EGM magazine rates the top systems, including Jag (1995)

[sirlynxalot]

Saw this elsewhere and thought it was interesting to see a game magazine's basic impressions on the jag relative to other contemporary systems

[Hyper_Eye]

Sounds about right. Atari should have been pumping out the games instead of pushing the 64-bit marketing. I've been playing Super Wing Commander on 3DO for the last few days (with the flight stick) and I have been thinking about how amazing it would have been to have something like that on the Jag. There just weren't enough engrossing or impressive games on the system. So many missed opportunities.

[+madman]

Wow, that's a blast from the past! I remember reading this back in the day. Pretty spot on.

[JagChris]

Sounds about right. Atari should have been pumping out the games instead of pushing the 64-bit marketing. I've been playing Super Wing Commander on 3DO for the last few days (with the flight stick) and I have been thinking about how amazing it would have been to have something like that on the Jag. There just weren't enough engrossing or impressive games on the system. So many missed opportunities.

 

Is it a good game? I heard it was a bad game.

 

But yeah the Jaguar needed more of that.

[Hyper_Eye]

It's Wing Commander 1 with improved graphics, all of the content of 1 of the 2 secret mission addons, and an exclusive secret mission addon. The only strike against it IMO is that the added voice acting is really bad. Wing Commander 3 is the better game of the series on 3DO but either one would be considered among the best games if it were on the Jag.

[high voltage]

The system itself was very good, just nobody cared to write for that console, especially not the Japanese companies. Japan gaming companies never wrote games for Western consoles. 3DO was a little exception but only because of the Japanese connection, eg Panasonic. But by the time the Jaguar arrived, the American hardware industry was dead.

 

For American magazines it's always easy, Nintendo, Mario = Number 1

Edited September 14, 2015 by high voltage

[Austin]

Japan gaming companies never wrote games for Western consoles. 3DO was a little exception but only because of the Japanese connection, eg Panasonic. But by the time the Jaguar arrived, the American hardware industry was dead.

 

I think you're forgetting pretty much the entire XBOX line there with that logic, buddy.

[Otto1980]

super wingcommander is a polished version of wingcommander 1/2

they replaced the drawn 2d graphics (there was no real 3d content) with pre rendered graphics..

same as on soulstar megacd to jaguar

[JagChris]

 

I think you're forgetting pretty much the entire XBOX line there with that logic, buddy.

 

Yeah Xbox was a big exception as well. It may have been because M$ has so much political pull even in Japan. But in general they seemed to hate gory fighting games and were rather nationalistic about the other things.

[Hyper_Eye]

super wingcommander is a polished version of wingcommander 1/2

 

While the game added improved story continuity with Wing Commander 2 I don't believe any WC2 content is in the game. It is WC1 and addon content. It's kind of annoying actually. You can play through the first game and the third game but you have to play the second on something else. The third game clearly picks up right after WC2.

[high voltage]

 

I think you're forgetting pretty much the entire XBOX line there with that logic, buddy.

From Xbox onwards they did indeed, I was talking about 80s 90s. Sega and Konami did some VCS stuff, but otherwise....

 

In a perfect world, Atari, Parker, Coleco, etc, should've continued and making Japanese games for Jaguar like they did for VCS.

Edited September 14, 2015 by high voltage

[108 Stars]

"Very good" for the Jaguar hardware itself may be a bit much. There are and were a lot of complaints about the hardware bugs from coders. I think that has to be taken into account, and some of this stuff seriously hampered the capabilities IIRC.

 

About Japan not developing for western consoles:

It is a matter of money, like everything. For the first Xbox and early in the 360's life, MS practically had to pay to get stuff on their systems. It was an investment to improve the attractivity of the systems in Japan itself (which failed), and to be attractive to classic console audiences; Japan was just stronger with console games, while the west had its focus more on PC games for a long time. This only began to change in the lifetime of the Xbox, really.

MS must have spent a lot, for example supporting Hironobu Sakaguchi's Mistwalker to do exclusive 360 RPGs.

 

But as time went on, and Sony's dominance of the console market was broken with the 360 taking half of the market, it became just good business sense to develop on Xbox too. Games get more expensive, and the audience has to grow, not get smaller as it would have happened focusing on the PS3. That Japan and western consoles are not a true love affair you can see by the terrible sales of Xbox systems in Japan, even with high profile exclusives for the market... and by how with growing PS3 userbase and now the PS4 success Japanese companies are again focusing much more on the Sony hardware.

 

I have no idea why that is, as Japanese seem to like many foreign things; but game systems are not one of them.

[masschamber]

Does anyone have the 94 edition or 96 edition, think those are the only 2 other years they did them with the jag.

I wonder if how neo geo ports would have gone down on the jag. Limited cartridge sizes probably would have killed it, though are any of the jags processors good at compression? A good port of samurai shodown would have been nice of the jag

[Pete5125]

1994:

(System Scores - Ed / Danyon / Martin / Sushi-X)
Super Nintendo - 9 / 9 / 9 / 9
Genesis - 8 / 8 / 7 / 8
Sega CD - 6 / 7 / 7 / 6
Turbo Duo - 4 / 6 / 5 / 6
Neo-Geo - 7 / 8 / 7 / 8
3DO - 6 / 7 / 8 / 8
Jaguar - 7 / 7 / 7 / 7
Amiga CD - 7 / 8 / 8 / 8
Laseractive - 5 / 5 / 6 / 8
Philips CD-I - 4 / 6 / 7 / 7
NES - 3 / 4 / 4 / 5
Game Boy - 3 / 5 / 3 / 3
Game Gear - 7 / 8 / 6 / 4
Atari Lynx - 3 / 4 / 3 / 5
Turbo Express - 4 / 4 / 3 / 7

 

 

1996:

Super Nintendo - 7 / 8 / 7 / 8
Genesis - 6 / 4 / 5 / 6
Playstation - 9 / 10 / 9 / 9
Saturn - 8 / 6 / 7 / 8
Sega CD - 2 / 2 / 3 / 3
32X - 3 / 3 / 3 / 2
Neo-Geo CD - 6 / 7 / 7 / 7
3DO - 7 / 5 / 6 / 7
Jaguar - 2 / 2 / 3 / 3
Virtual Boy - 5 / 6 / 5 / 5
Game Boy - 5 / 6 / 4 / 4
Game Gear - 7 / 7 / 7 / 8

 

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?25548-EGM-Buyers-Guide-System-Reviews-and-Game-Reviews-1989-to-2001

[Rick Dangerous]

Great article! I read EGM from about 1990 to 2001 or so. Right around when they changed the format and combined reviews among the systems..that kind of ruined it for me. Classic mag though! Interesting to see the high(ish) scores they gave the 32x. I think as it stands today the Jag library is stronger overall than the 32x..but back then it may have looked different.

[high voltage]

"Very good" for the Jaguar hardware itself may be a bit much. There are and were a lot of complaints about the hardware bugs from coders. I think that has to be taken into account, and some of this stuff seriously hampered the capabilities IIRC.

 

About Japan not developing for western consoles:

It is a matter of money, like everything. For the first Xbox and early in the 360's life, MS practically had to pay to get stuff on their systems. It was an investment to improve the attractivity of the systems in Japan itself (which failed), and to be attractive to classic console audiences; Japan was just stronger with console games, while the west had its focus more on PC games for a long time. This only began to change in the lifetime of the Xbox, really.

MS must have spent a lot, for example supporting Hironobu Sakaguchi's Mistwalker to do exclusive 360 RPGs.

 

But as time went on, and Sony's dominance of the console market was broken with the 360 taking half of the market, it became just good business sense to develop on Xbox too. Games get more expensive, and the audience has to grow, not get smaller as it would have happened focusing on the PS3. That Japan and western consoles are not a true love affair you can see by the terrible sales of Xbox systems in Japan, even with high profile exclusives for the market... and by how with growing PS3 userbase and now the PS4 success Japanese companies are again focusing much more on the Sony hardware.

 

I have no idea why that is, as Japanese seem to like many foreign things; but game systems are not one of them.

 

So that's why during the 80s all the Japanese games on 8-bit computers were done by US/UK companies, I often wondered.

[Pete5125]

Great article! I read EGM from about 1990 to 2001 or so. Right around when they changed the format and combined reviews among the systems..that kind of ruined it for me. Classic mag though! Interesting to see the high(ish) scores they gave the 32x. I think as it stands today the Jag library is stronger overall than the 32x..but back then it may have looked different.

It's a buying guide looking at what is out at the moment and next years releases, the 32x is a weird system in that it released as the top selling system of 95 EGM even says that SATURN and PS1 are soon to be released in Japan and will be in the USA by late 95 early 96, at that time every indication was that the 32x would continue to receive support for the next few years after release, instead they cut support in 96 and it became so worthless you couldn't even trade it in, I remember being able to get it for 19.99 a year later.

 

The games looked and played great, most where better or as good as the Jaguar counterparts.

[+doctorclu]

The Jaguar gets a mention, cool!

[108 Stars]

 

So that's why during the 80s all the Japanese games on 8-bit computers were done by US/UK companies, I often wondered.

Actually, another sign is how they not only had their own consoles while the rest of the world played Atari, but also their own computers well into the 90ies. The MSX range was very popular there, NEC's computers, Fujitsu's and Sharp's were the systems people used. Japan was like a parallel dimension.

 

I think the western systems were oddities to the companies there. Just to think of it, as you said, how many games they sublicensed for US and UK companies to port, seemingly not even caring about quality with how bad much of it turned out... unthinkable today. Capcom cared so little they let US Gold go ahead and produce their own sequel to Strider... same thing happened with Technos Renegade, which got 2 European sequels, despite Renegade being just a part of the larger Kunio-Kun series in Japan. They did not care one bit what happened here, and this seems to have translated to a disinterest in importing anything regarding gaming from the west for a long, long time. A few games did become more popular and long living in Japan than in the west though... Wizardry and Lode Runner come to mind. But those seem to be exceptions.

 

This has been changing in recent years, with some western games being really successful there too. But it took a long time.

[masschamber]

Actually, another sign is how they not only had their own consoles while the rest of the world played Atari, but also their own computers well into the 90ies. The MSX range was very popular there, NEC's computers, Fujitsu's and Sharp's were the systems people used. Japan was like a parallel dimension.

 

I think the western systems were oddities to the companies there. Just to think of it, as you said, how many games they sublicensed for US and UK companies to port, seemingly not even caring about quality with how bad much of it turned out... unthinkable today. Capcom cared so little they let US Gold go ahead and produce their own sequel to Strider... same thing happened with Technos Renegade, which got 2 European sequels, despite Renegade being just a part of the larger Kunio-Kun series in Japan. They did not care one bit what happened here, and this seems to have translated to a disinterest in importing anything regarding gaming from the west for a long, long time. A few games did become more popular and long living in Japan than in the west though... Wizardry and Lode Runner come to mind. But those seem to be exceptions.

 

This has been changing in recent years, with some western games being really successful there too. But it took a long time.

Don't forget the Japanese peculiar attachment to spelunker for western "success" in Japan

[Quinn Kayden]

As fun as EGM was to read back then, they were dishonest. They were the rumor and lies magazine... They were paid off by Sega, this is fact. They hated Atari because of issues they had with Atari in the late 80's / early 90's.

 

Look how high they rate the lowly 32X... The Jaguar will always be better than the 32X. Better graphics and more games. Yet EGM rates the 32X nearly twice as high than the Jaguar? Things don't add up...

 

In 1995 EGM was probably the most popular gaming magazine in the USA. So the fact that they bashed Jaguar games at any opportunity, meant lots of people passed on buying a Jaguar. Even though the Jaguar was priced fairly and had many great games.

 

EGM and GameFan also had a rivalry back then, and GameFan was an honest hardcore gamers magazine, and they liked the Jaguar for the most part.

[Pete5125]

I always thought it was paid off by Nintendo back in the day....to be honest though looking back they are trying to sell a magazine aimed at 14 to 20 year old guys.

 

It covers all systems so having a magazine that covers mainly the 2 most popular systems genesis and snes then uses leftover space for upcoming systems.

 

I mean in that year 3do jaguar or 32x could be dominate system and after that Christmas was done it was 32x by a long shot as best selling system.

 

Atari was trying to keep their name out their with a jaguar cd to compete with the upcoming sega Saturn and newcomer Playstation.

 

 

Nobody thought atari would come our number 1....they couldn't get systems to stores..never released games on time...games that where coming out where either incomplete or a copy of a game on snes with slightly improved grafix.

 

Atari did not make it easy to get good reviews because instead of giving away hames for free to review they did loaner games or expected payment for gamed...they had neither the money nor the knowhow to get good press in the 90s. Also if you run a video game magazine with advertisement and maybe 10 percent is atari money 2o percent 3do then nes and sega give the other 60 percent. Where will your loyalties lie

[Bill Loguidice]

As fun as EGM was to read back then, they were dishonest. They were the rumor and lies magazine... They were paid off by Sega, this is fact. They hated Atari because of issues they had with Atari in the late 80's / early 90's.

 

Look how high they rate the lowly 32X... The Jaguar will always be better than the 32X. Better graphics and more games. Yet EGM rates the 32X nearly twice as high than the Jaguar? Things don't add up...

 

In 1995 EGM was probably the most popular gaming magazine in the USA. So the fact that they bashed Jaguar games at any opportunity, meant lots of people passed on buying a Jaguar. Even though the Jaguar was priced fairly and had many great games.

 

EGM and GameFan also had a rivalry back then, and GameFan was an honest hardcore gamers magazine, and they liked the Jaguar for the most part.

 

I'd say neither distinguished itself with their audio-visuals, so I'd give that something of a wash considering there are some impressive 32X games and some impressive Jaguar games. Both of course had more than their fair share of unoptimized ports and outright embarrassments.

 

While it's true that the Jaguar and Jaguar CD had about 40 more games than the 32X and its CD add-on, again, both had meager libraries with only a handful of stand-out titles. At least with the 32X, you had the Genesis to fall back on. That's probably also why the 32X sold about 6X more consoles (add-ons) than the Jaguar did. If it didn't have the massive Genesis install base, it would have likely have sold as poorly as the Jaguar. It also didn't help the 32X that it was on the market for such a short time, with Sega's pending and early release of the Saturn doing the 32X no favors in momentum, support, etc. As we know, the 32X was meant to have a longer shelf life than it was given. Sega, like Atari, was very good at bungling things.

 

While negative magazine reviews no doubt added to the Jaguar's troubles, and no doubt a few were unfair, for the most part I think it's safe to say they were reflective of the reality of what was going on with the system. There was very little to rally around and get excited about, and that all goes back to Atari's own actions. Of course, all of this has been discussed to infinity and beyond on countless other threads on here, so no reason to rehash all of that.

 

Like I said in the other thread, I'm not sure if you're trolling or not. I'm starting to think you might be (especially since it's a new account). Again, if so, well done.

[+Cafeman]

As fun as EGM was to read back then, they were dishonest. They were the rumor and lies magazine... They were paid off by Sega, this is fact. They hated Atari because of issues they had with Atari in the late 80's / early 90's.

 

Look how high they rate the lowly 32X... The Jaguar will always be better than the 32X. Better graphics and more games. Yet EGM rates the 32X nearly twice as high than the Jaguar? Things don't add up...

 

 

 

It's clear that YOU are a big fan of the Jaguar, but it isn't clear from these console reviews how EGM was paid off by SEGA.

 

Consider the date of these opinions - the 32X came roaring out of the gate with Star Wars Arcade, Doom, and Virtua Racing Deluxe. At that time, these were exciting and fun games and they competed well with Jag and 3DO, especially as an adapter to the library-stocked Genesis and only $150 compared to the higher costs of Jag / 3DO. But if EGM had done this same console review even 6 months later , I bet 32X wouldn't fare as well. There were a lot more games promised than delivered, for 32X.

 

Look at how poorly the SEGA CD is rated - all 5's and gloom/disappointment. I take umbrage with that - I loved the SEGA CD. EGM is paid off by SEGA to give lackluster reviews to a SEGA product?

[Quinn Kayden]

Not trolling at all. I had a Jaguar and a 32X in 1995 and many games for both. I was playing Jaguar games at a friends house for most of 1994, and I got a 32X in late 1994. I got my own Jag early 1995. Jaguar was clearly the better system. But according to EGM, 32X was nearly twice as good.

 

Myself and 2 other friends were hardcore gamers in 1994-1995. We grew up on NES, SNES, Genesis, Neo Geo, TG16, Lynx, we were always at the arcades, etc. I subscribed to all almost all the gaming magazines back then.

 

All 3 of us had Jaguars, and only I also had a 32X. I sold that 32X only a couple months after I bought it. I kept the Jaguar much longer. I had a huge debate with myself whether to keep my Jaguar and games, or buy a PS1. I ended up getting a PS1 as well in 1995. I have always seen the Jaguar and PS1 as near equals as far as having enough good to great games to satisfy me. I only need about 15 to 20 games that I REALLY like on a system, for me to be a big fan of that system. For the 32X, there were only a few games that held my interest. By late 1995 the Jaguar had at least 15 games that I was a big fan of.