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Does this confirm Mortal Kombat 3 was in development on the Jaguar!?


Adriano Arcade

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2 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

No disrespect intended to Tal, but until some play testers reports or actual footage actually surfaces, we are still left with the little documentation that has been found and shared (payment details, conversations between Probe and Atari) and a lot of anecdotal evidence. 

 

 

Even a title screen or character select screen with confirmation of who drew them would be something. 

 

I'm still hoping Arcade Attack can find and interview the PC coder of Mortal Kombat Probe say they were assigning to Jaguar MK3. .

 

He should be able to explain the situation. 

 

 

MK3 has become one of those mythical titles that many swear reached playable state and if correct, it's really frustrating that so little is still known on it and it's so puzzling as to why Atari wasn't promoting the hell out of it.

 

They showed very early footage of much, much weaker titles time and time again.

 

Why hold back a killer app?

 

Tal isn't The Liard. He worked at Atari Corp. He was a play-tester who had hands-on access to alpha games. His word should mean more than the average joe's.  Don Thomas, John Skruch, and/or Bill Rehbock could probably back up his claim. Or maybe Leonard Tramiel could over on Facebook...

 

"Why hold back a killer app?" That's easy to explain. Atari Corp didn't have the license. Programmers - whether we're talking the original bad boys of Atari Inc or Atari Corp, as well as plenty of other companies - do things all the time that they aren't authorized to do. Someone probably got ahold of code from another platform through one way or another, ported it, and got some of it to run just for the play-testers to toy with it and probably to show Sam to fire him up about it being possible to run on the Jag and to encourage him on to get the license from WMS. Hell, some of the programmers at WMS could've done it as a tease to get Atari Corp to cough up more money for the license. And then once the negotiations fell through, the port was deliberately deleted/lost/whatever. Obviously, someone should've taken screen shots and leaked it to the press to fire up the Jaguar owners so they could've pestered WMS with a letter writing campaign or something.

 

I'm reminded of Dan Kramer's exploits in Atari Inc Consumer Engineering during the glory days. He wanted his CX53 Trak-Ball Controller to be used by both right and left handed players. Management only wanted to produce one model and that model would've had the trak-ball itself mounted to a single side. So when it came to the final demo to management, Dan absconded with the models he didn't want produced, took them home, and then only showed management the model he wanted produced. And that's how that happened...by doing things he wasn't supposed to do.  :)

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3 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

But was this not also the same era people within Atari genuinely thought Fight For Life was every bit as good as Virtua Fighter on Saturn and Tekken on Playstation? 

 

Sam Tramiel was telling press Jaguar was more powerful than the Saturn and not that far behind the Playstation? 

 

Lying about the actual role a certain UK Engineer was playing at Atari Corp?

 

Nobody in the press though Fight For Life was anywhere close to Virtua Fighter or Tekken. And I don't recall Tal making such a claim either. Most of their claims were that the Jag was more powerful than the 3DO and the Jag was being held back due to the lack of the CD-ROM as standard. They were hoping for the JagDuo to be released and the JagII after that. 3DO was also banking upon the M2 to save them against Sony's unprecedented onslaught. Sony steamrolled them all. But in hindsight, that should've been expected with Sony's billion dollar attack plan.

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56 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

 

Nobody in the press though Fight For Life was anywhere close to Virtua Fighter or Tekken. And I don't recall Tal making such a claim either. Most of their claims were that the Jag was more powerful than the 3DO and the Jag was being held back due to the lack of the CD-ROM as standard. They were hoping for the JagDuo to be released and the JagII after that. 3DO was also banking upon the M2 to save them against Sony's unprecedented onslaught. Sony steamrolled them all. But in hindsight, that should've been expected with Sony's billion dollar attack plan.

Honestly I forgot Jag was a thing or didn't think it was still a thing. It was never meant to compete with Sony at all it was meant to compete agianst the 16 bit systems.  My parents wouldn't of bought 500 dollar system. Sony held exclusive rights to the 32 bit version for a year. Sounds like video game industry was full of dirty dealings. Like Microsoft undermining dc. Sony releasing fake screen demo videos of ps2. 

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3 hours ago, Andrew Rosa said:

Not to just jump in here, but I love Ultra Vortek. Visually, it's like an Iron Maiden album cover come to life. Control wise, I'd sooner compare it to Virtua Fighter for it demands more precision than Street Fighter II. The music, 90% of the time, is fantastic. Heavy metal/industrial sound. The finishing moves are awesome! Just as over-the-top as Mortal Kombat, but with more of a sci-fi edge. Unlike Kasumi Ninja, you can't really 'jump kick' your way to success, excluding the final boss. He has no legs and jump-attacks are best served here....

Long and short, I'd say it's worth a try. I enjoy Kasumi Ninja in spite of its many - MANY - flaws, but Ultra Vortek is what I grab when I want a polished game with legitimate challenge. 

Did Mortal Kombat have this ball of fun?
6229-ultra-vortek-other.jpg


6227-ultra-vortek-other.jpg


6228-ultra-vortek-other.jpg

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

Nobody in the press though Fight For Life was anywhere close to Virtua Fighter or Tekken. And I don't recall Tal making such a claim either. Most of their claims were that the Jag was more powerful than the 3DO and the Jag was being held back due to the lack of the CD-ROM as standard. They were hoping for the JagDuo to be released and the JagII after that. 3DO was also banking upon the M2 to save them against Sony's unprecedented onslaught. Sony steamrolled them all. But in hindsight, that should've been expected with Sony's billion dollar attack plan.

It was The Press who claimed that at an Atari Corp board meeting several Atari exec's annouced they thought F.F.L was just as worthy as Virtua Fighter and Tekken and it's always been crediteD source wise as "an annyomus producer".

 

I'm not for an instant suggesting it was Tal, just that there appears to of been some very strange thinking at times within Atari regarding how it's Jaguar line up compared to it's rivals.

 

Darryl Still honestly beliving Attack Of The Mutant Penguins was going to spearhead the new wave of European developed Jaguar software that would show just how serious Atari were in tackling the issue of lack of Triple A titles on the machine. .

 

Bill Rehbock stating in his opinion Checkered Flag II was better than Virtua Racing...

 

 

Darryl himself fell foul of that...just wait till the Jaguar CD is released and then the Jaguar will be on a level playing field with the Playstation and Saturn..nonsense and has openly admitted he was simply going on what he had been told by the engineering department at Atari..

 

 

Atari kept saying they had the games industry experience Sony lacked, Sony hardware was priced too high...etc etc.

 

 

Difference is Sony had the vast resources to ensure Playstation was a success and understood the consumer market at that time far better than Atari did.

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8 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

Tal isn't The Liard. He worked at Atari Corp. He was a play-tester who had hands-on access to alpha games. His word should mean more than the average joe's.  Don Thomas, John Skruch, and/or Bill Rehbock could probably back up his claim. Or maybe Leonard Tramiel could over on Facebook...

 

"Why hold back a killer app?" That's easy to explain. Atari Corp didn't have the license. Programmers - whether we're talking the original bad boys of Atari Inc or Atari Corp, as well as plenty of other companies - do things all the time that they aren't authorized to do. Someone probably got ahold of code from another platform through one way or another, ported it, and got some of it to run just for the play-testers to toy with it and probably to show Sam to fire him up about it being possible to run on the Jag and to encourage him on to get the license from WMS. Hell, some of the programmers at WMS could've done it as a tease to get Atari Corp to cough up more money for the license. And then once the negotiations fell through, the port was deliberately deleted/lost/whatever. Obviously, someone should've taken screen shots and leaked it to the press to fire up the Jaguar owners so they could've pestered WMS with a letter writing campaign or something.

 

I'm reminded of Dan Kramer's exploits in Atari Inc Consumer Engineering during the glory days. He wanted his CX53 Trak-Ball Controller to be used by both right and left handed players. Management only wanted to produce one model and that model would've had the trak-ball itself mounted to a single side. So when it came to the final demo to management, Dan absconded with the models he didn't want produced, took them home, and then only showed management the model he wanted produced. And that's how that happened...by doing things he wasn't supposed to do.  :)

Tal is an individual from an industry full of individuals who have been caught fabricating  claims:

 

Martin Hooley (Imagitec Design)

 

Jane Whittaker (Atari/Rebellion)

 

Jim Gregory (Hand Made Software )

 

Jez San (Argonaut)

 

Just to name a few of the most relevant to the case here.

 

You could add Steve Wilcox (Elite ) and Mark Cale (System 3) also..

 

 

Those i brought up, worked closely with Atari over the years and have all been outted as serial bullshitters, but multiple sources (people who worked for them, had buisness deals with them, created fake screens and game demos for them etc)

 

The revelations about Jim and Martin are still coming and both have been keen to put sole blame on Atari and Leonard Tramiel rather than go public about the inner failings of their own companies.

 

 

All of the above were above the level of play testers. .they coded, created and headed up companies of their own in most cases, lied to the public and press in all cases.

 

It's created a degree of cynicism now when ever anybody comes forward and says...I was told...I worked on...

 

Whittaker alone has caused huge damage in the community with the claims previously taken at face value and it wasn't until people from Graftgold,  Darkworks,  Rare,  Bullfrog etc started coming forward that the sheer magnitude of lies became apparent and the real story became clear.

 

 

It's not enough (sadly) in this era for some anecdotal evidence to be used as the basis for lost games to be classed as having reached X % complete.

 

 

There has to be the supporting evidence. 

 

 

Even screenshots have to be proven as real and not created just for the press. 

 

It's just come to light that a certain Hand Made Software title shown in Game zone magazine was created purely for the purpose of giving the press something and securing the next milestone payment to HMS..It was never from any actual game being written.

 

 

We need a lot more voices to come forward for a start who were involved with Jaguar MK3 to have any real understanding of what exactly went on.

 

 

Probe had coding duties and they will be the ones holding the answers i feel.

 

A few soundbites explaining why it was canned, who the coder probably was,  how much had been paid and when, some suggestions of what might of been coded and why are good starting points, but investigation is always a long journey and this one is far from over just because Tal has added a few more. 

Edited by Lost Dragon
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7 hours ago, Kalani said:

Honestly I forgot Jag was a thing or didn't think it was still a thing. It was never meant to compete with Sony at all it was meant to compete agianst the 16 bit systems.  My parents wouldn't of bought 500 dollar system. Sony held exclusive rights to the 32 bit version for a year. Sounds like video game industry was full of dirty dealings. Like Microsoft undermining dc. Sony releasing fake screen demo videos of ps2. 

Exactly. .Tramiel took to the press numerous times stating the Jaguar was going to rip the guts out of it's 16 Bit rivals, the SNES and Megadrive. .

 

Tramiel wanted Virgin to bring flagship Megadrive titles like Aladdin to the Jaguar.

 

It had 16 bit titles that everyone knew like Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder, Worms,  Syndicate, Theme Park etc.

 

Developers were looking at the Jaguar as a platform to port and upgrade existing titles onto (Jeremy Heath-Smith of Core Design told press Jaguar would only be getting enhanced Sega CD ports ) not develop and push new, ground breaking franchises on.

 

 

Tomb Raider which Core had toyed with back in the Sega CD era, was put on hold until technology evolved far enough to make it a reality. .Smith saw the power of the Saturn and Playstation and knew 3D rendering abilities of home hardware had finally reached that stage. 

 

Fake screens have been part and parcel of the industry for as long as I can remember. .

 

ZX Spectrum Nemesis,  Toki etc.

 

They just get more fancy as technology marches on..Milo And Kate on 360 Connect...

 

 

Concept footage for PS3 Killzone. .

 

 

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9 hours ago, VintageGamer74 said:

@Lost Dragon: Never played Ultra Vortek. I was into Capcom, SNK and other 2-D fighters.

 

I swore off Atari fighting games because of Krapsumi. Is it any good?

 

 

It's one of those titles that really splits Press and Public alike.

 

From Wikipedia a look at the Press Scores:


Next Generation
[54]
AllGame
[48]
Atari Gaming Headquarters
10 / 10[49]
Edge
3 / 10[50]
Game Players
62%[51]
GamePro
12.5 / 20[52]
Game Zero Magazine
27.5 / 50[53]
Player One
35%[55]
ST Magazine
77%[56]
Última Generación
70 / 100[57]
Ultimate Future Games
21%[58]
Video Games
45%[59]
VideoGames
7 / 10[60]
X Gen
15 / 100[61]

 

And that itself is missing the Gamesmaster Magazine scoring review.

 

 

It certainly wasn’t the shot in the arm Atari needed to counter MK3 not appearing after Atari annouced it would debut on Jaguar.

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Getting this back onto MK3:

 

I honestly can appreciate there are those who can believe the game reached a playable stage,  it's just due to the nature of the type of research i have been involved in over past few years, i need to see a lot more to be convinced,  hence suggesting who might be able to provide more details as well as sharing what information was passed onto myself. 

 

 

The concern i have at this stage is that the desire to believe the game reached play testing stage is simply so strong, people are taking single source claims and deciding that's proof enough and from there we are heading into. ..well if it existed..It must of been leaked...If it leaked...someone must have it.

 

And then your risking repeating what we saw when it was claimed Clint Thompson had Phear and Conan..

 

 

Andrew H being pestered for chances of his alleged 7800 conversion of Paperboy etc.

 

Let's just take a slow and steady approach here and see what else comes forward before proclaiming any single bit of research proves game was at playable stage or merely had a few mock up screens created.

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14 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

Nobody in the press though Fight For Life was anywhere close to Virtua Fighter or Tekken. And I don't recall Tal making such a claim either. Most of their claims were that the Jag was more powerful than the 3DO and the Jag was being held back due to the lack of the CD-ROM as standard. They were hoping for the JagDuo to be released and the JagII after that. 3DO was also banking upon the M2 to save them against Sony's unprecedented onslaught. Sony steamrolled them all. But in hindsight, that should've been expected with Sony's billion dollar attack plan.

At the time FFL was in development, Bertrand was happily telling people the game offered far more unique features than Toh Shin Den and Tekken.. 

 

Don Thomas was talking about Atari Corporation putting the famous Atari Fun Factor back into gaming and Bill Rehbock believed in this as well and had asked Bertrand to focus on that aspect first..

 

When Rehbock was interviewed by Arcade Attack..his version of events was Atari wanted game to have more eye candy (texture mapping)  than Sega's Virtua Fighter despite knowing the hardware would struggle with it and Sam Tramiel and his focus group knew game was sub standard and would review poorly, but badly needed a title in this genre,so released it anyway.

 

 

So much for the fun factor being paramount.

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I just don't understand if they had a chance at releasing MK3... Why not develop it? I'm not saying they had a chance but it seems that it was at least floated around. By doing that. You at least give Fight For Life a chance to be developed properly or least make it a better experience.

 

They kill a game like Deathwatch/Switch Death and release Club Drive, Aircars and Blue Lightning? UGH!? The machine wasn't up to snuff with 3-D compared to Saturn, PSX or N64. 

 

I know 3-D was all the rage back then but SNK kept kicking out 2-D. I don't see why Atari couldn't? 

 

Yes. I'm a dreamer.

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

Andrew H being pestered for chances of his alleged 7800 conversion of Paperboy etc.

 

 

 

Why'd you write "pestered" there? If that's the programmer of 7800 Paperboy, he was the one who came forward and said he had written it and it was completed after the SMS version which had been designed by his coworker who he sat directly next to. He was the one who said it was better than the SMS version - or at least as good as, not counting the most likely sub-standard TIA audio, of course - and that he still had it on an Atari ST formatted disc in his attic and that he would try to retrieve it and that was the last any of us heard on the subject some 3 or 4 years ago. That had really fired us up in the 7800 community since that cherished Atari Games title is loved more than Toki. Especially since had the original Atari Inc survived, Paperboy would've been one of the first titles that Atari Inc would've released in 1985 for the 7800, whether coded in-house or by GCC.

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39 minutes ago, VintageGamer74 said:

I just don't understand if they had a chance at releasing MK3... Why not develop it? I'm not saying they had a chance but it seems that it was at least floated around. By doing that. You at least give Fight For Life a chance to be developed properly or least make it a better experience.

 

They kill a game like Deathwatch/Switch Death and release Club Drive, Aircars and Blue Lightning? UGH!? The machine wasn't up to snuff with 3-D compared to Saturn, PSX or N64. 

 

I know 3-D was all the rage back then but SNK kept kicking out 2-D. I don't see why Atari couldn't? 

 

Yes. I'm a dreamer.

 

 

 

 

Some of PlayStations most iconic games where actually 2d. 2d games also age better In unaltered form. The original gta , Diablo, mk trilogy, street fighter alpha series, pocket fighter, puzzle fighter. Hell even 3d games like resident evil had 2d backgrounds

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4 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

Why'd you write "pestered" there? If that's the programmer of 7800 Paperboy, he was the one who came forward and said he had written it and it was completed after the SMS version which had been designed by his coworker who he sat directly next to. He was the one who said it was better than the SMS version - or at least as good as, not counting the most likely sub-standard TIA audio, of course - and that he still had it on an Atari ST formatted disc in his attic and that he would try to retrieve it and that was the last any of us heard on the subject some 3 or 4 years ago. That had really fired us up in the 7800 community since that cherished Atari Games title is loved more than Toki. Especially since had the original Atari Inc survived, Paperboy would've been one of the first titles that Atari Inc would've released in 1985 for the 7800, whether coded in-house or by GCC.

He was indeed but it doesn't appear that he expected it to generate the response it got.

 

He went suddenly very quiet after the claim was being called into question (why no Previews in UK Press when obscure titles like Chronicles Of Cute were announced and development screen shown?) and people from the coding group,The Kremlin called into question some of his Sega Coding claims. 

 

Jim Gregory did the exactly the same once we started looking into his claims.

 

I don't think these pair or Martin Hooley or Jane Whittaker quite expected us to do anything but take their claims at face value..

 

Credible research doesn't work like that and these individuals should of expected us to look further into the claims, especially when they state they might still have old data.

 

I have little sympathy for them,if they had an unpleasant side effect of making fabricated claims to the community. 

Edited by Lost Dragon
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20 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

 

Nobody in the press though Fight For Life was anywhere close to Virtua Fighter or Tekken. And I don't recall Tal making such a claim either. Most of their claims were that the Jag was more powerful than the 3DO and the Jag was being held back due to the lack of the CD-ROM as standard. They were hoping for the JagDuo to be released and the JagII after that. 3DO was also banking upon the M2 to save them against Sony's unprecedented onslaught. Sony steamrolled them all. But in hindsight, that should've been expected with Sony's billion dollar attack plan.

Are you thinking of John Mathieson here, where he said from his limited understanding of the 3DO hardware, he believed broadly speaking, the Jaguar out performed it by a factor of 2 and was stronger in the areas of 3D animation ? 

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4 hours ago, VintageGamer74 said:

I just don't understand if they had a chance at releasing MK3... Why not develop it? I'm not saying they had a chance but it seems that it was at least floated around. By doing that. You at least give Fight For Life a chance to be developed properly or least make it a better experience.

 

They kill a game like Deathwatch/Switch Death and release Club Drive, Aircars and Blue Lightning? UGH!? The machine wasn't up to snuff with 3-D compared to Saturn, PSX or N64. 

 

I know 3-D was all the rage back then but SNK kept kicking out 2-D. I don't see why Atari couldn't? 

 

Yes. I'm a dreamer.

 

 

 

 

Internal Atari documentation shows Atari knew Blue Lightning was an utter dog,but they were so short of CD games it was offered up as a potential risk of getting mauled at review.

 

Maybe they hoped reviewers would go slightly easier on it as it was the 'free' in-game title?

 

Here in the UK, review score wise WMCJ was yet another title that did the Jaguar so much harm and should of either had a lot more time in development or been pulled.

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3 hours ago, Kalani said:

Some of PlayStations most iconic games where actually 2d. 2d games also age better In unaltered form. The original gta , Diablo, mk trilogy, street fighter alpha series, pocket fighter, puzzle fighter. Hell even 3d games like resident evil had 2d backgrounds

Add in Strider, Rainbow Islands/Bubble Bobble collection, Xcom, Adventures Of Lomax, Worms, Oddworld, Skull Monkeys,Blood Omen etc

Edited by Lost Dragon
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  • 5 months later...

I'm late to the party but here are my 2 cents...

 

Tal was an Atari Jag Superfan, I think that is why he got the job and I think he may have been maybe 21 at the time...super nice guy and a non bs'r.

MK3 was on a long list of stuff atari bought the rights too...I think I was working on the bulk of these projects at 1 time or another. I think we licensed MK from acclaim and then had to renegotiate with midway for the full rights, then ultimate came out and we wanted that...we went to Probe because they had MK experience, but dragged their feet, honestly cant recall how far it got...but my guess "playable" because they wanted the milestones paid. There probably was some talk about too many "fighting games", but that conversation shifted daily

 

Yes many of the old school game devs were grade A bs'rs...but honestly that was pretty much only way to get sh*t got done---over promise and under-deliver and hope everything works out enough to get paid.

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11 hours ago, marigul said:

Yes many of the old school game devs were grade A bs'rs...but honestly that was pretty much only way to get sh*t got done---over promise and under-deliver and hope everything works out enough to get paid.

That pretty much sums up the entirety of the Jaguar. Such a shame, too...the Jag had some powerful hardware that could've been exploited well in the right hands. It really needed a AAA publisher/developer to coax something good out of it. Instead, the majority of the development groups were two guys in a garage, or existing games being ported by one person. 

 

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4 hours ago, Sauron said:

That pretty much sums up the entirety of the Jaguar. Such a shame, too...the Jag had some powerful hardware that could've been exploited well in the right hands. It really needed a AAA publisher/developer to coax something good out of it. Instead, the majority of the development groups were two guys in a garage, or existing games being ported by one person. 

 

The "upside" is that Jag alumni have gone onto bigger and better stuff like foundations of the playstation launch and infrastructure, call of duty, apex legends, rebellion has become a top tier company...I am sure there is some other stuff I am forgetting...but at the end of the day it was like video game college before such a thing existed.

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On 3/24/2020 at 7:35 PM, marigul said:

The "upside" is that Jag alumni have gone onto bigger and better stuff like foundations of the playstation launch and infrastructure, call of duty, apex legends, rebellion has become a top tier company...I am sure there is some other stuff I am forgetting...but at the end of the day it was like video game college before such a thing existed.

I would consider Rebellion more like a middle tier company/studio at best. Blizzard, Naughty Dog, Arkane are Top Tier studios.

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I'm more curious these days about what Rebellion will deliver with the films based around the 2000 AD licences they own (Dredd and Rogue Trooper)  than the games they make. 

 

I'm still amazed Rebellion have gone from the humble beginnings they had to owning 2000 AD.

 

They made a meal of Dredd Vs Death, but the Rogue Trooper game was great.

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