Jag64

There might be some belief that this is meant as a commercial release to make money. Money isn't really my driving force (got enough). I just like the Jaguar, making stuff, and helping people out. Everything I make and release is for free (always has and always will be), which you rarely get cease and desist letters from companies over your free product promoting their ancient IP. In fact, most people in marketing dream of free promotion and mentions - especially parallel to a related title (e.g. Atari 50th). But I totally understand some thinking this would be about profit when I see the shovelware being pushed on Atari fans here, and especially how much is charged🤮 (sometimes) for these hobby works, lol. (Shoutout to the real gems that help out the community though. If you're offended by anything I say, you're just guilty of what I said. But there are some great people in the Atari community doing genuinely good work.) Appreciate the good people. Not a fan of the leeches. (Who is? haha) I'm just an Atari Jaguar fan, not one of these "programmers" trying to cash-in on die-hard fans' nostalgia. If, by some far-fetched possibility that I wanted a commercial release, I'd simply change names. I'll be frank here; I could notify Atari I'm making a knock-off, then make all the big cats slightly different, change the names, and have zero issue. Imagine how much easier it would be not notifying them and not charging people for it. This isn't rocket science; it's business. tl;dr I don't make games or graphics to charge people. This is for free, and for fun. Because, and I thought this used to be common sense, games are about having fun. Let's all just have some fun. You let me worry about getting sued, lol.

Tale of the Jaguar library, sadly. I know there's always a tendency to "come down on" or blame the devs, but even the most diehard Tramiel loyalists know by now that their management hampered the games, and thus the Jaguar. Almost everyone here (definitely not all since you regularly see "diehard fans" on here oblivious about the arcade/console split in the 80s) knows the timelines were insane. Most have seen, or know first-hand of devs having incomplete games shipped that they said were not ready. With Trevor McFur though, at least for me, it's that you can tell it was a tech demo. Like when you get any new engine, or some hardware manufacturers ship code snippets, examples, etc. with their dev kits. McFur looks like one of the most simplistic shooters, because the mechanics used are basic (as you noted), with a bunch of graphic demos on display. Considering BJ West is a graphics guy by nature, it all kind of adds up that you had a rookie programmer (by any major manufacturer standard) on a brand new piece of hardware that could make pretty images, and the game reflects that. Something about Jaguar games are just endearing though. Take Bubsy's outing on the Jag; people that had the other Bubsy games on SNES and Genesis were not fans, complained about the floaty controls, and stuff. I love Fractured Furry Tales. Is Trevor McFur a great horizontal shooter? Not by any means, but it is certainly a game I enjoyed for many, many hours. Some people like checkers; some people like chess. As long as everyone has a game they enjoy.

A very small group of people actually like my ridiculous sense of humor. Mike's in that minority, I guess. Don't hold that against him. 😁

It was one of the first games I got, along with Checkered Flag and Kasumi Ninja. So I leaned on Trevor for a lot of game time early on in my Jaguar playing days. I didn't learn until much later that it was BJ West's (Black Ice White Noise) first game. For some, it seems a little like Club Drive - in that they can't get past the bugs and hate it, or they're a fan. Me, being the weirdo I am, love it. Thanks. Currently a play-alike or homage. Building it in Unreal for the VCS at the moment. Doing textures in Photoshop, some meshes in Blender, the cinematics in After Effects, then Handbrake/converted before throwing them in. Already have the ship, level system, menu system in place to point the first level is playable. But it's just whirling asteroids coming at the ship perpetually right now. It's definitely a fun little project.

Now that the warm receptions are out of the way, I'm wondering if there are any other fans of Trevor McFur. If so, what were some of your favorite things in the game? What was your biggest gripe about the original, and are you looking forward to playing it again as part of the 50th Celebration release?

Well aren't you a little ray of sunshine, lol.

A "fan-made" sequel, but not on the Jaguar obviously. I don't have time to learn how to master the beast of a machine, and otherwise it'd just come out looking like all the other 68000 shovelware amateurs keep churning out. As I think most can see by my "art," I'm not even an artist, much less a programmer. But since writing games, especially something as simple as a space shooter, in ue4 is so easy, and graphics (cut scenes, animations, etc.) aren't "that" hard (even for me), I figured why not? Worst that can happen is I only learn some new things. Best that can happen is it ends up on the VCS and renews some interest in the original.

Howdy, sweetheart. Glad you missed me.

Considered by many to be the best 64-bit horizontally-scrolling 2D shooter to release on any console in 1993 (no lies detected), Trevor McFur left some things to be desired - like being completed. The game obviously wasn't everyone's "cup of tea," but it has its fans. I certainly enjoyed spending hours trying to saving the Crescent Galaxy from Odd-It. It's time for a sequel.

Certainly a shame things seemed to "go off the rails" a bit. And while I'd love to be "Mr. Right," you're 100% correct; I should've provided more of a jumping off point for the conversation. Just posting a question in the title and then putting all the responsibility on everyone else to "carry the convo" isn't very inviting. I just thought the overly sensitive chaps that made snide remarks had the intestinal fortitude to accept some people might reply in kind. That's not sarcasm. A bunch of old farts flicking each others' beans in a circle jerk of posts whining about the OP doesn't add much either. Again, as direct as possible so there's no sarcasm or confusion for the kids whining (and only them). Back on topic - as it's become the trend that I reply to an off-topic response before trying to steer this ship back into calmer waters. 🤣 It's a shame you haven't played Ultra Vortek. It's not perfect, but what game is? The system unfortunately didn't get to stretch its legs (as has been discussed a million times over). The controls are a huge improvement over Kasumi Ninja. But then again, there are some cats on here that prefer KN over UV. I think it might be similar to Virtua Fighter's "floaty" style of play compared to Tekken's faster combos. Both franchises have their fans and no one is wrong for saying they like the game; tastes vary. 😀 If you get a chance to try it out, it's worth the time - even on the GameDrive. Personally, I think it's a Top 5 retail (93-96) release. But don't let that make you immediately dismiss it, lol.

It's no problem. I've had my Jaguars since the 1990s too. I used to visit the billboards, forums, etc (though this was 98-00 when I was online). I guess peoples' involvement in something isn't impressive to me unless they've done something impressive. e.g. Someone can own a NASCAR for 30 years, but if they can't finish a race in the Top 10 after 30 years of racing and bragging, are they an impressive driver? Should I praise all their barely average work? Praising mediocre people makes them think their mediocre work is good, and then they'll never try harder. That's why we've got all these shovelware piles of crap being released now by simpletons that seem to get a chub from getting the 68K to fire, lol. As for the "been there, done that" conversations, it takes a pretty pathetic and tiny little person to want to stop others from having a conversation, just because they had that conversation before. "Gonna be some nice weather today." 'STFU! I talked about the weather yesterday!' That's how fcking stupid that illogical jack*ssery sounds, lol. Not replying is even easier than replying to say you don't want to reply. I can't believe some of the things I have to explain. But yes, not taking the time to say you don't want to reply is WAY less work than just shutting TF up and not replying. That's just free advice that can help everyone in life. *edit* Let me know if that was too direct or harsh for anyone. While I want to be clear, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings - which I clearly do too often by accident. That's clear by the dude cursing and whining with the alien avatar, lol. As for Primal Rage, you're definitely not alone in feeling it's the best Jaguar fighter. I've seen more than a few people with that opinion. I liked it in the arcade, but it didn't really "do it" for me on the Jaguar CD. Then again, it might be like Tempest 2K (for me); that's a very well-made game that I don't like very much. But it's because I'm not that good at it, lol. Maybe the only reason I liked Ultra Vortek so much is that I was good at that.

A lot of interesting info there (and some cool Volcana art - always nice). I always wondered about the modem link on Ultra Vortek. I need to dig out one of my XP machines, but (and I may be glossing over a LOT or missing something due to my own ignorance / reading too fast) could a Jag modem plug into a an old PC (like a PCMCIA modem card), and then bridge the connection, writing something to simply mimic the number it would be calling? We did this a lot on GameSpy back in the day with other consoles pre-every-console-having-ethernet - so pre-2002, I guess. Dreamcast servers do it often. Or is that a hurdle to overcome after figuring out the comms device (serial, modem, new, old - some kind of hardware to "talk") in general?

Not. Even. Gonna. Lie. I like it, lol. This is actually the type of gameplay I expected Double Dragon V to be - with more Streets of Rage elements mixed into the fighting game mechanics. The move sets here look limited, but it also looks pretty fast. I know I'm just a "glass is half full" kind of guy, but I could dig this game for a while.

Language, Pally. Well I guess we won't be exchanging gifts at the Atari Age Christmas Party this winter. Do I know you, friend? You seem like you've got some pent up anger. I promise, if she was your wife, she didn't tell me she was married. 😇 JK! I knew. Double kidding!

So just for kicks, I'll try asking the question (in the title) again, since the picture was so distracting to people. Anyone playing Ultra Vortek? The infatuation and obsession with a rough draft throw away mockup image of Buzzsaw is impressive though. Everyone focused on that, except for the cat with the limited "nope" lexicon. If you haven't played it, Ultra Vortek is definitely worth checking out. I've picked up a couple more copies over the summer myself. (Had planned on selling my Jaguars, but the community here is so welcoming and inviting, I figure I shouldn't sell my Atari stuff, but get more and ingrain myself with fun and smart people.... But I'll settle for hanging out here too.) 🤣 LOTS of nice people here too. All kidding aside, Ultra Vortek has to be the best fighting game on the Jag, although High Voltage Software's Thea Realm Fighters clearly had potential. It's a lot of fun for people looking to play something besides tiled together 2D platformers a dyslexic monkey could cobble together. But just like puzzle games or hidden object games, there is a market for bad knockoffs of 35 year old pc games. So I won't knock those either. tl;dr Ultra Vortek is worth picking up, if you can find copies.