Lost Dragon

To me, it's really quite straight forward, there's 'history' on here between Atari Age and He Who Shalt Not Be Named, but sorry, that's nothing i was part of, nor wish to drag kicking and screaming into the light. The vast majority of my time here has been fantastic, i was'nt sure how updating old threads would go down, know it's commonly frowned apon, but vast majority seemed to like geting new updates, few people learnt of new A8 and 7800 titles to add to a M.I.A list etc, good discussions on AVP, can you trust reviews?, put the topic of possible Rescue on Fract. II? out there and yes, updated status on good few M.I.A Jaguar games, so community (hopefully) has benifited. The is this *****? under a new name fiasco, well this is the 2nd time that's occurred from this community, so understandably, it's wearing real thin the 2nd time around for myself.I've had to give the MODS references fer blummin hecks sake... :-)

@Austin:Windows'95 original version of AVP (not the GOLD version with 'Actors' on the comms screens) to this day has been the ONLY Aliens game to really 'nail' the Alien A.I, they were no longer standard FPS 'fodder' but a real threat and even tooled right up, made me feel so under-powered.It added so much to the esential tension. Monoliths AVP 2 (and i bought the Primal Hunt Exp.Pack) looked nicer, but lacked the atmosphere of Rebellions game.Less said about AVP on PS3/360/PC the better...

@NeoGeoNinja:Well, if you honestly think all my responses have been 100% serious then nothing i can say is going to change that, nor would i even attempt to try.Thing with all this 'who's Lost Dragon, is it *****? it's (sadly) not the 1st time it's happened, it was cleared up months ago in the Atari Gamer thread, so to see it rear it's head again, sadly see's a small % of this community, playing into the hands of certain ex-posters. You talk of me going off in the deep end, which is great, thing is, whilst i'm deep under water here, i've kept adding to the threads, created new ones, joined in the discussions, given links to material people might not otherwise of seen, hey even been thanked for it by people from the community. Does'nt strike me much as an 'attack' as i'm what 'damaging' Atari Age by giving it information it did'nt previousily have? Perhaps you might like to check out a few other threads i've posted in, before joing me in the deeper water...

Final word con it:The only time i ever (personally) saw Peter Molyneux comment on the Jaguar was when it 1st launched, he said it was a nice machine, but needed more Ram as what it had would cause a headache for programmers.I personally never heard him or his studio ever officially annouce Magic Carpet. So i'm adding that to the above, plus fact no-ones ever seemed to have seen any code and going with it probably never even got started.But 'trust me' i have looked long and hard to uncover anything to say different. If it's out there, i leave it to you good people to find and post updates on it, just as i have with my findings.It's the way these threads should work:Updates when new material found...

Last example from myself: Mean Machines SEGA 'Exclusive review' (booklet) Of Earth Worm Jim II. 1st signs of trouble, only the 1 reviewer (big game reviews usually had 2-3 people looking at).Overal score 95% Hmmnnn.....it's good, but it's not quite..... Convincing me Mean Machines that any thing other than advertising revenue was primary concern here.

Ahhh TMR.You can (i hope) vouch for 'who' i am.Remember The Vulture (then Lost Dragon) from Retro Gamer forum?. I praised your detailed answer years back when i put the question out there as to why Green Beret on Atari 8 Bit turned out so poor.You were kind enough to explain to a knuckle head like myself what could have been done with extra memory (proper title screen, in-game music, more detailed backdrops etc), but it'd do nothing for A8's Sprite/PMG issues compared to the C64's. For which i was eternally grateful for you for doing (it eased the pain somewhat). A few people on here think HE who i am not, nor ever was... It's gotten rather daft.... Help an Ex-RG poster out? please...... :-)

And i mentioned Amiga Magic Carpet, well anyone with a working search engine could have turned C.U's look at it (even though it looks like they were using existing PC screens), it's HERE: http://amr.abime.net/review_28643 Claims (and i say again CLAIMS) after put the CD32 version between 20-30% complete and even using the Akiko chip they only got a frame rate of between 5-8 FPS out of it. There was also talk of a bare bones A1200 AGA version (plain polys etc) only 10% complete. .Far more Amiga (and probably CD32 owners) out there i guess than Jaguar VCD owners so like i say i GUESS it only got as far as proposal only, i'm using the canned A1200/CD32 versions to try and give reasoning behind my assumption. I also mentioned ATD talking about Atari texture-mapping an in house game (which was in response to them seeing 3DO Shockwave) interview with EDGE, can dig out exact details if people really want. :-) Enough proof yet to wait till ST Gamer comes out and you'll see WHO i interviewed?

Zzap 64's Operation Thunderbolt Review on C64 was a dark day for the magazine.I lost all faith in them after that. Full story-Here: http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/operation-thunderbolt-v1/

:-) See THIS is why you guys should play 'nicey' with us newbie posters, it's all sooo much better when community works together, so group hug and here we go: OK, ACE Thundercats review, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions reviewd, ACE RATED at 931 reviewer:ANDY WILTON and get this:Review has a box-out where it annouces, GASP! Elite had a 2nd Thundercats game in development (damn you UK Press for revealing such a thing) and i quote the other is '....a 4 way scroller with exploration elements to it' Skip forward to issue 9..Beyond The Ice Palace reviewed on Amstrad CPC and Atari ST and who's reviewing it...wait for it..HOLD.......HOLD.....Why it's none other than....Mr Bloody Andy Wilton (somewhere a woman faints..) Rated at 648 on CPC 677 on the ST.ST version took flak for being little more than an 8 Bit update, not 16 Bit enough for our Andy, the blighter...

As a Jaguar owner i watched magazines like C+VG, Gamesmaster and EDGE really 'turn' on the Jaguar (and 3DO) these once 'wonder' machines in their eyes that thanks to previews, features, reviews etc in their pages, people like myself rushed out and bought, were seemly declared 'old hat' almost overnight when the Playstation and Saturn were getting import reviews onwards. Suddenly a game was only as goodas it's 3D engine, reviewers looking for texture-mapped, light sourced polygons galore and things like Toh Shin Den (which like a muppet i bought with my Playstation) were HOT, scores absurdly high. C+VG even started rating games like Skyhammer (3/5) based on visuals 'Looks like a weaker 32X title' and Iron Solider compared to 32X Metal Head which yes, looked nicer, but played like a dog.

Good a place as any: Anyone else see the upgraded, but canned Playstation version? (shown in Playstation Plus E3 report-P25, postman's name who delivered mag was Barry, if i need to validate me claim :-) ) Levels were no longer flat and featureless, game promised more action, 3D Enviroment more detailed, player could look up/down as well as left and right.Aliens would attack from above and below...guess it got turned into the brilliant AVP on PC instead?. Reason i bought a 2nd hand PCat the time in fact.

Ohhh, i dunno, i'm just playing at it. Could'nt find the information on missing ATARI games i wanted, so you know how it is, went looking for people that might be able to answer the questions, found likes of Alexander, Les, good few others, put the questions to them, got replies, then , chortle, what was i thinking...thought i'd share it with an Atari community, on an Atari forum... Knew i should stormed in here, blew the bloody doors clean off with a BEHOLD!!! I have coded an A8 game (my 1st ever) that pushes the hardware beyond the levels of what the human mind can fathom (and it has ZERO FLICKER!). I just cannotshow you sweet F**K ALL of it, as the cat ate my youtube channel, still please send money to my Nigerian off shore account at...... It'd all been bollox, but by god i'd have gotten athread going.Sadly i went with option B:Updates to missing games... Next time eh? always next time....

My old mans a dustman, he wears a dustmans hat, he farted through the keyhole.... See? anyone can post anything, you guys are right.The above is an utter lie, my old mans happily retired, never been on the bins.... Basically guys, ease of the kool-aid or what ever, just because your getting fresh information and i promised i'd keep my contacts under wraps forafew weeks more, does'nt mean we need the Witch finder general here, does it? I dunno, you guys...... :-)

Still people want sources:well this one won't hurt as it's not in the magazine: Thallion:I spoke to Alexander Holland, months ago, long before i started interviewing people, just a general email, he told me Thallion had NO Jaguar games planned, No Second Prize II for Falcon, yes. Moving swiftly on :-) @Lynxpro:I managed to track down CD32 coder of Gunship 2000 via his P.R agent (suppose i'll have to name colour of socks he waswearing to validate me claims at this rate :-) ) who passed my questions and email details onto him, said he'd reply..never did (sob, story of my life...) Waterworld-Ocean seemed to hand out to different companies for different versions, i seem to recal System 3 getting MD/SNES versions (in contact with them at present, but still no sign of an interview) and i know Playstation version popped up in Playstation Plus, think (Interplay?) had said it was being taken back to the drawing board for Re-working.

Actually looking at bigger picture (and i've brought this up with Albert) 1 reason people like myself are 'newbies' and have low post counts, could well be some of the reactions we get, when we do try our humble best to provide solid answers or updates to the question of'What ever happened to...?' most replies have been great, people thanked me for Chronicles Of Cute, Technocop etc, which is great, it makes you feel part of the community and you've helped said community. The flipside of who the hell are you/i think you ***** under a new user name, not so helpful and makes posters like myself think, maybe the info.should go else where or i'll not bother sharing it. It's your forum guys, i'm just passing through, but it's worth asking yourselves sometimes why your not seeing new blood, new information. Just some food for thought, it's not put me off posting....

Actually it's the very reason that as Nuclear Pacman (rightly states) that ' anyone can claim anything'...that i've invested so much time in looking into these lost games claims across ALL Atari Formats (if you look at my 7800 posts you'll see i name magazines which made claims, which issue etc and warn to take say btake these claims and Lynx game claims with big pinch of salt. I'd turn the paranoia around slightly-If i can track down the coders just using a search engine on the Xbox 360 I.E and a Gmail account, so could anyone else, before claiming games were X amount finished etc. I'm also the guy that had his Freelancer 2120 question answered by Imagitec themselves in Ult.Future Games and got Star Letter in Gamesmaster magazine for asking same question.I can email you over the Ult.Future games scan.... I'll happily provide proof for ALL my claims on here.

@Nuclear Pacman:Totally agree you've every right to question what i claim.Only reason i'm not naming my source yet...is it was 1 of 5 people from the industry that i was lucky enough to interview for ST Gamer. Since 3 of these people have never been interviewed in likes of Retro Gamer magazine, i've been asked to keep the info under wraps until the magazine hits in sept. You can find the Jez San interview in EDGE magazine a few years back, Edge asked him if he ever developed any games on Jaguar, he replied no, they knew when not to take a risk. 2 Ex-Atari sources i interviewed for ST Gamer admit Atari wanted Creature Shock, but Jez San was difficult to pin down, Atari did'nt have the money to write game itself and i interviewed guy who converted the video files to Jag format. Ask Albert who i am..he's been given a list of references.

@Austin :yep i've found that, if your reading a review and you clearly knew more about the game than the person who reviewed it, ie review says it's strictly a single player game, yet you knew it had option for 2nd player to join-in, or you had the game game on 2 formats, yet reviewer said format X made owners of format Y jealous...your thinking...ok.....1) I don't think you've the instructions, so what source are you using to play the game from and 2) Have you even played Version Y to compare to X?.

Computer And Video games (C+VG) was always an odd one over the years. Tempest 2000 Jaguar Overall 84% (Paul Rand) yet that score hadshot up to 95% into a later Xmas Buyers Guide feature. Mind you Mark Patterson giving Rise Of The Robots 91% on SNES and 90% on PC CD-ROM raised a few eyebrows. Most puzzling though was Iron Solider Jaguar review, overal 78%, Gary Lord moaning the movement was slow..err Gary, your piloting a bloody great big robot mate, Mechs are slow, lumbering beasts.....

I'll have to dig out my ACE magazines. Was it the same reviewer for both reviews?

@Trebor:Re:Sega being great over-selling:Tell me about it, C+VG in an early news piece on the then upcoming Saturn claimed it'd have a 64 Bit GPU and there was a Japanese TV advert for Saturn advertising it as a 64 Bit System.Also prior to the release of the Dreamcast, Sega were telling the press all DC games would run at 60 FPS. Mind you they are all just as bad, prior to N64 release Nintendo were claiming you would'nt see any misting or fogging let alone pop-up in 3D games on the N64, shuch was the power of the hardware....

It does sound as if the magazine article was onto Labyrinth (but it spelt it as Labyrinthe) it just missed out it was the game based on the film, but until coming across that magazine article i'd never encountered any plans for a follow up to Rescue, which is a shame as i loved that game, it just worked so much better on the A8 than C64. I'd guess piracy was a major factor for them dropping the A8, but over here in the UK things were just as bad on the C64 from my experience, plus everyone i knew had either a C64 or ZX Spectrum.Those of us who had an Atari 8 Bit machine were forced to buy another system as there simply was'nt the software coming out on A8.

Ok very long shot here as not even sure if this is in anyway 'true' let alone A8 related but... Computer Gamer magazine, March 1986 ran a news story claiming there were 2 incoming new games from Lucasfilm Games: Mists Of Xenon:Which would see player returning to same planet they were sent to on Rescue On Fractulas, but this time your mission was to destroy the gun emplacements, so game was a bit more strategic and to follow afterwards: Labyrinthe:A 3D Maze game similar to The Eidolon. Never read anything elsewhere or after said article. I guess it was possible in theory Lucasfilm could use updated versions of game engines used for Rescue and Eidolon, but does anyone know if sequels were planned or where Computer Gamer might of gotten this info?. They never mentioned planned formats either, all very vague.Some hoax perhaps?

Is it possible someone could get the Zero scan 'up' on here? i'vesaid mag page on HDD, but no PC so cannot put it up, happy to forward to someone who can though. Message me if your happy to do that, i'll email it over. It's Friday night though, just ask for 'Susan' Lost Dragon's my working name.... :-)

Glad the Chronicles Of Cute info went down well. Said copy of Zero Magazine was the only place i ever saw it.Just the preview text and screens from the showing how sprites were drawn/would appear in-game.It did say artist used his own face (male) to base the womans face model on....