Retro Gamer Issue 119 - Out Now!

[Rogue Trooper]

Loved the Zepplin Games feature.

The Speccy 128 feature was good, but did'nt really add a lot to what i already knew.

Not a Castlevania fan so skipped that.

Ditto to Counter-strike (Though did have it on PC)...

PM'ed you with thoughts on your Jaguar article, but i'll give highlights here for benifit of all:

Personally felt Laird nailed it with the Jaguar article and for a very simple reason:By using developer quotes that gave an insight into just how 'Alien' the hardware was to so many, espically US developers, it explained to those unfamilar with the platform, just why so many games turned out the way they did.Poor tools, combined with coders just struggling to get their heads around parallel processing (something which continued with the Saturn hardware) and Atari being hard up for cash (and a hostile development enviroment) resulted in poor games far too often.Also good to see mention of demmand being there for the system, in early days at least.


Unlike a previous months article (NES) where developer comments were just absurd, here they really proved to be the basis of a fantastic article, which should help 'educate' those still buying into internet wisdom on the format.
Could do without all the only has X amount good games, is rubbish crap that still does the rounds.


Whilst i  disagree very  strongly on the editors point about them not giving certain companies and platforms special treatment/re-writing history (only to look at my various rants on the Nes thread i created here), it was very refreshing to see the editor giving the Jaguar  the coverage it deserves-seemed a very different editor to the one in 2010 who seemed to be saying he had zero interest in the Jaguar, so hopefully, this is just the start of some much needed changes to RG magazine.


I'm always saddened to see articles cramned into a few measly pages when the drivel from likes of Lee and davies gets page each, personally, along with the wasteland that is the letters page, i'd drop the 'guest' columns and give the space to the articles.


Said this to Laird, but i'd probably have replaced Raiden with say Syndicate, in best ports, as it really showed up Snes/MD versions, but it's all subjective at end of the day.

[TrekMD]

Nice commentary, RT.  I'm looking forward to reading this!

[Rogue Trooper]

Laird knows me well enought that i'm not going to blow smoke up his ass on any article he writes.If i thought it was cobblers, i'd have PM'ed him 1st and said:'In all honesty? it was poor...' and then posted same thoughts on here, but explaining why.

But Laird delivered and in spades.

It proved a number of things from purely the point of view of an article being done on a lesser known hardware platform:you can have balance, use developer quotes, point out the well known and lesser known games and still get the message across without coming across as biased, even when your limited on word count.


I'd liked to have seen a further page at least, but i very much welcomed what we did get.Hopefully the feedback to RG towers is good, so we see future Jaguar articles as there is a lot yet to be told of the tale.


@Laird:Can you throw me a bone on a future article, my inner rage is doing my head in, i have to rant at something..yet could'nt fault your article, lol.F*ck up somewhere in the next one, please? :-)

[TL]

@Laird:Can you throw me a bone on a future article, my inner rage is doing my head in, i have to rant at something..yet could'nt fault your article, lol.F*ck up somewhere in the next one, please? :-)

 

[TrekMD]

@Laird:Can you throw me a bone on a future article, my inner rage is doing my head in, i have to rant at something..yet could'nt fault your article, lol.F*ck up somewhere in the next one, please? :-)

Too funny!   :24:

[Rogue Trooper]

@Laird:Can you throw me a bone on a future article, my inner rage is doing my head in, i have to rant at something..yet could'nt fault your article, lol.F*ck up somewhere in the next one, please? :-)

 

Come on man...work with me here, i cannot be seen praising anything RG related now can i? :-) just a tiny mistake, get a format wrong, or put in a bizzare developer quote...anything.

:-)


A mention of the Nes...might do it....

[Cryptic33]

Nice commentary, RT.  I'm looking forward to reading this!

Ditto

[Rogue Trooper]

Thanks for the kind words.I know my 'style' of commenting on anything is'nt to all tastes, but i'm not going to change that, say it as i see it on all things etc.

I've ranted more often than not on various articles in RG lacking balance, failures getting mere few lines, glossed over basically and tried to explain to anyone from the magazine who might be reading, it's just not what i expect from a professional publication.

Laird could have devoted a lot of space to how in the early days the likes of Edge, Gamesmaster etc were praising Tempest 2000, Doom, Cybermorph etc to high heavens and then go onto describe how as soon as PS1/Saturn hit, media turned on Jaguar, expectations were unrealistic, likes of UFG had it in for Jaguar etc or made a big deal about how developers were just lazy, only coded for the 68000 etc, bunged in a load of shots from best looking Jaguar games, quotes from rebellion, I.D, Jeff Minter etc and that'd be it, job done.

Instead he's used developer quotes very wisely and they offer an insight into not only the games, but developer reaction to the press and how developers struggled  with the hardware and why.Jaguar and Saturn both have this image of being shit, but people/press who say this clearly have little or no experience of the hardware, hence the usual it't was'nt 64 Bit, just lot of 32 Bit chips stuck together comments.

He raised some very interesting points:European VS USA coding, the sad state that Atari was in at time of the Jaguar and basically just how difficult it was to turn around percived wisdom that the Jaguar had nothing but bad games, something that still exists (sadly) to this day and is still talked about in same manner saturn being shit at 2D is.

Article ends nicely as well, with a mini-justification if you like as to why the Jaguar deserves a 2nd chance.

Basically it's this calm and collected approach to a hardware platform i expect to read in any publication.It's a warts n all look at the Jaguar and Atari.

Don't think any hardware feature should shy away from what went wrong.An article that explains how things ended up way they did is better than one that just concentrates on what went right.

[TL]

I am really glad you enjoyed the article and it seems that a lot of other people have so far too judging by teh feedback I have received.

My aim was to tell a story about the Jaguar from start to finish, highlighting both good and bad points. I was also very focussed on telling the real story with the help of the people who were actually there. I think I got in a lot of stuff that just hasn't been talked about in the open before and that was one of my key aims when writing the article.

1 game was chopped off each of the lists: NBA Jam: TE (ports), BattleSphere (homebrews) and Protector: SE (exclusives). I am a big fan of Raiden which is why it went in, while I am not a Syndicate fan, but like you said the ports are much of a muchness really.

I really hope that I have even educated a few people out there and taught them something about the Jag!

I will probably start posting all the bonus extras from next week.

[Rogue Trooper]

I am really glad you enjoyed the article and it seems that a lot of other people have so far too judging by teh feedback I have received.

My aim was to tell a story about the Jaguar from start to finish, highlighting both good and bad points. I was also very focussed on telling the real story with the help of the people who were actually there. I think I got in a lot of stuff that just hasn't been talked about in the open before and that was one of my key aims when writing the article.

1 game was chopped off each of the lists: NBA Jam: TE (ports), BattleSphere (homebrews) and Protector: SE (exclusives). I am a big fan of Raiden which is why it went in, while I am not a Syndicate fan, but like you said the ports are much of a muchness really.

I really hope that I have even educated a few people out there and taught them something about the Jag!

I will probably start posting all the bonus extras from next week.

Yep there's no right or wrong list of best ports to feature, all down to personal tastes at end of the day.

I've said it before on here, but what i look for in articles covering machines that i owned/had good deal of interest in (If you ever write a feature on the GB Laird, trust me, i'll be wiping my arse with it, not reading it :-) still got my GB, but i hate the damn thing, cannot give it away as present from a very good friend-thank god he does'nt read here), is to add a new angle or slant to it, let reader have both sides presented and they can make up their own minds.

Looking forward to the extras.