Jag CD Unreleased games help! American Hero and Caves of fear!

[PikoInteractive]

I know they are just prototypes, Have anybody played them? I don't have a Jag CD, and I wanted to know if you can play from beginning to end on each? Or at least if they have all footage (even if the game part is not finished).

 

Anybody has tried them?

 

Thanks!

[PFG 9000]

You can find American Hero if you look hard enough on the interwebs.  Eventually I found a torrent of info on it.

 

Dunno about Caves of Fear, but I'd guess it's the same for that one.

Edited February 11, 2020 by PFG 9000

[+Mitch]

Caves of Fear is basically a glorified demo. Not much game there.

 

Mitch

[+Stephen Moss]

I have both, it has been a while since I gave them a spin but as I recall...

Caves of Fear was essentially a technical demo/proof of concept for showing how the Game film format works, it is short (about 10 minutes) but it is also complete in that it does not crash like American Hero. I personally feel it has a lot of similarities to American Hero and that given the scene content I think those scenes may have been a later sections of the American Hero plot, just that made with some cheap local actors before investing finances on making American Hero it with known actors.

  

IIRC American Hero has more scenes than caves of fear but the CD that Stone put out over a decade ago is unfinished so it can crash a lot, particularly when you take an action that leads to a scene that does not exit on the disc. I am sure I have spent 30-40 minutes in one session playing as I try out all the different choices trying to discover all the included scenes, I probably would have spent longer but the constant restating from the beginning due to crashing or dying tends to get a little annoying.

Shame it was never released as I think it was innovative and enjoyable to play. 

 

A few years back Jason Smith of JSII released some CD's of for want of a better term unreleased code/demos/Atari archive material one of which I believe has all the scenes for American Hero in it so in theory someone could complete it although unless the code or other documentation holds an indication of which scenes goes where without a script it maybe take a lot of time to work out which scenes go where.

 

In play they are similar to the Don Bluth games like Dragons Lair, the scene plays out and at the end you usually have two choices, depending on your choice (or lack thereof) depends on what happens next. 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Stephen Moss

[Rick Dangerous]

American Hero is quite fun (very campy!); pulled it out recently for a play-through and usually do so every year or two. 

 

It does crash sometimes but seems pretty close to complete overall. 

[PikoInteractive]

Thanks

 

American Hero we were able to get a hold of the SC thanks to a AA member called Chris. Seems all footage is there.

 

Caves of Fear I wanted to see whats up. May be it could be a cool side story or something like that for AH.

 

Thanks for the info guys!

[WAVE 1 GAMES]

Caves of Fear on Hidden Palace

 

https://hiddenpalace.org/Caves_of_Fear_CD_(Prototype)

 

You can also find a few other Jaguar prototypes on this site. Enjoy

[+Saturn]

American Hero encrypted p2p here.

[Swansea_Mariner]

Given the relative state of American Hero it's a surprise that nobody has picked this up and  worked on the issues for a release. Can't be many if any other WIP games out there this close to running.

[Clint Thompson]

1 hour ago, Swansea_Mariner said:

Given the relative state of American Hero it's a surprise that nobody has picked this up and  worked on the issues for a release. Can't be many if any other WIP games out there this close to running.

Honestly not sure why it would need any sort of official release at this point since it has been dumped and downloadable for others to play for quite a long time, also sold by B&C I believe for just as long.

 

As with any FMV-based CD game, you only want to really play it a few times. Even perfectly normal released JagCD games like Battlemorph crash so I doubt that would be a selling point in claiming its 100% crash or bug free. 

[evisu]

Just checked out AH on Youtube ... Jezz! Quite happy that these kind of games died out long time ago ... when I wanna watch a movie, than I watch a movie ?

Reminds me on Deadalus Encounter on the 3DO ... when I´ve seen the screenshots in VG magazines in the early 90s, I WANTED to play this "game" ... years later I bought it ... what a waste of time.

 

There are so good new releases (Speedball, Xenon 2)  out there, is there really a need to "play" AH?

[Clint Thompson]

1 hour ago, evisu said:

...is there really a need to "play" AH?

It’s definitely a cool curiosity. Plus it’s adult oriented and there weren’t many games for the Jaguar in 95/96 specifically targeting adults.

 

I’d rather have played this than Braindead 13 back then.

[Swansea_Mariner]

On 2/13/2020 at 7:37 PM, Clint Thompson said:

Honestly not sure why it would need any sort of official release at this point since it has been dumped and downloadable for others to play for quite a long time, also sold by B&C I believe for just as long.

 

As with any FMV-based CD game, you only want to really play it a few times. Even perfectly normal released JagCD games like Battlemorph crash so I doubt that would be a selling point in claiming its 100% crash or bug free. 

I mean everyone is different, I can appreciate that view, but for me the CD library is slim pickings, and this is one of the few outstanding titles that was anywhere close to complete.

 

I'd definitely  welcome a fixed copy of AH just like I'd deffinitely welcome  a CD release of JHL (which is great in cart form).

[evisu]

16 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

It’s definitely a cool curiosity. Plus it’s adult oriented and there weren’t many games for the Jaguar in 95/96 specifically targeting adults.

 

I’d rather have played this than Braindead 13 back then.

Ok ... compared to BD13 ...

But in general, there are a few games out there, which showed how a combination of FMV sequences with gaming elements can look like, Rebel Assault e.g. Not an awesome game, but fun enough.

The mid-90s, when I saw more and more of these "Video"games in the magazines, that was the time when I gave up first time gaming ... probably supported by the fact that I was 18, got a car, girlfriend ... ?

[UHATEIT]

I was able to play/watch about 5 minutes of caves of fear before it crashed on me. The American hero I can make it to the alley behind the club and the limo scene but that was about it, not that it crashed I just never got back around to trying again. 

 

Someone recently posted a full length video of American hero on YouTube a few weeks ago, its like 45 minutes long and I decided to watch it while riding my exercise bike in my basement just to give something to pass the time. It was pretty cheesy but still fun to watch, I recognized some of the locations from back when I lived in Southern California and thought oh hey I know that place! I also recognize the main actor as the dad in the movie "The Girl Next Door"