Lost Dragon

Purple confirms Rebellion won the AVP contract at Jaguar Development conference. Whittaker tells Pocket Magazine HE was hired by Atari to make AVP. Aso he only visited Rebellion once, was never a Rebellion employee, yet worked on PC AVP 5 years later... http://mleguludec.free.fr/dossiers/interview/jc_interview_Andrew_Wittaker.htm Purple makes clear Whittaker was a Rebellion coder and just another coder, duties were A. I routines,Mike Beaton was lead coder.. Whittaker tells Wireframe Magazine, issue 2, HE and Mike were leading coding. Purple talks of movie nights, watching all the films at Ted and Carrie Tahquechi's house, brainstorming sessions, faxes going to and fro between Atari and Rebellion, Purple 'encouraging' Rebellion to do the same due process research. Jane's stance is a blunt.. I was an avid Alien fan, must of watched the movie over 200 times during making of AVP.

ANDREW : Immediately before AvP I had worked on a project called Darkseed which did very well, especially in the USA. That involved me working alongside the designer of the "Alien" HR Giger to bring his work to the computer screen. When AvP came along, because of the success of that I was asked to design and develop the AvP experience. Giger obviously remembered me as when the Alien licence was taken by Atari I was approached by Giger, Atari and Fox to develop that licence for the Jaguar launch. It was a great opportunity to develop on an exciting new machine with movies that I really loved. I studied the movies solid for many months before coming up with a game design. My aim was simple, to recreate the feeling and atmosphere of the "Alien" movie. I wanted people jumping, feeling claustrophobic and have the fear of being hunted in an unknown environment. http://alive.atari.org/alive8/andreww.php Lance: What was great, was that the lead programmers/artists at Rebellion had never even seen Alien or Predator movies. None of them. Greg: Funny, I remember reading how they went and watched them all though. Lance: They watched the movies after we MADE them. The first rev they submitted to us as a FINAL was awful...There was no objectives other than shooting and finding the exit. That was all the game consisted of. *Jane has classed his role as lead coder on AVP numerous times... Our due diligence research has shown Jane's actual involvement with Dark Seed was not as he claims, working with Cyberdreams, being scanned for main character, providing voice work, doing graphics on the Amiga version.. He was a playtester for a brief stint whilst at Mirage. The statements proving the above have been passed onto the Judge dealing with the ongoing court case and the evidence also explains why only Cyberdreams staff and UK magazine writers are in photographs with Giger for Dark Seed press, not Jane.

Jane credits himself as being an absolute Alien Fan, having watched the movie some 200X during the making of AVP and depending on which interview with him you read, working with H. R GIGER on Dark Seed, prior to working on AVP. Yet he also talks of AVP being the first game that let's you play as The Monster. So, he's had all this experience, worked with Giger, Ridley Scott etc, yet still fails to understand the nature of the Alien species? From the Wiki: The Alien (also known as a Xenomorph XX121 or Internecivus raptus) is a fictional endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species that is the antagonist of the Alien film It has no higher goals than Propagation and self-preservation, it eliminates any other species it perceives as a threat. Whittaker tells Pocket Gamer he was never a Rebellion employee, only an Atari one, yet in the Game Pro Interview, he's a Rebellion employee.. It's nigh on impossible to say if he watched the movies before, during or whatever and if by his own choice. He contradicts himself so much so often. And, having read interviews with Dave Stalker, Fox Interactive, producer on PC AVP (Rebellion) and AVP II (Monolith), he makes very clear Fox have the final say on what goes in the games and that often means what occurs in the films, isn't allowed or is workable in the games,so watching the movies countless times wasn't the be all and end all for making a game based on the Dark Horse Comics franchise.. They wouldn't allow Hicks Pistol Grip Shotgun, Aliens would be on you before you had chance to use it. The Aliens aren't allowed to spit acid, despite the xenomorphs in Alien Resurrection doing just that, they have to be in your face to kill you. They couldn't use the movie Predator cloaking effect, it didn't make the Predator invisible in the game. Yet you can find Jane telling Pocket Gamer, Sam Tramiel and Atari let him make the AVP game he wanted.. That's nonsense, as Stalker put it, Fox were very careful how the franchises were used in games. Whittaker's comments constantly jar with others accounts. Whittaker claims Mike Beaton flew back to the UK with him to finish AVP, Purple states Mike stayed in the USA until game was finished. Jane describes coding duties as being done by just him and Mike, yet credits clearly state additional coding by Mike Pooler.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/?p=16899 Lost Zool Arcade Game. https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/03/pac-land-v1/

Yep, way too many egos. Jez San blames Sega for DC Red Dog Jim Gregory and Martin Hooley blame Atari for Jaguar and Lynx failures.. It's never that black and white.

Would I help anyone write an article, in the vain hope of closure on this matter? Where would we start and what would it achieve? Is the simplest answer. It couldn't be just about Jane Whittaker, the industry is drowning I people who've presented misleading information during press events. Andrew/Jane Whittaker Jez San Peter Molyneux Team Scavenger Martin Hooley (Imagitec Design) Jim Gregory (Handmade Software) The Tramiel Family Ocean Software Mark Cale (System 3) Steve Wilcox (Elite). You'd then have to ask why writers, editors etc ran the interviews, never challenged the claims, did due diligence background research and did so knowing the individual lied, but just wanted the story, their name in lights etc. I've only stuck with the Whittaker fiasco, because I class Andrew Rosa as a good friend and feel Whittaker abused the trust of him, when Andrew interviewed him for his YT channel. Plus this is real, it's going to court, the legal fees involved already are astronomical and that's before the counter claim cases start. A very real line could be drawn under this, Whittaker exposed and a message sent to anyone else thinking they can use the press to rewrite history in their favour. But even with what's been uncovered already, we see the likes of AVP Galaxy, Retro Hour Podcast, Arcade Attack looking to give Whittaker further opportunities to lie and self promote. If people are ignoring the existing clear and present warnings, further articles are pointless. Let the courts deal with Jane.

Apologies for long, drawn out post above, but the facts cannot be made clear enough. Many might have seen the public statements from the likes of Steve Turner, Graftgold, Patrick Ketchum Cyberdreams, misc quotes from people who worked on Power Crystal 3DO M2, PC:Dungeon Keeper II, Populous III etc. But senior level statements from people with MicroProse Atari, E A, RARE, Mirage etc have also been obtained, forwarded to the judge. A few possibly reading this know exactly what has been said in private about Jane being mentored in the USA by the Tramiel family. This isn't HATE speech, it's plain and simple due diligence research into exposing a serial liar, who has abused the trust of those who gave Jane a platform and a voice, when carrying out interviews in good faith for the benifit of the greater community. The BBC reporter was told quite bluntly by myself to jog on some months ago, I am not looking for the dirt on Whittaker, I am not researching for their behalf for a promised exposure program that will never happen until the legal proceedings are finally settled. Mike Beaton was approached, happy to discuss work on AVP, until we mentioned Jane. All communication with Mike promptly ceased at that point. Rebellion themselves refuse to comment, last i knew the BBC were in contact with Rebellion P. R staff. There was i believe some legal dispute between Whittaker and Rebellion, if that's still on-going, i do not know. People can easily obtain the legal documents showing the exact date Perceptions went bankrupt, which kills the claim Power Crystal was only killed because the M2 was killed. I strongly dislike Liars. I have the utmost respect for the likes of Mike Singleton, H. R GIGER, Jack Tramiel, John Hurt and find it disgusting Jane name drops them, knowing full well due to their passing, they are unable to counter the claims. Jane should be proud of having had the opportunity to work alongside the people he has over the years and be humble enough to admit he was a small part of a much bigger team each time. Claiming AVP was his, 30 Graftgold titles, key roles on Dark Seed, helping come up with concept for Midwinter etc, is simply disgraceful. Shouting victim of hate speech as soon as anyone counters his claims or asks for proof of his roles is even worse. Putting up the same old stock photos and banging the Jaguar AVP work, won't counter any of the evidence going before the Judge and claiming misrepresentation in interviews now, is a straw man arguement.

Just going to make a few things crystal clear before i go any further. 1.Jane is involved in a very lengthy and drawn-out court case with numerous individuals from the games industry and yes, I have been assisting in due diligence research into Jane's claims for at least 2 of them and at one point a BBC reporter. However my focus has purely been on Jane's claims to the likes of: Pocket Gamer, Gamestm, Game Pro, Retrogamer Magazines Atari Explorer online etc interviews and on the GAME DEVELOPMENT side only. I refuse to get involved in anything relating to Jane's charity work, personal life, gender claims etc. For myself it's been very simple. Jane has lied about involvement and fabricated anecdotes etc with the sole purpose to provide misleading information. I have a passion for Lost Games Research and it was the utter nonsense about Power Crystal being 100% finished and reviewed, that set me onto Jane's lies. 2.Due to the on-going Legal Proceedings, many individuals have asked for their quotes to remain anonymous and many more have submitted evidence that will only be seen by the Judge dealing with the case and cannot be made public. 3.Literally hundreds of man hours have been put into due diligence research and believe me, it was an utter chore looking through old UK press trying to find the Stellar Trader game adverts Jane claims his father placed and game sold 1000's of copies, world wide, yet was coded from a Hospital bed. We also had to painstakingly gather every interview the late Mike Singleton carried out, find interviews with people from Graftgold, RARE, Bullfrog, Cyberdreams, Rebellion, Atari, Flair, Mirage, Maelstorm, MicroProse UK, Firebird etc etc. Then ensure via multiple source checks, that what was printed was actually true,as the press itself was happy to fabricate claims. From there, we asked if people knew Jane, put transcripts of Jane's claims to coders, producers, artists, playtesters, musicians, to see if anyone had worked with Jane in any role... Yes, Jane had done Data Entry on Midwinter III/Ashes Of The Empire, PLAY TESTED briefly Amiga Dark Seed whilst at Mirage, had specific roles on AVP, briefly been employed at Graftgold and worked on Flying Shark before being sacked, pitched an Amiga conversion of Uridium to Steve Turner (an early proof of concept demo, a friend of Jane's had coded). We also found Jason Kingsley of Rebellion liked to fabricate and change stories per interview, claiming in one he coded Atari 400/800 Star Raiders.. The origins story of Rebellion getting a Jaguar Development contract changed per interview and has now morphed into the giant claim of they were granted one on the back of their PC title, Eye Of The Storm and the Viking Longboats Vs Dragons, tech demo. Jason constantly swears blind he and his brother came up with the 3 Seperate campaign concept and FPS viewpoint for Jaguar AVP, James Purple Hampton strongly disputes this. Kingsley also swears blind he and his team which includes Whittaker, watched all the movies as research, Lance Lewis strongly disputes it. 4.We have Jane on record saying he worked on PC AVP and his A. I routines were used on it, complete nonsense game was built from ground up for THE PC and in later statements Jane admits he wasn't at Rebellion, had nothing to do with their later AVP titles. We have Jane claiming Jaguar AVP A. I routines used in N64 Goldeneye, again, utter nonsense, Dr David Doak wrote his own routines. Jane takes credit for being digitized and providing voice work for Amiga and PC Dark Seed, no, that's Mike Dawson. The solicitors and Judge have been presented with a literal mountain of evidence and Jane's industry name dropping on Twitter is a very foolish move on Jane's part, as counter statements from many individuals have been obtained.

Post from Rebellion : Rebellion Developments. Just to make this clear (and feel free to object, Andy, if you think this isn't fair): Andrew Whittaker wrote the alien (marine, predator, as appropriate) AI code, and the code for the computers. A programmer at Atari wrote part of the startup code. Mike Beaton wrote everything else (graphics engine, HUD code, etc). Calling either of them 'lead coder' isn't really fair. -- dan @ Rebellion This is half the problem we face now, with each interview granted to Whittaker, he rewrites history to suit his new agenda, he suddenly never worked for Rebellion, he was never attached to Rare... His role on AVP has changed more times than I care to count. Hopefully Arcade Attack by now can get a sense of just how much damage Jane is causing with the wild claims. You can't simply claim you had a pivotal role in various flagship titles and not expect to be challenged.

Found the Rebellion coder comments about Jane's first day with them: Back in the very beginning of my games industry career (I'm guessing about 1994) I was working at Rebellion, on the Atari Jaguar version of Checkered Flag, when Andrew Whittaker turned up to work on Alien vs Predator, along with Mike Beaton. He turned up on a rainy day having walked from the station in his socks, as he didn't wear shoes for some inexplicable reason, and spent most of the day bemoaning the fact that nobody had been sent to collect him from the station. Amazingly he was taken on (I'm guessing his ability to bluff was already well honed by then) and so some months later when I was working in Atari's Sunnyvale offices on finishing off the game, he and Mike were there too. He claimed at some point that all of his work was done, and left Mike to work out why certain things were not working, and as I was at that time waiting for QA test results on my game I spent some time working with Mike to ascertain what was wrong. It took quite a while but I eventually discovered that Andrew had written the code (all hand-coded assembler) with hand coded jump instructions all over the place which resulted in the situation where a small change in one file to modify the behaviour of a standard enemy Alien had accidentally changed the behaviour of the Alien Queen as well, and resulted in it teleporting around the map at random. All of this is of course something which everyone learns not to do when they first start coding - jumping about within the code just creates so many risks that in most companies I've worked at since it is specifically banned.

What a senior staffer from Bullfrog's Populous III:The Beginning said about Andrew/Jane Whittaker : All I know about Andrew Whittaker is that his name seems to appear as the last entry in the 'Thanks To:' section of the Populous:The Beginning credits list within the game anual. I never met anyone called Andrew Whittaker, and I have no idea what, if he had one at all, his role was in the development, nor what, if anything, he contributed. There were a lot of people involved in the making of the game, including people from EA based in Langley, Berks, whilst the main development team was in Guildford, so it's possible that he might have contributed towards some library or support code that EA had developed, but if that was the case, I would have thought he would have had more of a credit than a 'Thanks'. It's worth noting that of all the names on the credit list, about 99% I know who they were, or at least where they worked and what they contributed. With Andrew Whittaker, I have no idea. It's also worth noting that I was part of the Senior Management team at Bullfrog around that time, and of course management (as well as developer) on the game itself, and one thing I can say with certainty is that nobody called Andrew Whittaker had a management role in the making of that game.

Whittaker joined Rebellion when they expanded the team for AVP, then went with Mike Beaton to the USA to join the Atari AVP team. Rebellion staff have given an account of his first day with them and what he was hired to do for them.

I'd been directed there, as told he was name dropping and trying to engage with likes of Carmack. I had a browse thinking Jane might have shared new evidence to back up his claims, just found the same, tired old Bullfrog business cards.. Whittaker states he didn't join till Peter Molyneux left, well that rules out Dungeon Keeper II and Populous III then. The Indestructibles was Sean Coopers baby, not Peter's. We then see the same tired old Atari AVP team photos... He's basically now calling the late Lance Lewis a liar, saying he did watch all the Alien/Predator films. The newspaper clipping of him at Goldeneye film Premier is from his local, Hull newspaper Leonard Tramiel and others within Atari, dispute the whole mentored by the family claim. Tempest 2000 was coded by Jeff Minter in Wales. Catalyst Coders, not Graftgold did C64 Flying Shark. Edge has never scored out of 100,Perceptions went bankrupt 6 months before Panasonic pulled plug on the M2 The most basic due diligence flags Whittaker up from the off. But If Arcade Attack, AVP Galaxy, Retro Hour podcast want to engage with him and promote him, their call, but can't say they weren't warned.

If your seriously considering interviewing Jane Whittaker, so Jane can roll out the same repeated claims about The Tramiel family, rewards for doing AVP etc.. I'd humbly suggest you ask Leonard and Sam Tramiel about Jane's claims of being mentored by The Tramiel family in Sunnyvale.. Patrick Ketchum of Cyberdreams about Jane's Dark Seed and H. R GIGER claims, yesv, Jane had minor involvement on Dark Seed, but not with Cyberdreams, only Mirage. You can also do your groundwork and look over these and read the testimonials from likes of: Steve Turner (Graftgold) Various Ex-friends of the late Mike Singleton. Misc Bullfrog staff who actually worked Dungeon Keeper II https://airentertainment.biz/jane-whittaker-proven-to-be-an-industry-fraud/ https://www.icemark.com/blog/archives/2018/04/16/midwinter-sid-meier-and-the-chinese-restaurant/comment-page-1/#comments You can also ask BJ WEST if he or any of The Sims teams knew Jane... Then ask yourself why likes of Wireframe Magazine and https://www.biggamesmachine.com/portfolio/meet-jane-whittaker/… have pulled online interviews with Jane, Retrogamer Magazine will never reuse the interview they did with him. The likes of yourselves and The Retro Hour podcast, really need to due some due diligence background checks. Jenovi did and he had sense to drop the interview. Your call..

Sorry for the necrobump, but just sent GTW some addt. PC press for this: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/07/space-junk/ And in amongst the imagery was another new screen for Freelancer. With capton: 'Freelancer has taken the graphic look of Jurassic Park and Spear Of Destiny and considerably improved on it'. The article makes clear at this stage, most of Imagitec Design's focus was being spent on the Humans sequel, Evolution:Lost In Time.

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/03/return-to-fractulas/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/03/atomic-lunch/

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/03/benefactor/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/03/mutant-speed-demons/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/02/transformers/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/02/wrecking-crew-ects-1997-prototype/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/02/the-living-daylights/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2021/02/scavenger/

Found a few more quotes from Bob Gleadow of Atari UK regarding the planned ST Console. In among the standard expected UK release dates of either September 1990 or early 1991 and £99 price tag, Gleadow talks of the ST Console having "An extended graphics capability '. He rules out hardware sprites, but talked of" hardware-controlled" horizontal and vertical scrolling... so i assume the console wouldn't of been a vanilla ST set up, inside the XE-style case? He also claimed 3 ST consoles were already in the hands of (unnamed) US Software houses and UK software houses would get theirs in late December 1988. The other misc press also talked of Atari sources (USA) putting the ST Console on hold, whilst all efforts were focused on making the Lynx a success. The issue wasn't with the console technology, as that already existed, more a case of waiting for the right time to release it.

I had so many issues with Fallout III locking my PS3 console, I ended up buying it again on the 360. There it did what Fallout N. V did, it lost essential NPC's, meaning you couldn't complete quests and had to reload earlier saves. Very frustrating,but i stuck with the series.

Missile Command 3D coder, Martin Brownlow put the blame on the Tramiel family, quote from his interview with JEO at the time: MB] Blame Atari... "Oh, and texture this, texture that, texture the other." "But textures are at least 8x slower than flat shaded" says I. "Actually," says Atari, "they're at least 22x slower, but we want them anyway". You saw how the motorcycle game (Supercross 3D --Ed.) game came out - really slow - that's because they gave in to Atari and textured everything, which the Jag just can't handle. But there was someone online claiming he'd spoken to Supercross 3D coder and he'd said the decision had entirely been that of the Tiertex bosses. I did press him for more information and the full quote, but never heard anymore from him. Shame, it would of been nice to get a bit more insight.

Possibly not helped by the infamous Sam Tramiel interview in Edge and Next Generation magazines, where he puts the Jaguar ahead of the Saturn and just behind the Playstation in terms of power.. And Darryl Still's disaster letter to C+VG Magazine, where he stated Jaguar was faster than Playstation for things like link-up games and just needed the CD ROM unit to compete with Playstation and Saturn. There's also been some nonsense over the years in RetroGamer Magazine Jaguar articles on the Jaguar from certain coders etc. People buy into the issue of it must be true as it's printed in a supposedly credible publication. Like Cyrano says, it's Xmas day, just enjoy the machine for what it is, what it offers and appreciate there are people out there putting efforts into ensuring it still has fresh titles to enjoy.

I'd add a few side notes to most of the titles above: You've got to factor in internal politics when it comes to accounts from staff working on Checkered Flag and Kasumi Ninja. Rebellion staff at the time on Newsgroups described it as a mere contract title-Atari wanted a plain polygon Racer, so that's what Rebellion gave them, they also hinted at Atari not allowing them as much control over the product as they would of liked. It was rushed to market, as Atari badly needed product on the shelves.. There were massive internal staff conflicts within Rebellion itself, with the Kingsley Bros talking of coders leaving after they couldn't do the math, disputes over taking undue credit for work, massively overstating their roles. The Kingsley Bros themselves can't even give the same account of how they got the Jaguar development contract, one claims he wrote Star Raiders on the Atari 8-bit. Rebellion want to take credit for AVP concepts Purple Hampton and his team came up with. Mike Beaton and others from Rebellion refuse to talk about their Jaguar development. Jane Whittaker has spent years lying to press and public alike. I doubt we will ever know the true story behind the internal relationships or that of Rebellion and Atari.. It's an utter mess. The same applies to Handmade Software and Kasumi Ninja. Jim Gregory puts the entire blame on Atari and the Tramiel family, yet conviently leaves out the fact the company was riddled by debts from his previous company, Mr Micro.. that HMS had staff conflicts, lot of friction between staff and Gregory and Rob Nicholson it seems. Staff wages and bonuses went unpaid. Gregory deliberately played the press, had staff knock up fake screens and demos, to generate press interest. HMS sources also blame Atari for over hyping Jaguar sound engine tools.. Lot of festering wounds relating to both companies, which has made documenting what really happened with the titles in question very difficult, despite multiple sources being interviewed. Everyone wants blame to fall on others. With Supercross.. We still don't have a definite answer as to who demanded the game be texture-mapped. One camp puts the blame firmly on Leonard Tramiel, the other swears blind it was in fact Tiertex bosses..

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/arabian-nights-early-screens-and-assets/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/guerilla-war/

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/ramrod/

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/marsoc-us-marine-corps-special-ops/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/cyber-assault/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/dragon/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/alien-breed-3d-unused-assets-and-early-screens/ https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/12/alien-breed-tower-assault-early-screens-and-unused-assets/