[The same intro sounds as always] [Medieval style music, filling the air with sounds of wind instruments, and fear of piety] You might think that torture devices were
a thing of the past, a medieval relic from the darkest depths of human imagination. Well,
you're wrong because I've got 3 of the worst right here. These put the rack to shame, honestly. [Medieval sounds fade away, just like the monarchy] [Funky funfair style music begins, to inject a dose of intended humour, where absent from the script] Yes, welcome to the bizarre world of Tiger
and Grandstand in the early 90s. A time when most of us had to make do with Tiger handhelds
for portable gaming. Especially when an Atari Lynx set you back £179. [Deranged cat sound] These little LCD
devices were fine for a bit of amusement, but that's about as far as they went. You
weren't going to be throwing your Master System out and replacing it with a set of Tiger games. But Tiger thought otherwise. They thought
that their marketing machine was so good, that they could have the audacity to package
tiger handheld games up into table-top experiences and get away with it. They even had the balls
to sell them side by side, like some kind of sick collection. Not only that, but they'd
use half the world's plastic in the process. Let's start with this culprit, the Outrun
Electronic LCD Game. [More amusing style music, but getting a tad more serious to denote the serious crappyness you're about to witness] Now, you may note the Grandstand name on the box, and that's because
this is the UK release of this Tiger monstrosity. By the year of it's release, 1989, Grandstand
were well and truly established as the electronic toy importer and distributor for our little
island. Not just for big products like this, you'll find their name splashed over Tiger
handheld models too. In other regions you might find this branded directly as Tiger.
This was actually the cheapest of this trio, priced at around £35 in the UK. about the same as a decent Master System game. So what other insights can we gather from
this somewhat tatty box? Well, it's got SUPERSOUND, apparently.
A realistic steering column and controls and it of course, is based upon Sega Arcade
Game. I'm not sure why the 'Table Top' is in quote
marks there. Why is it being all sneaky about what constitutes a Table Top.
It also has a Large LCD Screen and Smart car body styling. A quick flick of the manual yields nothing
really of note. I mean, it's a Tiger game. And here it is, in ALL its glory. Look at that truly MASSIVE screen. And this is where you realise how ridiculous
these things are. LOOK at all this plastic, all these controls. These stickers. Wheels.
That whole bonnet. More Stickers. All of that, for this tiny LCD screen. The
same size LCD screen as you'll find on a Tiger Handheld. I mean, come on. COME ON. 2AA batteries power the LCD component of this
hulking slab, whilst 2 C batteries provide power for those extra inputs and features.
One of those being that SUPERSOUND. twee sounding *bo da di do di do di do di do* *churning electronic engine sound* *First Gear!* Ohhh yes, you won't find this on the handheld
version. Which incidentally, is exactly the same game otherwise. But only here can you get the full experience. *car crash sound* Immediately, the timer is ticking and we're
into the action. The gear stick provides us with High and Low
gears, as well as brake. They're not gears in the traditional Outrun sense, it's really
just 3 different speeds. So we can drive off in High Gear no issue. Then our half steering wheel, although being
analogue in styling, inputs digital commands to our little Ferrari. This is an interesting
thing, because given you have to move the wheel 45 degrees to the left or right, you
lose the reaction speed you'd find with traditional controls. You're not really gaining, anything,
other than a sense of realism that only a 9 year old could appreciate... and to be fair,
in the 80s, I DID appreciate it, although it's not the easiest of LCD games to get used
you. Corners. They're a thing. When they occur,
your car will just start drifting to the opposing side of the screen, and you have to, well
steer. You then have to judge when the corner is ending exactly, otherwise you'll start
veering over to the other side of the road, and potentially hit a car. You get used to
it, but potentially tricky for a small child. After each timed level, we get a fork in the
road, which you can navigate by moving to the right or left. You're then thrust into
the next level, and yes, there are 15 tracks, just like the original Outrun. Not that you'd
be able to differentiate one from another. Any time you saved from the previous round
also carries over, like the game it's based on. I mean, from a certain point of view, it looks
amazing. So many controls and coloured panels. But it's just so bloody absurd.... and it's
the fact that it's literally just a handheld game which gets to me. I mean there are other
tabletop games, but most of those have larger more colourful displays. Sometimes vacuum
tubes, or other methods that make the whole thing, more of a spectacle. This is just....
this. [An atrocious, ear, soul and mind breaking version of Magical Sound Shower begins to play] [and it continues, possibly until you die of anger] An infernal noise box, which thankfully has an off button and some chunky controls thrown in for good measure. *engine sound lingers* At least Tiger went to the effort of putting
a plastic radiator grill under the bonnet. So that's nice. [Top Gun style music begins] But, even with all that, its not as bad as
this one. Yup, it's Afterburner. Tiger were so proud of this one, they even had an advert
for it..... an advert that showed as little actual game-play as possible. But lots of
POWERFUL effects to make you think it was really something. *Movie trailer voice* Machine gun or Missles! >Lock on< >Enemy in sight< >FIRE< Eighteen stages of play. Make AfterBurner a true test of a skilled jet fighter. Where do we begin? [Comedy music intrudes] Well, again, this is the Grandstand model,
released in the UK during 1990, but you can find this in the United States published directly
by Tiger in 1989, and actually that's the same with all these machines. There's also
a version without the Sega branding, distributed by Yeno and called Super Fighter. This version
also has slightly different graphics, differentiating it from the Afterburner series. You could
expect to grab this for about £38. Anyway, this version is the same as the Tiger
Afterburner handheld model, but with a few additions. The first is clearly this joystick, attempting
to mimic a fighter jet cockpit, it moves left and right, but with no vertical operation.
The top button fires missiles for targets which are locked, whilst the front trigger
fires machine guns for those directly ahead. To the left is a thrust lever. It has three
settings, which are tied to the plastic indicator above. Now, the ability to change your speed
is actually something absent from the handheld, but it doesn't actually do much, other than
make the bottom of the screen scroll faster. *incessant beeping* To the right is a damage indicator. When you
die. This lights up. That's all it does. Sound is now provided by a standard loudspeaker,
as opposed to a piezo speaker... and we get the power button just above it. The artificial horizon, sadly does nothing,
much like all these stickers. They look the part. But they're just plastic tat, designed
to enthrall the young mind, and once again, they did just that. I mean look at all these
bits. It looks *quite* incredible. Once again it's a case of the whole is less than the
sum of it's parts. One thing missing, is the LCD background,
found on the handheld. But instead, we do get a flashing light, right in the middle
of the screen. This activates when you destroy a plane directly in front of you. It's actually one of the better LCD games,
mimicking Afterburner's gameplay about as well as you could hope for. Planes swoop from
all sides. When they get a box around them, you can fire a missile and it should hit them.
When one is straight ahead, you can blow it with your machine guns, and when they go off
screen, well, you can swoop left and right a bit. I know I said these were torture devices.
But it's not all bad, and if you get into it, you have to give Tiger a 9/10 here for
once again creating something that looks great, especially in a catalogue, but in reality,
is a slab of tat. *beeping and stuff* [Cave music. That's what it was titled. Don't ask me why, but it seems appropriate for Batman] And so, onto the final member of this trio.
The Average. The Over Engineered and the Frankly flipping obscene. Now this is the most expensive, clocking in
at about £45. But then, it is a tie in with one of the biggest and best movies of 1989
and it's therefore somewhat special. Yes, this is the BATMAN Electronic LCD Game, again
with SUPERSOUND. CONTROL THE BATMOBILE IN AN EXCITING 99 LAP RACE. What's left of the
box reveals a dashboard layout pretty similar to Outrun, but this is a very different beast,
and I'll show you why. [Dat sexy sexy music begins] *queue bonnet pan which lasts for 5 hours* *alright, maybe not 5 hours* Yes, with that whopping bonnet, this thing
is exactly the same length as an original Amstrad CPC. That's 23 inches, not including
the steering wheel... and I have to commend them. The stand out feature of Michael Keaton's
Batmobile, was the huge flowing length of bonnet. Like a Jaguar E-Type on steroids...
and that has truly been captured here. Underneath, it's just the same as the Outrun,
sans the plastic wheels. Instead we get the wheels as part of the moulding. Which makes
sense, you can't really build the wheels into the frame when they need to be over here.
Thinking about it now, it's actually strange they weren't like this on the Outrun. Certainly
would have been cheaper to manufacture. The cockpit is very familiar to the Ferrari,
but with a new set of stickers, relevant to the Batmobile. This actually feels more suited
for the Batmobile to be honest. The layout, the steering wheel, it just fits. It's also a different game to Outrun. You
might think they'd just port it and tweak the visual components. But we have a different
background, a different layout and indeed a different premise. I mean, it's very much still a car game, unlike
the handheld, which is actually a brawler, but it's still a Batman game. You see here, we have to actually keep away
from The Joker's cars. Sit around too long and he'll ram us from behind and, apparently
take out the fully armored and equipped batmobile in one knock. [Same music as Outrun] *Batmobile engine apparently sounds like a Ferrari Testarossa* Simulating the angular streets of Gotham,
we get tight bends rather than sweeping curves, which is actually much better suited to the
controls. Simply turn left or right at the correct time and you're on a new street. It's actually pretty decent. [Batmobile engine apparently sounds like a Ferrari Testarossa] [and the brakes] Sometime's someone will attempt to fly-kick
your car. I have no idea what that's about. Other times you can just sail through, being
careful not to lose points by hitting the street sides. If you die three times, the Joker appears
at the bottom of the screen and shoots you. So that's nice. [Outrun music reappears] [and the engine sound] Now, this thing may be utterly comical, and
arguably the most ridiculous of the three. But it's probably also the most playable. Now, we might be talking basic electronics,
but it's still worth opening these up to find out what's ticking. So, let me just talk about
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*sponsor seg* [Music appropriate for taking things apart??] Now, Afterburner has many screws. 9 in the
bottom, which reveals a simple contact based joystick setup. You won't find microswitches
here, but then it gives it a much more analog feel, so it kinda works in its favour. The back panel is in two seconds, each with
six screws. Over here we've got the speed control mechanism, which connects up to this
little PCB. The other side is where our speaker and damage LED are housed. That panel in the middle is simply the back
of the artificial artificial horizon. And up top, behind four more screws, we have
our LCD screen and main circuit board. There's really not much going on here. The main processing
chip is blobbed onto the underside. But down here we've got a simple Flip Flop chip, which
are used to store separate states. Likely the input from the joystick. That other chip, I'm not entirely sure. It's
in a DIP18 package, likely some kind of controller chip. If we open up Outrun, which actually has far
less screws, then we get a similar deal. Speaker over on the right hand side, mechanism for
the gears over on the left, and a PCB smack bang in the middle. Again the main processor is on the underside,
and we've got a similar 18 pin chip over to the left. Very similar to what you'd find
in the handheld versions, but with a few tweaks to allow for the sound and control changes. I'm not going to even bother taking apart
the Batmobile, as it'll be almost identical to this. But anyway, that's this trio of unlikely LCD
games. Loud, Large and somewhat lifeless. But they
don't half pack an eyeful. A mug's eyeful as you might say, if you were Alan Sugar,
making cheap Stereos that were made to look better with lots of fake knobs, switches and
panels. Basically Tiger did for kids, what Amstrad
did for audio consumers. I don't know whether to commend them or berate
them. But I'm sure they made a lot of money And I'm sure if you had one of these, you loved it regardless. You poor bast*rd Thanks for watching and have a great evening. [Funky jazz to end the show.... Nice]
