The strange tales of Atari's Checkered Flag and FightForLife

[cha cha]

Nice write up, I learned more about Fight for Life's development aspirations than I ever thought was out there for consumption. Thanks for the write up, I look forward to the full article!

[nightrnr]

Okay, so I'm still confused about the different versions of Fight for Life.
I'm developing a small obsession with this game.

From what I understand, we have:
1. the retail release,
2. Beta (possibly 2 different ones)
3. the Final Build (Limited Edition)

In my research, including this article, I have run across these:

1. The retail release, of course, (the one I own; has the regular art on the cartridge of two guys fighting)
2. Beta Carts (Two versions)
- The 3.22 Beta cart, black sticker backround; B&C Computer Visions release
- The 0907 Beta cart, white sticker backround; B&C ComputerVisions release
3. "Jaguar Sector 2" release (aka the final build "Limited Edition")

I have no idea if either of those Beta carts are the same as the JS2 "Limited Edition" cart.

What I do understand is that the Beta version has the pentagram at the character select screen. But again, that might be all 3 unofficial releases.
And of course, one or all of them run at faster speeds.

Mostly, I am just looking for the differences between those 3 post-Jaguar releases.
I doubt I'll ever obtain the JS2 release, as that is so limited that I either won't ever find it or it will be too pricey.
...but, I do have the 2 C&E Beta versions on order. It is still an expensive curiosity, but I've got to try them. I will report my own observations, of course.

At bare minimum, I'd like to confirm if there are indeed 4 different versions of the game. No one seems to mention all games in one article.

[Jagosaurus]

Re-reading this. Good summary of the general mentality of Atari at the time. Jack was a hardware guy and put software as a secondary focus. Just push it out. I'm actually a pretty big Jaguar fan & do see the lost potential. It could have been the budget system of the 5th Gen. It was far more powerful than the SNES & Genesis but behind the big 3 in 3D power. So many "what ifs."

Titles like Rayman, Doom, Super Burnout, Tempest 2K, AvP, Wolf 3D, Iron Soldier, Iron Soldier 2 (J-CD), & Battlemorph (J-CD) were solid & graphically impressive for the time. More quality releases like these early in the console lifespan would've made a world of difference. Better management and this system might be remembered differently today.

Nice write up on those 2. What came of this? Never saw it on the front page.