Lost Dragon Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 :-) In terms of ALL the Lost Jaguar Games i've looked into, i don't think i've ever seen so much conflicting info.for such an average game, but since there's been 'renewed' interest, i thought best create 1 thread and put everything that's come to light so far and let people decide for themselves. In no real order, answers given to me personally and as they came in and from Press interviews: Darryl Still Ex-Atari UK:As i recal it was something Atari always wanted, but simply could'nt get, as Jez (San) proved very tricky to pin down.We (Atari) could'nt afford to do it ourselves. Darryl gave very clear, thoughtful reply.Memory was not hazy :-) Jez San interviewed in Edge, Sept'98 (his memory on events LOT clearer here): 'We did'nt do any Jaguar games.You have to make the right bets'. Alexander Holland, in an email conversation with me months ago, recals development kits being at Arg.for Jag CD whilst he was there, some discs, which may or may not contained Jag code. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 (Cont) Mike Fulton:Told me via email, he did convert 'Generic Creature shock FMV' into a video format Jag CD could play, but that was all. I also asked a good friend of mine, Crusto on RG forum to put the question of the game to Jez San in an interview a few months ago: Crusto: There have been rumours that a version of Creature Shock was nearly finished for the Jaguar CD, is that true? Jez San: That is probably true, though I am not sure how finished it was. We did do some things on the Jaguar and the Jaguar CD and Creature Shock was one of our first CD games. It's entirely possible but my memory is a bit hazy . . . . N.B:Now, as the years have passed, Jez is'nt anything as clear as he was in Sept'98 (understandable) and goes on in said interview to describe the MD as a '2D Box' whilst seeming to ignore all the 3D Polygon games that appeared on stock MD, inc the ST/Amiga ports....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 And last night i put the question to a NEW SOURCE: Nic Cusworth:As for the Jag. I know we had dev kit/s. I remember them coming in. I remember the tech department were looking at them but I’m not sure they went out to the dev teams. Creature Shock was being ported to anything with a CD and I do think porting work probably started for the Jag. I can’t speak for Jez but I would assume it never surfaced for a few reasons. We were probably asking a bunch of money for the port and also Jez was smart in always seeing the next thing, and the Jag wasn’t it. http://www.unseen64.net/2012/12/29/croc-3-stone-of-the-gobbos-cancelled-psx-ps2-xbox-gamecube/#comment-134963 So, thing it's becoming clear, early work in testing the Jag CD DID start, but never got far, as Jaguar seen as commercially unsafe........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willard Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 (edited) I think I recall reading somewhere (rather recently) that argonaut didn't work on Jaguar stuff. Too bad, as they (alongside psygnosis) did pretty well to exploit the technology they worked on when they wanted to. Still, creature shock was terrible. When I was in gradeschool a friend convinced me to pick up a used copy for the saturn for like $5 because the cover art looked cool. Didn't get it into it then. Got the CDi version about 5 years later thinking I just didn't understand the game the first time (plus you can use the CDi gun to navigate / shoot which is a big advantage) and still it's pretty bad! It had potential though... if the camera were a little more steady, and hit detection was more fair, and there weren't instant death paths. Plus they made it too easy to get ahead of yourself so you can enter an advanced fight that you can't get out of without the proper firepower / health. Edited February 20, 2015 by Willard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 That might have been the EDGE page i had Scanned and High Voltage put up on here, Jez in 1998 saying NO Jaguar titles.Given it was a lot sooner than his most recent comment on it, i know which of the 2 interviews i'd personally go for over Edge' in '98 or RG in 2015.NO disrespect to Jez or RG, but just years do take a toll on the mind. Just posted up info i've had in from Doug Little re:Lost Games, he himself said there's probably loads of smaller stuff he's forgotten over the years, but bloody hell as well as the ST/Amiga/JAguar stuff i've put up here, you should see the PS2/PC/Xbox etc stuff he also talked about (it's gone to GTW/Unseen64).Amazing and most kind of Doug and Nic to give time to this. Creature Shock though? yep far more a story i like looking into (jaguar wise) than would ever of wanted to play on Jaguar CD. Still, been a good day, lost games info wise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willard Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 That might have been the EDGE page i had Scanned and High Voltage put up on here, ha! yes that's it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 The Edge 98 and the RG 2015 are, i feel a prime example of why i fear so much info on Lost Games, period has now been lost.I hear it from everyone i 'speak to'...it's been so long, job to recal, i've probably forgotten, i'm not sure etc etc. As i said elsewhere when even sources at System 3 now believe ST Myth was released, history i fear is slowly being re-written. People/places like here/Unseen64/GTW etc etc are doing our best to preserve whats left, but chatting to doug this afternoon, it's more lost on HDD crashes or HDD's destroyed/thrown out, i might have some art..some PS2 code etc. More often than not it's just memories that remain and they are fading by the year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted February 27, 2015 Author Share Posted February 27, 2015 When i 'do' my 'interviews' i never know what, if any :-), information they'll throw up... So i was rather taken a back to find that Creature Shock or Alien Odyssey might have been planned for the Sega CD/Mega CD. I know game was designed to be ported to any system capable of handling the data transfer, but given the limited colours, think it'd just been far too grainy. Just goes to show even duff games like Creature shock are still capable of throwing up the odd surprise... Interview also threw up a lost SNES SFX Chip game i was'nt aware of (and no, it was'nt FX Racer or Starfox 2). All will be revealed when interview is out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted February 27, 2015 Author Share Posted February 27, 2015 Also, talking of conversions: The Oliver Twins (Phillip and Andrew) handled the conversion of Creature Shock for Data East thanks to Jacqui Lyons (Industry agent) and this conversion (and other such conversion work) saved them as Interactive Studios/Blitz from going bust, so, some good came from porting the game to other systems. :-) So there you go, we now know who was involved in porting an average game to various systems, that Atari could'nt afford the game but wanted it, that Jez San's memory is getting worse as time goes by :-), what Mike Fulton did regarding the Jaguar CD and Creature Shock and that it might have appeared on the Sega MCD/Sega CD had things been different. So much research into such a lacking game.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sd32 Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 Interview also threw up a lost SNES SFX Chip game i was'nt aware of (and no, it was'nt FX Racer or Starfox 2). Any chance it might be the beginings of Croc Legend of the Gobbos, with Nintendos Yoshi as the main character?. Some media on that would be awesome. As always, thanks for sharing all this info with us Lost Dragon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoGeoNinja Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 Any chance it might be the beginings of Croc Legend of the Gobbos, with Nintendos Yoshi as the main character?. Some media on that would be awesome. As always, thanks for sharing all this info with us Lost Dragon. Never heard of this before! Off the top of my head, was Croc an Argonaut title by any chance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoGeoNinja Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 So much research into such a lacking game.... The more you talk about it, the more likely I am to pull the trigger on a cheap 3DO version, just to see Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted February 27, 2015 Author Share Posted February 27, 2015 @SD32, whilst it was'nt Croc ( the canned SFX game) as a Croc Fan (?) you'll NOT be dissapointed, trust me, with regards to questions asked/answers given in the interview :-) As for the 'mystery' SFX Game..if i said...'Robots In Disguise.....' :-) @NeoGeoNinja.Yep Croc was indeed an Argonaut title and LOL, after covering Creature Shock in such detail i fear i'm to blame for your sudden interest in the game :-) Cheers for the kind words guys, but if you like THIS Lost game info, you ain't seen nothing yet.Stumbled across something i've shared now with 3 sites, but none can mention it, till 1st of 2 of them have written the planned articles it relates to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoGeoNinja Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 As for the 'mystery' SFX Game..if i said...'Robots In Disguise.....' :-) Vortex sequel? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sd32 Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 (edited) As for the 'mystery' SFX Game..if i said...'Robots In Disguise.....' :-) No idea what game it could be, you got me there Lost Dragon, hehe. The SNES version of FX Fighter maybe? Edited February 28, 2015 by sd32 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 As for the 'mystery' SFX Game..if i said...'Robots In Disguise.....' :-) Transformers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted February 28, 2015 Author Share Posted February 28, 2015 Ok, but just consider this a Teaser Trailer for said interview in upcoming issue of Classic Console Magazine :-) Ok, some quotes from answers given: ' There's also some confusion about how Vortex's origins. Argonaut was working on a Super FX chip Transformers game which never came out. This lead to conclusions that Vortex was the Transformers game but they were completely separate projects.'-So 1 Lost game i personally had no idea was even in development and anyone fancy a 'lost version' of the a SFX Chip they did produce, but could of been technically even better?...... 'If I remember correctly we did have it running on the second revision of the Super FX chip but it was too costly for the publisher to make the switch.'. So hows that for starters my friends? Couple of Lost SFX games (well 2nd technically is lost i suppose as we never saw the 2.0 version). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted April 5, 2015 Author Share Posted April 5, 2015 Whilst nothing to add to the tale of Jaguar Creature Shock :-) This interview regarding the CD-i conversion threw up some very interesting points... http://cdii.blogspot.co.uk/2006/05/creature-shock-on-cd-i.html Argonaut Software was under a publishing agreement with Virgin Interactive Entertainment. Argonaut was an independent developer so they always used to use publishers to take their products to the market. When Virgin was contracted a 3 cd-I game deal, a Creature Shock conversion was on top of that list. So, here we see game had been signed as part of a 3-game deal.The story we've heard from Atari UK's Darryl Still is that Atari (also) very much wanted the game, but could'nt afford to do the conversion and could'nt 'pin down' Jez San to get it converted, so no deal was ever signed it seems... 'The 3D interactive bits had to be cut, there was no way the Cd-i was ever going to render that in real time' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted April 5, 2015 Author Share Posted April 5, 2015 Yet i've read comments like this (on other forums): 'The 16-bit CD-i had no problem with Creature Shock so I doubt the 64-bit Jaguar would have.' Which makes me wonder if poster had only played the CD-i version and not the PC original? Back to that interview: ”It would have been nice to use the engine for CD-i Alien Odyssey but that conversion project didn't really start. I actually started the Sega Saturn conversion but that was also cancelled after a month, we had a new bigger project to work on. I assume this was why Argonaut/Virgin moved away from CD-i because technology wise it was being eclipsed by the newer consoles from Sega, Sony and Nintendo. To stay in the race Philips needed a much newer machine, but they didn't deliver. History is littered with the cases of old consoles.” Which pretty much goes with what Jez said to Edge all those years ago, about not developing on Jaguar as Arg.knew it was too risky from a commercial point of view.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted April 6, 2015 Author Share Posted April 6, 2015 LMAO :-) Just been reading ALL the readers questions put to Jez in his RG interview, now, i know he states early on his memory is 'Hazy' but bloody'ell... Reader (Joefish) asked him why he favoured enhancing the SNES, when the Mega Drive already had the CPU power to do the sort of 3D Argonaught was famous for on the ST and Amiga.... Jez says he'll have to disagree here as whilst the MD was slightly more powerful than the SNES, both, (without extra 3D chips) consoles 3D Capabilites were almost nothing (Err Jez, MD handled F-22, LHX, F-15 Strike Eagle 2, Mig 29 etc etc)..he goes onto talk about Sega upgrading the MD with the Mega CD, which flopped-fair cop there and starts talking about his SFX Chip, 21 Mhz Risc Processor etc etc. Not a single mention of Sega's SVP chip, nor Virtua Racing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted April 6, 2015 Author Share Posted April 6, 2015 (edited) I'm no tech head, but Segas DSP (?) Chip did'nt sound like a slouch on paper: 23 Mhz?, 25 MIPS? 2 Channel PWM Sound Expansion? (on paper at least) So come on Jez, you cannot compare the Sega MCD which was designed to bring MD Sprite Handling etc in line with the SNES, no push polygons, to your SFX chips..you have to compare your chip to Sega's or you loose any credibility. No wonder he cannot recal anything of Creature shock other than it was his 1st PC CD game. :-) I know SFX the chips were'nt used in anything like the number of SNES Games Jez had hoped for, but for him toappear to act as if the MD SVP Chip never existed and all they had was the MCD, that's just madness..... Edited April 6, 2015 by Lost Dragon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 Time to wrap this sucker up :-) Sneak peak/s from my latest interview, Mr Martin Piper, Ex-Argonaut who coded not only CDi Creature Shock but Playstation Alien Res.Full interview sent to Classic Console magazine for future issue. Ok, lets start with claims CDi handled the Creature Shock conversion easily: The space battle parts however could not be replicated since they used lots of scaled sprites. These were replaced with FMV sequences. Maybe we should have done a vertical or horizontal scrolling shooter without scaled sprites instead.... Hmm... That would have been good. So, as i thought, game is'nt just pre-rendered video sequences, but real-time rendering sections as well.Poor old CDi not up to the job, Jaguar however i feel would of been ideal. Next:Other versions actually being coded: A)There was a 3DO version of Creature Shock being developed by Jon Wolff (IIRC). I think it was released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 And finally, lets put these claims of a Jaguar version being coded to rest: A)There were Jaguar dev kits in the office. I know some technical demos were produced showing 3D textured graphics and I think some FMV demos as well. I don't remember any serious work being done for Jaguar Creature Shock though. So this is the 2nd Ex-Argonaut Coder who worked on Creature Shock, at the time to confirm:Argonaut DID have dev.Kits, some test coding WAS done, but there was simply no coding proper on game itself. Jez's memory might be hazy, but Nic's/Martins/Mikes/Darryl's etc all seem spot on, all point to same answer. Case closed? :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 And finally, lets put these claims of a Jaguar version being coded to rest: A)There were Jaguar dev kits in the office. I know some technical demos were produced showing 3D textured graphics and I think some FMV demos as well. I don't remember any serious work being done for Jaguar Creature Shock though. Isn't that like the 953rd time you've posted that, in different threads? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 I believe we find the source code when it hit 1 million posts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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