered very specifically, meaning a few of our CORRECT guesses were invalidated by the game because of some triviality. By the time Double Jeopardy! hits, we're bored out of our gourd. Thankfully we didn't have to suffer long because... oh, you know what's coming... the game crashed. YEP! My game.com turned off on its own, and his reported a connection lost message. Phew. On to the next one.

Scrabble!!! ...couldn't even detect the link cable. What a piece of crap.

And that's it for him! My buddy never has to suffer with the game.com again in his life. If only I were so lucky.

• January 8, 2019

Disregard part of that November 3rd, 2018 update, because I've decided once again to “go the whole hog” with this website, despite the game.com most definitely not being a “prize pig” (more like a swine). To this end I've borrowed the web design from my “critically acclaimed” (read: tolerated) Supervision website, and have begun tailoring it to suit the game.com. Folks, you're in for a real treat! (And if you believe that, I've got some choice swampland to sell you.)

• January 7, 2019

Yowza yowza, it's time for a GAME.COM SUPER LINK PLAY UPDATE!!!

So I gave it a go today on my own, as my buddy was (conveniently) unavailable. Only this time, I linked two original (full-bodied) game.com systems together, thinking I'd have better luck than we did with the pocket pros. What happened?

Fighters Megamix... actually worked! What a shame, I had to play it! Only did one match, but it all worked fine. Couldn't bear to go back for more.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy... also worked. Poorly. It had lag. Nothing like performing an uppercut and having to wait for it to “load.” Worse, the game still crashed. Yep. Four matches attempted, two were ruined by a “connection lost” message. Disgraceful.

Williams Arcade Classics = confusing, but functional Joust, just like the last time. Double flawless.

So what did we learn?

1).		Joust always works. Kudos to the programmers.

2).		It's a 50-50 shot with Fighters Megamix.

3).		Mortal Kombat Trilogy is worthless.

4).		It seems clear there's a difference in the hardware somewhere between original and pocket pro game.com systems, that fiddles with the link play for some reason. Nice job with the cost-cutting measures, Tiger!

But it's not over yet!! Stay tuned for part III of the game.com link play fiasco when we'll be presenting Jeopardy! and Scrabble. Ooooh boy, am I ever excited.

• January 1, 2019

I ambushed my buddy during our traditional New Year's Eve hike, by surprising him with two game.com Pocket Pro systems (with backlit screens, of course!), a compete.com link cable, and two copies each of Fighters Megamix, Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Williams Arcade Classics, and daring him to face off against me in each game. No, he did not leap off the edge of the mountain when he saw the game.com (though he may have, if he'd known anything about them going in). He agreed to my ridiculous challenge, aaaaand...

What a crock.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Fighters Megamix both refused to let us get past the fighter select screens in their two player link cable modes, blaming a supposed connection error. I took this to mean “poorly written software” error. And I'm fairly certain my interpretation is correct, because Williams Arcade Classics, ironically the last game we tried, actually allowed us to play Joust in two player link cable mode. Even then, the experience was still pretty pathetic: The machines could barely keep up with everything going on, we could rarely tell which of the characters we were supposed to be controlling, and et cetera. Despite all this we actually were able to enjoy the experience, if only for the pure absurdity of it all. But it was a relief to have it over with. Thankfully the rest of the night's festivities were far more enjoyable.

In retrospect, the 5 minutes we played Joust was definitely the most fun I've ever spent playing a game.com. It was also a learning experience because it showed me just how awful and flawed the software is. We were using NEW systems, NEW link cable, NEW games. Did the programmers of the two fighting games even test the link play modes on real, finalized hardware before the games shipped? And why does a video game from 1982 play like such a hobbled mess on a system from 1997?

• December 6, 2018

Nevermind, I've got the compete.com link cable now. Dare I use it?

• November 23, 2018

As I process the instruction manual scans into handy dandy PDFs, I have to keep referring to the originals to see if my scans are crooked, or if the manuals are actually printed crooked. And it's the manuals. They're actually printed crooked. And sometimes, it's not just “a little” crooked. No, it's like “some of the page is cut off” crooked. What were they thinking?! Did they even care at all? More importantly, why do I care?

Also, hey! I was able to pick up the game.com modem! (Wait 'til you see its official documentation: a sad, pathetic xerox print.) Am still seeking the compete.com link cable, though. Damn it.

• November 3, 2018

Oops, I accidentally deleted some of my work files for this website. What a bonehead. *shrugs* The new-ish design wasn't looking too hot anyway, so good riddance.

So in addition to hurling the sorta new design out the window, I've decided there's NO WAY I'm going to find the time, energy and interest to make this game.com tribute anywhere near as massively detailed as my li'l old Supervision website. You'll just have to take what you get, and like it. (Or hate it. After all, this is the game.com we're talking about here.)

P.S. - I'm a bit miffed about how many different packaging variations there are for this chintzy little system. I grow weary of hunting them all down. But, too bad.

• October 18, 2018

This is actually coming along pretty well. I'm working on overdrive, scanning documents, boxes and catalogs like a maniac, and daydreaming about making high-quality recordings of annoying, tinkly game music. Somebody STOP me!

• October 11, 2018

So I guess I should get off my lazy duff and actually start adding content to this skeletal website. Some actual game information would help, for starters. And scans of everything – and I do mean everything! After all, the Supervision can't get all the glory. (Did I really just use the word glory in the same sentence as Supervision??)

• October 4, 2018

Website gets a new home on diskman.com after zero updates in 8 years. Now that's dedication!

• May 5, 2010

Website launch. *yawn*