89 replies to this topic

[wozencl]

Quote

As for other networkable titles, NetWar (i-war beta) supposedly has modem code in it.... never seen the actual rom file myself or tested it but ive heard this from a few.

I did ask Jay to post a glimpse of the code as he says he has source, sadly he ignored me. Might be worth asking him again to confirm this either way.

[Jag_Slave]

He has it, and may post it someday... someday.

[82-T/A]

racerx, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:43 PM, said:

82-T/A, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 6:42 PM, said:

I remember thinking this game was totally awesome... but looking at the videos online on YouTube... compared with what I consider to be average now, even that game is somewhat dated. The graphics don't appear to be any better than say I-War (which I LOVE!) and Missile Command in the 3D mode.

Graphics are good, but the big improvement is in framerate. It's a pretty stable 30-ish fps, whereas I-War (to me, anyway) is damn near unplayable when things start blowing up onscreen. I lot of that is to be expected, as there's a lot of open space you're flying through, but I think it's aged pretty gracefully.

Yeah, like I said, I've never played it so I only have YouTube videos to go off of... but it reminds me a lot of Wing Commander Privateer in some respects (quality of video I suppose).

But, since we're on the topic, I have to give another plug for I-War... don't know why, but I love that game on the Jaguar... it does slow down a little bit, but damn... even with it's simplistic graphics, it still manages to have "decent graphics"... if that makes any sense?

[Austin]

82-T/A, on Tue Feb 7, 2012 4:05 PM, said:

Yeah, like I said, I've never played it so I only have YouTube videos to go off of... but it reminds me a lot of Wing Commander Privateer in some respects (quality of video I suppose). But, since we're on the topic, I have to give another plug for I-War... don't know why, but I love that game on the Jaguar... it does slow down a little bit, but damn... even with it's simplistic graphics, it still manages to have "decent graphics"... if that makes any sense?

Yeah, I-War is pretty cool. It can get extremely sluggish, but it can speed up faster than most games on the Jag as well--it's all over the place, haha. Still, a fun game with some cool music and cool concepts (love the bonus stages, personally).

[walter_J64bit]

I think if id had more time with DOOM the network code could had been fixed but Atari rushed id so they can push DOOM out the door.

Edited by walter_J64bit, Wed Feb 8, 2012 7:35 AM.

[DrMalba]

82-T/A, on Mon Feb 6, 2012 6:42 PM, said:

I remember thinking this game was totally awesome... but looking at the videos online on YouTube... compared with what I consider to be average now, even that game is somewhat dated. The graphics don't appear to be any better than say I-War (which I LOVE!) and Missile Command in the 3D mode.

Still, awesome game... but I certainly can't afford to spend $500+ on a used one on eBay... heh...

Its *damn* good on the playability front. Of course its primitive now, but the graphics limitations (mostly lack of detail) are excusable due to the hardware limitations of the Jag. IMO BSG is the one true game that shows that the Jag could have been an adequate 3-D gaming platform. That, and its actually *fun*. Whether it's worth the $$ is up to the individual, but as a collector I had no regrets spending in that range to get one of the absolute pinnacle games for the platform ( other than sleeping on it when it came out back in the day).

Someone needs to lure those guys out of retirement and find them the source to Skyhammer. If they could do 1/4 for the framerate on that game what they did for BSG ... oh man.

[Austin]

Skyhammer would still be a boring game even if the framerate was fixed. But that's just me.

[rush6432]

Skyhammer is cool graphical wise but its not much fun i have to admit. Cool use of the avp engine though. (or atleast it looks to be an advanced version of the avp engine)

[racerx]

DrMalba, on Thu Feb 9, 2012 10:28 AM, said:

Its *damn* good on the playability front. Of course its primitive now, but the graphics limitations (mostly lack of detail) are excusable due to the hardware limitations of the Jag. IMO BSG is the one true game that shows that the Jag could have been an adequate 3-D gaming platform. That, and its actually *fun*. Whether it's worth the $$ is up to the individual, but as a collector I had no regrets spending in that range to get one of the absolute pinnacle games for the platform ( other than sleeping on it when it came out back in the day).

Someone needs to lure those guys out of retirement and find them the source to Skyhammer. If they could do 1/4 for the framerate on that game what they did for BSG ... oh man.

I don't know...I'd put Battlesphere in my Jaggy top five as it's an excellent game, but let's face it...it's a space shooter. It's not pushing a lot of geometry on-screen. Something with big cityscapes and multiple enemies like Skyhammer would be a huge challenge.

[Willard]

Although i would not consider Battlesphere's graphics to be among the best on the Jaguar in the way of throwing alot of polygons around, I think that the game has a highly polished look for the most part, and I found the RTS mode to be pretty fun. The other modes are a little too repetitive for me, but I can understand why others might prefer them over the RTS mode. I would've loved to have seen some Wing commander 3 missions like zone sweeps .etc included.

As for Skyhammer, I agree, a higher framerate would've def. would've contributed alot to the game, as would a stable save system. It does plod along a little in the beginning, but later on you have to be a little more reflexive and strategically use all the weapons at your disposal (for example, you'll need to buy bombs to drop on tank swarms .etc). My save erased and I never had the motivation to go back and re-start, but I probably would've completed it had the bugs been fixed.

[Atari_Owl]

Thing is

1. Once you start filling up the screen with large polygons, rather than just space, the frame rate is going to drop quite a bit as it does with Skyhammer
2. There is a fairly substantial speed hit going from gouraud shaded or gouraud with a few decal maps to a full tex mapped poly environment, which grows with the size of the polys so its a double hit from both these points

I seem to remember a decent amount of the screen is taken up by cockpit (in skyhammer)?

[PeterG]

Willard, on Thu Feb 9, 2012 7:40 PM, said:

Although i would not consider Battlesphere's graphics to be among the best on the Jaguar in the way of throwing alot of polygons around, I think that the game has a highly polished look for the most part, and I found the RTS mode to be pretty fun. The other modes are a little too repetitive for me, but I can understand why others might prefer them over the RTS mode. I would've loved to have seen some Wing commander 3 missions like zone sweeps .etc included.

As for Skyhammer, I agree, a higher framerate would've def. would've contributed alot to the game, as would a stable save system. It does plod along a little in the beginning, but later on you have to be a little more reflexive and strategically use all the weapons at your disposal (for example, you'll need to buy bombs to drop on tank swarms .etc). My save erased and I never had the motivation to go back and re-start, but I probably would've completed it had the bugs been fixed.

I had the same problem with the game. Once I lost my savegame I did not have the motivation to go back but before that I found it rather enjoyable even with all of its shortcomings.
Usually I had no issues with the framerate and as soon as one upgrades the engine I thought the feeling of speed is sufficent. Problems only arise when there are many enemies on screen. Today I probably would not have the patience anymore but back then I had strategies to work with that. So when there were really big battlegroups you would use the smartbomb to destroy everything while staying out of sight, so the game would not slow to a crawl and eventually crash. I wonder if Rebellion was going to ship the game like that or what would have been their solution.
I really like the many enemies but it is evident that the Jag was overwhelmed but all the objects on screen.

As for the screen being taken up by a big cockpit, it's true but I never did mind that. Back then I was rather impressed with all the textures and the freedom of movement. :-)

[Isgoed]

Even today, I am still impressed with the textures and freedom of movement

I really like this game, it has a great atmosphere.

And I agree with Peter, the upgraded engine makes the speed tolerable.

[PeterG]

Isgoed, on Fri Feb 10, 2012 11:44 AM, said:

Even today, I am still impressed with the textures and freedom of movement

I really like this game, it has a great atmosphere.

And I agree with Peter, the upgraded engine makes the speed tolerable.

Yes, great atmosphere. Always reminded me of Blade Runner. Maybe I should give it another try now for inspiration as I am finishing my paper about Blade Runner and its source novel. :-)
As for the engine thing. I does not change the frame rate but as you move faster through the level it still feels smoother. It's the same thing like with the Satyr Walker in Iron Soldier II, though I really do wish that Skyhammer would have the same framerate as Iron Soldier :-)

[JagChris]

Atari_Owl, on Fri Feb 10, 2012 7:44 AM, said:

Thing is

1. Once you start filling up the screen with large polygons, rather than just space, the frame rate is going to drop quite a bit as it does with Skyhammer
2. There is a fairly substantial speed hit going from gouraud shaded or gouraud with a few decal maps to a full tex mapped poly environment, which grows with the size of the polys so its a double hit from both these points

I seem to remember a decent amount of the screen is taken up by cockpit (in skyhammer)?

We're not quite sure what you're saying AO. No no no good we just cant wrap our heads around what you're talking about. You're just going to have to whip together a quick racing track with say oh, 15 cars or so running around an oval so we can see what you're saying. We're a very visual group here.