48 replies to this topic

[Gunstar]

Well, after reading everone's posts, I agree with T.Bird and disagree with Jetboot, I know good games, I have all the modern systems except N64 and PS2&GC, and I KNOW what good games are. BL was a very DECENT game in my opinion, I got EXACTLY what I expected; an AfterBurner clone, with better graphics. It was FREE. I enjoyed the HEll out of it, and EVERY SINGLE PERSON I EVER showed it to loved it! People who owned Saturn's and Playstation's were VERY impressed with this "decent" Jag game. I think the problem is that everyone was expecting a full 3D game like Ace Combat on the PSX, but got an After Burner clone instead. After all, this IS what the Lynx title was too! I heard and read about people bad-mouthing this game over the years and have never understood why it get's such a bad rap. It's not great, and it's not perfect and the Jag could have done better, but it is a decent and solidly fun title to me. I even remember seeing a review by a mag that almost always trashed Jag games, even the best, and even they liked Blue lightning. I always thought the graphics were great for a 2D scaling-sprite game. I love the music, like the graphics, never had a control problem AT ALL, and it was pretty long too, with diversive missions. I give it a thumbs up, like every NON-JAG fan has, who I've ever showed it too.
Oh, by the way people, the JagCD was released originally at $159.95 in September of '95 and was sold by most retailers for 149.95 by Christmas time. All the adds I have of it (all the adds they ever made fo it I have) all show $159.95. The original plan was $199, but they never sold it for that much. EVER. Until now, if you want to let B&C rip you off, I think they sell it for $199 now, I definately know they charge at LEAST full original price...

[Jetboot Jack]

T-bird & Gunstar

Much as I loved every Atari system ever released, truth is that as time went on the software became worse and worse and worse. If Atari had attracted world-class developers things would have been different!

Great games sell great numbers - digitized crap sells small numbers - go over the sales data for games historically - for every 16 bit crappy movie tie in game that sold 1 million copies, there were Sonics and Mario’s selling 5 million copies and they were AWESOME games...

My opinion has nothing to do with it - history, reviews and consumer feedback (lets face it games are meant to be played so stop with the elitist crap) supports that great game like DKC sell systems and players (you know those people the ones we developers want to entertain) loved it...

If Miyamoto was an Atari guy everyone on this board would be going on about how great his products are and how awesome Rare was and how fabulous DKC is - c'mon be real...

Lynx BL was FANTASTIC, Jag BL was a feeble shadow, it should never have been released - it was rubbish like BL that proved to consumers that Atari had lost the plot!

And as to knowing the realities of game development – well I’ve worked on and shipped lots of products, and some of those titles sold in excess of 2 millions copies each…

Anyone every played X-Com, Transport Tycoon, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Gunship 2000? I know of what I speak, so please don’t be condescending!

sTeVE

[Punisher5.0]

Quote

Great games sell great numbers - digitized crap sells small numbers - go over the sales data for games historically - for every 16 bit crappy movie tie in game that sold 1 million copies, there were Sonics and Mario’s selling 5 million copies and they were AWESOME games...  

Digitized crap sells in small numbers? I remember certain titles called Mortal Kombat 1&2 that sold through the roof.

[Jetboot Jack]

MK's sprites may have been digitized, but in a world on anime beat 'em ups it was a breath of fresh air, and a pretty tight brawler...

When I think of digitized crap I think of Sewer Shark or Night Trap...

sTeVE

[Gunstar]

I'm not trying to be condescending at all. I know your a professional, and I've enjoyed your games immensly; Plastron is one of my favorite 8-bit games and I think it was an amazing accomplishment for the old 8-bit. I just think your a bit rough on the small development houses, which I find strange since you worked for Harlequin and that's what they were, and I like most of those games, but they didn't get very good reviews either. At least the few reviews I saw of the few published harlequin games...
You are absolutely right about just about everything you said above, but I just don't think Jag BL was total crap, and everyone I ever showed it to thought it was Dynamite...I thought it was decent, and I never understood why my PSX&Saturn friends thought it was the great, but they did. The fact was, that back in 95/96 I owned most of the best Jag games; AvP, Iron Soldier, Tempest, Doom, etc., but for some reason, my other-system-owning friends always wanted to play Blue Lighting, Val de Isere skiing&snowboarding, Super burnout, Trevor Mcfur and Raiden, instead, those were the games that impressed my "user/player" friends, who owned the newer 32-bit systems. From these titles, they decided to sell off their PSX's and Saturns and get a Jag instead, and would have, had they been able to find a retailer with Jaguars (up here in Wisconsin the pickings were slim). The only thing that stopped Atari from getting these POST PSX&SATURN release gamers was lack of availability. That's the general public. If Atari had marketed the system right, they would have done great, because these titles that my friends liked were only the "crappy" or "average" titles on the system, but my friends sure thought they were all fun as hell! ...and no, they didn't like the TRUE jaguar crap like Checkered Flag or Club Drive, they, like me, are intelligent users, not programmers&developers, and they know what they like to play and what is fun. PERIOD. Personally, I think you might be just a bit out of touch with the average user, sure great games with huge budgets will always sell, and yes, they are great, but small titles from small companies can be very fun to play too, even if they aren't "pushing" the system. I just find it VERY ironic that the "crap" games are the ones that non-Atari fans like. I had friends who love AvP and Doom and Tempest too, but it was games like BL that turned many heads in my experience. Don't ever suggest that I'm some, as you said, "elitist Atari enthusiest" who'd praise any crap Atari released, I know they released a lot of crap, I and others just don't think what you think is crap to be crap to us. I grew up with Atari, and it will always hold a place in my heart, but your catagorizing me as some sort of "elitist" disgusts me. I know what games are fun to me, and no drivel from you will change that. I AM the buying public! I KNOW what I like! ...and it doesn't have to be made by some huge developer with a pocket as deap as the ocean to turn my head! Now I'm off to play BL again, I'm dying to after all this, and I'll have FUN-the single most important thing in gaming!!!!!!!

[Jetboot Jack]

Gunstar,

Don't get me wrong, lovin' Atari is cool, and liking their stuff is something I do everyday - even now... SO its NOT any attack on personal choice, its just I feel that so many Atari fans are not really looking outside the box, and liking for the sake of Atari, not for the quality of the product...

But I guess I was genuinley shocked when I saw BL, I know for a fact that it was made on a zero budget just to be a pack in, and that what I find crappy about BL too - shovelware, its not the same care as Nintendo or Sega would have taken with their pack-in games like Sonic or SMB...

sTeVE

[LinkoVitch]

Gunstar said:

LinkoVitch said:

I found it a little naff.  controlls felt wrong.  Not a big fan of the Afterburner series.. so I spose it's just the style of game I dont' like.

I kept finding the plane getting in the way of my view, I hate 3rD person perspective games where this happens on all formats..

You DO realize you can switch to cockpit view in the game, right?

No I didn't. but do now ... I'll have another stab at it and see if I enjoy it anymore. Thanks.


Thunderbird: The Game boy may be a naff technical handheld, but it worked well due to it's size and games availible. I loved playing the games on the gameboy, they were good fun and kept me entertained. Which at the end of the day is what counts. You can have a super computer's worth of processing, if the games dross then it's of no use.

End of the day, what makes a good game is 90% subjective. There are certain things that obvioulsy count towards a good game (like it not crashing etc ), but if it's not your cup of tea, it makes no difference.

[Clint Thompson]

Jetbook Jack,

You just stated Blue Lightning and Sewer Shark both to be crap.
One from Sega and one from Atari....

I remember Sewer Shark being the pack-in game for the Sega CD back in the day.... as that's what I got with it.

So from my understanding you just blew the whole comparison thing out of water. I don't remember sonic being released for the Sega CD as a pack-in.. (maybe at one point of time it was? but not when I purcahsed it) (since you were speaking of a pack-in game)

Regardless,

Regardless.... I like Blue Lightning (and apparently so does quite a few others here..) and I did actually like (shocker, believe it or not?) Sewer Shark.... I just picked me up a sega cd the other day, and a friend of mine was like "Man, do you have that sewer shark game too?, I remember that being one of the coolest games I played for the Sega CD"....

Comparing who wants to beat up a millionare with blue lighting? haha...
Dude, I would play Blue Lightning ANY day over the newer Dreamcast Who wants to beat up a Millionare.... because personally I think it's horrible.

Well, now that we all have our -opinions- ....

Clint Thompson

[Jetboot Jack]

In that case Clint I’m very glad I was not involved with those awful Simon and Schuster products like ”WHO WANTS TO BEAT UP A MILLIONAIRE” then – I designed and Produced “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” – you know as in the TV show - for Europe and the rest of the world (not the Disney game for the US)…

I’ll also tell my colleague Michael, who was the designer of Sewer Shark and Night Trap that you liked his games, but he’d be the first to admit it was just a gimmick they were trying to sell to the consumer (the original RCA versions are MUCH prettier than the Sega CD version)…

Sewer Shark was a pack in, as was Sonic CD, as was “Sol Feace” and many other titles at various points in the Sega CD’s limited lifecycle (I’m talking Europe here). I was trying to say that the pack ins Sega used were not designed to be quick and cheap, as BL was, whatever you or I felt of the games, they were original stand alone products that Sega decided to bundle…

sTeVE

[Thunderbird]

I'm wondering how we all know for sure that Blue Lightning was intended by Atari to be the Pack-In and it was intended to cost nothing to make and is therefore a cheap throwaway title for the Pack-In?

I happen to know there were a LOT of developers who were getting paid by Atari to produce Jag games and they either dragged their feet so much their titles never even made it out the door, or they took the money and threw together some garbage to placate Atari and satisfy their contractual obligations while they went off to court bigger fish. I happen to know of one developer who was taking money from Atari to develop their game and they used that money to buy a Saturn Development System and never worked on their Jag title again.

Now, it's a lot of fun to bash Atari and their goofy marketing strategies and whatnot, but some of the blame here could rest on the developers themselves not putting in a world class effort on the Jaguar titles. Much of what is called "crap" and "shovelware" is just the product of the commercialization of games. Only very few people in the game industry anymore seem to actually love writing games. It seems to be mostly run by suits and bean-counters looking for the fast way to earn a buck easily.

[Sauron]

Punisher5.0 said:

Quote

I wasn't comparing with Donkey Kong with the Jag's stellar titles; I was comparing it with games like Zool 2, Raiden, and other 2D Jag games out during the same time it was released.  

Man Sauron, do you not like the Jaguar anymore? All you do now is bad mouth the system. Comparing DKC to Raiden is pretty far fetched. I love DCK and despite what Thunderbird says, I think the game looks very good. Now when you want to compare DKC to Zool 2, well that's another thing. I never played the SNES version but I have the Jaguar version and the game would be a lot better if it had no slow down. The game should have had no slow down but it had tons of it despite the much more advanced hardware .

Actually I still love the Jaguar. It's still at the top of my Favorite Systems Ever list, even if it's not anywhere near the top of most people's Best Systems Ever lists. I stuck with the Jag from the very beginning to the bitter end, and still stick with it to this day, just as I've stuck with every other Atari system. However, that does not mean that I have to like every game ever produced for it. I am a gamer, first and foremost, and as such my tastes in games has become "refined" over the years. I know a good game when I see it, and I know a bad game when I see it. And unfortunately, Blue Lightning just happens to fall into the bad games category.

[PeterG]

You DO have control in the barrel roll...just can't shoot.[/quote]

I know that you can control your plane while rolling...
What I meant by no control is that it´s really slow and that the didn´t make it the smart way.....I feel uncomfortable with the way they did it....
If I remember corrctly they did it right on the lynx...
Peter

[Thunderbird]

[quote=Peterghiea]You DO have control in the barrel roll...just can't shoot.[/quote]

I know that you can control your plane while rolling...
What I meant by no control is that it´s really slow and that the didn´t make it the smart way.....I feel uncomfortable with the way they did it....
If I remember corrctly they did it right on the lynx...
Peter[/quote]


Don't they roll the whole screen in Jag Blue Lightning? I think that's why it is slower when you roll because you have to use pixel mode blits when you rotate and you lose the benefits of the phrase mode 64-bit blitting power of the blitter.

[PeterG]

yeah that´s what I meant....
I have no clue about coding, so I can´t say how they did it...just that it wasn´t very smart the way they did it......
I don´t use the barrel roll when i play....but it works like this too :-)
Peter

[Thunderbird]

Peterghiea said:

yeah that´s what I meant....
I have no clue about coding, so I can´t say how they did it...just that it wasn´t very smart the way they did it......
I don´t use the barrel roll when i play....but it works like this too :-)
Peter

I think they did it the way they did because they wanted to be cute and put in the effect. I don't use it either because there is no real reason to do so. There's no place in the game that you cannot get by with normal flight controls. If they wanted to make it useful they should have placed some narrow place you have to fly through in a roll to make it through.

[Gunstar]

I know what you guys mean about it being too slow, at least in ground missions, but I find it very useful for evading missles all the time and it works quite well in the sky missions where it is fast and smooth.

Merry Christmas to all!

[Thunderbird]

Gunstar said:

I know what you guys mean about it being too slow, at least in ground missions, but I find it very useful for evading missles all the time and it works quite well in the sky missions where it  is fast and smooth.

That's probably because they only have to rotate a few cloud bitmaps and not have to rotate the entire ground image. I should fire it up and play it a bit to see.

[Tyrant]

Jetboot Jack said:

Anyone every played X-Com, Transport Tycoon, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Gunship 2000? I know of what I speak, so please don’t be condescending!

sTeVE

I *ADORED* XCom... well Terror From the Deep, dispite how hard lobstermen are, never played the original much, but do please tell us what you did on XCom.

[Jetboot Jack]

Thunderbird - yeah u r right, LOADS of people took the money and ran with Atari - maily 'cos their 3rd party product developement people were goons!

From what I understand of BL's history, it was a dumb decision, but a deliberate one to make a pack in only title...

Atari were stupid, and rather than taking a good cart product and adding video and audio fluff and ending up with a good game, with a nod to CD they decided to get an game made for the CD, but only spend 6 months making it - hence BL!

Tyrant - as to Xcom - I came onto the franchise near the end of X-Com One... I was the Game Designer of Terror From The Deep (Lobstermen - use the vibro blades!) then the Producer of X-Com Apocalypse... I had nothing to do with the Interceptor or other Action Game abortions!

sTeVE

[LinkoVitch]

Jetboot Jack said:

I’ll also tell my colleague Michael, who was the designer of Sewer Shark and Night Trap that you liked his games, but he’d be the first to admit it was just a gimmick they were trying to sell to the consumer (the original RCA versions are MUCH prettier than the Sega CD version)…

NIGHT TRAP! THANK YOU!

I have been beating my head against a wall trying to remeber the name of that game! Thats the one with the Teenies in a haunted house or something isn't it? WOW! thanks, now I can once more sleep..



BL - Pack in....

I read in one forum that there was an auction for several 1000 copies of BL. Could this indicate that it was a temporary pack in for the first batch of CD Units, with full intention of sticking it on shelves when they launched a cheaper version without the games? Or just advanced pressing of the game for further units?

The number of CD's listed was very large, so I would probably go for the Former.

[Clint Thompson]

LinkoVitch,

Night Trap, heh... I've only messed around with it a few times...
I did however spend a couple of hours last night (in between working
play some Rise of the Dragon for Sega CD....

A game like that , updated or Rise of the Dragon 2 for example would have been nice on the Jaguar.... since I'm actually enjoying the game... the graphics are a bit, er... bitty

bitter! but still interesting...

Clint Thompson

[Tyrant]

Jetboot Jack said:

Tyrant - as to Xcom - I came onto the franchise near the end of X-Com One... I was the Game Designer of Terror From The Deep (Lobstermen - use the vibro blades!) then the Producer of X-Com Apocalypse... I had nothing to do with the Interceptor or other Action Game abortions!

sTeVE

Thats great, thanks, if I can re-arrange my room to get my 486 set up, I'll give the vibro blades a try (do they have a special weakness to them?). Oh, and I dont suppose there's a version of TFTD that isnt tied into the cpu speed? I hate being restricted to a single antique pc to play it on.

I never played any of the more recent games either, just TFTD and the original (never managed to complete either). In fact, Im ashamed to admit I never survived an attack on an alien's colony, and only managed to finish a very few ship attacks, there just arnt enough men to manage 2 levels worth of aliens (especially when a single lobsterman can kill 4 guys and absorb at least 6 of the alien grenade blasts on his head before being stunned).

[Jetboot Jack]

Nick,

The Lobstermen are TOTALLY vulnerable to blades and thermic lances - but you gotta get in close - which is tricky

And I apologise for the size of the shipboard missions (it seemed like a good idea at the time)!

sTeVE

[Tyrant]

Lol, no need to apolagise, chalanges are fun, and besides, if you could finish every mission there would be no chance you could loose, right?

Im guessing any source code, data files, editors and docs you might have are still protected by NDA's right? A real shame companies dont let people play arround when the game is no longer marketable.