Time to press reset. Playing the Jag classics through from the start.

[Gunstar]

I have half a dozen consoles, from the oldest like Pong and the Atari 2600, too the Xbox 360. But my play time isn't evenly spread over all of them continually. I tend to go in bursts for weeks or months on one or two consoles or computers.

 

Over the last couple of weeks I have turned back to the Jaguar and 3DO consoles for all my gaming. Specifically I've restarted nearly a dozen games between the two consoles and am making a concerted effort to play them all the way through. Some I never finished and finally intend too, others I'm restarting all at a higher level of difficulty. On the Jaguar I am currently playing through, AvP, Wolfenstein 3D, Hover Strike: UL, I-war and Battlemorph. On the 3DO I'm playing Off-World Interceptor, Wing Commander 3, Shock Wave 2, Star Fighter and Bladeforce.

 

Out of all these games, Battlemorph and Shock Wave 2 have had the most play-time so far. I have gotten the quake weapon on Battlemorph, which I never had before, but of course it took destroying every last tree in the first cluster of worlds. Cool weapon though.

 

I'm having loads of fun, and I think most of these games have actually aged pretty well graphically, better than the PS1 games I was playing last month.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Gunstar

[Rex Dart]

I'm having loads of fun, and I think most of these games have actually aged pretty well graphically, better than the PS1 games I was playing last month.

 

The 3DO is like that! Doesn't seem to have near as many issues with polygons not lining up, among other things. Games generally seem to be of higher res, too. It was really ahead of its time.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Rex Dart

[+CyranoJ]

Probably because they are both software renderers. When the bugs are in the hardware they'll show up in almost every game.

 

 

The 3DO is like that! Doesn't seem to have near as many issues with polygons not lining up, among other things. Games generally seem to be of higher res, too. It was really ahead of its time.

[Rick Dangerous]

On the Jaguar I am currently playing through, AvP, Wolfenstein 3D, Hover Strike: UL, I-war and Battlemorph.

 

I have been playing all of these recently except I-War, which I don't have yet. Worth the coin? I've heard mixed reviews as some call it a bit boring. Hoverstrike is awesome! Have been playing that a bunch recently. AvP going to give another shot soon. I not longer have a 3DO but remember it somewhat fondly. It's graphics are pretty sick considering how underpowered it is compared to the Jag...

[Rex Dart]

 

I have been playing all of these recently except I-War, which I don't have yet. Worth the coin? I've heard mixed reviews as some call it a bit boring.

 

It's not outstanding, but it's a good Battlezone-esque tank shooter, if you like those. It's worth the small price it generally sells for.

[Warzard]

 

The 3DO is like that! Doesn't seem to have near as many issues with polygons not lining up, among other things. Games generally seem to be of higher res, too. It was really ahead of its time.

The Jag had almost zero clout with most 3rd parties, but I always thought that the 3DO could have been more successful once the PS and Saturn had established a more rich 32-bit 3rd party scene. But the only ports were from 3DO to the other two.

[JagChris]

The Jag had almost zero clout with most 3rd parties, but I always thought that the 3DO could have been more successful once the PS and Saturn had established a more rich 32-bit 3rd party scene. But the only ports were from 3DO to the other two.

 

 

The Jag had almost zero clout with most 3rd parties, but I always thought that the 3DO could have been more successful once the PS and Saturn had established a more rich 32-bit 3rd party scene. But the only ports were from 3DO to the other two.

 

What's interesting about the 3DO is some of the port that went from the 3DO to the PSX had to be downgraded to run as well on the Playstation. Apparently even though the hardware was older there were things the supposedly less powerful 3DO did better. It's very intriguing.

Edited March 2, 2014 by JagChris

[ls650]

I thought IWar was interesting. I liked it, although most folks give it mixed reviews. You drive around in a tank, blasting bad guys while solving basic puzzles, such as unlocking doors in the correct order, etc. It uses Gouraud-shading and actually looks not bad, though the frame rate suffers badly when there are a lot of other objects on-screen.

 

I'd recommend it if you can pick it up cheap.

[Gunstar]

I-war is one of my favorite Jag games, one of those that I keep going back to, year after year. Yes, it can have some slow-down on some levels and when hundreds of polygon shrapnel flying, but it never bothered me, since the enemies are slowed down too, there's no disadvantage for a couple seconds of "slow-mow." It's one of the few games I actually use most camera angles at some point in the game, with others I tend to leave it in cockpit mode. Of course cockpit mode has fastest frame-rate in I-war. If you like Hover Strike and Cybermorph and Battlemorph, chances are you'll like I-war. I-war also has some cool tunnel bonus levels in between the big levels, which I love; first person camera view is a must for the tunnels, IMHO. I-war is very Tron-esque, and I love the early 90's techno soundtrack. The game was done by Imagic, who also brought us Bubsy, Raiden, Dino-dudes, and some other jag games and the music of Tempest 2000 and Defender 2000. It was Imagic's first and only 3D game on the Jaguar, though technically a second generation title from the developer. Like Cybermorph, Battlemorph and Battlesphere, I-war relies heavily on the Jaguar's unique brand of Garrard shading with limited textures. It has a very cool reflection mapping technique when shields are engaged, though you must be in a third-person camera view to see the effect.

 

I think, if you look at some of the so-called mixed reviews on I-war, the bad comes from sources biased to the Jag, and the good come from people who spent more than 5 minutes playing it and have an open mind to Jag games. The only weakness I-war has technically is some slow-down, otherwise it is a solid, deep game in scope, though like Cybermorph, the main objective is always getting the pods. Lots of cool enemies, lots of cool power-ups and some diverse levels with lots of teleportation.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Gunstar

[Austin]

I enjoy I-War, but the slowdown can be a major drag for me. Still a good, unique game though. Got to love those bonus stages, too.

[+madman]

I do the same thing w/my retro systems. I find it's more enjoyable to concentrate on playing through a couple games rather than playing discounting a game after 5 minutes and moving to the next.

[+doctorclu]

Huh.. Iwar was done by Imagic? Wonder if the soundtrack was mods? Anyway i liked Iwar, like Cybermorph and still like Bubsy. I think some games we marvelled at the graphics in 1993 and now not so much (Iron Soldier) and other games while primitive I think time has become a sort of beer goggle to blur over the imperfections.

[NeoGeoNinja]

I have half a dozen consoles, from the oldest like Pong and the Atari 2600, too the Xbox 360. But my play time isn't evenly spread over all of them continually. I tend to go in bursts for weeks or months on one or two consoles or computers.

 

Over the last couple of weeks I have turned back to the Jaguar and 3DO consoles for all my gaming. Specifically I've restarted nearly a dozen games between the two consoles and am making a concerted effort to play them all the way through. Some I never finished and finally intend too, others I'm restarting all at a higher level of difficulty. On the Jaguar I am currently playing through, AvP, Wolfenstein 3D, Hover Strike: UL, I-war and Battlemorph. On the 3DO I'm playing Off-World Interceptor, Wing Commander 3, Shock Wave 2, Star Fighter and Bladeforce.

 

Out of all these games, Battlemorph and Shock Wave 2 have had the most play-time so far. I have gotten the quake weapon on Battlemorph, which I never had before, but of course it took destroying every last tree in the first cluster of worlds. Cool weapon though.

 

I'm having loads of fun, and I think most of these games have actually aged pretty well graphically, better than the PS1 games I was playing last month.

 

Bladeforce, as great as it looks and plays, on the whole... I find it a bit of a slog. I realise it's simply a case of knowing the game here, to get the most out of it, but I genuinely find the level layouts very confusing at times vs chopper fuel!

 

-

 

As for IWar: it was a game that I only acquired, for the first time, a few years ago. I never had it or even saw it 'back in the day'. I don't mind saying, I was impressed by it. But then, my favourite 3D Jaguar titles all tend to have that same flat shaded Polygon look to them (Zero 5, IS1&2). Thought the game was great, but there was only one real drawback to it that I could find.

 

No strafe

 

-

 

Good luck extracting enjoyment from Off World Interceptor btw

[NeoGeoNinja]

I have been playing all of these recently except I-War, which I don't have yet. Worth the coin? I've heard mixed reviews as some call it a bit boring. Hoverstrike is awesome! Have been playing that a bunch recently. AvP going to give another shot soon. I not longer have a 3DO but remember it somewhat fondly. It's graphics are pretty sick considering how underpowered it is compared to the Jag...

 

Erm.

 

 

What's interesting about the 3DO is some of the port that went from the 3DO to the PSX had to be downgraded to run as well on the Playstation. Apparently even though the hardware was older there were things the supposedly less powerful 3DO did better. It's very intriguing.

 

What I imagine to be the case with these games to be, is that whoever ported them wanted to do the quickest and dirtiest ports of them for a cheaply as possible. Presumably, due to the differences in architecture and the way in which each console had to be manipulated to extract the same results (as with any machine), I reckon they just ported the game as is and then just cut them back and patched them up where necessary to make them playable and acceptable. Not with EVERY port, but certainly the likes of Space Hulk and Star Fighter suffered from this.

 

Just lazy shit...

[Gunstar]

 

Bladeforce, as great as it looks and plays, on the whole... I find it a bit of a slog. I realise it's simply a case of knowing the game here, to get the most out of it, but I genuinely find the level layouts very confusing at times vs chopper fuel!

 

-

 

As for IWar: it was a game that I only acquired, for the first time, a few years ago. I never had it or even saw it 'back in the day'. I don't mind saying, I was impressed by it. But then, my favourite 3D Jaguar titles all tend to have that same flat shaded Polygon look to them (Zero 5, IS1&2). Thought the game was great, but there was only one real drawback to it that I could find.

 

No strafe

 

-

 

Good luck extracting enjoyment from Off World Interceptor btw

Yes, Bladeforce rocks, but the levels are not only confusing, but far too large and way to much for one level. I'm totally sick of playing by the time I finish just one of the huge, extended levels. If you think collecting the pods, like in Cybermorph or I-war can become monotonous, you ain't seen monotony until you try and finish one level of Bladeforce. But that is what I am doing this time around, forcing myself to play through an entire level at a time, so I can save the game and actually make progress. It needed level a 1/4 of the size or it needed save points within levels.

[Gunstar]

 

The 3DO is like that! Doesn't seem to have near as many issues with polygons not lining up, among other things. Games generally seem to be of higher res, too. It was really ahead of its time.

The Jaguar is like that too, on the few games that have complete texture mapping on all the polygons, like HoverStrike (CD) or Skyhammer, no warping or an object "tearing through" another polygon. The only games I can think of on the Jaguar, with some texture mapping that actually warps is I-war and World Tour Racing (on the track and sides of the track). The 3DO isn't free of games with warping and tearing polygons though, I can think of a couple off the top of my head, like Star Fighter and Po'ed, two of my absolute favorite 3DO games.

 

But it's not just those issues, but in general, Playstation 1 games seem to have very ugly texture-mapping too, Texture maps on the 3DO and Jag have aged better and are not so ugly. Playstation games seem to be a blocky textured mess to me, 3DO and Jag are textured art, for the most part. Maybe it's because so much of the Playstation's texturing abilities were hardware driven too, and the 3DO and Jag are software driven.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Gunstar

[twoquickcapri]

The 3do "cell engine" had advantage over the PlayStation like free Z Sorting and it took 2 polygons on the PlayStation to every 1 polygon on the 3do(quads vs tri) and like said earlier in this topic it was harder to lineup textures on the PlayStation due to the use of triangles. There is a video series on YouTube by ex 3do developers and they talk about this stuff while playing old 3do games.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/BolsEwhac/videos

[ovalbugmann]

Good idea, Gunny! I am currently alternating playing Hover Strike (cart) & Iron Soldier (orig. cart) from beginning to end on normal difficulty as I have never played them totally through to the end yet.

[82-T/A]

 

I have been playing all of these recently except I-War, which I don't have yet. Worth the coin? I've heard mixed reviews as some call it a bit boring. Hoverstrike is awesome! Have been playing that a bunch recently. AvP going to give another shot soon. I not longer have a 3DO but remember it somewhat fondly. It's graphics are pretty sick considering how underpowered it is compared to the Jag...

 

I REALLY, REALLY like I-War... don't get me wrong, I don't like crappy games... but I-War's shortfalls are it's positives. It uses polygons with no real shading or texturizing... and honestly, I prefer it that way. It's definitely challenging.

[Gunstar]

No real shading?!? The entire game is completely garaud shaded except for the few areas that are textured! I LOVE garaud shading too, I personally think garaud shading has aged and held up far better than the old blocky textures of the Saturn, PSX and the smeared textures of the N64.

 

Sorry if garaud is spelled wrong, I can never remember how to spell that word!

Edited March 22, 2014 by Gunstar

[Gulfman]

 

 

 

I REALLY, REALLY like I-War... don't get me wrong, I don't like crappy games... but I-War's shortfalls are it's positives. It uses polygons with no real shading or texturizing... and honestly, I prefer it that way. It's definitely challenging.

 

I-war makes me cry! 😭

[RJ]

Imagitec, not Imagic.

[Gunstar]

Imagitec, not Imagic.

I knew that, I just did a sort of "typo" or "brain-fart" thing...

[Jagosaurus]

I'll bring up something I find impressive about the 3DO... Daedalus Encounter looks dang near DVD when using s-video out on a 4:3 CRT. That's freaking awesome considering no MPEG module is required & the closest thing at the time was Laser Disc. FMV was an odd fad but this one shows off the 3DO IMO.

[Gunstar]

I'll bring up something I find impressive about the 3DO... Daedalus Encounter looks dang near DVD when using s-video out on a 4:3 CRT. That's freaking awesome considering no MPEG module is required & the closest thing at the time was Laser Disc. FMV was an odd fad but this one shows off the 3DO IMO.

I was just playing it in 4:3 mode, via S-video, on a CRT, but it is HD CRT rear-projection, and it looks like video-cd quality there, no where near DVD...it does look good for 3DO FMV, I'll give you that. Oh, and I have a Laser Disc player, and it looks no where near as good as my LD, on the same TV. Maybe I'll have to drag out and old SD TV and see if it looks better on that, as you say.