Do You Have Any Unpopular Gaming Opinions?

[Krejlooc]

IIRC there's a pair of those super rare Atari Jaguar Virtual reality glasses on sale at eBay or some other auction site at the moment.

Not to mention it has an incredible homebrew scene, and has been home to quite a number of pretty big name post-retail releases, like Worms, Total Carnage, and Barkley Shut up and Jam.

I'm actually writing an article for Racketboy on Atari in general, with the Jaguar being the main focus of the article. Collecting for the system has really given me a greater appreciation for what the Jaguar has to offer. With a pro controller, a catbox, and a CD unit, the Jaguar is quite serviceable.

I don't see why early CD based systems don't have more homebrew games. There's no copy protection so it's as easy as burning the game on a CD-R. I mean what's stopping from people making some awesome games for the Sega CD? A lot of the Sega CD library consisted of FMV games and other titles that didn't properly utilize it. It'd be great to get some new games that truly show what the system is capable of. Also it'd be nice to see more demoscene on those CD consoles of the 1990s.

Edit: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-VR ... 1208069034?

Yeah, I don't have $10k on hand but I've offered him $10k worth of trades and he passed

If I could quickly unload a chunk of my collection for $10k I'd snatch that up. It works with Missile Command 3D, which is an excellent and incredibly underlooked title. The game is already a ton of fun, but being able to look around in 3D would probably take it to another level.

As for the homebrew scene - Jaguar homebrew actually doesn't lean heavily on the CD unit. Most titles are printed onto carts, because Jaguar CD units aren't really that common and a large portion of the fanbase doesn't have one. The Jaguar CD used to have copy protection until not that long ago, actually. It could only run unencrypted CDs with the use of a bypass cart (or Protector SE, popular post-release that has the bypass cart built in). Recently, the encryption keys were made available and now anybody can press their own bootable Jag CD, but most still release stuff on carts.

The Atari Jaguar homebrew story is fascinating. The Atari Jaguar has attracted a group of dedicated superfans since the day it launched, and those people have been tinkering with it for decades now. There is an interesting story about petititions to get hasbro to release the licensing fees for the system - which they eventually did in 1998, declaring the console open and free for all development. That largely happened because of Battlesphere, probably the most infamous and important Jaguar homebrew release to date.

I'll go over it all in detail in my article, so I won't flood this page with them, but it's a pretty neat story if you research it. People are actually going around and buying half finishd Jaguar game source codes from the mid 90's, finishing them, licensing IP rights, and publishing games. There are 2 very active Jaguar publishers - Telegames and Songbird. Games like Total Carnage, for example, got legal releases in boxes with manuals and everything.

[Jagosaurus]

I like the Atari Jaguar just fine. It had 16 bit shovelware but was very powerful for the time. AvP, Doom, & Wolf3D didn't run well on my PC back then! There's fun to be had on the Jag!

My man! It takes a real against-the-grain opinion to enjoy the Jaguar. I wouldn't say it's full of 16-bit shovelware, but rather that it's home to a ton of pretty great quality Amiga/Atari ST/DOS ports that didn't have as much name power as comparable console games. The Jaguar feels quite a bit closer to a 486 gaming machine than a Genesis or SNES, and that's a great thing.

Not to mention it has an incredible homebrew scene, and has been home to quite a number of pretty big name post-retail releases, like Worms, Total Carnage, and Barkley Shut up and Jam.

I'm actually writing an article for Racketboy on Atari in general, with the Jaguar being the main focus of the article. Collecting for the system has really given me a greater appreciation for what the Jaguar has to offer. With a pro controller, a catbox, and a CD unit, the Jaguar is quite serviceable.

Yeah I saw you post on JSII recently. I only knew 1 guy with a Jag back in the day. I was a (still am) sucker for the early Id FPS. Had I seen them & AvP running, would've gotten one. I've got probably 65% of the preJTS merger titles CIB now (I have around 23 titles IIRC). I love how u can still get NIB copies of many titles. My other favorites besides 3 FPS: Super Burnout & NBA Jam (best console port IMO, near arcade). Most surprised by: Power Drive Rally (attention to detail, tight controls!, & challenging.)

I know it's cool to hate on the Jag & Cybermorph. I also know most Jag fans rage out defending the system & arguing over the no main CPU, 2 32 bit GPUs, & 64 bit data bus... I'm in the "whatever man, who cares they're missing out for believing the crowd" camp.

Agreed @ great homebrew. A few boxed games (cart & CD) already released this year. Looking forward to article. This system is one unpopular vice I have.

Edit: typo

[Krejlooc]

I know it's cool to hate on the Jag & Cybermorph. I also know most Jag fans rage out defending the system & arguing over the no main CPU, 2 32 bit GPUs, & 64 bit data bus... I'm in the "whatever man, who cares they're missing out for believing the crowd" camp.

I actually don't think particularly highly of Cybermorph, but I adore it's sequel on the Jag CD, Battlemorph. As much as the comparison between Cybermorph and Star Fox is flawed (they're entirely different kinds of games), what Cybermorph actually is, isn't that great IMO. There isn't a lot of variety, even in the 2MB version of the game. Battlemorph fixes all of it's problems, though, with a lot of pretty interesting, very open ended missions. The one early on where you have to steal the documents from the trains and can approach it in a number of ways is what sold me on its improvements. You could simply bum rush the trains and try a straight on assault, or you could go underwater and blow up the structures holding the bridges to make the trains halt and become defenseless sitting ducks. The inclusion of underwater portions and the first person, terminal velocity like tunnels make it so that the background changes frequently enough, and instead of designing vast, expansive areas, the level design is focused on smaller rooms with more details, connected by series of warps. That allows for better level design and there are a few really clever moments. The bosses and world designs are also generally better.

However I think you touched on the perception problem the Jaguar has. I can't count the number of times I've seen people buy a jaguar "for laughs" or "to see how bad it is" and pick up stuff like Cybermorph and Katsumi Ninja or Bubsy. Those games are the cheapest and easiest to find for a reason - they're awful. So they play those kinds of games, with a stock, inexpensive controller, and walk away unimpressed by the system. It really is in a tough spot, because it's a hard sell to tell someone to plop down $80 for a boxed copy of a better game on a system that generally isn't known to be high quality. Not to mention that, as excellent as some of those games might be, many would have difficulty justifying the price. So, for example, while Total Carnage is actually a killer port of a great arcade game, not many are willing to spend $80 for it on an unpopular system. Not when that same $80 can take them further on, say, a Sega Genesis or Sega Saturn.

But if you can ignore the outrageous prices you'll have to pay for a proper jaguar setup with a pro controller and some of the better games, there is a lot of fun to be had on the system.

EDIT: THAT SAID, Buying a Jaguar and a rotary controller and a copy of Tempest 2000 isn't wallet busting and is an easy and quick way to experience some of the best the Jaguar has to offer. If you want to see the potential the system has, pick up that combination. The jaguar actually attains that level of greatness a few other times throughout its library, but they're not often talked about.

Rebellion's second Jaguar game after Alien vs Predator, for example, is much superior to AvP IMO. Skyhammer is one hell of a jaguar game and really shows what the system can do. It's great for people who like games like descent.

[Krejlooc]

lol I can talk about the Amiga, Sega Master System, ZX Spectrum, and MSX and get some interest. But crickets for the Atari Jaguar. What a terrible public image that poor console has.

[CFFJR]

Hey, I'm down with the Jag, so I appreciate the discussion about it. I'm also anticipating your article.

I've been meaning to get a Jag for a while now, and I'm waiting for Jmustang and Hobie to begin selling the big lot they picked up. There's a Jaguar among everything else, and I'm going to try for it.

I'd like to get a Jaguar CD at some point too, but its so expensive that I think it'll be a while.

[Krejlooc]

Hey, I'm down with the Jag, so I appreciate the discussion about it. I'm also anticipating your article.

I've been meaning to get a Jag for a while now, and I'm waiting for Jmustang and Hobie to begin selling the big lot they picked up. There's a Jaguar among everything else, and I'm going to try for it.

I'd like to get a Jaguar CD at some point too, but its so expensive that I think it'll be a while.

The jaguar CD doesn't have too much on it, actually, so most people pass on it. Outside of Battlemorph, Primal Rage, Hoverstrike Unconquered Lands, World Tour Racing CD, and Iron Soldier 2, most everything else on the CD is niche.

If you love demoscene and just watching the hardware do interesting things, the Jaguar CD is a pretty neat pickup though. It has Jeff Minter's VLM built in - which is the technology that powered Tempest 2000's trippy visualizations, and includes the Tempest 2000 soundtrack which will actually do visualizations specific to that CD. It's also relatively easy to pick up some neat homebrew for it, like the Native demo which is a playable 1-level r-type like game that showcases a lot of neat Jaguar 2D tricks, or the Jag Ads CD which an hour of every jaguar commercial and infomercial produced (and some are actually pretty funny). There is also stuff like Impulse X CD which is coming out soon, or the Orion's collection which is a collection of pretty neat demos and graphically impressive homebrew. Sometimes, when I'm bored and want background music, I like to turn on a retro system and just let it run on Demo, usually when I'm writing or programming. It's awesome with stuff like the Amiga or Jaguar because there is a lot of cool hardware pushing demos out there, that don't require user input.

Also, a minor improvement but one I like to point out, is that it replaces the Jaguar's dorky startup screen with a much better silent screen. Instead of the jingle and the low polygon "ATARI" letters flowing in front of the spinning JagCube, you get a randomly generated Jaguar logo. These boot sequences are also using Jeff Minter's VLM technology and usually include some variation of the Jaguar logo, usually in red or bleeding rainbow colors, and some sort of background. I typically get just a smearing melt of rainbow colors on the background, but occasionally, out of the blue, I'll get very trippy backgrounds, like one that looked like a ton of clocks made out of fractals, or a shooting starfield of colors. This bootup sequence occurs on both CDs and carts, and it's pretty awesome.

Little touches like that go a long way towards making the Jaguar a more attractive and acceptable system. Finding a way to divorce yourself from the normal Jaguar controller is another way to improve your experience. The default jaguar pad is pretty terrible, and not because of the keypad. Rather, it's problems are that the d-pad is way too shallow and muchy, that the face buttons are oriented more vertically than horizontally making it more difficult to hit multiple buttons, that is actually lacks face buttons and shoulder buttons, that the d-pad and face buttons are presented at a downward slanting angle which makes you have to over extend your thumbs in an awkward way, and that the handles on the shell feel cheap and hollow. The keypad, actually, winds up being a pretty cool feature in games that use it properly, like Doom.

The Pro Controller, released very late in the life of the Jaguar, addresses all these problems. It's smaller, feels more expensive, has a flat face that lands where your thumbs lay naturally, and has a properly oriented button layout. It also has 3 more face buttons and 2 shoulder buttons, which are mapped to specific keys on the keypad to provide retroactive support. It's such a smart upgrade, and is really what the system should have launched with.

There is also the analog rotary controller which is used in games like Tempest 2000 or Impulse X. It was never actually released, and must be hand built. But there are tons of them that have been made and buying one, even on ebay, is a breeze.

People also make arcade sticks for the jaguar. The stock jaguar controller makes modding exteremly simple, because the d-pad and face buttons are all passive and connected to an additional PCB via ribbon cable. You can simply run the wires from the ribbon cables to pushbutton microswitches and design your own joystick. I made one in a neo geo 4-button style with option to the left of the C-button so that it would feel better for games like Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and Primal rage.

Going through all this effort to obtain this sorts of stuff is likely too tall of an order for most game collectors, but there is joy in it. For me at least.

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

The only one I can think of is that I thought the N64 is overrated.

[Erik_Twice]

You know, I'm starting to get dissapointed because the controversial flow has stopped flowing

[Violent By Design]

You know, I'm starting to get dissapointed because the controversial flow has stopped flowing

ah...erm....


Ocarina of time is a boring game?

[aaron]

You know, I'm starting to get dissapointed because the controversial flow has stopped flowing

ah...erm....


Ocarina of time is a boring game?

AGREED. i hated that game. i don't know why, i just fucking hated it. the N64 can suck it, worst console ever. Super Mario 64 is the only game i ever played on that system that i truly enjoyed.