BladeJunker

I should try one of those some day, next time I see one in a store I'm going to bug the guy there for a trial test. I can't say I like Red though, I really would have preferred Blue or some way to dial in any color you prefer. http://www.collegehumor.com/post/6044144/virtual-boy-is-not-as-fun-as-it-looks Real shame Gunpei Yokoi made that thing, he wasn't in a high enough status class to make mistakes like Miyamoto can. He made lots of other neat things like Game & Watch, the Cross Pad, Game Boy, Metroid, and the Wonderswan. He was a clever man who used his tools well, I liked how he built from matured affordable technology. Cool gamepad though on the VB, figure it would work well for Robotron 2084 and other twin stick games.

No kidding, would have loved them for Atari computers but not so great when competing with other console makers at the time. Weird move Atari. I've never been fond of advertising, the 90s were terrible with all that attitude nobody asked for, can't say a single ad has ever made me buy a game or a console, mostly magazine coverage swayed me. Funny enough that MK2 ad bitd was pretty cool but I had already bought the game before I saw it, looked even better than the movies. Nowadays all those Sega and Jaguar "bit" ads are just to be laughed at now because real features are usually more compelling than made up buzz words and belittling you competitors, if anything negative campaigning just repels new customers because most of them tried to make gamers feel bad about consoles they already owned and liked. I'll try to get a Pro version but I know the odds are against it because of rarity and demand.

I feel the same way about the SNES cross, too shallow. Yeah not a lot of clearance around the JAG D-pad, I see in the Pro they inverted the conic ring inwards to help with that. Not the best picture but I can see its convex on the original and concave on the Pro. Weight is always tricky, even iPhone users didn't like it when they got too light. You can add artificial weight but its better that goes towards something real like Rumble motors or similar functional things.

Oh good I'm not the only one who thought more buttons, you start to wonder when almost nobody else brings that up. The keypad seemed like an unjustified expense for Atari when they were just reentering the console market after such a long absence. Kind of seems like an accessory they could have added later once they established some market footing first. I'm pretty sure even 1 market testing focus group back in the 90s would have revealed the keypad as being largely unwarranted. When you say questionable, do mean like the shape or the quality of responsiveness? That is one thing emulation can't provide, the feel of the controller, I think that is where I'll start my collecting of Jaguar because you always need some spares anyway.

I see what you're saying but there are exceptions to the rule in owning a Jaguar and not actually becoming an expert like watching James & Mike play Jaguar games, they have many games but can find little joy in playing them so its mostly just sampling. You're more likely to find more people using an emulator that have at least played Jaguar titles for more than a few hours with quality things to say about it rather than someone who is an owner of a console in name only. Just a thought. My biggest barrier to the Jaguar isn't in finding something fun about it but rather the rarity of it, its like hen's teeth in my neighborhood. I heard about the low production runs but you don't really understand the impact of that has until you try to buy one in the aftermarket "You want equal or more than the cost of a refurbished PS3, GTFOOH.". Well back to eBay to get outbid or sniped at the last second. Btw, do you like you like Jaguar controller?

Well I can't defend the negative tone directed towards people just trying to have fun but I questioned it the first time I heard about it "Atari ST games on Jaguar, what, why?". My first thought was why the ST versions rather than the original arcade versions ported since the Jaguar and ST aren't very similar from what I read there. In some ways I can appreciate the port content getting another layer of preservation but I guess that depends how close you stay to that versions game logic code. On the other hand whatever form it takes all the better for the Jaguar embracing 2D games in the same way the Sega Saturn did for 2D arcade games albeit in Japan only. Did CyranoJ ever get a Team Tap? They have one here for not too much, someone pick this up for him because they probably don't ship to his shores. http://www.lukiegames.com/Atari-Jaguar-Team-Tap-Multi-player-Adapter-_p_22152.html

Ah thank you, seen plenty of it but didn't know it had a name.

Looking closer at the World of Longplays JAG videos I think that was emulator recorded because the alpha masking is all screwed up in AVP. My topic is more about system FMV but it is also about console AV output too as well as web representation of the Jaguar to a lesser extent so here we are for this post. -Mostly looked for the best examples, easier anyway since there are fewer and was looking for certain visual aspects to highlight. -Wow a lot videos just looking at Jaguar console pieces rather than playing it, that or looking at some dude talk about it for 30 minutes. -Also noticed so called stock footage use, not so bad if the quality is good but bad when you can make better footage yourself. This ones pretty good too as it preserves the 4:3 aspect ratio with some pillarboxing. He brings up something I totally missed about Atari Karts, its full screen unlike SMK and the background has parallax, I was looking at the driver so much I didn't notice. A shared topic but some clean Jaguar footage. Man neither of them are into Jaguar so be warned, don't want to hear it then skip this one or mute it. This one is interesting because it looks like the interlacing is attacking the sharpness of moving objects. Also the original compression might be a tad too high. A nice compilation but there must be some interference in there. There's definitely a unique image quality to the output of the consoles from this era that even the best native examples have some inherent "crunchiness" to them. I can't quite pin down what causes thatch dither patterns here and there, see it in 3DO often too. The best I can come up with is the divide of RGB versus all other AV standards since I doubt VGA looks quite like Component or lower. In this one I see something I've seen in a few examples which is letterboxing or clipping of the output image on the exterior edge. Looks like it varies per title and probably has something to do with NTSC PAL differences or basic "safe zone" SD-TV clipping requirements. Just for fun. Man no system looks good when you look at all the old advertisements or promotions, video game marketing in the 90s was weird.

Yeah it's kind of in the same boat as The Duke on the original Xbox, a lot people don't like how big the Jaguar controller is. I actually have big hands but don't find smaller controllers hard to use, there must me some kind of scale ratio liked by the largest group of people. Well the keypad divides gamers perception more than anything into different tribes, it shouldn't but its a factor. While the classic gaming sensibilities are being taken advantage of with those Atari ST ports the limit of 3 action buttons when the Jaguar was new really limited what you could do for fighting games which were 4+ buttons by the 90s, and 3D games where controls needed either an analog joystick or a heck of a lot buttons to approximate that kind of control IE. the first gen PS1 games. I want one but by the time I get to collecting Jaguar I'll probably have to make my own. Lol that just sort of came up with the CD-i being in the same generation as the Jaguar. Oh sure opinion pieces, I've pretty much sworn off Top 10 videos. I always wished the Jaguar had more peripherals so I was pleased to see the rotary control people cooked for Tempest 2000. Actually looking at the hardware generation there are a lot of good controller pieces developed at the time but it took too long for them to be put together into more versatile controllers. Still its a neat time to live in since we can pretty much make whatever we want now like people modding Power Gloves to work on other systems. Its challenging to share such projects though, even with my own controller project eventually I have to figure out to get it into all gamer hands.

That's fair logic and I don't relish CD-i bashing but I've seen a lot of "half foot in the water" partial gaming devices that luxury or not sort of screwed themselves into obscurity. There is literally dozens of these media consoles in gaming history where I maybe knew 1 person who had one or I knew someone who knew someone else who had one. The 3DO was like that too as well as LD games. Oh I know how hard it is to find CD-i gear, there is virtually nothing left where I live, I found an empty case at a thrift store of Compton's Encyclopedia lol. One of the tall cases, actually like the case aesthetics so I kept it. It seems easier to find one in Europe and probably in the USA but where I live it would 100% eBay to even get one. It's that limited quality game pool, high cost, and rarity that puts it way down my priority list in collecting. The multimedia titles don't interest me so it can't push my priority higher. If it were easy to get I'd probably have bought one by now but first a 5200, a Jaguar, and getting a 2nd 3DO game lol. Yeah I like The Apprentice and all those games by that developer, I think they were from the Netherlands and were one of the few to make high quality 2D games for the CD-i which unfortunately didn't reach every CD-i owner around the world IIRC. The light gun games are fun but its easier to find them on other platforms. I thought Zombie Dinos looked interesting despite some gameplay stumbles. It's got some highlights here and there.

Definitely a unique library for some kind of more obscure demographic often described to me but I knew very few people like that. I guess the Web-TV became a thing but Philips was just too early. Control was definitely segmented a lot on the platform, in hindsight I think a lot of that could have been collapsed into one controller. Was never convinced the TV remote option ever worked right, unless you can just aim it like the Wii did it's just not intuitive to do anything with one hand other than watch TV/Videos using the CD-i one. Yeah it was slanted towards education but to me the CD-i is just an average 2D system with a good screen resolution. Hindsight is 20/20 but basing your entire system around FMV only works if the MPEG is built into the default unit so its primary function looks best but it was sold separately and the base unit wasn't cheap. Oh my mistake, should have named it. That was the Gravis Gamepad, first time I saw Philips written on it I had to laugh "Hey that's just a Gravis Gamepad painted grey.". I remember that about the PS2, that initial high price turned me off completely and I didn't get one till way later around the time the Slim came out. So much hype for a platform that was inferior to its competition quite soon after, I didn't wait overnight outdoors to get one but I remember that happening. I wouldn't go as far as saying media consumers were given priority in all cases as much as it is an easier sell to a wider number of customers if you have multimedia support especially in any household like family living rooms IE. the All-In-One unit. Some people say gaming machines are just gaming machines but my PS1 was what I used to listen to my first CDs bitd and my Xbox became my primary TV DVD player after my PC. I do remember interference not long ago by Sony towards porn videos on Blu-Ray, they don't like the image but every single video format has been influenced by porn buying markets. To me that is just silly, people make videos, you sell them the format media, I don't like Twilight movies but I'm not going to stop people from having them on Blu-Ray. That is weird the Nuon had a non gaming option but I guess it wasn't an Atari platform yet. Its just so much easier to turn a gaming machine into a media player than it is to turn a media player into a gaming machine which I think the CD-i fell into.

Yeah I noticed the slight jaggies here and there, noticeable but not a deal breaker in my books. Quite tricky with the compression, like is that the video or is that YT compression I'm seeing.

When you say reduced performance, do you mean like frame rate or increased loading pauses because the data transfer is slow? So you can't use it as system memory but could you keep a data pool on such a cart? Was trying to think of better way to do prerendered 3D backgrounds like Highlander/Resident Evil on the cart instead of the CD streaming content so that could handle music and or voice tracks.

Yeah I didn't think currently that would be possible. Is there any barrier to just making the cartridge bigger? Right silly me, didn't put that one together and I'd seen it a more than a few times in compilations. Okay I see, I'm familiar with that kind of artifacting. Most of my FMV game research has lead to Cinepak, I really should get acquainted with it. So homebrewers don't need that error correction code anymore or does it reduce how much of the 650 MB you can use? I figured the coding had been solved so I was mostly mentioning the mechanical failures, so temperamental a bit. Didn't think so but I had to ask. It's a tricky matter to protect them with selling but it does open commerce to a lot of gamers that play exclusively through emulation so I hope somebody gives it a try someday.

Hah Google turns that into "Super Smash Controller", apparently that's a thing on GC. Pick your names carefully friends. Looks pretty sweet, I can definitely see Raiden being awesome on it.

Forgot about that cool one but more often than not you'll get one of these instead. Then there's always these. Actually been lobbying people pick up the white PC one common to many thrift shops and convert the plugs. I had one back when I started PC gaming, not the best but got the job done in Jazz Jackrabbit.

That's too bad but yeah most any Jaguar owner will likely have to use the stock controller, if I ever get the scratch together for one that is likely what I'll be using. Could be worse is all I can say, not great but functional enough. Hell it could be a CD-i lol, sorry fans of that. You're right it was still mainstream enough so I guess the worst by default in that category. Looking at the Pippin I'm pretty sure I would have hated it, used a lot of PC gamepads like that and the shape ergonomics is awful especially in the D-pad, also I think the Amiga32 D-pad would have totally hurt my thumb. And sure the Jaguar D-pad could be better too. :\

Yeah that's what I was asking about, seen a few and most look pretty good.

I don't know that bear looks pretty satisfied to beat that corpse.

I'm guessing you don't like it? What do you use, got one of those arcade type sticks?

I've never talked about it yet so I'll chime in. Well its a gang mentality connected to a band-wagoning effect, the Jaguar has some problems so every single piece of it has to be belittled. It's like kicking a guy on the ground, people just can't help but join in, people complain about a troll here and there but troll gangs are far worse. It's comfortable enough to not get badgered as it does, it's not a late 70s or early 80s controller so its not that foreign to modern hands, basically a Genesis pad with a keypad. I guess the shape could flair out more handle like for better comfort, much like the Saturn 3D pad and the Dreamcast the 90 degree right angle grip shape pinches the wrists more than you think in long gaming sessions. Mostly I think it was too bad the Jaguar couldn't be released with the Pro controller right out the gate. I still don't quite understand how Atari settled on 3 buttons when 4+ was becoming more and more common into and through the 90s. Genesis=3to6, SNES=6, 3DO=5, PS1=8, there's a clear projection of more and more buttons on home consoles and in arcade titles. I thought the keypad was fine, the placement was great for a gamepad shape and was copied on the 360 later for its chat keyboard. The only problem with all keypads is how underutilized they are historically because they don't exist much except on the consoles that have them so anything ported won't have much or any use for one usually, like arcade titles or games that appeared on other systems. Still saying that I thought the Doom keypad layout was very nice and captured some of the conveniences hotkeys afford in computer games. I guess I was a little surprised by the lack of control accessories for the Jaguar, I mean the previous consoles had Paddles, Trackballs, etc. I guess it wasn't around long enough to get into that much in peripherals. Still think controllers would have been a cheaper investment compared to CD drives bitd.

Well I'm not surprised by the lack of MPEG chips, they were too expensive anyway and the consoles of the day did FMV decently enough without them, albeit the Sega CD not as well lol. It was probably for the best such things weren't made for the Jaguar, unwanted expense for a market not terribly into Video CDs. Seeing that a lot more now than in the past the CD+Cart combo in homebrew, like Genesis games with CD soundtracks. Can the Jaguar do RAM carts like the Saturn can? Heard about the memory card approach through the slot so it can save games like the Sega CD did? Cinepak seems like the go to bitd for consoles and they rarely seemed to deviate much, although there were less codecs back then. Too bad FLI/FLV didn't happen, a lot of consoles are kind of stuck with the codec(s) they had when new because the new codecs take so much more spec to run. It's a lot of work to make a codec but it's too bad no one is likely to make a new format with all the insight and hindsight we have now with video compression. I think that is true of all the platforms that given another chance we could do a better job with FMV this time around.

So you think FMV was about 3DO quality, the sort of average for the time without dedicated hardware? Yeah it was kind of weird bitd for FMV since many consoles had MPEG cards but they were expensive add-ons sold separately. Seems like most developers went the software route for the most part with FMV even on PCs in the 90s with codecs like Smacker. I saw some footage from that unreleased game American Hero, that would have probably shown off JAG FMV the most. Well that's what I seeing in a lot of Jaguar videos on YouTube with a fair amount of TV filming. As far as output well I think that is mostly in the price and availability of better AV cables, looks like Composite isn't too hard to get but anything higher seems harder. If I lived in Europe it looks fairly easy to get RGB output through SCART but it seems harder to get S-video in NA. I'm not sure exactly what is happening but platforms like the Jaguar and often the GBA are poorly represented on YT, the compression is fairly high so less than good video source files just get worse by the time they upload. There is some kind of gap between the better recording methods and the Jaguar because many other consoles have sharper YT representation. World of Longplays has 3 good quality Jaguar videos, I don't know if they used an emulator or RGB output but they look good. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL18CDF59F6487A867 Do you know of any good places for Jaguar AV cables other than eBay or Amazon or is that it?

Hello I am looking for information on Jaguar FMV. I did try the Search function but the subject is kind of mired in this VS that debates so it's hard to sift through. Please answer anything you can or wish to address. It's tricky to find good quality YT videos about it as the default RF outputs poorly and a lot people just film their televisions, not complaining since I do the same thing to capture clips of the games I collect but having trouble finding some sharper quality captures to analize. I think Game Sack was the sharpest most full screen Jaguar footage I could find but they didn't cover any FMV titles. I hear that Catbox is pretty good, any YT channels with users that have that device for output recordings of gameplay onto a DVR or similar device? It's kind of funny looking at Catbox videos as they show off the device itself in quite sharp detail but not so much what is does visually with better recording video source files. While most people are likely using the default RF filmed off TV screens I think better videos are needed for sharper HD representation of the console ijs. I think I tried a Jaguar maybe twice when it was released(I thought it was alright.) so I don't really know anything about how FMV or what the Jaguar CD was like. Don't worry I'll spare you any questions about hardware malfunctions, I'm not here to crap on the platform like so many others seem to relish in. Do any of the cart titles have FMV clips, how are Jaguar carts these days, any bigger like memory stick capacity where FMV would fit on them? Heard about the Skunk board, any new ones of those or similar? Can the default base unit run FMV at all without the CD add-on? Don't see any MPEG chips so the Jaguar/JAG CD just crunched FMV through software and raw hardware throughput? What kind of codecs did they use, any post JAGCD codecs tried out? What was the resolution like on average, 320X240 mostly? Can the Jaguar do video sprites like the 3DO did like in Killing Time? FMV on Jaguar any good in your opinion, what would you say it was comparable to in quality, Video CDs, Sega Saturn, etc.? I see particular CDRs are needed which is normal on consoles, I've to make Sega CDs but I guess I don't have to right kind lol. I guess nobody makes those bigger Atari CDs anymore, are homebrews on 650 MB format? Said I wouldn't bring up malfunctions but does anyone have trouble running homebrews? I understand the logic of CD stamping homebrew games but that must present some challenges with the Jaguar CD and homebrew access? Does anybody sell ROMs/ISOs for emulator gaming? Do you think the Jaguar could have made a go at Adult rated games like the 3DO? I'm assuming the average buyer of Jaguar was at least 18+ most of the time, yes/no? I know most of them weren't very good but hey even crap stuff like the Power Glove could have been better if it had had more than 1 true title made for it. And no I wasn't implying the Power Glove be used for that but I guess it could. Played a lot of Sega CD games so tried my fair share of FMV games so I know the ups and downs of them. I'm not really set up for making such games at the moment so I'm just looking into various FMV potentials. You know if someone made an FMV retro homebrew the only way the budget could be justified NOW is if it came out on as many retro platforms as possible IE. Sega CD/Jaguar/3DO/PS1/Saturn/Dreamcast. Just pondering about it.

I know you have your game up for anyone to try. I speak of more exposure for the platform itself which in turn makes your excellent work all the more visible. Some people offer the ROM for free, others sell them, and others sell limited carts which may or may not have illegitimate ROMs on the web. It's a broad sense matter, the Flashback reminds people that Intellivision existed and still exists but how far does that discovery last in the mind of the consumer? I'm sorry if you are bothered by this direction, I meant to inspire not alienate. Well so far I haven't seen much talk in regard to techniques beyond the normal operation of the hardware which I've seen on many other forums. So far it's pretty by the book ijs. Yeah I couldn't agree more so I don't know where this is coming from? I just suggested limit pushing pursuits as a direction for arcade ports but you and Zilla would hear nothing of the sort. You can do whatever you like, I can't make you do anything. First time I've been called that. Too bad we will likely never meet because if you knew me you'd see how far from that I am. Now who sounds elitist, sarcastic or not. I assumed your game was written in Assembler because it has the high quality of an officially released game bitd. I never said you did anything wrong, you're leaping bro. Yeah it really is unique in that regard, I'm just trying to feel out the landscape because I am blind figuratively speaking. Yeah again there is always things in arcade games hard to do on any hardware but developers have found good compromises over the decades. Your skin doesn't have to be thick at all, I'm not attacking you. If this were a "flame war" I'd have probably pulled out childish insults by now. I still think you're underestimating the importance of ports, I'm not dismissing creative works as much as you are fighting me on ports and there place in the gaming landscape along with the necessary limit pushing that makes them possible on hardware other than the arcade PCBs.