What was the Jaguar truly capable of?

[PeterG]

You mean you weren't on the list of 48 or so names?

 

Long story short:

When news broke that Eclipse weren't planning any form of Head to Head play in I.S II yet likes of Krazy Ivan had it on PlayStation, a movement shall we say? was started and the plan was for a list of names of people who were refusing to buy I.S II at release unless network play was implemented, was to be drawn up and sent to Atari.

 

Some of the more ahem, familiar names were Scott Legrand, Steve Scavone and Dark Science.

 

The entire fiasco fell apart once talks were underway with Eclipse and Don Thomas at Atari and it became apparent Atari weren't going to release I.S II on Jaguar, period.

 

What's the old saying? Be careful what you wish for...?.

Making threats of non purchase to an Atari who'd already amply demonstrated they didn't care if a title was ready to ship or not, if they needed product out, it just shipped, never seemed the wisest ideas to myself.

Now that you mention it, I remember reading some stuff on a newsgroup from back then btu I did not remember a list.

Who was Dark Science?

[Lost Dragon]

I was told about the supposed boycott some years ago when i was on RVG forum as part of some background details on some of the more vocal names i kept seeing whenever the Jaguar was mentioned .

 

Think 1 or more of them were interviews for the original Retrogamer Magazine feature on the Jaguar .

 

Dark Science were behind this early project:

 

[JagChris]

Atari should have used more procedural texturing. Didn't even move in that direction.

[+Stephen]

I was told about the supposed boycott some years ago when i was on RVG forum as part of some background details on some of the more vocal names i kept seeing whenever the Jaguar was mentioned .

 

Think 1 or more of them were interviews for the original Retrogamer Magazine feature on the Jaguar .

 

Dark Science were behind this early project:

 

Neat to see, but even that, what a dismally low framerate. Can the Jag draw more than 3 lines (i.e., not blit a sprite) without dropping to 15-20FPS?

[Lost Dragon]

I have to confess. ...

I was never a huge fan of the original 2D Centipede, only the artwork for the VCS version.

A 2000 update wouldn't of been on my purchase list.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Agent X]

You mean you weren't on the list of 48 or so names?

 

Long story short:

When news broke that Eclipse weren't planning any form of Head to Head play in I.S II yet likes of Krazy Ivan had it on PlayStation, a movement shall we say? was started and the plan was for a list of names of people who were refusing to buy I.S II at release unless network play was implemented, was to be drawn up and sent to Atari.

 

Some of the more ahem, familiar names were Scott Legrand, Steve Scavone and Dark Science.

 

The entire fiasco fell apart once talks were underway with Eclipse and Don Thomas at Atari and it became apparent Atari weren't going to release I.S II on Jaguar, period.

 

What's the old saying? Be careful what you wish for...?.

Making threats of non purchase to an Atari who'd already amply demonstrated they didn't care if a title was ready to ship or not, if they needed product out, it just shipped, never seemed the wisest ideas to myself.

 

I don't know the whole story, but in retrospect, maybe they made the correct decision to not implement multiplayer in Iron Soldier 2, especially if this wasn't planned for in the original design.

 

Would it have been cool? Maybe. But if this wasn't planned, then this surely would have taken more resources (including time and money) to plan out the game design for multiplayer mode(s), then implement them, then test them, and refine them further.

 

In that regard, it would not have been prudent to hastily slap on a multiplayer mode "just because" . Yeah, you'd have another bullet-point on the back of the box to appease the handful of people that bought JagLinks or other networking gear for the system. Aside from that, it would have just dragged on the development.

 

After reading some of the earlier posts in this thread, it's alarming how some of the Atari brass insisted on interfering with some games' development, like demanding texture-mapped polygons or other similar features that posed technical challenges. It appears that the programmers knew this would impact performance and tried to protest these hasty additions, but got overruled in favor of having some pretty screen shots (frame rate be damned) on the box. I believe a tacked-on network mode would have ended up the same way.

Edited December 12, 2018 by Agent X

[PeterG]

 

I don't know the whole story, but in retrospect, maybe they made the correct decision to not implement multiplayer in Iron Soldier 2, especially if this wasn't planned for in the original design.

 

Would it have been cool? Maybe. But if this wasn't planned, then this surely would have taken more resources (including time and money) to plan out the game design for multiplayer mode(s), then implement them, then test them, and refine them further.

 

In that regard, it would not have been prudent to hastily slap on a multiplayer mode "just because" . Yeah, you'd have another bullet-point on the back of the box to appease the handful of people that bought JagLinks or other networking gear for the system. Aside from that, it would have just dragged on the development.

 

After reading some of the earlier posts in this thread, it's alarming how some of the Atari brass insisted on interfering with some games' development, like demanding texture-mapped polygons or other similar features that posed technical challenges. It appears that the programmers knew this would impact performance and tried to protest these hasty additions, but got overruled in favor of having some pretty screen shots (frame rate be damned) on the box. I believe a tacked-on network mode would have ended up the same way.

Well there had been talks of link feature back to IS1 I think. I do not know what the issue was, maybe the UART bug or something. Considering the quality of the Eclipse releases I do not think it would have been tacked on. Your best reference probably the multiplayer via Splitscreen in IS3. Unfortunately until today I have only tried it once with a friend of mine a hundred years ago. I know that we felt, it was too slow for deathmath as you would find each other, shoot with everything you got and then go for a fistfight once you run out. So this in my opinion would only work with a willing friend and the campaign with two players together in my opinion. Right now I don't even recall if there was such a coop mode...

[Agent X]

Well there had been talks of link feature back to IS1 I think. I do not know what the issue was, maybe the UART bug or something. Considering the quality of the Eclipse releases I do not think it would have been tacked on.

 

 

You're probably correct. I don't believe Eclipse would have settled for a "tacked-on" mode. But at that point in the Jaguar's market life in 1996, after the first holiday sales for Saturn and (especially) PlayStation were tallied up, it was evident that Jaguar wasn't long for this world. A properly developed network mode would have added more months to the development schedule.

 

I think Atari (who was already planning to go into Saturn/PlayStation development, prior to the JTS merger) didn't want to pump any more unnecessary resources into Jaguar games. They were happy to wrap up the last few games and push them out the door before they turned off the lights on the system. We didn't even get IS2 directly from Atari, and had to wait for Telegames to come to the rescue. If they had started work on a network mode, then it wouldn't have gotten far enough (under Atari's last-minute watch) to develop into anything meaningful, and would have gotten cut out just to have the single-player game...which brings us around full circle. Either we'd be left with the single-player game alone (which is exactly what we did get), or the "unfinished" portion would've forced them to throw the entire IS2 development into the scrap pile as yet another incomplete Jaguar game.

 

I'm grateful that we got the game we did, as it turned out to be an excellent game, and still to this day one of the finest exclusive games on the system.

 

 

Your best reference probably the multiplayer via Splitscreen in IS3. Unfortunately until today I have only tried it once with a friend of mine a hundred years ago. I know that we felt, it was too slow for deathmath as you would find each other, shoot with everything you got and then go for a fistfight once you run out. So this in my opinion would only work with a willing friend and the campaign with two players together in my opinion. Right now I don't even recall if there was such a coop mode...

 

Good point. I forgot that IS3 had a two-player split-screen mode, as I don't believe I've ever tried it myself.

 

According to the manual, there is also a cooperative mode. It plays similarly to the one-player mission mode, but with each player controlling different aspects of the robot's movement and weapons.

[PeterG]

I also think that the IS games are really great the way they are. For me a link mode is a nice bonus for when you have a friend visiting or for things like Jagfest.

Even on modern systems I rarely play online with other and enjoy Singleplayer campaigns more.

 

 

Concerning the Coop you are right, I forgot how that was but now I remember that I don't know a single game where the Driver/Gunner Coop works really well and in a fun way.

[Agent X]

Concerning the Coop you are right, I forgot how that was but now I remember that I don't know a single game where the Driver/Gunner Coop works really well and in a fun way.

 

I'd suggest good ol' Space Invaders on the 2600. There were some very fun cooperative modes in that game. One mode was set up so that player 1 controls movement, while player 2 controls firing. Another mode had player 1 controlling leftward movement, and player 2 controlling rightward movement (with either player able to fire). Yet another mode had each player alternating firing and control.

 

For modern stuff, I'd go with Warhawk on the PS3. I got it back in 2007, and played it heavily for the first year or two, but hadn't touched it much after that. Recently, I dusted off the game for a few sessions (as they're shutting down the servers soon), and it still holds up. The vehicles can be very potent (and fun) if you have willing teammates. Like you, I'm much more into single-player games, and rarely ever play online, but Warhawk is one of the few online multiplayer games that captured my interest.

[PeterG]

 

I'd suggest good ol' Space Invaders on the 2600. There were some very fun cooperative modes in that game. One mode was set up so that player 1 controls movement, while player 2 controls firing. Another mode had player 1 controlling leftward movement, and player 2 controlling rightward movement (with either player able to fire). Yet another mode had each player alternating firing and control.

 

For modern stuff, I'd go with Warhawk on the PS3. I got it back in 2007, and played it heavily for the first year or two, but hadn't touched it much after that. Recently, I dusted off the game for a few sessions (as they're shutting down the servers soon), and it still holds up. The vehicles can be very potent (and fun) if you have willing teammates. Like you, I'm much more into single-player games, and rarely ever play online, but Warhawk is one of the few online multiplayer games that captured my interest.

Thanks for the suggestion though I do not have any of the two consoles anymore but nice to hear.

 

I know Battlesphere has such a coop too but it is not fun to have someone steer around while the other one is trying to target enemies and trying to guess where the other one is going next.

[Lost Dragon]

One of the best 2 player modes on an other wise Meh game was Playstation 2 Starsky and Hutch.

 

If you had a PS2 lightgun, 1 player would be the driver whilst the second player leant out the car window and handled the shooting.

 

I wish more games had tried approaches like this rather than usual death matches etc.

[Lost Dragon]

@PeterG:

 

I forgot to mention Dark Science also proposed Moon Patrol remake for the Hague, but Atari seemed reluctant apparently to give the 2000 series to outside developers.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

Not had a Minter quote in a while

 

 

Jeff talking Defender 2000:

 

Yeah, the 2K mode runs at 30 FPS but unfortunately doing audio and running heavy OLP eats bandwidth something rotten. I never think about it once I start playing though,i'm too busy dodging Mutants.. I think a game can look ugly if it runs 60 some of the time and drops to 30 when loaded - so for 2K mode i decided to lock to 30, and it looks fine.

 

\

(:-)

/

Edited December 17, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Cyprian]

On 8/16/2018 at 10:48 PM, DEATH said:

 

are you aware that the DSP is full of bug especially on external access?

 

I invite you to take a look at the DSP source code of DOOM to have a little idea.

what kind of bugs?

do you have any details?

 

[swapd0]

43 minutes ago, Cyprian_K said:

what kind of bugs?

do you have any details?

 

You have to read the main memory before a write or the data won't be written. IIRC from DOOM source code.

[Gummy Bear]

Oh God no...

Why won't this thread stay dead? ?

[LinkoVitch]

15 minutes ago, Gummy Bear said:

Oh God no...

Why won't this thread stay dead? ?

Because quite simply... the jag is a "What if.." thread necromancer!  It is what it is truly capable of.. resurrection of pointless threads that should have died years ago

 

A box of evil evil fumes! tormenting us forever!!

[Atlantis]

Playing it right now, in my Jag CD-add on... Yes, you need to swap CDs from time to time but I still find it an entertaining experience.
 

[UHATEIT]

1 hour ago, Atlantis said:

Playing it right now, in my Jag CD-add on... Yes, you need to swap CDs from time to time but I still find it an entertaining experience.
 

I have a disc that has a Doom 3 Demo on it and I watched the demo it's like 3-4 minutes long I believe. Was attached to either the Big Buck Bunny or Gone Nutty disc in one of the select options

[Shaggy the Atarian]

If you want to see what Tom & Jerry (the chips, not the cartoon characters) could do, then write something like the ST conversion tool, but for the CoJag arcade board that Atari Games developed. Or let's see RB+ add CoJag support. Then aspiring homebrewers would have a 68020 or R3000 processor (depends on the hardware revision) instead of the 68k, 4MB of RAM, HDD/CF access, and devs could sell their games to arcade ops like me, who will pay a lot more than $70 for a good game kit  

 

There are likely more working CoJag boards out there right now than there are working Jag CDs

 

 

 

[Flojomojo]

On 12/17/2018 at 3:34 PM, Lost Dragon said:

Not had a Minter quote in a while

 

 

Jeff talking Defender 2000:

 

Yeah, the 2K mode runs at 30 FPS but unfortunately doing audio and running heavy OLP eats bandwidth something rotten. I never think about it once I start playing though,i'm too busy dodging Mutants.. I think a game can look ugly if it runs 60 some of the time and drops to 30 when loaded - so for 2K mode i decided to lock to 30, and it looks fine.

 

\

(:-)

/

I wish that fine game were ported to PC, it was one of my favorites. 

[Clint Thompson]

8 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

If you want to see what Tom & Jerry (the chips, not the cartoon characters) could do, then write something like the ST conversion tool, but for the CoJag arcade board that Atari Games developed. Or let's see RB+ add CoJag support. Then aspiring homebrewers would have a 68020 or R3000 processor (depends on the hardware revision) instead of the 68k, 4MB of RAM, HDD/CF access, and devs could sell their games to arcade ops like me, who will pay a lot more than $70 for a good game kit  

 

There are likely more working CoJag boards out there right now than there are working Jag CDs

 

 

 

It would be nice to have that much RAM to play with on the CoJag but unfortunately only a small handful of people would ever be able to enjoy something new on it. Now that the JagSD has been released, maybe we will start to see more fun stuff on the Jag. CD is dead, 2, 4 and 6MB (compressed or not) isn't enough space for the things I want to do, but if access to fully utilize the SD storage becomes a reality, then so could dozens of scenes for larger games materialize, as I'm hoping to create.

 

This video is from a demo I've been working on and off from earlier this year with SD support in mind. Sort of inspired by Xenophobe and while the animation isn't finished, the top portion of the alien is currently breathing. The idea is to interact with objects, walk around or behind objects, change angles, exit the room after solving a puzzle with several active environment elements (steam, keypad, doors, glass enclosure, etc) while possibly making the corridor a running styled dodge and shoot game in-between. This resulted as an extension of experiments in wanting to create a Cyberpunk-styled game if the tools become available.

 

*sound check, make sure your volume isn't cranked full-blast as you'll blow your speakers and your ears, as it has very creaky/scratchy sounding intro for an eerie atmospheric feel that some may not care for...

 

 

[+CyranoJ]

9 hours ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

If you want to see what Tom & Jerry (the chips, not the cartoon characters) could do, then write something like the ST conversion tool.

 

 

That's 100% correct. I just take any old ST game, shove it into my conversion utility and press the "make for kitty!" icon (which has a picture of a money press on it) and it spits out a working ROM.

 

/smfh

[Shaggy the Atarian]

56 minutes ago, Clint Thompson said:

It would be nice to have that much RAM to play with on the CoJag but unfortunately only a small handful of people would ever be able to enjoy something new on it. Now that the JagSD has been released, maybe we will start to see more fun stuff on the Jag. CD is dead, 2, 4 and 6MB (compressed or not) isn't enough space for the things I want to do, but if access to fully utilize the SD storage becomes a reality, then so could dozens of scenes for larger games materialize, as I'm hoping to create.

 

This video is from a demo I've been working on and off from earlier this year with SD support in mind. Sort of inspired by Xenophobe and while the animation isn't finished, the top portion of the alien is currently breathing. The idea is to interact with objects, walk around or behind objects, change angles, exit the room after solving a puzzle with several active environment elements (steam, keypad, doors, glass enclosure, etc) while possibly making the corridor a running styled dodge and shoot game in-between. This resulted as an extension of experiments in wanting to create a Cyberpunk-styled game if the tools become available.

 

*sound check, make sure your volume isn't cranked full-blast as you'll blow your speakers and your ears, as it has very creaky/scratchy sounding intro for an eerie atmospheric feel that some may not care for...

 

 

Big kudos for the stuff you've been working on Clint. From what I've seen of your stuff, I really like the art direction. I've been curious, what resolution are you running everything at? It seems like it's on the higher end. Where I'm constantly flummoxed by coding, perhaps I need to research more about doing art for the Jag (sprite dimensions, color indexing and such).

 

On Fear No Escape, that's an awesome hallway effect and I like the sound of the idea you've got going on there. Apart from Xenophobe, it also looks like it has a Project Firestart vibe to it. If you're able to get a digital/SD release, then I'm there

 

On the CoJag, obviously I have a vested interest in arcade content(even moreso lately, as most arcade developments have been designed for mega-chains flush with cash like Dave & Busters, costing $10k+, $30k+ often times), but just to throw this out there - if a developer were to release something for the CoJag platform, then not only do you get to toy around with that extra power and storage space, you'd get your game into arcades for potentially thousands of people to play. There are a lot of classic & retro-focused bar/arcades out there these days where interesting, but low cost content is sorely needed. At least, I'd love to have something like an enhanced version of Ultra Vortek or a completed version of something like Tube

 

Apart from needing software tools, yes, it would be a little more involved than a typical Jag release. A basic kit could just come with an HDD or CF card (Area 51 and Maximum Force are available on CF, using those IDE-to-CF adapters), although something nicer would also include a marquee & control panel overlay. Still, if a game was properly tested and appropriate for arcades on the CoJag, you could release something and charge a few to several hundred for a game. Teams like NG: Dev Team have made  it work with their releases (Gunlord, Neo XYX, Fast Striker, Kraut Buster), although the Neo Geo MVS did sell more than Area 51/Max Force did. 

1 minute ago, CyranoJ said:

 

That's 100% correct. I just take any old ST game, shove it into my conversion utility and press the "make for kitty!" icon (which has a picture of a money press on it) and it spits out a working ROM.

 

/smfh

Before you shake your inflated head, try comprehending the entire sentence (although I guess the opportunity to get in some dumb sarcasm is too great for that!). I threw out a couple of examples of tools, wasn't throwing shade on your ST stuff, like you seem to think.

 

There aren't any tools I've heard of for the CoJag development that are out in the public, the I'm only aware of one person who had dabbled in that (Tursi).