DrMalba

Eternal lurker here...nice work! The little details (like the exhaust bubbles underwater) make all the difference. Now we need a time machine, to travel back and swap this in for the Trevor McFur pack-in 🙂

Ordered....been dusting off the Jaggy again lately, this should be very fun...

This topic should probably include the disclaimer "....besides American Hero" which as far as I can tell, was designed pretty much exclusively for masturbatory purposes (both product-wise and literally).

Wanted to bump this and share the love, I just discovered the podcast and I was surprised how well-researched and well-put-together it was. I hope you will eventually be able to return to this - keep up the good work !

Its a great game, which shows both the potentials and the limits of the platform. As others have noted, Skyhammer's Blade Runner-like atmosphere is great, the gameplay is nonlinear so you can approach it from tons of different angles. I think it's fun just to roll around the city, blast up the side of buildings and explore. Visually its one of the best titles the Jaguar ever produced (even if it was more or less orphanware), The game's primary issue is low framerate. Get a few enemies on the screen, and the game can slow to a crawl, which can be very frustrating. That cripples its replay value somewhat. IMO not enough to pass it up for purchase, but I can understand how some people are turned off/bored.

For its day, IS was/is an awesome game. Other than maybe Highlander (a woefully underrated, ahead-of-its-time title IMO) this is the one game I spent the most time with on the Jag. Many people have already commented on the smooth framerate, but the gameplay is really the star. Once you get the hang of walking and rotating your view simultaneously, it becomes super-fun. The explosions are great cranked over a nice stereo and it is satisfying as hell walking over and taking out a tank with your mech! IS2 has some minor graphical improvements, maybe an extra weapon or two (?) but I honestly never finished the first game - its difficult enough as it is ! Well worth your time, in fact if you could only own five titles for the Jag I would say IS/IS2 had better be one of them.

I'm quite happy they are still in business, but i'd really wish they'd hire someone to clean up the website to make pertinent info easier to find. It looks like some old tripod or angelfire page became sentient and handled its own updates after a crack binge.

You're very welcome sir ... and thanks for the prompt shipping.... <sarcafont>now go take those buckets of cash and free up Thea Realm Fighters </sarcafont>

I'm glad I didn't end up paying more than $40 or $50 back in the day. This was a terrible, terrible game. It made Kasumi Ninja look like Soul Calibur in comparison. Quite frankly, i've always loved Ultra Vortek - it had its flaws, but until someone else provides a better fighter with Jagmodem support and a dope-smoking, pole-wielding rasta character it will remain the gold standard of all the Jag fighters

Wow ! Mastertronic's Ninja! I played the tits off this game on the C64 back in the day. One of my all-time favorite titles on the C64 (though I remember throwing knives was a bit challenging). The background detail looks a lot better on your screenshots though, this port must have been enhanced a bit for the ST + Amiga.

It definitely needs to be on a CD - a cartridge wouldn't make a very good drink coaster.

I just got a set of these, shipped promptly and without incident. I think they look pretty sharp. I did have a problem with some being a little difficult to lift from the backing, but once they are on the cart they look pretty good. The only one I didn't like was Iron Soldier II limited edition cart label, as they used the green box logo - I think it clashes against the (admittedly very simple) silver label and this person should consider recoloring it so it flows better. The rest are fine as they riff on the cart label or box label. Yes indeed - my biggest gripe. Was surprised there was no Skyhammer, etc. i'd love to see another group for the Songbird and other homebrew titles.

$2.2k for a copy of Battlesphere (with dire warnings involving the persecution of "low bidders") based on a $1500 successful auction for a standard edition - is over four times the already ridiculous price I paid for my BSG years ago. It really makes me want to sell most of my rare/limited stuff now including BSG. At this point I could probably live with just a Jag, a skunkboard and a handful of carts for the rest of my days (and focus on my beloved C-64 :-)

The BS gold is going for $2300 BIN because ... it has the BJL connector and a clear case? Never mind you could get four secondhand skunkboards for that price. BTW both ROM variants have been out there for a long time, but neither is playable on any current jag device or homebrew solution, unless someone's holding out. Certainly it was the case custom protection was baked into all Skunkboard firmware to prevent it from at least loading it, and as I understand it there is also some logic in the game to prevent it working anywhere other than a cart (though the truth behind that, and how effective a protection like that might be, I dunno).

Thank you for the clarification. You can see why I was confused considering we were talking about trust issues with literal plastic. (Which, not to belabor a point BTW, I think is hardly crackpot, merely particular, considering the proliferation of jacked-up prices and greedy speculators all over eBay Jag forums. But I do get and freely admit the insanity by association. ) That said, I'm neither new to the forum nor new to posting here - I've been a member here since 2007. I was on the "dreaded" other site which was where I did most of my posting until it went Tango Uniform a few years back now. So i'm by now fairly well-versed and quite familiar with all the drama, flamewars, notorious users and personalities, persistent trolls, etc. I don't know what seized me to post on that particular thread out of the blue at that time, as I have an meager collection of posts here for my near decade of membership. But I have a formidable Jag collection and have dealt with many of the notorious early Jag speculators, maybe I was moved because it appeared as if they had multiplied tenfold.

I'm sorry, I must not be in on the joke. I thought I was just engaging in a friendly debate, maybe you feel i was implying something about B&C or something else? I just don't trust eBay resellers to give me new old stock of Jaguar games. If I am dumb enough to pay $700 for a "new" copy of "Towers II" the *last* thing i'm gonna do is dig into the plastic

This is *exactly* what I think happens more often than not - why would you think this is remote? Especially for a scene like this, where the console is not as popular or well-known and more rife for victims? If I have something relatively rare like a crisp in the long box Space Ace, and wanted to make a little extra cash, sealing it myself is exactly the trick I might use to squeeze more money out of a potential buyer. Atari Karts (a somewhat rare game) is a nice target for the full loose-cart-and-box scam too since its one of the readily-available boxes. Also, looking at a few medium-res eBay photos is not enough to convince me that I can tell the difference between legit new old stock and someone's self-shrink-wrapped markup. I agree you and I could probably make a pretty good guess by holding in your hand, but that's not going to help you on eBay. Anyways I'll stop this stroll down conspiracy lane and agree to disagree. What I am ultimately amused at is how many more sellers are hyper-inflating their prices for the games and the consoles. We can at *least* agree that Mr. "Rare Atari Black Console Cleanest You Can Find" is full of fecal matter, amirite?

You are kind of mixing up my words here. What I was implying is that it seems very simple to me for anyone buy unfolded boxes, trays, and loose carts, seal them with a hologram and shrink-wrap them and sell them as "factory sealed" at a premium. That includes add-ons like the memory track, which was mentioned as "rare in box" in the context of a $600 or so auction for a CD and a few games that I posted earlier.

True, but I also don't remember as many of these garbage inflated BINs, maybe people are getting desperate or there is actually more demand and more overbidding. Usually there was only one or two guys. I had to get to the second page before I started seeing systems at reasonable prices. Also - I am incredibly skeptical of the "factory sealed" market on Jag carts- I realize a lot went unsold, but B&C has been selling those Jag holograms, empty boxes and trays for some time now.

I said this without a hint of irony...and then I took a look at ebay sorted highest price first: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-CD-Black-Console-NTSC-/141930882452?hash=item210bbd6594:g:ppAAAOSwoudW6JMs JagCD factory sealed $2K ??? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-CD-with-box-manual-factory-sealed-Memory-Track-games-soundtrack-/131795107187?hash=item1eaf99bd73:g:~~0AAOSwRH5XJxx~ JagCD USED $600 ??!?! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Towers-II-Plight-of-the-Stargazer-Atari-Jaguar-NEW-SEALED-GEM-MINT-RARE-/261531721041?hash=item3ce4815d51:g:qecAAOSw9NxTwqXU Towers 2 sealed $700 ?!?!?!?! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Atari-Jaguar-Black-Console-cleanest-you-will-find-/191868423349?hash=item2cac3fccb5:g:5aYAAOSwFEFXJtCj (not) "Rare Atari Jaguar Black Console Cleanest You Will Find" with the crappy pack-in games $550? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-Console-with-CD-Attachment-7-Cartridge-Games-3-CD-Games-and-more-/182134364083?hash=item2a680dd7b3:g:BhYAAOSwH71XOjOG Jag with a NONFUNCTIONING CD sold for $405 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-Video-Game-Console-System-in-Original-Box-Rare-Complete-New-/371594204685?hash=item5684bd960d:g:Ge8AAOSwjMJXBaQp Jag console with original box (whoopee, its in crappy condition) $350 ? And that was just a random trawl. Either we've collectively lost our goddamn minds, or i'm about to part with my Jag Voice Modem and become a multimillionaire.

Hell yeah! In 1999 or so I lived with a bunch of friends in a shared house and I can tell you we played a metric f*ckton of Soul Caliber on Dreamcast. It was, and is, one of the all-time classic console fighters. I think you underestimate its influence. While it didn't sell Playstation 2 numbers, it beat it to the punch by about a year and a half, and in that time sold very respectably. I think Shenmue was mentioned and this is one of the very first games to incorporate a million-dollar budget and film-like design paradigms. In fact when you look at the big picture, its hard to see where Sega went wrong on this one...had they not shot themselves in the foot with the Saturn, or a developer like EA stepped up and committed to the platform to round out its sports titles (tho the "2k" titles were not bad at all, BTW) I think it might have had a longer shelf life. They just ran out of money. Another interesting, though more nefarious point, is that it was one of the first game consoles i've ever seen pirated games on. Unlike the PlayStation it did not require additional HW to run duplicated CDs. So it had a nicely-sized underground game-trading scene happening for it too. Comparing the last HW gasp of Sega and Atari and its no contest...as much as I love my Jag the Dreamcast was a far better console for its time, that had far better hardware and much higher quality games. Innovative titles, innovative controllers, built-in online game capability. And what, 9.13 million Dreamcasts vs. 250k Jags? It gets all the props as one of the greatest consoles ever developed, no serious gamer with any history in consoles would dump on it like we've seen with the Jag. That praise committed, I never owned one, and beyond seeing a few portable units pop up that tickled my fancy I never acquired one even on its slow downslide when they could be had for pennies on the dollar. And at the time, like most other folks I just waited for the PS2 - mainly as that built-in DVD player made it a hell of a value add proposition, in fact it was the cheapest DVD player with the most reliable and high-quality playback on the market for several years. Getting back to the topic at hand ... I don't see the Jag as any more or less popular now than it was five years ago. Prices remain relatively static, outside of a few rare homebrew carts which pop up from time to time it seems more or less around the same investment level as it was. I think for me personally as a collector the Jag is more interesting in its failure, difficulty in obtaining the weird HW side peripherals (like the voice modem, VR headset, cortana, etc), homebrew collector carts.... And i've enjoyed the hell out of my skunkboards even if I never had enough time to invest in using it for actual development. As I type these words and look to my left at a dead Area 51 CoJag board

Yes indeed - I came to the same conclusion when I got mine, but this is actually not as easy as it sounds as the dremel is not a great precision tool. My current "dental case" jag doesn't quite sit right and requires you essentially depress the entire top case a bit to get the switch to flip. I would love to hear from others who have a cleaner mod. I explored using screw-in posts (standard with most PC mounting boards) but the height is too much. This is the perfect application for a 3d printed mod, to create some kind of a shim that would sit under the board and allow it to rest solidly once the posts are removed.

I remember that Remo - that's how I got my copies of Zoop, Ruiner Pinball ($6 each) and a few extra jag controllers. ($6 each). Electronics Boutique also had Jag stuff for a hot minute and I recall I found a few games like Highlander ($20) around 00:58 or so I got my Jag console towards the end (95-96) when my local PC vendor was selling the combo liquidation sets that had Iron Soldier, Pitfall 2 and Brutal Sports Football with the basic Jag box for IIRC $99. It was probably a run of the same sets they were selling on TV infomercials.

I just got mine earlier this month. I was WL # 28. So they are definitely working through the extras which were fraudulently ordered by delinquents and Jag-squatters. Also, I miss the "asylum." Good place, good people, if a few were a bit crotchety.

Its *damn* good on the playability front. Of course its primitive now, but the graphics limitations (mostly lack of detail) are excusable due to the hardware limitations of the Jag. IMO BSG is the one true game that shows that the Jag could have been an adequate 3-D gaming platform. That, and its actually *fun*. Whether it's worth the $$ is up to the individual, but as a collector I had no regrets spending in that range to get one of the absolute pinnacle games for the platform ( other than sleeping on it when it came out back in the day). Someone needs to lure those guys out of retirement and find them the source to Skyhammer. If they could do 1/4 for the framerate on that game what they did for BSG ... oh man.