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Does anyone know anything about these games?

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:19 pm
by Frieza2000

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:23 pm
by Baba O'Reily
Ew, Bitmap!

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:55 pm
by Green Gibbon!
The ones on the right are really old Japanese keychain games. I think they were UFO Catcher prizes circa early/mid 90's. I doubt you can still get them.

The one the left I presume is a Tiger LCD based on Sonic Adventure? I'd never heard of that one.

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 3:26 pm
by SuperKnux
I have that Tiger LCD game of Sonic Adventure. It's like a little renditon of an arcade, and I think you use a joystick to move around. You have the option of takeing it off I think. It's in my big shelf of Sonic crap, and I'm to lazy to go get it.

I would have thought you heard about this thing. Maybe it's just in my head, but I think I must have heard about from the boards. Maybe it's just me though, I can't really think straight today for some reason.

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 3:38 pm
by Frieza2000
What country was it made in? And would you be willing to sell it? And if not, could you get around to playing it again sometime and tell me what it's like?

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:28 pm
by Frieza2000
I'm reviving this to answer my own questions, in case anyone else was curious.

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The inscription on the box says "Do it when you can. It's the only way to live without regret."

Controls:
Pull out the battery tab and you're greeted by the demo. The two side buttons are for movement. Press them at the same time during the demo to toggle the sound on and off (doesn't work during gameplay). The mid-left button changes the "Level" from I to II (then to I and II without sound, and back). I assume this is difficulty, but could see no difference between them. The mid-right button starts the game, greeting you with the first few bars of Mary Had a Little Lamb in a painfully out-of-tune beep. The only other sound in the game is a rhythmic beep produced with each step you take. Pressing the mid-right button while playing resets it; pressing the mid-left button returns you to the demo. There is no off switch, and the game doesn't turn off automatically.


Game:
These are pretty much the inspiration for all of the McDonalds games. Sonic is running down an endless checkered road in Green Hill, straight into an endless barrage of missiles. The movement buttons cause Sonic to dance (in 4 stylish poses) across the bottom of the screen. Like the McDonalds games, the object is to weave between the advancing waves of missiles. Taking a hit causes a star to appear below the level indicator (and again, playing a few bars of Mary Had a Little Lamb, though less than the opening). 3 stars and the Game Over icon appears in the center of the screen and it goes back to the demo.

The game moves in increments of 1000 points. You gain 10 points for every missile you dodge. As you approach the next even thousand the speed increases, then resets once you've passed it. At top speed, I don't think it's possible to get from one side of the screen to the other within 1 step (I didn't try too hard, for fear of breaking the cheap buttons). Every round, the volume of missiles increases slightly. I didn't really notice until 7000, and it's never so thick that it becomes a 1 way path. At the 500 point mark of each round Tails appears on the left side of the screen for 2 seconds, having no impact on gameplay. When the score reaches 9999 it simply wraps around and the game continues until you die, making it the only Sonic handheld game that doesn't end.

And if Super Knux is reading this, I'm still interested in that game and would be willing to pay good money just to play it a few times. At least tell me what country it's from.

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 9:27 pm
by CM August
Hey, you actually got the game? That's awesome.

And the inscription makes me smile.

Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 7:21 pm
by Frieza2000
I was very lucky to get it. I stopped watching ebay last year; I just happened to look last week and see it.

Slight addition. Once I finally got the battery out, I used it to glitch the display and show all the sprites to check if I'd missed anything. I had.

Along the sides of the road are lightning bolts symbolizing the boundaries. There are occasional breaks in it, but since you can't run through them I figured it was just to give you a sense of forward momentum. But when Tails is on screen, you can walk off the left side of the path and enter a minigame of some kind. A row of rings appears along the left side of the road, appearing and disappearing like a kind of meter. First there are 2 rings, then 4, then 6, then none, and it cycles. This will go on forever if you don't press something. However, I've found no correlation between what buttons you press, how many times you press them, when you press then, or how long you hold them down and where and when the ring chain stops. Sometimes it stops on its own after I've stopped mashed the buttons second earlier. You get 10 points per ring, then the missiles begin moving again. You're still on the side of the road though, and will remain there until you move out. You don't get points while standing there. It's also interesting to note that you can toggle the sound on and off while on the left side while you can't at any other point in the game.

After each even 1000 but before it's 100, you can walk off the right side of the path. A flashing Eggman appears in the distance. You'll stay there until you press the right movement button, causing Sonic to spindash into him, earning a seemingly random number of points between 10 and 60 (somewhere around there). Again, you'll stay on the side of the screen until you move out. However, unlike the left side, there's some kind of glitch. After you hit Eggman, Sonic's sprite is not shown until you move.

So it's slightly better than a McDonalds game.

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 11:48 pm
by Frieza2000
God is most generous. After another year of not watching Ebay I again spontaneously decided to start checking it every morning. After a few weeks this popped up, mislabeled as Sonic 2, as a buy-it-now for $8. I was probably the first person to see it.

I know at least one of you is as interested in this as I am, so here's everything. There's nowhere else on the Internet to get this info.

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It is indeed an American game, released in 2000. It must have been a spectacularly limited release though, because I watched Ebay like a hawk for 2 years then casually for a bit, and this is only the second one I've seen. This is Tiger's last attempt to profit from the Sonic franchise, coming 3 years after the blithering and seizure inducing Sonic Jam for the Game.com and the same year as the Sonic Underground game (their most fluid iteration of the sidescrolling formula).

This is by far the most daring of the handhelds. I was expecting another update of Sonics 1-3 with the name Sonic Adventure slapped on it, maybe with a token appearance from Chaos. I was pleasantly surprised. Tiger makes the definitive leap from monochrome, hardcoded, non-overlapping sprites into the world of...dynamic monochrome lcd displays!

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(my camera sucks and so does my ceiling fan)

The most perfect way to describe it is SA1 as a VMU game. The perspective is just like SA1, at Sonic's back as he runs down the path. You can stand in about 8 positions laterally, stop whenever you want, but you can't go back. As you may have noticed, the stick pops out of that slot it's in and locks into the D-pad. It's pretty good; I used it the whole way. A is jump, which doesn't do damage, and with perfect timing and positioning pressing it again will yield the homing attack, the range of which reaches all lateral positions. B is the spindash, which can be held and charged up. I can't figure out for the life of me what C and D do. I mashed them at every conceivable moment and got nothing. I know they're not broken because when you run into the side of the screen, pressing any button will jerk you further into the boundary. Other than 3D blast where Tails occasionally appears (EDIT: He appears when you collect 50 rings. Walking into him sends you into the special stage, which is a 20 second ring collectathon with no enemies and different music. After 20 seconds a chaos emerald appears which brings you back to the normal game. I was constantly going to the special stage before; I guess I was just running into Tails without noticing) and the difficultly level in the game described above, this is the only game with an obvious aspect I'm missing. I thought it might be light dash, because it looks like there's a trail of rings going across a pit in Windy Valley, but I get nothing.

Gameplay is like a simplified version of the recent Sonic axiom: hold forward and watch the world fly by. There are no split paths, unless the C and D buttons are hiding something. Trails of rings line the paths, as well as 5, 10, and ? ring boxes, extra lives, speed shoes (which work more like a dash pad), pits, level gimmicks, and enemies including Kiki, Rhinotank, Leon, Ice Bot, Unidus, and Egg Keeper. When you get hit, you drop all your rings and can only salvage 2 of them. Each stage (except Sky Deck) ends with a capsule, which is followed by a screen that displays how many rings and lives you ended the level with. There are boss stages, all of which are 3 hits, in which you can only move sideways and have to either homing attack or spindash the enemy 2 spaces into the screen. Like Sonic Adventure, losing all 3 of your lives brings up the continue/quit screen. Unlike Sonic Adventure you continue from the last checkpoint you crossed which, coupled with the fact that there's no score, makes lives completely pointless. There's no music, but the 10 or so sound effects are ripped straight from the Dreamcast, including Ryan Drummond's "Whoa!" and Deem Bristow's "Aha!" and "Hrr!" (when he gets hit).

There are very few issues with the engine. You can't just drift to the far side of the path; you have to stop, move there, then resume running. There may be a few ring detection issues. Enemies move toward you if you stand still, but if you trip on one it'll stay on your position for a set amount of time no matter how far forward you go. That results in a lot of double hits where you drop your rings and then get killed. The game has <i>some</i> sense of momentum. I stopped on a few hills and had to spindash to get over them, but there were a few times where it was clearly unrealistic. Other than that, this is probably the most coherent tiger game of the bunch. I could tell when I was moving forward, even when the path wound vertically, and recognize what was coming and was happening without having to learn it.

The designers tried to mimic the real game down to the level design, especially noticeable in Emerald Coast. Universal devices such as rockets, jump pads, bouncer trails, and dash pads break up stretches of remarkably well drawn road, while level specific areas and events are right were you'd expect them. The game is even about as long; my first run took 2 hours. My next, with an invincibility cheat, took 1.

When you turn the game on you're greeted with 2 options: start and name. Naturally I assumed Name was for some kind of high score, but it's actually a disguised password system. The game starts like SA1: Chaos 0.


Chaos 0 - He throws his arms and you jumps around, throwing his arm down at you has he lands. He's vulnerable most of the time.

Emerald Coast - Almost exactly like the actual level's main path. All it's missing are the spiked obstacles that come down and the segment with the whale.

Egg Hornet - It fires 2 missiles that rain straight down, then dives harmlessly into the ground in front of you. Like SA1, this is when it's vulnerable.

Windy Valley - Includes trampolines, updrafts, those tunnels of wind (that you fall out of if you stop running), breakable roadblocks, and an encounter with a tornado (but not a trip through it) which takes you to the second area of the level.

Knuckles - With an accurate picture of the train tracks and the stairs leading to Tails's workshop in the background. He dashes toward you with a punch or walks off screen and glides at you at you from left to right. When he's beaten, he falls down with a ? over his head.

Ice Cap - Includes the cave and the snowboarding segment.

Chaos 4 - Your ground is made of up 3 lily pads. A submerged Chaos lurks left to right, disappears, and shoots up a column of water where he was (but on your layer of the background). After 3 of these he splashes his tail and creates a wave you have to jump. Then he sticks his head up just long enough to get a hit in.

Speed Highway - Those yellow elevators, the helicopter ride, and the At Dawn portion, which ends with a fountain that launches you up to the capsule.

E-102 - He shoots 2 lasers that explode on impact. It usually causes a double hit and instantly kills you. He's not vulnerable very often.

Red Mountain - Those zip lines and the lava cave.

Chaos 6 - He charges forward with his mouth open, steps to a side, jumps up off screen, and causes a shockwave when he lands. Like the game, you have to freeze him to damage him. An ice bomb appears in the lower right corner. Walking over it launches it at him. I think the only time he can be hit is when he's charging, or just afterward.

Sky Deck - It's got that portion with the gun in the center of 4 pillars (which now have ladders on them that you climb). It counts as a boss for some reason. After rocketing it 3 times, you appear at the part with the gun turrets. There's no wind to blow you off, but you do have to navigate the pits that the aircraft launch out of. After this you encounter the second gun with 3 rocket pads at your disposal. After you knock out it's health bar, it refills and takes another 3 hits to kill.

Final Egg - Those grabber claws drop down during a few sections, and the fans are there.

Egg Viper - It rides by the screen twice, dripping 2 easily dodged lasers. Then it comes up in front of you launches 3 lasers, and becomes vulnerable. After 3 hits, its health refills and it continues the same pattern, but now instead of shooting lasers when it faces you it launches the spiked platforms (can't jump on them). Hit it 3 more times and is drops off screen, then rises up exploding. A copout picture of Sonic jumping in victory comes up, followed by the 3 passwords:

BOSS - Only fight the bosses. Same ending.
LIFE - Start with 9 lives. Useless.
SUPE - I was disappointed to find that this doesn't unlock Super Sonic or his missing battle with Perfect Chaos, but simply makes you invincible. Bosses still make you drop rings for some reason and pits still kill you though.

I'd like to say Tiger saved the best for last but, while this is very graphically impressive for a tiger game and the novelty of a VMU incarnation of SA1 is worth something, this game suffers from the identity crisis that was part of the fundamental reason Sonic Jam couldn't work. It's too complicated to be a fun little arcade game that you can just sit down and kill time with, but it's too weak to deliver what you'd expect from a full fledged game. It's a 1 way path with very little challenge from the enemies, the bosses are simple, and there's no score. Once you've beaten it there's no reason to play it again other than to admire the backgrounds.


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And that, at long last, is that. The complete collection. This was pretty much the last material thing in the world I was after. Not pictured are these:

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The first 3 are just recasings of ones I already have, and I played the McDonalds one on Sonic-Cult.

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 11:53 pm
by Segaholic2
I used to love these things. You know, before I was allowed to play "real" video games.

I still have almost all of the old Tiger ones. Except Sonic R; I've never seen that one before.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 2:59 pm
by Arcade
Sega, can’t you bring back the gamegear?

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:51 pm
by Forza Johnman
I thought some company actually did bring back the Game Gear. It was a few years ago though. Just after Sega stopped making the Dreamcast. I could be mistaken though.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 10:59 pm
by Opa-Opa
That's a good fan. I mean, the ceiling fan refelected on the screen.

Hehe. I've got those McDonald's games on the left. Except Cream's. I guess collecting flowers was just too much for me.

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 12:44 am
by Frieza2000
So, having completed my 3 year long quest, I'm now looking to share my blessing and give these all away. Free shipping, free everything (so it's not against the rules). I'd like to give them to someone who's actually interested in playing them rather than a collector who'll seal them in a closet and forget about them, but I know that's where they're going to wind up eventually so whatever.

The sound on the watch game doesn't work (if you open it up it looks like there's a dab of Elmer's glue inside), the left directional button on Sonic 1 requires you to press it really hard, and the keychain game that isn't in the package is missing the battery cover, so you either have to stuff it with something and put some tape across the back or hold the battery in while you play. I held it in and beat the game that way (if the battery loses connection and the screen goes out, just push it in fast enough and it'll come back), but it left my hand cramped for a bit.

If you're interested, post which ones you want. I'm willing to give the whole set to one person if nobody else is interested, so don't hold back. If more than one person wants the same one I'll flip a coin or something. Or maybe I'll be bias and pick the person I like more. I haven't firmly decided on that yet. Note that there are doubles of the keychain game and the Japanese one. I've also got a game.com with Sonic Jam I'll gladly get rid of.

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:34 am
by cjmcray
Frieza2000 wrote:So, having completed my 3 year long quest, I'm now looking to share my blessing and give these all away. Free shipping, free everything
Heh, I was just about to ask if you would be willing to let me have one, before I read this.

By any chance, could I take the Tiger versions of first two Genesis games (Sonic 1-2) off your hands? I'd be most grateful.

I feel kinda bad taking it for free, but i'm really low on cash so I can't really make a $$$ offer.

If someone offers cash for it, feel free to accept it. Just. Y'know, if nobody makes any offers, i'd love to take those two off your hands.

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:37 am
by Green Gibbon!
Assuming you're not utterly drunk, I'd happily volunteer to take the whole lot off your hands, though I can state that I am a collector who'll seal them away in a closet and forget about them. If nothing else, I will fight for the Game.com - I already have a copy of Sonic Jam, but I've been meaning to pick up an actual unit for a while now. What kind of condition is it in?

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 1:50 pm
by Frieza2000
cjmcray wrote:By any chance, could I take the Tiger versions of first two Genesis games (Sonic 1-2) off your hands? I'd be most grateful.
You're in the running, but just in case you don't get them you should know that the Sonic 1, 2, 3, Spinball, and Underground ones are all <i>extremely</i> common on ebay, and I've seem them go for as cheap as $3 including shipping.

The Game.com's screen is free of scratches, but the area immediately around it is encrusted with the kind of filth you'd find on the keys of an old keyboard and there's something above the buttons that resembles dirt or axle grease. I got it used and only played it a few times so I never bothered to clean it, but I'll try to before I send it out. There's a few nicks in the casing at the top, it's missing the stylus, has no box, manual, or AC adapter, so you'll need 4 AAs. The touch screen worked well if I recall. I've also got Wheel of Fortune in the cartridge slot.

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:48 pm
by Green Gibbon!
Nevermind it, then, the stylus pen is a critical component. They go on eBay for $20-$30 with box and all materials, so I'll just wait and grab a healthy one as soon as I convince myself that owning a Game.com is worth 4 hours of work.

Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:20 pm
by Frieza2000
No one else is interested? That's kind of surprising. I got a much better response at Gamefaqs.

Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:21 pm
by Delphine
That's because those people are all <i>nerds</i>.

Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:27 pm
by FlashTHD
ah shit. Delete plz

Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:48 pm
by Green Gibbon!
You killed the joke by explaining it.

Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:08 pm
by Frieza2000
Ok, here's what I did. My first rule was that everybody gets something. Fortunately, everybody asked for something that nobody else asked for (except NEG). So here's what we started with:

JohnL- Sonic 3
superemil986- First McDonald’s set
Big- Second McDonald’s set, Sonic R
Nick- Asian McDonald’s set
cjmcray- Sonic 1
NEG- Sonic 2
GG- Jap game (because nobody else could possibly appreciate it as much)

There were 4 people that wanted SA1, so I rolled a die and the winner was superemil986, some kid from Malaysia I've never heard of. That left Big the Cat500, Nickf42, and GG who were willing to take anything else. Here's the final outcome:

<b>GG</b>
Jap game (Impossible to get)
Underground (Common)
Watch (semi-common)

<b>cjmcray</b>
Sonic 1,2(if I can get another)

<b>Big</b>
Second McDonald’s set (common)
Sonic R (rare)
Keychain game (pretty rare)
Japanese game (Impossible to get)

<b>Nick</b>
Asian McDonald’s set (common)
Spinball (common)
3D Blast (semi-common)
Amazing Sonic (very rare)
Keychain game (in package) (pretty rare)

<b>JohnL</b>
Sonic 3

<b>NEG</b>
Sonic 2

<b>superemil986</b>
First McDonald’s set (Common)
SA1 (Very, very rare)

GG, you get your choice of which of the UFO catcher ones you want (orange one with Tails on it or blue one with Sonic and Tails). Both of you, PM me your shipping info.

It's kind of a shame to see the set broken up. I may be the only person who's ever managed to assemble them all. In all of the massive Sonic collections I've seen posted, I've never seen even the semi-common ones. And I know nobody else was collecting them during the 2 years I was on ebay because I got no serious competition on any of them.

If anybody wants to know anything about them, ask me within the next week or so and I'll write up a summary like I did for the two above.

Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 9:43 am
by NEG
Frieza2000 wrote:
If anybody wants to know anything about them, ask me within the next week or so and I'll write up a summary like I did for the two above.
You could have written a short review on all of them as you obtained them or something, all you have is the memory (and that'll fade eventually). So write down everything you remember and take pictures so you can browse them one rainy afternoon in 2040.

...Well I would!

And yes, there are sonic collectors, but none who went into a specific area like you did. Theres waayy too much sonic stuff in general to store as a collection I'd imagine. All the plushies, japanese versions of games, pencils, books and whatnot.

I have my sonic birthday pack, and I may hunt down every STC someday, but besides those and a proper definative version of Sonic Mega Collection (if another gets released in future with the missing titles from Gems/chaotix etc) I'd be content on most things Sonic.

Anything else like Sonic 2 is just a nice extra for memories sake. Going to enjoy replaying it. And hey, it's worth even more to me since it was once owned by my best friend overseas!

Cheers Frieza

Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:52 pm
by KitsuneDarkStalker
I had the Sonic 2 Tiger game, I beat it about 4,000,000 times.