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Tapwave
I’ll admit that the omens were not… Great when I stepped into the Tapwave booth (more accurately another function room on the longest corridor on earth) and I introduced myself as being from Insert Credit to the first person I met (who’s name I sadly didn’t catch), that the response would be a somewhat dismayed look and a sighed “Yeah… We’ve dealt with you guys In the US. It was a Brandon, right?”
“Oh yeah” I replied, “He’s a good guy.”
The further look, well I’m not sure if it was distaste or not. But it sure looked like it. What had Brandon done, I wondered?
“Oh, you know, Brandon’s already got a Zodiac. We tend to only give one review unit out per publication…”
Ah. He… Wait. Brandon’s got a review unit?
We’ve barely covered the Tapwave at all!
“Oh no no no, I’m not looking for a review unit[1]. I was just trying to arrange a meeting to talk to someone about the system and it’s release in Europe.”
“Oh, sure, sure.”
So we came back to have a chat with someone later in the day.
That someone turned out to be Byron Connell, founder of the company and the Senior VP of Marketing. He’s a lovely guy. Seriously. This guy was open enough with us that in an attempt to show us how great the Zodiac was, he used his own unit, to show us pictures of his vacation with his family. “What I like to do,” He said, “Is set a slideshow running, put some music on… I was sitting on the Underground last night doing exactly that.”
The Zodiac isn’t just a PDA with some games. It’s a convergence device.
I don’t think I’d heard that phrase used so much since the PSX was released. The PSX, of course, a total failure, but you can’t carry it around in your pocket.
So the Gizmondo is a convergence device hidden in a game’s console body, as the Zodiac is a convergence device hidden in a PDA body. And, indeed, they share many features.
The Zodiac has two input slots, for MMC and SD cards, a 3.8inch screen which is in fact 480x320, a great feeling analogue stick, two flush triggers (holding the system, I didn’t even realise they were there) and 4 face buttons. A vibration function, too. Oh, it’s also got bluetooth and infrared, too. Not to forget stylus input.
In terms of software, it comes with… Well pretty much everything you could think of that a PDA would have. Address book, to do list, and so on. The media player allows you to listen to MP3s and watch AVIs or MPEGs. With a compatible bluetooth mobile phone you can use it as a web browser or to send text messages. Byron’s favourite piece seemed to be the MP3 alarm clock. “I don’t have an alarm clock anymore. I use my Zodiac.” And you know, I really believe he does.
The Zodiac comes in 2 flavours – one with 32mb of RAM and one with 128mb. Considering that only 12mb is reserved for System memory, the difference in price in the US is about $100, and very huge SD cards are very cheap now, even Byron found it slightly mystifying that the 128mb version was outselling the 32mb version by at least 2 to 1.
Having spent some time with the Zodiac, I can tell you it is a nice piece of kit. Anodized aluminium isn’t as nice as sprayed rubber but still feels very professional. But like you have to want a phone to really justify an N-Gage, and you have to want a… Uh, weird camera/text message device to justify a Gizmondo, you really, really have to want a PDA to justify a Zodiac. All the games we got to spend some time with have already been released in the US, but they’re worth rounding up here anyway.
Firehammer and Stunt Car Extreme (Fathammer)
Wait, what the hell? These two titles aren’t even exclusive to the Gizmondo, which makes the lack of titles for that system all the more worrying. Seen on a larger screen, they don’t seem any more impressive, to be frank.
Spyhunter (Midway)
Well, it’s 3D Spyhunter. Playing it, I couldn’t help but wish I was playing the original. While the game I was playing had a certain pick up and play appeal (drive drive shoot shoot) I found it hard to actually not say to myself… Where is the love? It felt like the kind of game you’d play on a PDA. Just in 3d.
Duke Nukem Mobile (3D Realms)
This was also somewhat a disappointment. While the Zodiac certainly seems as though it has enough power to run the full version of the original Duke Nukem 3D, this version sadly cuts down the game play to the pseudo 3D of Doom, possibly as the input options on a zodiac, without using the (suddenly seemingly quite innovative) Metroid DS stylus input, are quite limited for a full 3D FPS. While playable, I’ve never been so interested in playing limited, dated FPS games on the move, so the same disinterest extends to a perfect port of Doom 2, which is sincerely a title for those who remember the original so fondly they have to play it again.
Altered Beast (Sega)
Now, playing the original 3D Spyhunter I wished I was playing the original. Playing the original Altered Beast on Zodiac, I wished I wasn’t playing anything at all and had never ever heard of videogames. It’s not the Zodiac’s fault – it’s a flawless conversion. But playing Altered Beast you wonder to yourself – this was bundled with the Genesis? How did everyone who bought not take the system back in disgust? At $20, stay away. Stay very far away, and think what a tragedy it is that they didn’t maybe port something better than this and Golden Axe to the system.
Megabowling (MegaSoft 2000)
Using the stylus, you bowl.
There’s no more to it than that, and playing it, I had a mild realisation that I’d probably be playing this exact game a million times over when the Nintendo DS came out. Internally, I applauded Megasoft for creating such a simple, pleasing game, and the only one I did play on the Tapwave that I could have kept playing. Byron seemed to like it even more than me. I should have had a game against him, actually.
The tapwave Zodiac is expected to be released in Europe sometime towards the end of the year, with retail and online distribution to be finalised, as is the price, expected to be comparable with the current US prices – So roughly £200 for the 32mb version and £300 for the 128mb version.
I really think it’s the best PDA money could buy. But it’s not a games machine at all.
It’s a convergence device.
Mathew Kumar is a divergent thinker.
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