Atari Jaguar Vs. 3DO

[Classic Pac]

Seriously Atari under utilized it's console, I seen the tech demos and the Jaguar is a powerful system, but what games we got frankly never lived up to it's potental.

[BassGuitari]

Yes. If you really like the gems in the Jaguar library, it can be worth the investment, but there just aren't enough of them to make it worthwhile for most collectors. I've said in the past that about 25% of the Jaguar's games are "great to good", 30% are "average", and 45% are "mediocre to awful". That might be justifiable when the games are plentiful and inexpensive (as they were when I bought most of my Jaguar stuff in 1999), but not at today's crazy prices. What's worse, the games in the "good to average" range include ports which are also available on more popular platforms.

 

I can only speak for what I've played on the Jaguar/CD, which is roughly 12-15 titles. Only two or three of which are games I'd call "good," but also only one or two of which I'd call "truly abysmal" (looking at you, White Men Can't Jump). In between, the rest were pretty average, somewhat generic-feeling, and ultimately forgettable. I feel like that kind of sums up the Jaguar in a nutshell.

 

All I can say about the 3DO is that for the most part I like its games better than the Jaguar's. (That, and the whole daisy-chain controller thing is bonkers.) Maybe a better way to put it is that the 3DO has more games that I like than Jaguar does.

[+Gemintronic]

I can only speak for what I've played on the Jaguar/CD, which is roughly 12-15 titles. Only two or three of which are games I'd call "good," but also only one or two of which I'd call "truly abysmal" (looking at you, White Men Can't Jump). In between, the rest were pretty average, somewhat generic-feeling, and ultimately forgettable. I feel like that kind of sums up the Jaguar in a nutshell.

 

All I can say about the 3DO is that for the most part I like its games better than the Jaguar's. (That, and the whole daisy-chain controller thing is bonkers.) Maybe a better way to put it is that the 3DO has more games that I like than Jaguar does.

 

The 3DO has an infinite amount of games typed in by rabid monkeys. I believe they're up to "Albino Plumbers Don't Wear Ties while Jumping".

[BassGuitari]

 

The 3DO has an infinite amount of games typed in by rabid monkeys. I believe they're up to "Albino Plumbers Don't Wear Ties while Jumping".

Hey, that's a good game!

[Austin]

It's a tough choice for me. On one hand, the Jaguar has a smaller library, but it gives me that 2D fix far better than the 3DO does. Some of the standout titles to me on the Jag, I really, really enjoy to a level few 3DO games have done for me (Raiden, Tempest 2000, Zool 2, Super Burnout, Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM). With the 3DO, it has a much larger library, but honestly the majority of the games on the system have rough edges to them. There's this choppy feel framerate-wise to nearly every game on the system that few managed to overcome (Super Street Fighter II Turbo being one of the few truly polished gems on the system). Despite enjoying many games on the system, I rarely get this feeling of complete satisfaction that I do when I play some of the Jag games I listed above. It's hard to describe, but those with a keen eye will probably understand what I mean. The 3DO, like the Jag, has a great amount of early polygonal games, arguably more than the Jaguar, but to be honest.. most of them stink. Early 3D for me is best relegated to flat shaded polygon games found on the 32X or in some cases the Jag, or textured titles on the Saturn and PlayStation where framerates were higher and playability was improved.

[Atari2008]

I've never played the 3DO but when it came out I did want one. The games looked cooler to me than the Jaguar ones and the ads seemed color (Atari's "do the math" campaign was quite obnoxious). However I ended up getting a Jag since I wanted so badly to support Atari. I liked it at first, I even thought Cybermorph was cool (fortunately I have never played Sky Fox). I had read enough reviews to know which ones were the good games so I bought them all: Zool 2, Tempest 2000, Defender 2000, Rayman, and Iron Soldier. I never got around to getting the coveted Alien vs. Predator. However the library dried up from there and the games just seemed like 2nd rate knock-offs of cooler games on the Genesis and SNES - Kasumi Ninja, Atari Karts or lame attempts at games done better on the Playstation or Saturn (Fight for Life). Plus while more graphically powerful, the Jag lacked titles in 2 of the biggest genres of the time - side scrolling platformers and fighting games. The Genesis and SNES easily had way more and better games in those categories. Zool 2 was good but easily trumped by Sonic, Super Mario Bros, etc. Seems like the 3DO suffered in these departments too, although Gex seems cool. Honestly if it wasn't an Atari product, I probably wouldn't have ever given the Jag a second or first look.