388 replies to this topic

[PeterG]

You mean you weren't on the list of 48 or so names?

Long story short:
When news broke that Eclipse weren't planning any form of Head to Head play in I.S II yet likes of Krazy Ivan had it on PlayStation, a movement shall we say? was started and the plan was for a list of names of people who were refusing to buy I.S II at release unless network play was implemented, was to be drawn up and sent to Atari.

Some of the more ahem, familiar names were Scott Legrand, Steve Scavone and Dark Science.

The entire fiasco fell apart once talks were underway with Eclipse and Don Thomas at Atari and it became apparent Atari weren't going to release I.S II on Jaguar, period.

What's the old saying? Be careful what you wish for...?.
Making threats of non purchase to an Atari who'd already amply demonstrated they didn't care if a title was ready to ship or not, if they needed product out, it just shipped, never seemed the wisest ideas to myself.

Now that you mention it, I remember reading some stuff on a newsgroup from back then btu I did not remember a list.
Who was Dark Science?

[Lost Dragon]

I was told about the supposed boycott some years ago when i was on RVG forum as part of some background details on some of the more vocal names i kept seeing whenever the Jaguar was mentioned .

Think 1 or more of them were interviews for the original Retrogamer Magazine feature on the Jaguar .

Dark Science were behind this early project:

[JagChris]

Atari should have used more procedural texturing. Didn't even move in that direction.

[Stephen]

I was told about the supposed boycott some years ago when i was on RVG forum as part of some background details on some of the more vocal names i kept seeing whenever the Jaguar was mentioned .

Think 1 or more of them were interviews for the original Retrogamer Magazine feature on the Jaguar .

Dark Science were behind this early project:

Neat to see, but even that, what a dismally low framerate.  Can the Jag draw more than 3 lines (i.e., not blit a sprite) without dropping to 15-20FPS?

[Lost Dragon]

I have to confess. ...
I was never a huge fan of the original 2D Centipede, only the artwork for the VCS version.
A 2000 update wouldn't of been on my purchase list.

Edited by Lost Dragon, Thu Dec 6, 2018 5:16 PM.

[Agent X]

You mean you weren't on the list of 48 or so names?

Long story short:
When news broke that Eclipse weren't planning any form of Head to Head play in I.S II yet likes of Krazy Ivan had it on PlayStation, a movement shall we say? was started and the plan was for a list of names of people who were refusing to buy I.S II at release unless network play was implemented, was to be drawn up and sent to Atari.

Some of the more ahem, familiar names were Scott Legrand, Steve Scavone and Dark Science.

The entire fiasco fell apart once talks were underway with Eclipse and Don Thomas at Atari and it became apparent Atari weren't going to release I.S II on Jaguar, period.

What's the old saying? Be careful what you wish for...?.
Making threats of non purchase to an Atari who'd already amply demonstrated they didn't care if a title was ready to ship or not, if they needed product out, it just shipped, never seemed the wisest ideas to myself.

 

I don't know the whole story, but in retrospect, maybe they made the correct decision to not implement multiplayer in Iron Soldier 2, especially if this wasn't planned for in the original design.

 

Would it have been cool? Maybe. But if this wasn't planned, then this surely would have taken more resources (including time and money) to plan out the game design for multiplayer mode(s), then implement them, then test them, and refine them further.

 

In that regard, it would not have been prudent to hastily slap on a multiplayer mode "just because" . Yeah, you'd have another bullet-point on the back of the box to appease the handful of people that bought JagLinks or other networking gear for the system. Aside from that, it would have just dragged on the development.

 

After reading some of the earlier posts in this thread, it's alarming how some of the Atari brass insisted on interfering with some games' development, like demanding texture-mapped polygons or other similar features that posed technical challenges. It appears that the programmers knew this would impact performance and tried to protest these hasty additions, but got overruled in favor of having some pretty screen shots (frame rate be damned) on the box. I believe a tacked-on network mode would have ended up the same way.

Edited by Agent X, Wed Dec 12, 2018 5:23 PM.

[PeterG]

 
I don't know the whole story, but in retrospect, maybe they made the correct decision to not implement multiplayer in Iron Soldier 2, especially if this wasn't planned for in the original design.
 
Would it have been cool? Maybe. But if this wasn't planned, then this surely would have taken more resources (including time and money) to plan out the game design for multiplayer mode(s), then implement them, then test them, and refine them further.
 
In that regard, it would not have been prudent to hastily slap on a multiplayer mode "just because" . Yeah, you'd have another bullet-point on the back of the box to appease the handful of people that bought JagLinks or other networking gear for the system. Aside from that, it would have just dragged on the development.
 
After reading some of the earlier posts in this thread, it's alarming how some of the Atari brass insisted on interfering with some games' development, like demanding texture-mapped polygons or other similar features that posed technical challenges. It appears that the programmers knew this would impact performance and tried to protest these hasty additions, but got overruled in favor of having some pretty screen shots (frame rate be damned) on the box. I believe a tacked-on network mode would have ended up the same way.

Well there had been talks of link feature back to IS1 I think. I do not know what the issue was, maybe the UART bug or something. Considering the quality of the Eclipse releases I do not think it would have been tacked on. Your best reference probably the multiplayer via Splitscreen in IS3. Unfortunately until today I have only tried it once with a friend of mine a hundred years ago. I know that we felt, it was too slow for deathmath as you would find each other, shoot with everything you got and then go for a fistfight once you run out. So this in my opinion would only work with a willing friend and the campaign with two players together in my opinion. Right now I don't even recall if there was such a coop mode...

[Agent X]

Well there had been talks of link feature back to IS1 I think. I do not know what the issue was, maybe the UART bug or something. Considering the quality of the Eclipse releases I do not think it would have been tacked on.

 

 

You're probably correct. I don't believe Eclipse would have settled for a "tacked-on" mode. But at that point in the Jaguar's market life in 1996, after the first holiday sales for Saturn and (especially) PlayStation were tallied up, it was evident that Jaguar wasn't long for this world. A properly developed network mode would have added more months to the development schedule.

 

I think Atari (who was already planning to go into Saturn/PlayStation development, prior to the JTS merger) didn't want to pump any more unnecessary resources into Jaguar games. They were happy to wrap up the last few games and push them out the door before they turned off the lights on the system. We didn't even get IS2 directly from Atari, and had to wait for Telegames to come to the rescue. If they had started work on a network mode, then it wouldn't have gotten far enough (under Atari's last-minute watch) to develop into anything meaningful, and would have gotten cut out just to have the single-player game...which brings us around full circle. Either we'd be left with the single-player game alone (which is exactly what we did get), or the "unfinished" portion would've forced them to throw the entire IS2 development into the scrap pile as yet another incomplete Jaguar game.

 

I'm grateful that we got the game we did, as it turned out to be an excellent game, and still to this day one of the finest exclusive games on the system.

 

 

Your best reference probably the multiplayer via Splitscreen in IS3. Unfortunately until today I have only tried it once with a friend of mine a hundred years ago. I know that we felt, it was too slow for deathmath as you would find each other, shoot with everything you got and then go for a fistfight once you run out. So this in my opinion would only work with a willing friend and the campaign with two players together in my opinion. Right now I don't even recall if there was such a coop mode...

 

Good point. I forgot that IS3 had a two-player split-screen mode, as I don't believe I've ever tried it myself.

 

According to the manual, there is also a cooperative mode. It plays similarly to the one-player mission mode, but with each player controlling different aspects of the robot's movement and weapons.

[PeterG]

I also think that the IS games are really great the way they are. For me a link mode is a nice bonus for when you have a friend visiting or for things like Jagfest.
Even on modern systems I rarely play online with other and enjoy Singleplayer campaigns more.


Concerning the Coop you are right, I forgot how that was but now I remember that I don't know a single game where the Driver/Gunner Coop works really well and in a fun way.

[Agent X]

Concerning the Coop you are right, I forgot how that was but now I remember that I don't know a single game where the Driver/Gunner Coop works really well and in a fun way.

 

I'd suggest good ol' Space Invaders on the 2600. There were some very fun cooperative modes in that game. One mode was set up so that player 1 controls movement, while player 2 controls firing. Another mode had player 1 controlling leftward movement, and player 2 controlling rightward movement (with either player able to fire). Yet another mode had each player alternating firing and control.

 

For modern stuff, I'd go with Warhawk on the PS3. I got it back in 2007, and played it heavily for the first year or two, but hadn't touched it much after that. Recently, I dusted off the game for a few sessions (as they're shutting down the servers soon), and it still holds up. The vehicles can be very potent (and fun) if you have willing teammates. Like you, I'm much more into single-player games, and rarely ever play online, but Warhawk is one of the few online multiplayer games that captured my interest.

[PeterG]

 
I'd suggest good ol' Space Invaders on the 2600. There were some very fun cooperative modes in that game. One mode was set up so that player 1 controls movement, while player 2 controls firing. Another mode had player 1 controlling leftward movement, and player 2 controlling rightward movement (with either player able to fire). Yet another mode had each player alternating firing and control.
 
For modern stuff, I'd go with Warhawk on the PS3. I got it back in 2007, and played it heavily for the first year or two, but hadn't touched it much after that. Recently, I dusted off the game for a few sessions (as they're shutting down the servers soon), and it still holds up. The vehicles can be very potent (and fun) if you have willing teammates. Like you, I'm much more into single-player games, and rarely ever play online, but Warhawk is one of the few online multiplayer games that captured my interest.

Thanks for the suggestion though I do not have any of the two consoles anymore but nice to hear.

I know Battlesphere has such a coop too but it is not fun to have someone steer around while the other one is trying to target enemies and trying to guess where the other one is going next.

[Lost Dragon]

One of the best 2 player modes on an other wise Meh game was Playstation 2 Starsky and Hutch.

If you had a PS2 lightgun, 1 player would be the driver whilst the second player leant out the car window and handled the shooting.

I wish more games had tried approaches like this rather than usual death matches etc.

[Lost Dragon]

@PeterG:

I forgot to mention Dark Science also proposed Moon Patrol remake for the Hague, but Atari seemed reluctant apparently to give the 2000 series to outside developers.

Edited by Lost Dragon, Sun Dec 16, 2018 5:08 AM.

[Lost Dragon]

Not had a Minter quote in a while


Jeff talking Defender 2000:

Yeah, the 2K mode runs at 30 FPS but unfortunately doing audio and running heavy OLP eats bandwidth something rotten.  I never think about it once I start playing though,i'm too busy dodging Mutants.. I think a game can look ugly if it runs 60 some of the time and drops to 30 when loaded - so for 2K mode i decided to lock to 30, and it looks fine.

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(:-)
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Edited by Lost Dragon, Mon Dec 17, 2018 2:35 PM.