AvP game save issues - WTH

[Catsmasher]

For my birthday (47th) my wife and kids got me a NIB Jaguar system with AvP (also NIB). One of the best birthdays ever.

So I got started on AvP. After clearing out several rooms and fleshing out about half the map, I saved the game. Then after dying in the ductwork, I restored my saved game. Then I noticed I was in the right place with all my ammo and health, but my map was gone, all the doors were closed again and all the stinking aliens were back! Kindof defeats the purpose of saving the game, I think.

Is this right?

Anyone know of a website with the maps, item locations and walkthroughs for the game. Every search I have done has brought up stuff for the more recent ports.

[Crude Dude]

For my birthday (47th) my wife and kids got me a NIB Jaguar system with AvP (also NIB). One of the best birthdays ever.

So I got started on AvP. After clearing out several rooms and fleshing out about half the map, I saved the game. Then after dying in the ductwork, I restored my saved game. Then I noticed I was in the right place with all my ammo and health, but my map was gone, all the doors were closed again and all the stinking aliens were back! Kindof defeats the purpose of saving the game, I think.

Is this right?

Anyone know of a website with the maps, item locations and walkthroughs for the game. Every search I have done has brought up stuff for the more recent ports.

Indeeed it is supposed to happen something els i noticed is if you go into a vent it also gets rif of your map which just sucks. Although i usualy play as the predator and since they cant go into vents it doesnt really bother me much.

[Hyper_Eye]

For a good walkthrough and complete maps you should have (as all Jag fans should) the Atari Jaguar Official Gamers Guide. You can find them on ebay or Amazon as well as online stores that sell Jaguar merchandise.

[Catsmasher]

For a good walkthrough and complete maps you should have (as all Jag fans should) the Atari Jaguar Official Gamers Guide. You can find them on ebay or Amazon as well as online stores that sell Jaguar merchandise.

I will look for that. Thanks!

[Crude Dude]

Its true even Jaguar noobs like me have one of those.

[kid_vidiot]

The best help for AvP is a walkthrough that is posted on youtube:

 

It will give you the proper directions for when you are inside the ducts, which is key, and you will need very early on in the game. It's my experience that most people give up on AvP (the marine quest that is) before ever getting the 3rd security card, because of the air ducts. Most people last an even shorter time in the alien and pred scenarios because they wander around in the alien/pred ships instead of going into the base.

 

Enemy respawn is fine, but the auto-map is one of the large stains on this great game. AvP is hard enough, and having the auto-map start over every time you continue, go to a different floor, or enter or exit an air duct is a huge game design flaw. It basically forces you to get out the graph paper and draw maps, which in the day of the 64-bit system is both laughable and criminal. Not only does it take you out of the game and kill the fun factor, it also kills any desire to explore every nook and cranny and get the full game experience, because it will just reset when you move floors! Replayability is squashed because of this.

 

I love AvP. I love the atmosphere, the difficulty, the characters, the level design, the goals. The auto map was a blatant, major screw up, period.

Edited March 31, 2010 by kid_vidiot

[ZylonBane]

Replayability is squashed because of this.

Yeah, this is why nobody ever replays AvP!

 

[+Stephen Moss]

Then after dying in the ductwork, I restored my saved game. Then I noticed I was in the right place with all my ammo and health, but my map was gone, all the doors were closed again and all the stinking aliens were back! Kindof defeats the purpose of saving the game, I think.

Is this right?

That is right, on the up side IIRC ammo, food and medpacks are also restored and without that I don't think it would be possible to finish the game only weapons and security cards are not restored although locations of aliens/predators and marines are randomely set every restore.

Some may say that effects replayability but as I said without it I think it would be diffcult to finish the game, also the save cart only has so much space and saving the live/dead status and locations of every alien, predator and marine would probabley take up to much space, I am sure it could be done but the extra data may result in say twenty (guess) saves filling the save space and that is not enough espically if you want to keep saves for all three chratacters.

Anyone know of a website with the maps, item locations and walkthroughs for the game. Every search I have done has brought up stuff for the more recent ports.

I know going around is circles when you are lost (epsically in the airducts) is a pain, more so for those of use with motion sickness issues but what is the point of playing the game if your just going to follow a walk through. Ignor walkthroughs and just play it, preferable in a room on your own with the brighness on the set turned down so you can't see as far down the corridors and be afraid, be very afraid.

[Catsmasher]

Then after dying in the ductwork, I restored my saved game. Then I noticed I was in the right place with all my ammo and health, but my map was gone, all the doors were closed again and all the stinking aliens were back! Kindof defeats the purpose of saving the game, I think.

Is this right?

That is right, on the up side IIRC ammo, food and medpacks are also restored and without that I don't think it would be possible to finish the game only weapons and security cards are not restored although locations of aliens/predators and marines are randomely set every restore.

Some may say that effects replayability but as I said without it I think it would be diffcult to finish the game, also the save cart only has so much space and saving the live/dead status and locations of every alien, predator and marine would probabley take up to much space, I am sure it could be done but the extra data may result in say twenty (guess) saves filling the save space and that is not enough espically if you want to keep saves for all three chratacters.

Anyone know of a website with the maps, item locations and walkthroughs for the game. Every search I have done has brought up stuff for the more recent ports.

I know going around is circles when you are lost (epsically in the airducts) is a pain, more so for those of use with motion sickness issues but what is the point of playing the game if your just going to follow a walk through. Ignor walkthroughs and just play it, preferable in a room on your own with the brighness on the set turned down so you can't see as far down the corridors and be afraid, be very afraid.

 

 

be afraid, be very afraid.

.

It seems like half the times an alien jumps me from behind, I jump in my chair and scramble to turn around. The first time I heard the predator whisper "anytime" and I could't see anything, it actually creeped me out.

[ovalbugmann]

Anyone know of a website with the maps, item locations and walkthroughs for the game. Every search I have done has brought up stuff for the more recent ports.

 

http://metalstuff.com/area64/jaguar/Codes/avpmaps/

[PFG 9000]

It basically forces you to get out the graph paper and draw maps, which in the day of the 64-bit system is both laughable and criminal. Not only does it take you out of the game and kill the fun factor, it also kills any desire to explore every nook and cranny and get the full game experience, because it will just reset when you move floors! Replayability is squashed because of this.

That's exactly what I did when I first played through the game around 1997, and I think I enjoyed it all the more because of it. Just like the original Metroid. Having no reliable map makes you feel that much more lost in the game, which is a good thing in atmospheric exploration-based games like AvP and Metroid, and Todd's Adventures in Slime World if you're a Lynx fan. Making your own maps will help you find your way around, but you still feel like an explorer mapping out areas where there are no other living humans. (Or Aliens, or Predators, if you're playing their campaign. )

[kid_vidiot]

It basically forces you to get out the graph paper and draw maps, which in the day of the 64-bit system is both laughable and criminal. Not only does it take you out of the game and kill the fun factor, it also kills any desire to explore every nook and cranny and get the full game experience, because it will just reset when you move floors! Replayability is squashed because of this.

That's exactly what I did when I first played through the game around 1997, and I think I enjoyed it all the more because of it. Just like the original Metroid. Having no reliable map makes you feel that much more lost in the game, which is a good thing in atmospheric exploration-based games like AvP and Metroid, and Todd's Adventures in Slime World if you're a Lynx fan. Making your own maps will help you find your way around, but you still feel like an explorer mapping out areas where there are no other living humans. (Or Aliens, or Predators, if you're playing their campaign. )

So you are comparing it to a game from multiple generations ago. Like I said, in the era of 64 bit, there was no excuse. Why have an auto-map feature at all if it is supposedly better to stay in a constant state of being lost throughout this type of game? I get what you're saying - I love old first person dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Magic (NES), Order of the Griffon, Wizardry, etc where making maps is essential - but AvP is not this type of game. It is also not Metroid. In Metroid you can explore forever, getting lost etc and it's okay because you can get health back from almost every enemy you kill. In AvP, the more you explore, the more you DIE. Especially in the beginning. You can't go in and map out the air ducts without dying repeatedly. And you have an auto map, so you shouldnt have to be manually mapping anything! It really is an illustration of how Atari programmers as a whole never intellectually moved past the most elementary dos-based game design theory. It's like how you can "re-roll" your stats in Towers II - there is no dice! no need to re-roll! This is a video game people!

 

I'm just saying, resetting the auto map between floors, saves, and air ducts makes no sense in the context of the in-game story, and makes no sense from a game design standpoint. It is the biggest barrier for people to enjoy one of the best games on the Jaguar, and is why most people never progress past the second security card. If the auto map didn't reset, the game would be just as atmospheric, just as scary, just as legitimately hard (not artificially hard), and even more rewardable.

[ZylonBane]

It really is an illustration of how Atari programmers as a whole never intellectually moved past the most elementary dos-based game design theory.

No, dingbat, it's an illustration of Jaguar cartridges only having 128 BYTES of memory to store savegame data.

 

The only reason Towers II is able to maintain some rough semblance of automap persistence is because it regenerates the automap on game load based on your current quest triggers. AvP wouldn't really have been able to use that approach.

[kid_vidiot]

It really is an illustration of how Atari programmers as a whole never intellectually moved past the most elementary dos-based game design theory.

No, dingbat, it's an illustration of Jaguar cartridges only having 128 BYTES of memory to store savegame data.

This has nothing to do with the auto map resetting between floors and air ducts.

[ZylonBane]

Actually, it does. Whether a map is loading from a savegame or from a level transition trigger, it's still the same code instantiating the map. So, no automap persistence.

 

Furthermore, persisting automaps would have required them to budget enough RAM to hold a full automap of every level in the entire game. I severely doubt they would have been able to spare that.

[kid_vidiot]

then that's pitiful. You're basically arguing that a jaguar cart has less capabilities than an snes cart. It's not like the map is in interactive 3-D. You make it sound like it would be a miracle for the jaguar to pull off a port of 2600 Combat.

[The_Laird]

then that's pitiful. You're basically arguing that a jaguar cart has less capabilities than an snes cart. It's not like the map is in interactive 3-D. You make it sound like it would be a miracle for the jaguar to pull off a port of 2600 Combat.

 

No he is talking about the eprom space to save a game

 

Which when compared to other cartridge consoles of the time is great as very few MD or SNES games had a save feature.

Edited April 9, 2010 by The_Laird

[+Sauron]

It definitely came down to the developers making the best use of the resources available to them. Yes, it was annoying losing the automap every time you switch levels or load a save game, but it never prevented me from beating the game. There were far more sinister things in the game to worry about. It also wasn't completely out of character considering when the game was released.