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Tom Kalinske (then head of SEGA USA) talking to Edge april '95:

Edge:what about the Jaguar?

Tom:I don't believe the current Jaguar is powerful enough to compete with the new machines and there's not enough great software out there to support it.They've done a better job recently of getting some other decent gamess out for it, but it's not enough to save it.It's too little, too late.

Edge:what is the current realationship between Atari and Sega following the patent settlement?.

Tom:we're certainly frendlier!.we're a stock holder in the company and we have both agreed to cross-license from each other, so we are looking at the libary of old Atari titles and seeing if they make any sense releasing on any of our platforms and they are looking at some of our titles to see if they make sense for Jaguar.

Edge:Can you name names?.

Tom:No, nothing's been decided yet.

Any Fear Effect /Fear Effect 2:Retro Helix fans here?.

Best described as Blade Runner, but done as a sleazy anime sex-romp 3rd person adventures, thought you might like to know that there was a planned PS2 game, Inferno, but that was canned and developers were looking at doing a new game on PS3 (planned as a 1st wave title).

PS3 game would have used real-time graphics, moved away from fixed camera angles, had slick control method and Hannah and Rain would be transformed into HD photo-realistic lipstick lesbo fantasy figures.

Seem to recal a certain 'industry troll' (hint:might find him in church, lol) saying the only game to really use the MCD 3D/Sprite hardware before dissapearing down the toilet of console history, was Thunderhawk, which might be surprising to anyone who owned:

Batman Returns (driving sections, plus intro scenes) Earnest Evans, Soul Star, Battle Corps, Powermonger (fly-bys etc), BC Racers, Sonic CD (bonus stage), Joe Montana etc etc.

Starting to wonder just how much research went into a lot of the stuff i read in 'respected' publications back in the day....

Thread bump, but Graftgold Co-Creator, Steve Turner talking about transition to consoles:

'Consoles were very similar to the 16 bits, espically the Amiga as it had lots of hardware to assist you.The SEGA systems used the same assemblers, so we could use a SEGA version of the same development system.Dealing with the console licensor as well as the publisher also took more artistic control away from us.They had their own ideas and made sure you adhered to them even if you had more experience making the correct game decisions'.

On why he felt later titles did'nt sell as well as Uridium and rainbow Islands:

'we still had the magic, but things had moved on.What the commercial industry praised were bigger, more expensive products that did'nt seem to rate the gameplay.Even with the 16-bits the empasis was on better graphics than better gameplay.Movie sequences also stole the limelight'.

Also, whilst under SEGA's 'wing' Graftgold were asked to create a game based on the (German) cartoon, 'The Ottifants', exposure of said cartoon was hoped to reach Simpson-esq levels, but poor performance meant it only showed in a fraction of the places it was planned to be shown, so had less 'pulling power' as a franchise.SEGA only gave Graftgold 3 months to deliver the game and as a result it was far from what the wanted, quality wise.

So pre-Playstation era, we've 'seen' Atari tampering with Jeff Minters 'vision' for Defender 2000 on Jaguar and thus consumer had a lesser game and before that SEGA and it's strict schedules and rules taking away artistic control etc from Graftgold.

Industry was def. moving away from a golden era of gaming many of us once knew it seems, even as early as the MD/SNES era....

Thread bump but reading old issue of The One, 'Better By Design' Feature, D.M.A interviewed , Walker mentioned and they said they were working on both SNES and MD versions.Gutted we never saw a release on SNES or MD.

:-(

Project Overkill was Konami attempting to bring a modern version of Smash TV and Total Carnage to PS1.

Burning Road:whilst not matching the brillance (gameplay wise) of Sega's coin-op Sega Rally, proved technically the PS1 was more than capable of running a fantastic conversion of it, (probably better even than the stunning Saturn conversion), chunky texture-mapped mountains, tunnels etc, great light sourcing, minimal clipping, cars that felt as if they had real wieght to them (i hated V-Rally as cars felt like they were made of cardboard)

Treasures Of The Deep (Namco):Smart looking and immersive underwater treasure hunting game, another i never hear mentioned.

Little Big Adventure got ported from PC to PS1 in Europe and Japan, so offering something different to the more mainstream PS1 fare.


Slam Scape was a cross between Ballblazer+Nights, sadly lacked the excitement to make it an essential purchase.

Contra:Legacy Of war had some neat features:3D Mode (needed those red+green lense glases and lot of fiddling with TV settings! to work though), plus towards end of level 2, game went 'old school' with Bamboo arcade, which featured updated Gyrus and an odd cross between Tank-Battle and Pac-Man.

What's going on with the size of the 'Jaguar' logo on that Jag? It's a heck of a lot larger than on the Jag Atari released to the public. If the picture wasn't digitally manipulated/Photoshopped then maybe that Jag outer shell casing is an early prototype pictured prior to that of Atari settling on the final design?

That over-sized Jaguar logo model shot popps up in all manner of places:

C+VG Jaguar Feature:The Future-Now!:Atari's $200 World Beater-has it along with caption 'the 64-bit Jaguar makes 32-bit out-of-date already!'

But it's the sheer absurdity of the screenshot on the top LHS of the page that cracked me up, a youth 'playing' Cresecent Galaxy (pad in hand) with a Jaguar console in front of a monitor.

Slight problem though, it's just the console+controller, NO:power or monitor leads connected to console for a start, lol.

Pops up in very early preview of the Jaguar in Games Master Magazine along with a very early shot of Kasumi Ninja which looked like a very basic MK clone back then, visually very simple compared to final game.

Feature claimed Virgin were also porting MD Aladdin to Jaguar.Jeff minter got a mention: 'Whatever you do, don't ask Jeff Minter what he thinks of the Jaguar, unless you relish the view of a self proclaimed weirdo hippie dribbling with ecstasy'

Article was quite pro-Jaguar with break down on 'why it's so much better (detailed differences in colours and animation speed between Jag and SNES/MD, said it was technically excellent, far more enticing option to develop for than 3DO, said Jaguar is bloody good, but will it sell?) and gave thanks to Edge for the Cybermorph screen shot.


Also same image (but Jaguar has black cart in machine with Jaguar on in it) in Mega's 'Can Atari's Jaguar Pounce On Sega and Nintendo?' feature in Mega Dec.'93

Article said Neil west talks to Atari....



C+VG  use shot again with (someone clasping the Jaguar controller, no power lead, TV lead or even a monitor or cart in machine this time) 'The Cat Set Free at Last' and again same console in Class Of '94:Atari Jaguar.

So really does lok like it was a PR machine (or set of images) from Atari, rather than magazines altering image.

Also found piece about Sigma Designs planning to produce a Jaguar board for the PC, allowing PC users to play Jaguar CD games, it was expected around same time as Jaguar CD drive, but set to cost more than an actual Jaguar Console.

Really gives some insight. Thanks RT! Seems from the article Mr. Minter's optimism for the Jaguar was sky high. If Atari had more dedication like that at the time, we might be playing the Jaguar V.

Last quote from Jeff from that interview:

'I was certainly turned on by the Jaguar, and as soon as i saw it, it was immediate lust.I wanted to take that into my life.I like te rush you get from a new bit of technology coming out.

The other reason i love the Jaguar is it's so easy to program.If you've programmed an ST or an Amiga you can go onto the Jaguar straight away.It's all laid out logically, you don't have to write in any arcane DSP language that looks like Martian-all L's and K's and Q's.It actually looks a lot like 68000 and it makes sense.It just happens to go damn fast as well!.'

From EDGE's Vintage Gaming feature:

Atari Lynx: 'There is just something uniquely appealing about the chunky design and Atari brand that makes this a good 'honest' item.It had a few genuinely good games too, such as Todd's Adventures In Slime World and Lemmings'


Atari Jaguar: '...even Tempest (the consoles finest title) came out on the Saturn, and as it has a better controller gives little incentive to pick one up.Only the rare Battlesphere makes the Jaguar worth collecting'

Another GBC game if any ones interested in trying something different:

Rainbow 6

I heard about Tom Clancy's passing. Not usually a fan but enjoyed the DreamCast version.

Crawfish did it, so it's as you'd expect a technical marvel in terms of what they've pulled off in terms of depth and ambition.Not your usual handheld fare either as it demands more of a long play session rather than a quick 10 min bash.

Glad to see some of the titles i've mentioned are getting some attention, the GB is not a device i'd put high in my all time fav.consoles, but getting a GB player for GC along with GBA+Micro really opened my eyes to some real gems.

Think after playing GB Perfect Dark and seeing what was achived on such primitive hardware, made Perfect dark 0 on 360 even more dissapointing.I know it had a difficult gestation, starting out on GC, then Xbox, then 360, but all formats far more powerful than the GB series, yet clearly game lacked the genius game design that went into the hand held game.

Proof if it were ever needed that raw hardware power is meaningless if you've not the ideas to make a decent game.

Another GBC game if any ones interested in trying something different:

Rainbow 6

Few more PS1 'lesser known games':

Global Domination (think Risk meets Missile Command).

Silent Bomber (as 1 reviewer called it '..MGS with a firework up it's arse!')

Core Design's Fighting Force and Ninja actually started out as saturn titles, but then became PS1+Saturn titles as their coders learnt the PS1, so more games that would have appeared even if Sony had'nt entered the market.

Fighting Force was influenced by Streets Of Rage-Core just wanted something less linear (pity game turned out to be a real dog).

Ninja:influenced by Ghost's 'N' Goblins, Rygar and Shinobi-Core's aim was old school gameplay in new 3D enviroment.

Jeff Minter talking to Edge in 1994:

'i remember Virus getting slagged off and that was the best game ever.and yeah, sure it took about two to three days to learn how to fly the ship, and it took a couple of weeks before you could handle yourself in a dogfight, but when you could the feeling was just ace.To move into a cloud of mutants spiralling round you and just kick butt.That would make for a lovely game on the Jaguar actually, Gourauding and texture-maps....'


Pity Jeff never had a crack at this and i wonder if he ever tried V2000 on PC/PS1?.

More from Jeff:

'....there's a guy called Rob Zdibble who's worked for Atari for a long time.He's actually working on the 64Bit version of star Raiders! i cannot wait.'


'...with Atari, they like the fact that they can give me something to do, and i run off with it and do it on my own...and probably different to what they thought of!.'


Jeff then talked about how his next project after the light synth (assume Jaguar VLM) he'd be doing a CD-Rom project (assume here Defender 2000) and he'd be coming up with the more pyschedelic stuff as he liked idea of getting reputation as a phychediliac coder.

Edge then pitched this:

EDGE:So you get 'Project Management' from Atari, but do you get the feeling they trust your instincts?

Jeff:Yes.The guy who is my director, John Skruch, is a really excellent dude.He handles me really well, given he's got to take care of someone like me in a commercial enviroment.He knows how to ask me to do things without laying the pressure on too much.and he knows if they really need something i'll stay up late and pull the stops out.

He's doing his job really well in that he's keeping me sweet, but i bet there's times he wishes he could handle me like a normal programmer.'Do this and do it now'.But, you know, respect to him, because he does'nt.

Seems it was quite popular in UK:

Talking of SNK closing it's Neo Geo division and knock-on effects, Robbie Phillips (UK MD of SNK Europe at the time):

'The saddest part of this news is that the Neo Geo is the best handheld on the market and has a loyal following of hardcore gamers.we've all worked hard to establish the platform in a short space of time and it's a pity that we never really got a chance to show what the brand could do with real support'

Seems there was to be an MP3 player launched for the device as well.

Apparently in last 3 months of Dec'99 in UK alone, Neo Geo Pocket Colour had sold 30,000 units and 120,000 games.

Few more 'gems' from the otherwise superb Arcade Magazine:

From Timewarp:august 1994 talking about Wolfenstein 3D on Jaguar: '....One of just 3 enjoyable Jaguar games, this' (now given that on same feature they talk about 'Atari's ill-fated Jaguar boasted the superb first-person shooting of Alien Vs Predator', that'd leave only 1 ither title the writer found enjoyable...Tempest 2000? Doom?


Talking about the Atari Lynx (in 'An Arcade In Your Pocket' feature); 'another woeful performance, although the Lynx was technically advanced for the time, destroyed by poor battery life and a lack of quality software titles'.

Game Gear by comparison is described as: '...a decent-enough portable games machine...add-on TV tuner was an expensive bonus......'

So, no mention of it's short batt.life or chronic screen then?.

Oh and another 'gem' from Gamestm, who, as regular readers will know from quotes i've posted from various Conversion Catastrophe features of theirs, do spend awful lot of time slagging a version off based on visuals, even when it''s physically impossible to do arcade machine justice (Tempest, Double Dragon, Rampage on 2600 or VF2 on MD for example), so i was surprised to read them say:

'...We have been known to mock the odd Conversion Catastrophe on a monthly basis, and that's because we judge games based on how much fun they are to play'.

Well, if your admitting to doing it on a monthly basis, that's not the odd time or two, plus so much devoted to how bad a game looks, does not equal you judging on how it plays.