48 replies to this topic

[EscoZG]

which game do you think came closest to utilizing the full potential of the Jag? and is there any other game out there (amongst the same 64 bit era systems) you think the Jag could handle and/or possibly do better?

[atarifan49]

EscoZG said:

which game do you think came closest to utilizing the full potential of the Jag? and is there any other game out there (amongst the same 64 bit era systems) you think the Jag could handle and/or possibly do better?

I think on the Jaguar the undesputed champion to showing the power of the system is Battlesphere (either one). Shows how good game design and development utilized the Jaguar's chipset correctly. By that I mean not using the 68000, programming the code in modules and orchestrating all the processors correctly.

But that goes with the luxary of having time to develop the game properly. A lot small developers and Atari didn't have that luxary.

I always thought Tempest 2000 really shined (and I still do). But was surprised to hear that John Matheison was disappointed it didn't really push the Jaguar. I wonder what he was envisioning when he was developing the chipset?

Oh and lets not forget to mention what Atari Games showed what the Jaguar chipset (designed correctly hardware wise) was capable of. Area 51, Max Force, and Area 51 Site 4 are just awesome!

That's my 2 cents for this discussion.

Glenn

[ZylonBane]

atarifan49 said:

I think on the Jaguar the undesputed champion to showing the power of the system is Battlesphere (either one).

Hardly undisputed. BS's most impressive bits are all "under the hood". Graphically it's pretty plain, about on par with Zero 5.

I'd give the award for most obvious use of the Jag's power to Iron Soldier II. Aside from being a first-class game, it does everything Jag detractors say the Jag can't do... and does them really, really well.

It also isn't burdened with a front end that feels like it was designed by a committee of democoders.

[Thunderbird]

ZylonBane said:

atarifan49 said:

I think on the Jaguar the undesputed champion to showing the power of the system is Battlesphere (either one).

Hardly undisputed. BS's most impressive bits are all "under the hood". Graphically it's pretty plain, about on par with Zero 5.

I'd give the award for most obvious use of the Jag's power to Iron Soldier II. Aside from being a first-class game, it does everything Jag detractors say the Jag can't do... and does them really, really well.

It also isn't burdened with a front end that feels like it was designed by a committee of democoders.

Zero-5?!?!? Zero-5?!?!!? What BattleSphere™ have you been playing?!?!

BattleSphere™ uses fully shaded 16-bit CRY pixels, while Zero-5 uses 8-bit pixels with no lightsourcing or shading of any type. It's got overly simplistic models and some of the plainest weapons and explosions on the Jag.

BattleSphere™ not only has superior models, better explosions, better weapons, more textures, nicer backgrounds, but it also is pushing the Jag harder than any game you can mention because it combines stable networking with the fast gameplay, larger universe, more objects, weapons, and players, and has a superior sound and music engine.

BattleSphere™ indeed pushes harder than any game you can mention. This fact cannot be affected by how little or much the particular artistic look of the game suits your particular tastes. Sorry.

[Thunderbird]

ZylonBane said:

It also isn't burdened with a front end that feels like it was designed by a committee of democoders.  

Huh? What are you talking about?!?!

[JagMod]

Unfortunately its difficult to be certain which jag game is pushing the hardware the most. For all we know, the real time raytracing of the three spheres in the BattleSphere menus is pushing the jag harder than the 3d engine itself.

JagMod

[Thunderbird]

JagMod said:

Unfortunately its difficult to be certain which jag game is pushing the hardware the most.  For all we know, the real time raytracing of the three spheres in the BattleSphere menus is pushing the jag harder than the 3d engine itself.

JagMod

Well, if you take it in that context, the glass balls on the menus are pushing the jag to 100% capacity. It runs as fast as it can and no idle cycles are wasted.

from this perspective I could write a small loop of code that does nothing but blink a pixel... this would ALSO push the Jag to 100% capacity. There would be no cycles unused. 100% used. Maxed out.

I think when we discuss pushing the system hard it's more about giving the most impressive graphics for the bandwidth available. This can be subjective, because for example, the pixelshatter effects or video feedback effects in Tempest 2000 are very pretty and look very impressive to some, but they are very simple effects to accomplish, and don't push very hard the hardware.

IMHO, the fractal effects in the BS "story" screens are really pushing the hardware hard to get that kind of thing in real time while also playing sound/music.

But, the gameplay aspects of BS are probably using the most features of the Jaguar together at the same time. It's probably THE most parallel of parallel processing ever in the Jag.

But the whole topic is subjective when you start talking about what games "look" better, etc.

[LinkoVitch]

SuperCross 3D! now THAT pushes the Jag to it's limits, the graphics are far superior to BS, smoother, better game play, and just all out brilliance of the game.

BS is like a really bad 3D demo on the ZX81 written by a team of monkeys in comparison...

honest....

why does nobody belive me?

/me Jumps onto 3D motorbike and hops off at 2 FPS

[t.skid]

LinkoVitch said:

SuperCross 3D!  now THAT pushes the Jag to it's limits, the graphics are far superior to BS, smoother, better game play, and just all out brilliance of the game.  

BS is like a really bad 3D demo on the ZX81 written by a team of monkeys in comparison...

honest....

why does nobody belive me?

/me Jumps onto 3D motorbike and hops off at 2 FPS

Whew.... reading it, I was thinking that LinkoVitch turned crazy
SuperCross 3d, you have to buy it only if it's a missing piece in the collection...

[Paolo]

t.skid said:

Whew.... reading it, I was thinking that LinkoVitch turned crazy    
SuperCross 3d, you have to buy it only if it's a missing piece in the collection...

NOnononono!
Why should you corrupt a collection adding SC3D?

I'ts very sad that they made that piece of crap. Jag needed a cross motorbike game, and now there isn't any.

Who knows, if the source comes out, and some skilled guys (T'bird, Carl, Lars...) take it and toy with it a bit... ...

[JagMX]

[b]id say AVP, Rayman and Highlander can show off what the Jag can do. BS also shows some of the capabilties as well. But there are salso a bunch of Jag games that have certain things about them that i wish were all combined

[Punisher5.0]

I always thought that Tempest 2000 pushed the Jaguar pretty hard in a different way. The sound quality on that game is just unbelievably good, especially on a 2mb cart. Where as the PlayStation version had 649mb to use up and the quality wasn’t nearly as good. Now that’s what I call pushing to the limits.

BattleSphere Gold also pushed the Jaguar pretty hard. Tons of enemy’s on the screen in a huge area while still keeping a good frame rate . Those menus look bad a$$ too. The only thing that I really don’t like about BSG was the sounds of the weapons. They weren’t beefy enough.

[Thunderbird]

Punisher5.0 said:

I always thought that Tempest 2000 pushed the Jaguar pretty hard in a different way. The sound quality on that game is just unbelievably good, especially on a 2mb cart. Where as the PlayStation version had 649mb to use up and the quality wasn’t nearly as good. Now that’s what I call pushing to the limits.

BattleSphere Gold also pushed the Jaguar pretty hard. Tons of enemy’s on the screen in a huge area while still keeping a good frame rate . Those menus look bad a$$ too. The only thing that I really don’t like about BSG was the sounds of the weapons. They weren’t beefy enough.

I think the weapons sounds are adequate but there are perhaps 2 laser shot sounds I think could have been stronger than they were. I also wished that there were more cart space so that there could be more weapon noises. Like a different sound for plasma and statis bolts.

[Guyôme]

I don't any idea of what is coding on the Jag, so forgive what i'll say

But I thing that those games are impressive

Alien versus Predator for the ambient atmosphear
Tempest 2000 and Defender 2000 for the speed and the sounds
Protector and rotector SE for the speed the grapfics and the way which it makes my heart bumping
Zero 5 for the speed
Iron soldier 2 for he 3D grafics quality
and World tour racing for the FMVs

What concerns Zero 5, I thing the game isn't totally finished, I've hear it must have been on CD, the diificulty is just too bad programmed, I think how can some of you make suc scores like 90000 pts

[Curt Vendel]

JagMod said:

Unfortunately its difficult to be certain which jag game is pushing the hardware the most.  For all we know, the real time raytracing of the three spheres in the BattleSphere menus is pushing the jag harder than the 3d engine itself.

JagMod

When you see games like Battlesphere, World Tour Racing, Alien Vs. Predator you see a console that really stood on its own and had a chance...

then you look at Club Drive, Iwar, Checked Flag and other "crap" that was pushed out the door and you have to ask yourself "Did they mean 64bit or 6.4bit console"



Curt

[Curt Vendel]

[LinkoVitch]

Checkered Flag really is abismal! I know someone who actually payed full price for that when it was released, I think he was deeply gutted for some reason .

I-War wasn't too bad, I quite enjoyed the quick blast I have had on it (need more time to sit down and play my collection! )

Club drive is interesting for a few minutes.

Supercross "Spit" 3D was another all time abismal game

[Thunderbird]

LinkoVitch said:

Checkered Flag really is abismal!  I know someone who actually payed full price for that when it was released, I think he was deeply gutted for some reason .

I-War wasn't too bad, I quite enjoyed the quick blast I have had on it (need more time to sit down and play my collection! )

Club drive is interesting for a few minutes.

Supercross "Spit" 3D was another all time abismal game

I paid full price for it when it came out. I -loved- checkered flag on the Lynx, and figured it would be as much fun. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't my favorite game by far. At least I never paid full price for Club Drivel.

[t.skid]

Thunderbird said:

I paid full price for it when it came out. I -loved- checkered flag on the Lynx, and figured it would be as much fun. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't my favorite game by far. At least I never paid full price for Club Drivel.

I didn't pay full price Club drive, too. Neither checkered flag. Both games comes when I bought a Jag console (also with Raiden and Dragon).

[Sauron]

I don't think the Jag truly saw it's full potential. The closest it probably came is Battlesphere, but even then I think that a little bit (but not much) more would've been squeezed out had the Jag's life span lasted quite a bit longer than it did. Had Atari not taken a few of the design shortcuts with the Jag, it probably could have been quite competitive with the PS2 on a hardware level.

[Gunstar]

Sauron said:

I don't think the Jag truly saw it's full potential. The closest it probably came is Battlesphere, but even then I think that a little bit (but not much) more would've been squeezed out had the Jag's life span lasted quite a bit longer than it did. Had Atari not taken a few of the design shortcuts with the Jag, it probably could have been quite competitive with the PS2 on a hardware level.

I agree with you. While there are some games, as mentioned, that "push" the Jaguar, I still think it's full potential was never reached and may never be...just look at any console/computer that actually got a market share and lasted about 5 or more years and you'll notice that every one of them had phenominal games coming out that really pushed the system in the later years. People learned the processors inside and out and learned to do things that even the designer's would probably have thought impossible when the systems first appeared. If a console gets good, long term support, programmers always find ways to push a system beyond what was thought possible. Just look at Donkey Kong country on the SNES; do you think anyone would have thought that possible when the SNES first came out? Every successful system has it's own Donkey Kong Country...

[Sauron]

Oops, I just realized I said it could've been competitive with the PS2...I meant the original PS.

[Clint Thompson]

Yep....

Zero 5 is friggin hard.... I used cheat codes to unlock some of the other levels to see exactly what I was missing and I wasn't too impressed.
The first level really impressed me and I was like "Cool music, graphics are OK." but tends to get hard (by control I think).

I haven't played BS for very long, but from what I seen it does push the Jag!

However, I think the true power lies in the Jaguar CD.
Just because you have so much more room and options available when it comes to CD. Loading times? If you know what your doing, I'm sure the times would be very short!

Aside from that, most games were programmed for the "MONEY" and not from the heart. What I don't understand is how someone can make a shitty game and expect to make some serious cash on it.... haha... I never understood that.

Jeff Minter obviously should have had more projects to follow T2K and D2K. He has this 'addictive' feel of games under him and it's a shame that Atari was always forcing speed to get a game done. He )imo( fed true soul into Atari.

Martin Brownlow should have seen the light of 2 more releases (MC3D programmer) Missile Command 3D may not seem like much, but I'm impressed with what he did in the time-frame given and how much he had to change the game and change it again, again and again.
(and still have time to code 2 other demos)
If I wanted to hire someone for a programming comapny, he would be one of my first 3 choices!

Supercross 3D should have been outlawed.
(at least until they can fix those bugs that slowed the system to a crawl)
You don't think their bugs? Oh wait, the game IS a bug... sorrry

Miracle Designs should have seen the light of another release for the Jag.
They had a solid base with Atari Karts and could have moved on to something much greater I think!

FFL coulda/shoulda/woulda been better if Atari hadn't pissed so many people off at the end of their time.... what a shame...

Rebellion should have been working hard on AvP2 CD right after the first AvP release. I'm can only imagine how awesome AvP2 "CD" could have been with the right amount of time and knowledge already behind AvP for the cart. I can see why they were busy with other projects though... and they did pay!

Jaguar VCS -2600 for the Jaguar/emu ?-
That should have been one of the first things Atari started working on for the Jaguar CD. 40+ Classic games released for a good price of $29.99.
Another, shoulda/coulda....

DOOM2 or Final DOOM for Jaguar CD should have hit it quickly too.
OMG.... Network errors can occur, because your place of loaction is hell.. or something along those LAME ASS LINES! haha..... wtf....

Area 51/Maximum Force could have been done on the Jag, lowered a bit for the platform and approaching it differently would have worked I feel.
Too late to even think about it, and.. .why?

Robinson's Requeim? Commander Blood... both should have been released. Blah.... I remember however, no one was really pushing the Commander Blood port... they had some videos going and etc setup, but the code was still needed worked on and it never went any further then that.

PHEAR should have been released.... but the bigger guys ATE the developers... (can't blame them...) Atari didn't want to pay for anything, regardless. I haven't even seen a video of this being played... 1 or 2 screenshots.... I want to see video footage of this game!
Sometimes I have to say "Nintendo Sucks" but then I'd be lying because I loved the NES. Ok , their way of business sucks, but whatever

Brett Hull Hockey CD should have been released right before FFL.
The game is DONE.... c'mon!

I think that's about all I can really scream about for the time being

To end... The Jaguar (95/96)was just about to start being "pushed" but... it got pushed so hard it fell off the damn edge and Atari busted

Clint Thompson

[JagMX]

[b]you said it all clint

[t.skid]

Same for me!