The Most Over-Hyped Jaguar Games

[Lost Dragon]

I'll put my Battlesphere enquiry to bed here and now as really wish i'd never asked a supposedly civil question regarding the damn thing.

I've no idea in what context coder made quote etc, i never put question to him.

I honestly now have reached the point i no longer care.The A.I in all 3 Colony Wars games and Darklight Conflict on PS1, let alone Star Lancer on Dreamcast i found perfectly fine.Halo's A.I was lovely too, Halo 2 though now that suffered in areas.

As for Battlesphere? from what i saw on YouTube, game looked fine, not mind blowing, untapped power finally revealed, but certainly something i'd of liked to have seen more of on the Jaguar rather than 256 colour MD Ports, but that's my personal view.

[+CyranoJ]

Don't forget the awesome homing missile AI too.

 

Reusable AI! Same as the enemy, only faster. LOL.

[Lost Dragon]

Forget this one as well.

 

Just no point trying to justify why you assist sites on Lost Games research/provide content for digital publications that are screaming for contributions in order to survive month in/month out.

 

I'll sit this out...

 

Back to the Battlesphere 'discussion'...

Edited June 24, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[+remowilliams]

Why are you internalizing the long standing fact of the Jaguars failure to be a 3D POWA house, and the fact that some people still refuse to believe that?

 

Write about whatever you want to write about and don't worry, Jaguar dysfunction existed long before you typed a word here...

[Lost Dragon]

:-) Trust me, i've no intention of stopping what i'm doing until i feel there's nothing more to be shared.

 

ST Gamer Vol 2 has had everything it needed from myself in terms of interviews/lost game findings.

 

Few extra sources i contacted i'm still waiting to hear back from, but those findings will go up online as extras if/when they ever come in.

 

The planned GTW Atari article is shaping up nicely and yes, will ruffle a few feathers i'm sure as 1 'established fact' in the Atari community is'nt perhaps as water tight as it 1st appeared...amazing what you can find out just by reaching out, PC or no PC.

 

So sorry to dissapoint anyone but i'm not going anywhere just yet.

 

Best keep the flags n bunting on standby for a few more months yet.

[Major Havoc 2049]

BattleSphere is life!

 

4Play made you their bitches, now drink your urine!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZPItw9FFg8&index=3&list=PL40DBE6B84AF5333F

 

[Rick Dangerous]

BattleSphere is life!

 

4Play made you their bitches, now drink your urine!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZPItw9FFg8&index=3&list=PL40DBE6B84AF5333F

 

 

I love the reference to the John Romero Daikatana ad campaign...lol

[NearCry]

I may get crucified for this, but I feel AVP is overrated. I'm not saying I don't like it, but I feel that if this game was released on almost any other system of that generation, it would have been considered poor.

[atarijagplayer]

All topics in this forum are simply wonderful/awesome as is this particular topic.

 

While some Jag games do receive more coverage, critical panning, and sentiment than others - the possibility exists our experience with Jag games is/could be considered deeper than playability, graphics, sound, and other content such as control. Rather, our experience with Jag games could likely define how we feel about them. Who did we play Jag with? What size was the screen of our television? Where were we when we played the games? and, What significant event if any at all was transpiring in our lives at the time (such as college/high school graduation)? Such questions can/could or may be equated to our overall sentiment related to the most over-hyped Jag games.

 

As I reflect, many of the games mentioned here in this thread were hyped-up in some capacity. I recall Thea Realm Fighters and Magic Carpet getting some hyped-up press coverage, only to be cancelled - while games like Pinball Fantasies and I-War (Both memorable/excellent games) seemingly failed to make an indent in terms of press coverage. Like others stated, Iron Soldier comes to mind as a title that was over-hyped. Although credit can be given for its originality and assortment of stages/weapons... I wonder, however, if my sentiment of the game would be markedly different had it been played in a different room, on a different television, and during a different time in my life? I enjoy these discussions and look forward to additional insight and viewpoints!

 

 

[NeoGeoNinja]

I may get crucified for this, but I feel AVP is overrated. I'm not saying I don't like it, but I feel that if this game was released on almost any other system of that generation, it would have been considered poor.

 

It really wasn't.

 

I had a Jaguar, pretty much 'out of the gate'. I got it at that time that preceeded the UK Saturn & PS1 releases, but not at Jaguar launch (i.e. when it was cheaper).

 

Therefore, I had the Jaguar to show friends (etc) with AvP, Doom, Tempest, IS etc BEFORE the SAT & PS1 had landed. And it was impressive.

 

More to the point, I STILL had my Jag in 96/97 when the likes of Alien Trilogy launched across the other consoles (which my friends owned and bought for Saturn & PS1) and, they all agreed that they preferred the look, atmosphere and feel of AvP > Alien Trilogy.

 

The game was INSANE back in the day and really would not have looked out of place in the launch/early window of PS1 & Saturn titles.

 

The only thing holding the game back today, which we are nowadays less-tolerant of, is the clunky controls and the sluggish rate of play. Had this been given the 1.5 tune-up it deserved across Saturn & PS1 (speed, controls, general fine tuning) the attitude towards this game would still be, unanimously, very good.

 

I still highly respect the game and had massive amounts of enjoyment from it back in the day, as it was a brand new gaming experience for me but I do find it less-enjoyable to go back to today due to some of the control/speed drawbacks.

Edited June 25, 2015 by NeoGeoNinja

[Lost Dragon]

This is turning into one of the best threads i've been involved in since i joined here.

 

Just fantastic to hear games i still hold in a very high regard to this day, for what they 'delivered' being mentioned time and time again.

 

AVP simply was THE Aliens game i'd always wanted and yet the Mega-Hyped Alien Trilogy on PS1 (etc) i found so rubbish in comparison (blocky Aliens who simply milled around like sheep, never really felt like a threat etc) and now Iron Solider which had the perfect Mech 'feel' compared to the nicer looking but clinical feeling Metal Head on 32X.

 

As NeoGeoNinja pointed out, had Rebellion finished the PS1/Saturn port of AVP (screens of which i had put up here) i'd of been all over it as the promised enhancements made it sound like the Def.edition.I know they made it into the PC game which still rates as my all time fav Aliens game (looks very dated today i know), but it'd made Alien Trilogy even weaker IMO.

[Austin]

I don't think AvP was overrated when it was new. Back then, it was cutting-edge stuff for a console game. Nowadays however it's a different story to me. Time hasn't been kind to it and it's hard to play. As such, I no longer place it among the top games the system has to offer, plenty of other titles have aged far more gracefully on the Jaguar. Overrated 20 years ago? No. Overrated now? To me, yes.

[rayik]

 

I had a Jaguar, pretty much 'out of the gate'. I got it at that time that preceeded the UK Saturn & PS1 releases, but not at Jaguar launch (i.e. when it was cheaper).

 

Therefore, I had the Jaguar to show friends (etc) with AvP, Doom, Tempest, IS etc BEFORE the SAT & PS1 had landed. And it was impressive.

 

The game was INSANE back in the day and really would not have looked out of place in the launch/early window of PS1 & Saturn titles.

 

 

Same here. Bought jag at launch. When AvP came out thought it was great. Got spooked the first time I heard the predator sound when walking down the hall as the marine. Easy to forget now, but digitized sound samples were not common back then. This was the actual predator rattle from the movie. Remember spinning the marine around frantically trying to find the predator. Rest of the game did not match that moment, but I've liked it since

.

Edited June 25, 2015 by rayik

[NearCry]

 

It really wasn't.

 

I had a Jaguar, pretty much 'out of the gate'. I got it at that time that preceeded the UK Saturn & PS1 releases, but not at Jaguar launch (i.e. when it was cheaper).

 

Therefore, I had the Jaguar to show friends (etc) with AvP, Doom, Tempest, IS etc BEFORE the SAT & PS1 had landed. And it was impressive.

 

More to the point, I STILL had my Jag in 96/97 when the likes of Alien Trilogy launched across the other consoles (which my friends owned and bought for Saturn & PS1) and, they all agreed that they preferred the look, atmosphere and feel of AvP > Alien Trilogy.

 

The game was INSANE back in the day and really would not have looked out of place in the launch/early window of PS1 & Saturn titles.

 

The only thing holding the game back today, which we are nowadays less-tolerant of, is the clunky controls and the sluggish rate of play. Had this been given the 1.5 tune-up it deserved across Saturn & PS1 (speed, controls, general fine tuning) the attitude towards this game would still be, unanimously, very good.

 

I still highly respect the game and had massive amounts of enjoyment from it back in the day, as it was a brand new gaming experience for me but I do find it less-enjoyable to go back to today due to some of the control/speed drawbacks.

My opinion is that AVP on Jag kinda feels like a Wolfenstein 3d mod, in that the game is on a flat plane with no steps or real time elevators to higher/lower levels. In this aspect, the game feels primitive right out of the gate, especially when you look at what Doom was doing already. Sure, in screenshots it looks great but when you play it you notice the very low frame rate that hurts my experience with it at least a bit. The environment just isn't interesting to look at and explore. The controls and movement are slow and clunky, almost making me feel that I'm controlling Lester (Lester the Unlikely).

 

"Had this been given the 1.5 tune-up it deserved across Saturn & PS1 (speed, controls, general fine tuning) the attitude towards this game would still be, unanimously, very good."

 

I don't doubt for a moment that the game would have benefited if it was in development a bit longer. We can say this about pretty much any game and changing certain things about this game would probably change my opinion of it as being over hyped. However, this isn't what we're talking about here. If this game was released on launch day for the Sega Saturn (exactly how it was designed on the Jaguar), with Sega hyping it up as the game to get...it would have done nothing to help the Saturn. Take a look at the Saturn version of Doom, how it looked and played compared to the PS1. Do you really think the Jaguar AVP on Saturn would hold it's own against PS1 offerings? How about the N64? I personally don't think so. I think it would have been seen as a joke honestly.

 

Come to think of it, the Jaguar AVP reminds me of an early Saturn game that I played back called Robotica.

 

Again, I'm not saying I don't like AVP, it's just that I feel it's overrated. It might be a standout game on the Jaguar, but a great game should be a great game on any system (that can run it) and should be able to hold it's own over time, Jaguar AVP simply doesn't do that, at least not without extra work done like you suggested. This is why I consider it over hyped.

Edited June 26, 2015 by NearCry

[Lost Dragon]

@NearCry:You can 'blame' John Carmack for Saturn Doom :-)

Here's main part from Jim's answer when i asked him why the Pal Saturn version had turned out so badly:

'initially, I wanted to use the Saturn's hardware to it's max potential, and wrote a render engine to display the PC levels drawing the walls with the GPU, the problem I came across, was apparently John Carmack wasn't happy about this, he wanted it to look exactly the same as the PC version, but it looked a lot nicer, and was running full screen at 60fps, he said it had to be drawn using the CPU, and not the GPU, he even suggested I used the two DSPs on the Saturn to render the screen, but as they only have 4KB, and if I remember correctly, as it's been a very long time since I used one, 2KB code space and 2KB data space, doing it this way to render a complete screen full of game, would have been a huge memory bandwidth bottleneck, so I ignored that, and did it using the two SH2s to render the screen, each of the two CPUs splitting the draw time'

[Lost Dragon]

Alien Breed 3D (Amiga) featured angled walls, ceilings and floors of varying heights, limited 3D, room over room, architecture – which i don't think Doom had.....

 

But game was no 'Doom' for myself....

 

AVP ran in 16 Bit Colour mode compared to Doom's 8 Bit Colour Mode according to Rebellion, but i'm no tech-head so don't quote me on that :-)

 

At the end of the day i often return to PS1 Doom for a blast, never returned to AVP as i know it's aged badly, so i'd rather remember it for what it achived at the time.

[Atlantis]

Alien Breed 3D (Amiga) featured angled walls, ceilings and floors of varying heights, limited 3D, room over room, architecture – which i don't think Doom had.....

 

But game was no 'Doom' for myself....

 

AVP ran in 16 Bit Colour mode compared to Doom's 8 Bit Colour Mode according to Rebellion, but i'm no tech-head so don't quote me on that :-)

 

At the end of the day i often return to PS1 Doom for a blast, never returned to AVP as i know it's aged badly, so i'd rather remember it for what it achived at the time.

Alien breed 3D looks cool - for being for the Amiga CD32, and the 32-bit-ness.

 

If you compare it, "generation-wise", as being 32-bit, I must say that Jaguar running Doom, Wolf and AvP sure is a step further with the do the math thing:

 

 

 

I think Amiga CD32 is the best comparison to the Jaguar. Amiga had some smother graphics, more colors, much better sound than Genesis, and Jaguar is for sure one step better. They also had the same destiny, Amiga going first (having problems getting to the US market) and its sibling Atari going down next.

 

Don't know if this is on topic, probably not, but maybe close to it.

[NearCry]

 

@NearCry:You can 'blame' John Carmack for Saturn Doom :-)

Here's main part from Jim's answer when i asked him why the Pal Saturn version had turned out so badly:

'initially, I wanted to use the Saturn's hardware to it's max potential, and wrote a render engine to display the PC levels drawing the walls with the GPU, the problem I came across, was apparently John Carmack wasn't happy about this, he wanted it to look exactly the same as the PC version, but it looked a lot nicer, and was running full screen at 60fps, he said it had to be drawn using the CPU, and not the GPU, he even suggested I used the two DSPs on the Saturn to render the screen, but as they only have 4KB, and if I remember correctly, as it's been a very long time since I used one, 2KB code space and 2KB data space, doing it this way to render a complete screen full of game, would have been a huge memory bandwidth bottleneck, so I ignored that, and did it using the two SH2s to render the screen, each of the two CPUs splitting the draw time'

 

Yeah for sure. I know the Saturn would have been able to do a lot better than what was released. My point was that Saturn Doom didn't do anything to give the system an edge over competing systems and I feel that if the exact Jaguar AVP was released as an early Saturn game, the only thing it would have helped was PS1 sales.

[Willard]

I think AVP looks quite a bit better than wolf3D, as Lost Dragon pointed out the color depth is much greater (plus the wall and ceiling textures), allowing AVP to have realistic digitized graphics that account for a good part of AVP's atmosphere.

I agree the environments could've used a little more diversity, and it sometimes feels like you're running around in a maze. It would've been cool to always be able to look around and know exactly the part of the ship you're in. As the predator it really isn't a concern as it gives you a good enough reference considering you aren't looking for keycards or anything, but as the marine it would've been nice.

As for the game not measing up to the PSX, it might've done okay at launch. The game can be completed in 30-45 minutes. People were starting to expect more depth. Graphics were also trending toward polygon objects (like Alien Trilogy) and gameplay with more diverse environents (to show off the graphics), often with some narrative. That's why I like the predator mode the most, it doesn't try to be any of that so it doesn't feel as aged as the marine mode whose type of gameplay has evolved a lot since then.

 

At the time I think it was quite an impressive game all around though, with Atari doing a great job implementing 3 distinctly different kinds of gameplay that each stand well enough on their own to warrant playing through one mode after completing another.

[Willard]

Alien breed 3D looks cool - for being for the Amiga CD32, and the 32-bit-ness.

 

On a stock CD32 it's practically unplayable. By the looks of the video it's being played in an emu.

[Lost Dragon]

Both Alien Breed 3D and Alien Trilogy were very ambitious games, with developers seeming keen to use newer hardware to implement new ideas and technologies over the existing Doom engine.

Speaking personally though, AB 3D was indeed poor on a stock CD32, i wonder if a lot of people really 'appreciated' what it offered in terms of architecture etc any more than i appreciated the Motion Capture tech used in Alien Trilogy......

If a game fails to capture the players excitement or is lacking in key areas (decent frame rate for AB 3D, respectable behaviour A.I for the Aliens in Alien Trilogy), then it's somewhat wasted as player is left jaded/put off by what is to them very dissapointing and sours the game, rather than thinking what's impressive....

For all it's sins (and they are many) i was just so glad Jaguar AVP was'ny another 2D Aliens game, fantastic as they'd been.

[SuperDork3000]

Over-hyped? Zero 5 and Iron Soldier 1/2 come to mind.

[minux]

 

It really wasn't.

 

I had a Jaguar, pretty much 'out of the gate'. I got it at that time that preceeded the UK Saturn & PS1 releases, but not at Jaguar launch (i.e. when it was cheaper).

 

Therefore, I had the Jaguar to show friends (etc) with AvP, Doom, Tempest, IS etc BEFORE the SAT & PS1 had landed. And it was impressive.

 

More to the point, I STILL had my Jag in 96/97 when the likes of Alien Trilogy launched across the other consoles (which my friends owned and bought for Saturn & PS1) and, they all agreed that they preferred the look, atmosphere and feel of AvP > Alien Trilogy.

 

The game was INSANE back in the day and really would not have looked out of place in the launch/early window of PS1 & Saturn titles.

 

The only thing holding the game back today, which we are nowadays less-tolerant of, is the clunky controls and the sluggish rate of play. Had this been given the 1.5 tune-up it deserved across Saturn & PS1 (speed, controls, general fine tuning) the attitude towards this game would still be, unanimously, very good.

 

I still highly respect the game and had massive amounts of enjoyment from it back in the day, as it was a brand new gaming experience for me but I do find it less-enjoyable to go back to today due to some of the control/speed drawbacks.

 

Pretty much agree with you. I sold off everything, except five games, controller, some merchandise, and two console systems. AvP is one of the five games I held onto. The major drawback is how slow the gameplay is.

[NeoGeoNinja]

Over-hyped? Zero 5 and Iron Soldier 1/2 come to mind.

 

Unlikely.

[Pete5125]

Yeah you have to go back in time to the age where your choices where SNES and Sega/segaCD, Jag AvsP was impressive right out the gate, same as Doom and wolf3d, plus Iron Soldier the issue was that the system went a year and had maybe 10 games come most where great looking, but checkered Flag and Crescent Galaxy(which to this day has my favorite screen shots) where close to un playable, Humans and Raiden looked like SNES games.

 

Then came Rayman the game that was suppose to be the Jags new mascot and save the Jag, then the game was delayed and showed up on Saturn and PS1 1st.

 

The next way over hyped game for Jag would be Fight For Life, Jags last official release that was suppose to be Jag's answer to Virtua Fighter and Teken.

 

I was a Jag fanboy I believed the hype I fought if Jag could get some fighters out and the promised MK3 it would give Jag 1 more year of life then it suddenly became a disk drive company and the ride was over