The Atari Jaguar Thread

[Gorf]

The lack of rapid-fire on the Pro-Controller is mind-boggling, especially when you consider the year it was made, 1994. It's probably the only aftermarket controller of the time period without rapid-fire and slow-mo features. It's truly inexcusable.

Rapid/auto fire is something I have never used, so didn't bother me.

Really? Lack of auto-fire makes Zero 5 practically unplayable. Tell me you would not have liked that feature for Zero 5, and really Raiden as well. My fingers don't get any younger, and I would love to spend more time with games like that, because Zero 5 is a really really good game, but I just can't play it, as it takes a huge toll on my hands at 38 years old.

It's really a lack of foresight and a lost opportunity on Atari's part. The pro-controller isn't bad, I mean I have two of them and use it always. However, it's not that big of an upgrade really, and I would never recommend it as a 'must-have' controller. If it had rapid-fire, like EVERY OTHER aftermarket controller of the time period, then yes, it would be a hands down, 'must-have' controller. That would put it over the top, and it would be extremely valuable as well.

It really boggles my mind that in the process of designing the pro controller, not one engineer said 'hey, lets add a turbo feature'. There obviously wasn't a button limitation lol.

Bloody shame the potential of Zero 5 and they just did not properly balance the game mechanics.
The biggest lost to us Jag owners is that Phase Zero was never completed...should have been one
of the earlier show case games.

[Gorf]

I can pretty much answer this from the interviews I have done but also remember that this will be covered in detail in the next Atari Book from Curt and Marty.

After the split of Atari in 1984 relationships were pretty frosty between the 2 companies (Atari Corp. and Atari Games) this was down to several reasons that was partly down to the terrible way that Warner handled the split. Leaving both of the new companies arguing over assets, patents, I.P. and even the stuff kept in the building! This was not helped by the way the Tramiels did business either. This is why the 7800 never got any Tengen games while both the Master System and NES did. Relations were smoothed over towards the start of the 90s and a licensing deal was struck up between the two companies, sadly this was a little late for the 7800 (with Klax done but not even making it out). The Lynx benefitted greatly though and I really do wonder how badly the Lynx would have suffered without this relationship. By the time the Jaguar came along Atari Games/Tengen was back under the control of Warner (after having been privately owned and also owned by Namco) and they had just set up Warner Interactive to publish games themselves, hence Primal Rage on the Jaguar CD.

Atari Games had infact licensed the Jaguar technology though to make arcade games (Maximum Force, Area 51, Freeze etc.) but planned to release many of these games on the Jaguar themselves.

I do agree though that Atari should have gone back and visited games like Klax, STUN Runner, Race Drivin', Road Riot, Pit-Fighter, Guardians Of The Hood and Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters, which would have made superb launch games for the Jag in my opinion. Unfortunately Sam Tramiel wanted new games for the Jaguar as saw this stuff as old hat, they wanted the Jaguar to be revolutionary. Once the games struggled to arrive they let anyone port any old shit over to the Jag so that plan didn't work in hindsight, and by then those games were long forgotten as the next generation of machines were arriving.

Revolutionary? Don't make me laugh!!! If rehashing tons of old 16 bit has been's was their idea of revolutionary, I got a bridge in Brooklyn or land in East Rutherford ,NJ to sell them. Now, T2k...that was the right track....take an old idea that worked and properly rework it....they had more IP strength and ignored 98% of it.....idiots!

[Gorf]

Apologies if this has been said before and I've already forgotten, but is there a flashcart for the Jaguar? Sounds like the only reasonable way to play one at this rate...

Oh?

I knew about the Skunk Board and just found this but is it legal or freely available or as good as they make it out to be?

EDIT: it is called the JagCF

Considering I don't see a link to actually buy one, I'm not holding out much hope for that, sadly.

[size=80](Besides, with the way I do things, who needs legal?)[/size]

That thing is the definition of vaporware....it's been in 'production' now for over 8 years.

[Gorf]

Really? I didn't know that...although a lot of the game manuals explain that there is a 100,000 limit on the number of times the game data can be saved. I'll wager Laird knows...

Think about that number.....100,000.....I bet 30 people could not use 100,000 saves in a life time.
It's a lot more than you think....not to mention that is the guaranteed rated amount...more than
likely you will get 3 times that from such a chip. Let's just put it this way....as a gamer...if any of
you manage to come even half way to the 100,000 mark....you really need to get a life.

[Gorf]

I corrected this guy on all the mistakes he made and he sent me a message telling me that I don't know what I am talking about 

Unfortunately, you can't correct willfull ignorance.

[Gorf]

Let say that fro someone like me with basic knowledge this video may be missleading... Beside I am quite confused with the mention "The 68000 can operate in 16 or 32 Bits"...

My basic knowledge needs to be refreshed, I am not sure of this is true or not plus like 90 % of the gamer I have alsolutely no idea what a Bit is.

But he does have a point somehow, If someone wants to prove is it a 64 bits you need to develop a game that prouves it... My Idea would be to take the Iron Soldier Engine which is I think most prwerfull 3D Enfine on the Jaguar and then you code another game. BUt I think it is quite difficult LOL

First of all...the 68000 is a 32 bit internal processor...the data bus is only 16 bit s wide
externally and has to write two 16 bit chuck per read or write...even the address bus is
only 24 bits externally.

2nd.....the Object processor and Blitter are true 64 bit wide chips.

The problem is throwing all of these on a unified(single) 64 bit bus and expecting them not to step
on each other using standard single processor system coding techniques which is unfortunately
what most Jag developers did/do.

Had the dopes at Atari realized that having Tom and Jerry have their own larger local and private
memories would have made the PS1 look shabby...even with it's hardware bugs.

[zapiy]

Any new devs going on out there on the net that anyone is aware of?

[Shadowrunner]

Any new devs going on out there on the net that anyone is aware of?

The only thing I know of is this http://mightyfrog.forcedesign.us/

It was started years ago, but there has been regular updates lately and it looks like it's almost done.  Maybe @The Graphics Man can tell us more?

[zapiy]

Looks like a Q Bert clone, would I be right in that assumption?

[Shadowrunner]

Yes I think that you're right Zapiy. These are the same guys who made the homebrew game Mad Bodies.

[TrekMD]

Well, I hope it gets released.  Looks like a cool Q*Bert clone. 

[Arethius_RGC]

Did I miss an episode but I could foind the Heretic Thread in the Homebrew game section. I was actually quite impatient to get this game...

[avick]

I see that Cyrano Jones over at AA has released ROM of the ST version of Rick Dangerous, hacked to run on the Jag. He also has Gauntlet II ready to release once he fixes the sample player.

[Shadowrunner]

Did I miss an episode but I could foind the Heretic Thread in the Homebrew game section. I was actually quite impatient to get this game...

Unfortunately the person who was doing this deleted all the info last year. Here's their website, but it hasn't been updated since last summer so I'm not sure what's going on with it.

http://www.stormworksinteractive.com/projects.html

I see that Cyrano Jones over at AA has released ROM of the ST version of Rick Dangerous, hacked to run on the Jag. He also has Gauntlet II ready to release once he fixes the sample player.

Cool to see people still working on the Jag!

[zapiy]

One of my favourite games is Rick Dangerous.