Atari Jaguar is FAR from the best console..

[Warmsignal]

2 hours ago, agradeneu said:

Iam a racing game enthusiast and I can tell you there is no point to do that kind of damage control. CF was/is a train wreck. Stunt Racer on Atari ST is a much superior game, although the frame rate is not any better.

I just sat down played me a good half-hour's worth of CF. I dunno, I'm telling ya, those 10 tracks...  That is the strongest point of the game, so you know I gotta stress that. I don't have too much trouble playing it. Yes, the frames are terrible, but it took me all of 3 minutes to compensate for it. It's not that hard to play. If you would run it on an emulator with much better frame rate, then you're good to go.

 

There's a lot of folks out there who are honestly terrible at racing games and that's why the genre has lost so much popularity and succumbed to the sluggish racing sim cliches of today. There's more to most any racing game than just mashing the throttle button, and anyone who doesn't know this will really be screwed playing CF as is often demonstrated in most videos of people playing it.

[sd32]

On 5/26/2020 at 11:56 AM, marcio_napoli said:

Let me start saying I fundamentaly disagree with the posters above. The N64 (my 2nd favorite system ever) has games that are mind blowing, even more so if you consider it's running on 1996 technology. Perfect Dark, Rayman 2, Conker's, Ocarina of Time, World Driver, Turok 2, to name just a few, are Dreamcast level graphics.

 

To say the N64 blurries (sorry for the pun) with the rest of the 5th generation is criminaly underating the N64's power, we'd spend all day argueing about that. When developers programmed it to it's maximum power (specialy with the expansion pack), it could render graphics absolutely miles beyond the rest of the generation.

 

 

  

Nah, those games dont look Dreamcast quality to me. By saying that, now you are underrating the DC. Those framerates, resolution, texture quality and level of geometry arent DC worthy.

 

The Playstation is much closer to the N64 than the N64 to the DC. Stuff like Speed Punks and Terracon looks as good as any similar N64 titles. And thats without using extra RAM. Its a shame the PS1 didnt get RAM upgrades.

 

And for the love of god, i always prefered the Saturn and PS pixelation to the N64 blurriness... pick your poison i guess.

 

So to me the N64 sits nicely as a 5th gen system. The PS1 is closer to it, than the Jaguar is to the PS1

[agradeneu]

7 hours ago, Warmsignal said:

I just sat down played me a good half-hour's worth of CF. I dunno, I'm telling ya, those 10 tracks...  That is the strongest point of the game, so you know I gotta stress that. I don't have too much trouble playing it. Yes, the frames are terrible, but it took me all of 3 minutes to compensate for it. It's not that hard to play. If you would run it on an emulator with much better frame rate, then you're good to go.

 

There's a lot of folks out there who are honestly terrible at racing games and that's why the genre has lost so much popularity and succumbed to the sluggish racing sim cliches of today. There's more to most any racing game than just mashing the throttle button, and anyone who doesn't know this will really be screwed playing CF as is often demonstrated in most videos of people playing it.

I was quite good playing CF, agree it can be enjoyable. I like the look of the graphics and the weather/track selection.There is a good game hidden in it.

[phoenixdownita]

Isn't there a fix for CF atrocious steering controls? (or an improvement over the stock ones?)

 

EDIT: found it

 

I believe CF shares the same "progressive steering" concept as Sega Touring Car Championship (Saturn) and Daytona 2 (Dreamcast), and for Sega Touring Car Championship you can use the Ufo 3D controller to make it better, I've been told Daytona 2 works well enough with the steering wheel ... that would be 2 that were geared towards analog steering, not sure if CF on Jag was supposed to receive analog controls as well.

15 hours ago, Warmsignal said:

Only the most skilled of racing game enthusiasts can master those turns at 6 frames per second. I think I read somewhere, that the game only take your control input once per frame. You just gotta know how to wrestle that d-pad into submission. A turn is not a simple matter of press the corresponding direction, it's left-right-left-right-left-right-left. You gotta have ninja skill.

 

Any game that for steering one way you have to counter-steer the other is wrong, even more if you have to keep alternating the 2 .... I can barely take tap-steering (left-null-left-null-left-null...) but c'mon.

[Kal]

At the end of the day the Jaguar had Tempest 2000 which was worth the price of admission alone. It’s my all time favourite game. The homebrew scene is what makes the Jaguar great today. I have no intersect in owning the original library- I’ve got the games I loved back then such as Super Burnout but my collection is almost all homebrews and I adore them.  The original library I’m simply happy to have for the Skunkboard. 

[Lost Dragon]

31 minutes ago, Kal said:

At the end of the day the Jaguar had Tempest 2000 which was worth the price of admission alone. It’s my all time favourite game. The homebrew scene is what makes the Jaguar great today. I have no intersect in owning the original library- I’ve got the games I loved back then such as Super Burnout but my collection is almost all homebrews and I adore them.  The original library I’m simply happy to have for the Skunkboard. 

And how I wish i still had it. 

 

 

Tempest 4000 such a disappointment by comparison ?

[+CyranoJ]

59 minutes ago, Kal said:

At the end of the day the Jaguar had Tempest 2000 which was worth the price of admission alone. It’s my all time favourite game. The homebrew scene is what makes the Jaguar great today. I have no intersect in owning the original library- I’ve got the games I loved back then such as Super Burnout but my collection is almost all homebrews and I adore them.  The original library I’m simply happy to have for the Skunkboard. 

That's awesome, Kal - thank you for the words and your support

[marcio_napoli]

20 hours ago, sd32 said:

Nah, those games dont look Dreamcast quality to me. By saying that, now you are underrating the DC. Those framerates, resolution, texture quality and level of geometry arent DC worthy.

 

The Playstation is much closer to the N64 than the N64 to the DC. Stuff like Speed Punks and Terracon looks as good as any similar N64 titles. And thats without using extra RAM. Its a shame the PS1 didnt get RAM upgrades.

 

And for the love of god, i always prefered the Saturn and PS pixelation to the N64 blurriness... pick your poison i guess.

 

So to me the N64 sits nicely as a 5th gen system. The PS1 is closer to it, than the Jaguar is to the PS1

I was jumping out of the thread, because we could spend all day argueing about that here. After all, it's my opinion vs yours, and vice versa.

 

Hardly anyone of us will change positions regarding what compares to what. 

 

I just want to clarify 1 thing that is not opinion-based, and I didn't make it very clear.

 

When I said those n64 games are DC quality, I'm sure you guys are picturing in your head the very best DC games ever released, probably those in the later stages of the DC life.

 

That's not what I meant.   I meant DC games, any of them, even 1st gen. Yes the best N64 titles ever do compare to early DC games.  

 

Please have in mind:  it's the very best of a previous generation vs the infancy of the next.  Not that impossible of a fight.

 

Just the other day I was watching Time Splitters 1 for the PS2 on YT, and Perfect Dark for example absolutely compares to that.  And PS2 is far more powerful than the DC. 

 

Time Splitters is a 1st gen PS2 title if you haven't played it.  

 

I could list dozens of games on DC which are not exactly that amazing technically.

 

On the other side, those saying the N64 is blurry, is picturing in their heads N64's very worst titles graphically (Body Harvest, Kameleon Twist, Paperboy, etc)

 

Don't pick a system's worst titles and define it entirely by that poor standard.  

 

Can you really say Conker's, Wave Race, Sin and Punishment, TWINE, Majora's Mask, Rogue Squadron, Fifa 99, Goldeneye, Bettle Adventure Racing, Indiana Jones, etc are blurry messes? I doubt, and that's not based on opinion.

 

Those games are amazing by any standard you look at them.

[Zerosquare]

2 hours ago, marcio_napoli said:

Yes the best N64 titles ever do compare to early DC games. 

Huh... no they don't. That don't make them bad games, but they're definitely not boxing in the same league.

 

Perfect Dark, considered one of the N64's best games:

 

Virtua Fighter 3tb, one of the Dreamcast's launch titles:

 

 

Textures and 3D models are much more detailed on the second one.

 

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Zerosquare

[marcio_napoli]

This is not a fair comparison, VF3 is concentrating all the polys the DC can push into just 2 characters and a simplified environment.  Of course those models will look much, much more detailed.  It's narrowing all its power into just 2 models. 

 

Also have in mind VF3 is not exactly a 1st gen DC title (even if it came in the first batch of games, don't know its release date).  Because VF3 is an arcade Naomi based game, so Sega had a ton of development experience there in the first place.

 

It didn't just pop in for DC out of thin air.

 

Sooo...  Apples vs oranges comparison.

 

For a more apples to apples comparison, take a look at what Time Splitters looked like on the better-than-DC PS2 hardware.

 

 

Now again, Perfect Dark:

 

 

 

And have in mind this is veeeeery poorly captured N64 footage.  Actually, it's not doing the console any justice at all.   

 

Have a go at a RGB modded N64 through OSSC to know what it really looks like.

 

Time Splitters is not looking any hotter than PD I'd say.

[5200Fanatic]

I have plenty of Jag games, and some are good. Most are not. But even on some of the good ones, there seems to be a prevalance of dark green, blue, and purple colors. I don't understand why. 

[+CyranoJ]

48 minutes ago, 5200Fanatic said:

I have plenty of Jag games, and some are good. Most are not. But even on some of the good ones, there seems to be a prevalance of dark green, blue, and purple colors. I don't understand why. 

So... RED (purple) GREEN and BLUE you say....

 

How odd they'd have those colours

[5200Fanatic]

Yeah yeah, but come on -- am I the only one who thinks the Jag games are typically dark?

[agradeneu]

3 hours ago, marcio_napoli said:

This is not a fair comparison, VF3 is concentrating all the polys the DC can push into just 2 characters and a simplified environment.  Of course those models will look much, much more detailed.  It's narrowing all its power into just 2 models. 

 

Also have in mind VF3 is not exactly a 1st gen DC title (even if it came in the first batch of games, don't know its release date).  Because VF3 is an arcade Naomi based game, so Sega had a ton of development experience there in the first place.

 

It didn't just pop in for DC out of thin air.

 

Sooo...  Apples vs oranges comparison.

 

For a more apples to apples comparison, take a look at what Time Splitters looked like on the better-than-DC PS2 hardware.

 

 

Now again, Perfect Dark:

 

 

 

And have in mind this is veeeeery poorly captured N64 footage.  Actually, it's not doing the console any justice at all.   

 

Have a go at a RGB modded N64 through OSSC to know what it really looks like.

 

Time Splitters is not looking any hotter than PD I'd say.

I have to very disagree on that. Its day and night. I had/have both consoles and the DC is a generation worth improvement to the N64. 

Edited May 29, 2020 by agradeneu

[phoenixdownita]

22 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

I have to very disagree on that. Its day and night.

I believe his point is that the best of N64 is "better" than the worst of PS2 .... or whereabouts ... which in and on itself is a moot point (I suppose also he focuses on gfx).

 

If the games are fun to play I can cut them slack on the gfx/sfx dept on any generation, if they are not then I really don't care to know what the worst is.

 

At the same time there's some truth that towards the end of a popular (relatively as it may be) console lifecycle programmers can use a much more extensive bag of tricks to make their games look/sound better than at the beginning, but the N64 is freaking foggy and blurry (as that is the default rendering mode to "blend" stuff ... the low resolution didn't help either, the Voodoo1 did lots of blending on the texture dept but at 640x480 it didn't look nearly as blurry), it was like that in the mid 90s when it came out (I owned one and played Turok on it) and still is ... yes there's a few games with cleaned up visuals but boy-oh-boy was the fog/blur thick on average

 

[JagChris]

20 minutes ago, 5200Fanatic said:

Yeah yeah, but come on -- am I the only one who thinks the Jag games are typically dark?

They definitely have a specific look to them. IMO it's the result of lowest bid developers going for low hanging fruit. Blame Atari for being cheap.

[phoenixdownita]

15 minutes ago, JagChris said:

They definitely have a specific look to them. IMO it's the result of lowest bid developers going for low hanging fruit. Blame Atari for being cheap.

Probably you are referring to the 3d offering (which involved extensive use of black skies), as far as 2D is concerned I find Rayman, Baldies, Mutant Penguins, Atari karts, Bubsy, Zool 2, Pitfall, Super Burnout, Raiden, Ultra Vortek, and Power Drive Rally not really dark (these are the ones I own that I remember but there are more like Brutal Football, Theme Park, Kasumi [lol], Sensible soccer, Fever Pitch, NBA Jam, Zoop, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Braindead, Myst, Primal Rage) , in the pseudo 3d camp Wolfenstein, and Val d'isere and somewhat Doom seems perfectly fine to me, in real 3D CF, ClubDrive, WTR are also not dark.

 

As soon as you step in in Cybermorph, Battlemorph, Hover strike, I-war, Battle sphere etc.... yeah ... it's dark out there.

[JagChris]

A lot of the non 3D offerings have an offense Euro feel and look to them

[JagChris]

And look at ATD's rollage to see what happens when they know they have to compete and realize that offbeat and wacky isn't going to cut it.

[Lost Dragon]

7 hours ago, Zerosquare said:

Huh... no they don't. That don't make them bad games, but they're definitely not boxing in the same league.

 

Perfect Dark, considered one of the N64's best games:

 

Virtua Fighter 3tb, one of the Dreamcast's launch titles:

 

 

Textures and 3D models are much more detailed on the second one.

 

 

Huge fan of N64 Perfect Dark at the time and later on the Xbox 360 thanks to the remake). 

 

But even back then it joined Burning Rangers on Saturn in terms of simply asking too much of the aging host hardware and rather than a swansong current generation title, it would of been a better launch title for the hardware that followed it.

[Lost Dragon]

3 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

Probably you are referring to the 3d offering (which involved extensive use of black skies), as far as 2D is concerned I find Rayman, Baldies, Mutant Penguins, Atari karts, Bubsy, Zool 2, Pitfall, Super Burnout, Raiden, Ultra Vortek, and Power Drive Rally not really dark (these are the ones I own that I remember but there are more like Brutal Football, Theme Park, Kasumi [lol], Sensible soccer, Fever Pitch, NBA Jam, Zoop, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Braindead, Myst, Primal Rage) , in the pseudo 3d camp Wolfenstein, and Val d'isere and somewhat Doom seems perfectly fine to me, in real 3D CF, ClubDrive, WTR are also not dark.

 

As soon as you step in in Cybermorph, Battlemorph, Hover strike, I-war, Battle sphere etc.... yeah ... it's dark out there.

That's the thing i remember about a good few of the polygon 3D games of the Jaguar,  they seemed to be set in a perpetual night environment an awful lot of the time.

 

Hoverstrike 

Aircars 

Cybermorph 

I-War

 

Iron Solider being a notable exception, Club Drive as well, but the latter not exactly a showcase title.

 

[Lost Dragon]

2 hours ago, JagChris said:

A lot of the non 3D offerings have an offense Euro feel and look to them

That's probably because they are from European development teams  or intended for European market platforms like the Amiga:

 

Sensible Software

Teque London

Ubisoft 

Imagitec Design 

Rage 

 

Baldies originally intended for the Amiga.

 

Attack Of The Mutant Penguins born from Atari's European center of development, along with Zero 5 and Fever Pitch Soccer.

 

 

 

 

[Lost Dragon]

3 hours ago, JagChris said:

And look at ATD's rollage to see what happens when they know they have to compete and realize that offbeat and wacky isn't going to cut it.

Rollcage was developed on the PlayStation with the PC conversion firmly in mind,Firebugs saw ATD doing something similar, but for PlayStation only.

 

The PC and PlayStation platforms had huge libraries, compared to the Jaguar and by ATD's own admission, contractual obligations with Atari meant they were late getting into PlayStation development, so their titles had to stand out.

 

ATD talked of having to write all the PlayStation Rollcage tools and editor themselves,  something i found surprising,as the usual PlayStation development talk is of how Sony provided development teams with latest libraries etc and development was far easier than trying to work on platforms like the Saturn or Jaguar. 

 

Rollcage was clearly an ambitious title and they had wanted to include features like:

 

Huge Skyscrapers collapsing and creating alternative routes,suspension bridges buckling under rocket fire etc.

 

 

They certainly appeared to of matured as a development team, by the era of Rollcage. 

[agradeneu]

4 hours ago, JagChris said:

A lot of the non 3D offerings have an offense Euro feel and look to them

The worst of all them "offensive european feel and look" must be Rayman.?

[agradeneu]

9 hours ago, marcio_napoli said:

This is not a fair comparison, VF3 is concentrating all the polys the DC can push into just 2 characters and a simplified environment.  Of course those models will look much, much more detailed.  It's narrowing all its power into just 2 models. 

 

Also have in mind VF3 is not exactly a 1st gen DC title (even if it came in the first batch of games, don't know its release date).  Because VF3 is an arcade Naomi based game, so Sega had a ton of development experience there in the first place.

 

It didn't just pop in for DC out of thin air.

 

Sooo...  Apples vs oranges comparison.

 

For a more apples to apples comparison, take a look at what Time Splitters looked like on the better-than-DC PS2 hardware.

 

 

Now again, Perfect Dark:

 

 

 

And have in mind this is veeeeery poorly captured N64 footage.  Actually, it's not doing the console any justice at all.   

 

Have a go at a RGB modded N64 through OSSC to know what it really looks like.

 

Time Splitters is not looking any hotter than PD I'd say.

 

 

 

Ok lets take a look at some FPS for DC, shall we: