My opinion of Cybermorph

[Jaguar 2000]

On 6/16/2020 at 4:27 PM, thegoldenband said:

I beat Cybermorph this month and had a decent time with it. Having played through and enjoyed Hover Strike, it was pretty easy to get on Cybermorph's wavelength, and I appreciated that it's more forgiving about things like fuel consumption and energy use. Decent selection of special weapons too, though they should've been accessible via the keypad, as in Hover Strike.

 

On the other hand, having to clear eight planets at a time (plus a bonus planet and boss fight) is too many, and the EEPROM could have been used in a smarter way. The selection of enemies is also pretty uninspiring, and the enemy AI rather dim (except when it's cheap, like getting instakilled by a worm you couldn't see coming because "your scanner is jammed").

 

But I did enjoy the aesthetic of Cybermorph. The simplicity of the graphics is more attractive to my eye than a lot of early texture-mapped games were, and cruising around the planet can be a pleasantly mellow experience...

 

...as long as you're not being harangued about pods in danger that you can't possibly have found yet. That is an annoyance -- the whole "you need to know the level layout in advance in order to have a good chance of clearing it" thing -- though I expected the level design to be a bit more sadistic than it generally is. Conversely, if a level goes badly the pods offer an easy way to cheese the game, i.e. by letting pods get destroyed so that you can restart the planet with no penalty.

 

Also, kudos to the programmers that the game only really chugs in one area of one planet -- the water planet in the last area, as I recall, where for some reason they decided to spawn a bunch of stationary objects that reduce the framerate to a crawl.

 

BTW did the AVGN hear "Where did you learn to fly?" so much because he was playing the cut-down 1MB version? I have the 2MB cart -- courtesy of Austin, IIRC -- and it says "Avoid the ground" more frequently, though I didn't hear either comment much after the first 15 minutes or so.

did u beat it in one sitting or used the access code to continue the sector where u left off? the game is quite long and hard to finish in one sitting especially sector 4 and 5

 

[+thegoldenband]

2 hours ago, Jaguar 2000 said:

did u beat it in one sitting or used the access code to continue the sector where u left off? the game is quite long and hard to finish in one sitting especially sector 4 and 5

I did one sector, or 8 (really 9) planets, at a time. I'd never try to do the whole game start to finish in one sitting, it's far too long for that!

[evisu]

CM is simply boring. Graphics are ok, controls are not too bad, open world scenario is nothing wrong with, but the rest ... pfff ... fly around, collect pods, shoot the enemies. No storyline, no boss fights, the stupid spaceship what can´t even fly over 50ft high mountains and the bloody green advisor lady-head. Boring and annoying.

Was ok as my first Jag game for a week or so, but I wouldn´t waste a minute more today to play the game.

I understand, that Atari had pressure to publish some games with the console, but exactly the poor library of games (Cybermorph, Club Drive, Trevor McFur) in the beginning was the reason, why the Jaguar failed on the market so soon.

 

[Jaguar 2000]

11 hours ago, thegoldenband said:

I did one sector, or 8 (really 9) planets, at a time. I'd never try to do the whole game start to finish in one sitting, it's far too long for that!

tell me about it! I been up all night playing it to complete sector 1- i'm 2 planets into sector 2. It would have been easier if you could have saved the game after finishing 2 planets or so- but i guess its still better than not getting passwords at all. The replay value is very high because each sector has , as you stated, 8 or 9 planets to complete. trial, error and strategy must be applied. its like a space flying adventure game in that when you get to sectors 4 and 5, sectors 1-2 seems a long time ago. 

 

[Jaguar 2000]

2 hours ago, evisu said:

CM is simply boring. Graphics are ok, controls are not too bad, open world scenario is nothing wrong with, but the rest ... pfff ... fly around, collect pods, shoot the enemies. No storyline, no boss fights, the stupid spaceship what can´t even fly over 50ft high mountains and the bloody green advisor lady-head. Boring and annoying.

Was ok as my first Jag game for a week or so, but I wouldn´t waste a minute more today to play the game.

I understand, that Atari had pressure to publish some games with the console, but exactly the poor library of games (Cybermorph, Club Drive, Trevor McFur) in the beginning was the reason, why the Jaguar failed on the market so soon.

 

Club drive is too choppy to enjoy- i drove off the edge in jerome's pad stage and the entire game screen began shaking crazy. I rammed into a wall, same thing. the game froze on me after being stuck in a ditch. 
trevor mcfur is cool- but u need a rapid fire controller to really enjoy it- too much single pressing to fire. 

[Jaguar 2000]

my copy- Alien Green Sinead O Connor aka Skylar says "where did you learn to fly" only when you bump into a mountain or low lying wall/ridge. the Angry video game nerd is not a very good gamer at all- he rants and raves about games making it seem like the game is programmed badly or the developers made errors when in fact, a little patience and practice would solve the issue e.g. the ninja gaiden thing where u have to leap off the wall then move forward onto the ledge or the Batman NES wall spring technique- i mastered those techniques the second day i got those games back in the early 90s. It was never a problem for me.
He is a mediocre gamer. I used to watch his  episodes but i find his reviews are utterly distasteful and inaccurate representation of the game in review. 

Edited October 6, 2020 by Jaguar 2000

[evisu]

6 hours ago, Jaguar 2000 said:

Club drive is too choppy to enjoy- i drove off the edge in jerome's pad stage and the entire game screen began shaking crazy. I rammed into a wall, same thing. the game froze on me after being stuck in a ditch. 
trevor mcfur is cool- but u need a rapid fire controller to really enjoy it- too much single pressing to fire. 

Club Drive have today this weird "WOW ... can you believe this? They released this piece of crap as FULL PRICE game!!!" charme. Funny today, when I get a monthly salary and don´t care so much about 30 or 40€. A disaster back in 1993, when you spend a lot of money, what you´ve saved for months to buy this.

Trevor McFur is really not good. Raiden is a good playable shooter (whenever not as good as the 8-bit Turbo Duo CD Version) and still today worth to spend an hour. But Trevor McFur is sadly just a average graphics demonstration with too less "Wow" effects (the skeleton beast). I wish, they would have released a good version of R-Type II instead ?

Edited October 6, 2020 by evisu
typo

[Jaguar 2000]

4 hours ago, evisu said:

Club Drive have today this weird "WOW ... can you believe this? They released this piece of crap as FULL PRICE game!!!" charme. Funny today, when I get a monthly salary and don´t care so much about 30 or 40€. A disaster back in 1993, when you spend a lot of money, what you´ve saved for months to buy this.

Trevor McFur is really not good. Raiden is a good playable shooter (whenever not as good as the 8-bit Turbo Duo CD Version) and still today worth to spend an hour. But Trevor McFur is sadly just a average graphics demonstration with too less "Wow" effects (the skeleton beast). I wish, they would have released a good version of R-Type II instead ?

Have u played cannon fodder? its a point and click war game but its fun! i never thought i'd spent hours playing such a game with simple gameplay mechanics.

[evisu]

12 hours ago, Jaguar 2000 said:

Have u played cannon fodder? its a point and click war game but its fun! i never thought i'd spent hours playing such a game with simple gameplay mechanics.

Played CF for hours and hours, back in the past on my Amiga 500 (and have it today for the Jag ... still sealed in the box ? ). It´s still a good game , simple in the beginning, but quite hard to master in the higher levels. A mouse is definitely an advantage.

[tripled79]

On 10/6/2020 at 10:24 AM, Jaguar 2000 said:

my copy- Alien Green Sinead O Connor aka Skylar says "where did you learn to fly" only when you bump into a mountain or low lying wall/ridge. the Angry video game nerd is not a very good gamer at all- he rants and raves about games making it seem like the game is programmed badly or the developers made errors when in fact, a little patience and practice would solve the issue e.g. the ninja gaiden thing where u have to leap off the wall then move forward onto the ledge or the Batman NES wall spring technique- i mastered those techniques the second day i got those games back in the early 90s. It was never a problem for me.
He is a mediocre gamer. I used to watch his  episodes but i find his reviews are utterly distasteful and inaccurate representation of the game in review. 

I wouldn't take his reviews too seriously. They're made to get views. So he takes a lot of liberties with the truth and jazzes up the performance for comedic effect.

I watch them from time to time to be entertained. Some of his points hold true for certain games and certain situations. But like I said, they're just for fun.

[Pete5125]

It's a weird, game and has its fans, had 3 roommates at the time 1 was totally absorbed by the game and the open worlds, he would play the game map it etc. Got tons of play value out of this game.  I hated it, and would get to hear Skylar screaming where did you learn to fly, in my sleep.

[Jaguar 2000]

On 10/10/2020 at 11:47 AM, Pete5125 said:

It's a weird, game and has its fans, had 3 roommates at the time 1 was totally absorbed by the game and the open worlds, he would play the game map it etc. Got tons of play value out of this game.  I hated it, and would get to hear Skylar screaming where did you learn to fly, in my sleep.

i find she sounds soothing- they should used her voice for Alexa and Siri

[Leeroy ST]

On 10/8/2020 at 7:49 PM, tripled79 said:

I wouldn't take his reviews too seriously. They're made to get views. So he takes a lot of liberties with the truth and jazzes up the performance for comedic effect.

I watch them from time to time to be entertained. Some of his points hold true for certain games and certain situations. But like I said, they're just for fun.

Him and other Youtubers spread the belief that Cybermorph was not showing off improvements to games like Star Fox which I find incredibly puzzling and straightout bizarro. I also don't understand this fascination with Star Fox in technical terms, Cybermorph gameplay opinion aside, is clearly a more technically advanced title and Star Fox is a linear shoe box on rails game. 

 

Imo I think the gameplay is more involved since you have more control over what you're doing although I can see why people don't like how they executed it. Battlemorph solves those complaints for the most part though. At least imo.

[Pete5125]

Mainly Cybermorph, is a dark grainy polygon game, and the open world for some, makes for a long boring game, as you fly around grabbing pods.

 

Star fox is a colorful fun game that throws you into the action, and feels like you just jumped into a Star Wars adventure.

 

Star fox is more fun with clear objectives, and a great soundtrack.

 

Play both Starfox wins for fun every time.

Cybermorph is longer, not everyone appreciates this

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, Pete5125 said:

Mainly Cybermorph, is a dark grainy polygon game, and the open world for some, makes for a long boring game, as you fly around grabbing pods.

 

Star fox is a colorful fun game that throws you into the action, and feels like you just jumped into a Star Wars adventure.

 

Star fox is more fun with clear objectives, and a great soundtrack.

 

Play both Starfox wins for fun every time.

Cybermorph is longer, not everyone appreciates this

But the claim isn't about game quality, the claim was that Cybermorph wasn't a raphical improvement from Star Fox by Youtubers back then and that's just wrong no matter how you slice the pie.

 

I'm not defending the games quality btw just the graphics.

[philipj]

The first time I saw "Cybermorph" on the Atari Jaguar was in 93 or 94 when it was displayed at a "Sams Club" store... At that time I thought the game looked pretty impressive for that time period. It certainly looked better than "Starfox" for the SNES.

[tripled79]

11 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Him and other Youtubers spread the belief that Cybermorph was not showing off improvements to games like Star Fox which I find incredibly puzzling and straightout bizarro. I also don't understand this fascination with Star Fox in technical terms, Cybermorph gameplay opinion aside, is clearly a more technically advanced title and Star Fox is a linear shoe box on rails game. 

 

Imo I think the gameplay is more involved since you have more control over what you're doing although I can see why people don't like how they executed it. Battlemorph solves those complaints for the most part though. At least imo.

I hope to once again get my hands on a copy of BattleMorph...Looking at you Songbird...(ahem)

[+jgkspsx]

As a newbie to the Jaguar, as a fan of low-stress games, as somebody pretty much immune to jank, and as a devotee of flat shaded low poly graphics, I have to say I really enjoyed Cybermorph. (And Club Drive. I don’t HATE Trevor McFur, but it really looks and plays like something that came in a cereal box.)

 

(Also Star Fox was on an old 16-bit system, and Cybermorph was on a 64 bit next-gen system, and they released just months apart. The gap in expectations was huge. Star Fox is a truly impressive accomplishment on the SNES.)

Edited October 14, 2020 by jgkspsx

[Mikebloke]

Finally got a jag today and it came of course with a copy of cybermorph. 

 

I have to admit I've watched more than a few videos about the game and it's complete slating of it, and now I've played it myself on a console, I just don't see it myself. I had this impression in my head that it was an annoying voiceovered laggy low frame rate game and it really wasn't. In fact it felt really smooth! I only did the first sector as I was just trying it out but I really didn't mind it. The controls felt OK for the controller too, nothing felt really out of place. I would like to finish it sometime when I get a decent go of it. 

[Jaguar 2000]

On 10/5/2020 at 11:17 PM, thegoldenband said:

I did one sector, or 8 (really 9) planets, at a time. I'd never try to do the whole game start to finish in one sitting, it's far too long for that!

sector 5 is actually the easiest- sector 3 is hardest and with sector 2 an 4 being medium. 

for the planet Gantlet in Sector 5- you just need one detonator to blow up the forcefield- collect the essential pods and look north in the same area to find the portal and escape. There are 2 additional pods via red and blue teleporters on the opposite side of the Canyon- but they take up too much time and you don't need to collect them since by now you would have had easy access to collecting extra pods in previous planets on previous sectors or bonus pods in the planets outstanding in Sector 5. Hellfire and Elaaze for example, like many other planets, the extra pods to pick up after collecting the essential required pods are easy to find. 

For Planet JenWelsh in Sector 5- follow this pattern to avoid unnecessary dogfights, damage or wrecking the ship. Follow the portals in this specific color coding:
blue, yellow, blue- then blow up the generator for the force field. Fly through force field area now accessible to left, up, right up, left, up to find the dark blue ring to access bonus level.
Reverse direction to bail out via the portal in the corner of a dark shaded area of the main ground of the planet. You would have bypassed enemies and other threats- making this mission quick and successful. 

The bonus level is where you collect some weapons, quite a bit of bonus point coins and extra lives- collect everything as fast you can making sure to collect at least one of the two extra lives in the bonus stage- collect as much score coins as you can since this will help you reach the extra life quota of 50,000 a lot faster. When the timer reaches around 30 seconds, start frantically looking for the portal or else all your extra lives, bonus points and weapons will not be saved in your game when you go exploring the other planets of Sector 5. 

Completing Jenwelch and the bonus level gives your a far greater advantage when fighting in the other planets.

The game is more fun battling through each sector at a time and earning the access code.



 

[Jaguar 2000]

Tips on beating the battle stations.

Weapons needed 
Fire balls
Mine detonator
Missile

Floating devil  heads- use the straight missile on the heads with the horns- one missile will usually kill them.

Floating Mask heads- usually pink with a tragedy face- these things fly fast right at you and will blow up your ship in one hit regardless of how much power you have- be it full or half.
Fly away and wait for them to appear, use your scanner to see their location. When they appear, drop a mine detonator and reverse (fly backward) the ship a little to clear the mine. The Mask heads will fly right into it and will be blown up with one hit from the detonating mine. 

Worms and mutant worms- these annoying things will murder you in one hit- like the mask head, they fly directly at your  ship in a head-on collision kamikaze style attack. Wait for them to appear, and use the mine detonator, reverse the ship and wait for the worm to crash into it- for the mutant worms  boss at the end of sector 4- this strategy will need to be repeated many times until the worms are dead. For smaller worms, like in the planets or Final boss stage at the end of Sector 5, one hit from a mine detonator will kill them.


Fighter Jets- arm missile, firebombs or regular laser shots and strafe them repeatedly- fly, fire ascend and fly away- turn and repeat- or find a sweet spot off to the side of their missile's linear path of flight/motion and keep blasting away. As soon as they explode a giant jet fighter appears so be prepared to aim and fire at it at once- one hit with regular laser shot will destroy these super jets. 

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Jaguar 2000

[PFG 9000]

5 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Finally got a jag today and it came of course with a copy of cybermorph. 

 

I have to admit I've watched more than a few videos about the game and it's complete slating of it, and now I've played it myself on a console, I just don't see it myself. I had this impression in my head that it was an annoying voiceovered laggy low frame rate game and it really wasn't. In fact it felt really smooth! I only did the first sector as I was just trying it out but I really didn't mind it. The controls felt OK for the controller too, nothing felt really out of place. I would like to finish it sometime when I get a decent go of it. 

Welcome to the Jaguar community!  Your experience makes sense - there's a lot of bashing by those who have only read about the Jaguar and never played one.  But those of us who have played it know it's got some pretty solid content and gets an unfairly bad rap.  Granted, there is plenty of bad-to-mediocre stuff on the Jag too.

[moycon]

I don't have much to add mainly because I only played the game a couple times and it was years and years ago, but I always thought this game looked AMAZING. More so for it's time. I remember being in awe of those graphics looking at the screen shots.

I saw the AVGN review in the past but never really take him seriously. I mean that IS the schtick of the character, to point out all the things wrong with a game. LJN games have taken the brunt of the abuse from that character, but many of those games are actually fun, so I take what he says with a grain of salt every time!

[Jaguar 2000]

5 hours ago, moycon said:

I don't have much to add mainly because I only played the game a couple times and it was years and years ago, but I always thought this game looked AMAZING. More so for it's time. I remember being in awe of those graphics looking at the screen shots.

I saw the AVGN review in the past but never really take him seriously. I mean that IS the schtick of the character, to point out all the things wrong with a game. LJN games have taken the brunt of the abuse from that character, but many of those games are actually fun, so I take what he says with a grain of salt every time!

LJN published most of the games- they didnt develop it. And i owned a lot of LJN games on gameboy, NES and SNES- some were lame but tolerable. Nothing at all like what the AVGN claims. I hate that guy. 

[Jaguar 2000]

7 hours ago, moycon said:

I don't have much to add mainly because I only played the game a couple times and it was years and years ago, but I always thought this game looked AMAZING. More so for it's time. I remember being in awe of those graphics looking at the screen shots.

I saw the AVGN review in the past but never really take him seriously. I mean that IS the schtick of the character, to point out all the things wrong with a game. LJN games have taken the brunt of the abuse from that character, but many of those games are actually fun, so I take what he says with a grain of salt every time!

nice sandwich picture  
Arby's is my favorite.