Schmudde
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Posts posted by Schmudde
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Unfortunately, there were a lot of false rumors. I would suspect this is one of them because I would think EA would have little incentive to create a Jaguar CD game considering how abysmally the console sold to that point (<100,000 units, and then factor in an add-on with a rounding error for an install base). They probably wouldn't have even supported the 3DO like they did if they weren't investors, and even then they didn't release several of the games promised early on.
A likely scenario would be for EA to license the game to Atari, who in turn would farm out the Jaguar port to another third-party developer. Atari takes all of the financial risk and manages the project themselves. EA would have to do absolutely nothing, other than send Atari some raw resources (graphic and sound data, source code from the "original" version), and sign off on final approval when the game goes gold. Maybe they'll check in on the occasional milestone. Apart from that, their hands are off--they basically sit back and wait for their royalty checks to roll in.It wouldn't be the first time this happened on the Jaguar. Many big-name "third-party" games were licensed by and published by Atari, and frequently had little or no involvement from the original publisher and developer. Some examples include Raiden, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, Myst, and NBA Jam Tournament Edition.
I'd just like to point out that the deal with Accolade as the most prominent example of what Agent X is suggesting. IIRC, it was a 5 title deal that amounted to a significant licensing expenditure for Atari Corp. It's one thing to payout for the Alien vs. Predator license, and it's another to payout for Accolade IP. I personally don't believe Accolade IP was very strong in the early 90s - especially when you think that Bubsy and Earthworm Jim were released within a year of one another.
It cannot be disregarded that Atari Corp. had a longstanding relationship with Accolade. Such a relationship may have played a role in this decision.
Regarding EA - we're all familiar with those rumors. It would have been an unlikely coup, but not an entirely unreasonable possibility. While I agree with Bill that EA doesn't seem to have the incentive, I think the deal with Midway properties (namely NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat III) demonstrated that Atari Corp. was able to make things happen.
It's worth reinforcing that the NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat deals came pretty late in the Jaguar's life, when the proverbial 'writing on the wall' should have been clear.
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Survival horror genre, you say...
If you play AvP, Highlander, Flashback and Robinson's Requiem after each other you might get a combo close to that experience.
Otherwise no.
Good call on the latter two. I forgot about them as candidates that might qualify for the 'survival' element, even if they are missing the 'horror.'
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It's not widely regarded as a progenitor, although I would certain agree that Alien vs. Predator definitely nails horror/suspense. Project Firestart (C-64) and Sweet Home (Famicom) are often cited as early influencers of the survival horror genre. Of course, I myself in the book Vintage Games (in the Alone in the Dark chapter, 1) cited games like Halloween (Atari 2600) and Maxwell's Manor (multiple 8-bit computers) as early examples as well.
Yeah, thought I might get nailed on that. I started to mention Haunted House and then decided not to go down that rabbit hole and instead try to qualify my statement by discussing only the genre's contemporary form - which is almost exclusively 3D & FPS. That would qualify Alone in the Dark (3D world) and AvP (FPS) as pretty early examples.
Curious Bill, what would you you put earlier than Alone in the Dark with that specific qualification? Regarding AvP, I could see a valid case made for Doom, but AvP's execution seems more in line with the genre's priorities.
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Never beaten any Jaguar game. I only got a console of my own about three years ago and never had the time to master a single game. I hope to maybe finish one or two as I play whatever's being reviewed on Shinto's podcast.
If that's the case, and you have Club Drive (his latest podcast), you can probably master that one pretty darn quick. Not a lot there for 1 player; definitely best as 2 player tag.
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Top 10 lists on the Internet are quite common, but I've seen Alien Vs. Predator (especially in the marine mode) on more than one scary or survival/horror list. Here it is on Game Trailers, #4.
I'm actually surprised no one said it right away (too many Jag game jokes to get through, I guess). I thought it was widely accepted as a progenitor of the genre's contemporary form, along with Alone in the Dark.
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I think I paid $60 new at retail in 1994.
Had a blast playing tag with friends but the execution wasn't up to the par of a game like Stunts on the PC.
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I saw an interesting discussion in another thread, about how given limited selection when some of us were younger, we'd put lots of time into games that were not particularly remarkable, and after painstaking long hours, were able to beat them and be good at them.
Is Checkered Flag a game that one could get good at if you invest dozens of hours? Or is the turning system so dysfunctional that it would be unrealistic to expect a human to be able to regularly not crash into the walls? Thoughts?
I bought it new in 1994 and played it a lot. Your instincts are correct.
You don't turn like you would in a normal racing game. Ease into every turn. If the turn deepens, don't press harder on the joypad as if you were increasing rotation of a steering wheel. That might be your instinct, but it's wrong in Checkered Flag world. You want to tap the d-pad in the direction you want to go. The game actually has audio feedback for this, the sound of screening tires.
You know you're taking a turn correctly when you hear a rhythmic screeching of the tires: [tap] "screech" [tap] "screech" [tap] "screech." If you just deepen the turn by pressing harder on the joypad, you will definitely careen into the wall. If you tap, you will take the turn with ease.
I know this all sounds ridiculous, but keep in mind I could probably still be a finalist in a Kasumi Ninja tournament if allowed to use Chagi and wear the packed-in headband. With these facts in mind, you might also be surprised to know I was desperately single throughout the 90s.
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After playing a wood grained 2600 we got from a garage sale, I was pretty hooked, and wanted the 7800 that was on display at the Children's Palace. I hadn't played a whole lot of NES by that time. This was probably around 1987.
I loved the 7800 and its pack in, Pole Position II. In the end, I probably played PPII more than Asteroids. I agree that Asteroids on the 7800 is excellent, and probably a better game, but I had more fun with PPII.
I was a little jealous of Super Mario Bros. but the game that really made me sway away from the 7800 was Zelda. After that, Asteroids or Pole Position II was mostly a moot point.
In total, the 7800 had a longer life (I still have it, unlike the NES) and ultimately got more playing time. I got pretty heavily into PCs in the late 80s to satisfy many of my other gaming needs.
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Sounds like the Jag Bar is attracting some high-class clientele.
Loved to see you and your friend geek on some Don Bluth and Dragon's Lair. I could never get into the games, but I was always impressed with them visually.
The latter is actually high praise. Other FMV games (which this is essentially falls under) are highlighted by poor acting and/or bad animation. The fact that this trailblazing game came together so well is a testament to his genius and the talent of the team around him.
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I never understood the Atari/JTS merger. It might have been good way for the Tramiels to get out of the business but I don't see how it could have been advantageous for Atari as company.
Why did Atari not transform itself to a software company publishing games (not necessary writing games) for all kinds of platforms or licensed out its IPs when it was clear that it could not compete in hardware any more? Maybe with the merger they could drop support for the Jaguar unpunished while without the merger there would be legal claims?
Robert
IIRC, the stockholders had the opportunity to vote on the merger and agreed as long as the new entity continued the support of Atari Interactive and Atari licensing post merger. I cannot find that quote, however, so take it with a grain of salt. I did find this reporting:
"The news of the merger could very well hold opportunity for Atari shareholders," said Chris Sherman, editor of Multimedia Wire, "but it leaves in question the state of Atari's video game hardware and software business, particularly the Atari Jaguar."Multimedia Wire has learned through sources close to Atari that Ted Hoff, former president of Atari's North American operations, was in discussions with several major Atari shareholders to take the video game portion of the business private. Those discussions subsequently fell apart.
From Atari Merger Puts Company's Video Game Business 'In Play' in Multimedia Wire
Followed by Atari's own 1997 first quarter results:
In connection with the merger Atari has extended a bridge loan to JTS in the amount of $25 million. In the event that the merger is not consummated, the bridge loan may be convertible into shares of JTS Series A Preferred Stock at the option of Atari or JTS and subject to certain conditions.As a result of the transaction, Atari stockholders will hold approximately 60% of the outstanding shares of the new company following the merger. The transaction is structured to qualify as a tax-free reorganization and will be accounted for as a purchase.
It's pretty clear this was the best move for the stockholders. 1995 was the pivotal year for the Jaguar. It was clearly failing by 1996. The only other option was to sell off the IP and turn off the lights outright, which JTS later did.
A fire sale of Atari Corp. IP and assets would have probably yielded worse results for stockholders because Atari would have been negotiating from a place of weakness. JTS offered a shot at some buoyancy before any attempt to raise capital by way of any asset/IP selloff.
The court case against Tramiel is simply him (fairly) leveraging JTS' weak financial position later on. It seems the court didn't find any basis of impropriety and the summary doesn't allude to the possibility of a more devious scheme. It looks much more cut and dry than Atari Corp.'s acquisition of Federated a decade earlier.
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Thanks for sharing. I love the Computer Chronicles. Very cool (and obscure) connection to the Jaguar.
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Good job on the opening music! Subscribed. Looking forward to the next episode.
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Pole Position II - I think Asteroids is a better game, and the 7800 version is great in co-op, but PP2 was more contemporary and the 7800 library was a bit dated out of the gate in 1986. I might feel different about the limited 1984 release.
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I'm assuming that by Pirate you mean Jaguar and by Ninja you mean PlayStation.
Based on some discussions I had in the 1990s, I learned that the Jaguar just two 32-bit processors and 32+32 = 64-bit. The PS has five 32-bit processors, making it 160-bit.
You might think that means Ninja wins... but when you add in the untapped potential of the Jaguar, I think you have to go with Pirate. Case closed.
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It's such a shame that the Jaguar never saw a full release of a game like this done right, a la what was hinted at by the Native demo. Now THAT'S what we should have been seeing from day one, and THAT'S what would have truly blown people away and sold systems. Again, though, it goes back to Atari simply not having either the resources or foresight (or both) to see that through.
Agreed but I think it's best to remember that Atari Corp. was trying to make the 'least bad' decision by 1993. Sam's Atari had shrunk from his father's profitable multi-division, multi-platform business to an endeavor with no living product on the shelves (both the Lynx and the Falcon were essentially dead).
In the spring of 1993, the two options were to miss Christmas entirely and launch with better software or to move forward 100% committed to Christmas and figure out the rest later. Considering how important Christmas is to the consumer electronics industry, I don't see how you could ever go with the first choice. If Atari Corp made a mistake, it was over-estimating their ability to deliver enough units for the 1993 holiday launch, but I think that's a risk they simply had to take.
This whole decision is exasperated by the fact that Corp's ATC stock was riding a wave of positive speculation based on the Jaguar news. If they would have missed Christmas, there is no doubt that Wall St. would have lost their minds and made everything in 1994 that much worse.
Finally, it's good to remember that both the Commodore 64 and the Atari ST had successful launches with limited software support.
I'm, of course, being pedantic with the idea of good software from 'day one' for the sake of discussion.
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Supercross 3D - you have been warned...
I thought this was going to be my least favorite episode. I really hated this game. It turned out to be my favorite.I think your design assessment rang especially true: 1) It needs to be brown, 2) it needs to have dirt you can drive on, 3) it needs to have dirt you can’t drive on.BTW - Uganda is now sponsored by Mountain Dew. It happened after the 'Battle for Migingo’ between Uganda and Kenya. You really nailed your Ugandan dirtbike history! Sucked in the 90s, but they're killin' it now!/Schmüdde-
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Great post. Quoting just the part I quoted though, I wonder what Atari's genuine end-game was (not the PR nonsense we all read) when it was clear the Jaguar was a failure after year one and Atari was already running out of what little money they had? Surely they must have realized that there was no scenario where they were getting to a Jaguar 2 and obviously no resources to properly develop such a system, let alone release and support it. I wonder if things like the release of the CD add-on and development of VR and the Jaguar 2 were just "smokescreens" as it were to seem like a viable company (from a technology and IP standpoint) for either a merger or buyout? Either way, it obviously didn't work as the JT Storage reverse takeover was hardly one of the better outcomes.
This is a good question. More than anybody else, I would be interested in talking to Ted Hoff. When he came on as president in 1995, he undertook several initiatives that seemed to improve Atari's image in its core community. I'm only working off of memory, so please forgive me, but I believe he worked on the light rebranding, retail availability, and customer communication, among other things.
Mr. Hoff came in so very late in the game, he had to have some belief that the cause wasn't totally hopeless. Otherwise, why bother? So you can preside over the demise of one of the world's most beloved brands?
The great Gary Kildall once opined on Jack Tramiel's approach thusly - "Jack's strategy has always been to flood the market with product and drive out the competition. He did it with the $10 calculator and he did it again with the Commodore 64." Sam was using the same playbook. Although it might seem naive in hindsight, announcing a product like VR, ginning up interest, and then delivering had worked for for 20 years. If you operate on low margins and with small teams, you might just get that product that hits at the right place at the right time. The Tramiel playbook had worked with typewriters, adding machines, digital calculators, personal computers, graphically driven personal computers... so why not VR? Why not the the next big thing in gaming, the Jaguar 2?
We know the answer in hindsight, but at the time, this may have been what Ted Hoff was working with when he ran Atari for its last full year.
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Liking all this Battlemorph love. I really liked that title.
- Skyhammer
- Battlemorph
- Alien Vs. Predator
- Rayman
- Iron Soldier I/II
- BattleSphere
- Brutal Sports Football
- Defender 2000
- Tempest 2000
- Super Burnout
Quick note on Skyhammer. Yes, I love this game. I love the feeling that there is a bigger world around you. While you're busy taking out a platoon in one area of the city, a previously secure sector in another area of the might get overrun. It is the one game on my list that I feel asks you to think defensively.
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Perhaps the argument isn't clear:
Making a game is about choices. Those choices are based on creative goals measured against technological constraints. Let's take the brilliant team at id -
Do you see what makes this so good? A limited color palette and simple dark lines. Compare this to the less experienced team at Rebellion:
This looks bad because there is no restraint. Look at all that detail! Camouflage? Are you kidding? Not only is it complex, but who the hell needs camouflage in space?! Look at all that shading! There is no way you could capture that detail in such a low resolution sprite. So it looks like shit. That's the sign of not understanding your limitations. That's bad design. Bad design never ages well (unless it does, see punk rock posters).
How would id make a marine? Like this:
This looks pretty great. They hid the face, which is a brilliant choice. Faces are really hard to show at low resolution. The uniform is one color. It looks good small. When it's big, everything is pixelated, but it isn't just a mess of blocks like the AvP marine.
It was clear that GoldenEye was the beginning of a new graphical style. As such, some of the graphics aren't that refined. It was clear to me then and it's clear to me now.
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LOL. GoldenEye NEVER looked awful from 'day 1'. GoldenEye looked f*cking phenomenal back in the day. At the time, the textures, effects and level designs - not to mention - faithful nature to the source material was astounding.
The facial mappings and texture mapped clothing was decent for the time too.
I understand that GoldenEye looked good to most people. Like early CGI (and even some contemporary CGI), I saw it and said "that's not going to age well." Those guards always looked bad. We used to make fun of them back in the day. That's not hindsight. That's just understanding technology and how it ages.
I think GoldenEye and Mario 64 were incredible accomplishments for the time. I respect the hell out of both. But I can also say that they never looked like elegant, beautiful games. Think about it for a second, why do so many later titles look better than early titles on a platform? Imagine the original Atari 2600 programmers trying to do Solaris or the first wave SNES programmers attempting Donkey Kong Country. The later games show a mastering of the creative and technical parameters enforced by the system.
Only a handful of games early games ever rise above this. GoldenEye was never one of them. Too many fuzzy textures and weird bodies. Good game, good looking, but not without significant missteps.
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If only Goldeneye had the high resolution graphics of AvP:
No doubt, the Space Marine sprite has aged particularly poorly. Especially when you compare them to Imp sprites from Doom on the same system.
But the point isn't 'high resolution.' The point is never resolution because resolution will continue to improve. The point is design choices within the parameters given. That's what makes Missile Command, Zelda, and Castlevania IV beautiful games. I would probably put Doom in that list as well, now that I mention it.
Probably no need to clarify that; you're basically saying the same things about early 3D games. The flat shaded polys have their strengths. I'll take the Virtua Fighter figures over some of the mangled humans in Goldeneye. Not that it's a fair comparison -- completely different games with completely different objectives. Just sayin'.
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My original intent for this thread was to talk about games that are the most overhyped now among the jaguar community rather than when the system was released and during that era.
Well... then... can it be anything other than BattleSphere?
- What Jaguar game has had more words devoted to it within the community?
- What Jaguar game is more expensive?
- In light of other successes (AvP, T2K, IS, Rayman), what hyped Jaguar game has had nearly no impact outside of the insular community?
- And what Jaguar game is almost never considered the top game for the system, in spite of all the words and the incredible amount of money paid to play it?
Hint: it's not Atari Karts (although that's a good suggestion
).BattleSphere, BattleSphere, BattleSphere!
Just going by the raw data. Perhaps there is a more nuanced answer that I'm missing?
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Goldeneye hasn't aged well and looks ugly as sin in still screen shots. AVP still looks kinda cool.
I am seeing this sentiment more and more and it makes me quite happy.
I mean, the image above, from Goldeneye, has always looked freakin' awful. From day 1.
Throughout digital tech, there are certain approaches that I didn't think would age well -- N64 was a prime candidate with Mario 64 and Goldeneye being clear examples.
I won't digress here, but the best writeup on this phenomenon is an amazing essay called A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art.
Back to the topic, Alien vs. Predator has some clear framerate problems but I think the story, the graphics, and the sound evoke a time and place that has aged well. Kind of like how Missile Command (arcade), Zelda (NES), and Castlevania IV (SNES) aged well before it.
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It was a joke...
Sorry, I thought comparing Mega Man & Rayman in my post was even more ludicrous... thus making my sarcasm quite clear.
I suppose not. In all seriousness, this what I really want to know:
Jaguar vs. Jaguar. Which is better, the 64-bit Atari Jaguar or a Jaguar XF auto with a V6 diesel engine?
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Atari Jaguar vs 3do
in Atari Jaguar
Posted
See below.
Right. That's why I mentioned the Midway deal, which happened in 1995, after it was clear the Jaguar was not moving many units.
I originally thought it may have been a move made by Ted Hoff. However, this press release from 1995 suggests that it was an extension of an earlier relationship between the two companies:
This would seemingly reinforce your conclusion, Bill. But I'd like to point out that this isn't WMS doubling down or jumping on a sinking ship. These are simply IP licenses. Sam Tramiel had stated publicly that he was looking to spend the $90 million Atari Corp. had received from the 1994 Sega settlement. I still don't think it's out of the question that he would be looking to spend it on IP like Mortal Kombat III (which is proven here) as well as Need for Speed.
IIRC, the Sega deal also included a 5 title/year cross-license between Atari & Sega. Sam Tramiel was definitely swinging for the fences into 1995.
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