The B.J West Interview.

[Lost Dragon]

http://www.grumpyoldgamers.co.uk/index.php?/topic/3980-the-bj-west-interview/

 

This one i carried out in early 2015 and then totally forgot i'd actually not used it.

[Rick Dangerous]

Nice. Have chatted with him via email a few times. Very interesting guy and was there for the last (commercial/development) gasps of the Jaguar in the mid 90's.

[+madman]

 

 

That said, the Jag hardware wasn't really up to what what we wanted to do.

Whatever power the chipset had was totally hamstrung by the lack of RAM, so

our texture maps were tiny and chunky

Now will Jag fanboys finally shut up about the unharnessed 3D POWAH?

[ggn]

Now will Jag fanboys finally shut up about the unharnessed 3D POWAH?

The fumes will simply quote this:

 

 

[...]and being an artist and not a programmer [...]

[+orpheuswaking]

 

 

Now will Jag fanboys finally shut up about the unharnessed 3D POWAH?

 

The same day you shut up about the fumes

[NeoGeoNinja]

The same day you shut up about the fumes

 

Pretty circular argument...

[sd32]

 

 

Now will Jag fanboys finally shut up about the unharnessed 3D POWAH?

 

In that comment you quote, BJ didnt say the machine lacked power, just mentioned the RAM constrains. Coders on any machine, always wish for more RAM, and its up to them to find way to work around it. I have read similar stuff from Playstation coders, Saturn coders, etc.

Chilly Willy, a hombrew programer with quiet a bit of experience working on the 32X, once said that one of the best things about the Jaguar, was how much RAM it had, compared with the 32X.

And BJ actually said "Ken Rose's engine was (I believe) the first time anyone was able to run a large-scale continuous 3D world streaming off of a disc with no loading waits.", so he wasnt dogging the hardware from my point of view.

[+madman]

In that comment you quote, BJ didnt say the machine lacked power, just mentioned the RAM constrains. Coders on any machine, always wish for more RAM, and its up to them to find way to work around it.

You're right and the way they worked around it was by making "tiny and chunky" textures. The Jag is not good at texture mapping, that's just a fact. Could better gouraud shaded 3D games have been made? Perhaps, at least the hardware was designed to do that, unlike texture mapping. My point is, and apparently I have to clearly define everything I say on this forum, is that Tomb Raider and all the other pie in the sky dream games were not possible on the Jag.

[JagChris]

The same day you shut up about the fumes

 

oh fuckin' amen to that.

[+CyranoJ]

But they give off vasmgasms!

[Spacey Invader]

 

Pretty circular argument...

And yet we're all here, time and time again, responding to the same stimulus in the same way.

[PeterG]

Am I the only one surprised that they designed the game without the memory track in mind? In my head the game was huge with many many missions like the one you can play in the beta. I never doubted that you would be able to save due the size of the game and eventually they would have been given access to a memory track. But it is the first time I heard that they planned it so you had to beat it in one go. Not even passwords. For such an advanced project that seems pretty backwards.

[Pete5125]

If he started on the game 2 and a half years before the demise of atari..it. is possible he started before the memory track was ready..I don't believe the memory track made it out till a couple months after jag cd came out...it was out around the time of highlander.

Black ice never got complete no telling if cancelation of game and memory track coming out weren't near each other

[PeterG]

I'm not doubting what he says it just struck me as odd and meaning the game would probably been a lot smaller than expected. This was a new information at least for me,everything else I heard or read before over the years.

[JagChris]

The bottom line is Rebellion sucked.

[+CyranoJ]

The bottom line is Rebellion sucked.

 

Truly, that AvP is horrible..... What were they thinking..... *sigh*

Edited October 30, 2015 by CyranoJ

[Gunstar]

The bottom line is Rebellion sucked.

Rebellion didn't suck; Checkered Flag is clearly another case of Atari management forcing Rebellion's deadline and rushing CF to market before it should have been released. AvP and Skyhammer prove, IMHO, that Rebellion was an excellent developer. Two of my favorite Jag titles.

 

Anyway, what the heck does Rebellion have to do with Black Ice/White Noise and this B.J. West interview?!? I've never heard anywhere that they were involved with it in any way, shape or form. Did you mean to post this misguided comment in the CF thread?

Edited October 30, 2015 by Gunstar

[Pete5125]

Look the system was out near a year and had like 6 games...they needed something and play testing cost a fortune....besides what's one bad driving game...that looks descent on magazine pages...atari mgmt pov.

[+madman]

Look the system was out near a year and had like 6 games...they needed something and play testing cost a fortune....besides what's one bad driving game...that looks descent on magazine pages...atari mgmt pov.

Atari should've instructed their developers to make games that didn't suck. Simple as that.