Atari Jaguar is FAR from the best console..

[Tommywilley84]

...even for it's time. But I can't help but feel it's MY favorite console of all time . I think some of it has to do with my elementary school days. Super Nintendo and Genesis had already been out for a few years and I was still stuck with the old 8 bit Nes. I was probably one of the last kids in my class to be stuck with just an 8 bit system for as long as I was (first world problems). Anyways my birthday finally rolled around that year and I got a Sega Genesis. I was blown away because with that I also received a copy of Mortal Kombat and one of my childhood friends gave me a piece of paper containing the "blood code"! For a while I was really content until around Christmas when this talk on the playground began circulating about something called a Jaguar that was "the most powerful console ever made!" , "64 bits!!!" ..."No way! That can't be , that's impossible!!!!" Well for Christmas, of course I wanted one. Problem was my parents could never find them in any stores and when they finally did it was a great big NOPE. Far too expensive and the games were far too expensive. I figured it was a long shot to even ask but you can't blame a kid for trying. Christmas rolls around and I am presently surprised by .....a super Nintendo!!!!! Holy shit!!! I was now the owner of TWO 16 bit systems!!! I went from a being a complete nobody to a somebody!! 

Even though I was really content in my great console and game library something about this Jaguar always bugged me. It was the one who got away. I actually took up doing people's lawns at a young age to save up to buy one. By the time I had a reasonable amount saved up, no Jaguar could be found in my area ANYWHERE. I NEVER ENDED UP WITH ONE.........

until all these years later. I started getting into gaming again once I became a family man. I finally ordered that elusive Jaguar off of eBay and have been playing it to no end. It's a very imperfect console. Very much flawed and of course the whole 64 bit thing is a crock. That aside I think the fact that I finally got the one who got away makes up for any faults of this system. I love it for all it's flaws. It's almost charming. Anyways, that's my Jaguar story

[82-T/A]

1 minute ago, Tommywilley84 said:

I actually took up doing people's lawns at a young age to save up to buy one.

Haha, I'm a bit older, but that's the same thing I did when I was a kid to buy my first Nintendo. I think it was like 1985 or something. We had an Atari 2600, and my parents said NO to getting a Nintendo. I saved up all the money I could doing odd-jobs around the neighborhood, and I rode my bike to Toys R' Us with ~170, which included a huge back of change. I probably had close to 40 dollars in change to make up that $170 total. They shut down the isle, and the lady at the register was pissed. Back in those days, they'd give you a little sheet, and you'd pay for that, and then take the coupon to a shack in the front where they had all the games.

 

1 minute ago, Tommywilley84 said:

until all these years later. I started getting into gaming again once I became a family man. I finally ordered that elusive Jaguar off of eBay and have been playing it to no end. It's a very imperfect console. Very much flawed and of course the whole 64 bit thing is a crock. That aside I think the fact that I finally got the one who got away makes up for any faults of this system. I love it for all it's flaws. It's almost charming. Anyways, that's my Jaguar story

I got the Jaguar after Atari had already gone bankrupt and sold to JTS. I graduated HS in 1996, and at that point, I wasn't really playing games anymore. But now I had expendable income, and saw the Jaguar for sale at KayBee Toys for cheap. This was probably the best "deal" I've ever gotten. They had boxed, brand new Jaguars, for $25. Cartridge games were $5, and CD games were $7. I bought one of everything. I ended up getting AvP, Wolfenstein, Atari Karts, Doom, and all the super-rare games for $5. They had ALL the CD games there, so I bought all of them, paid $7 for each. No one was buying them. But... yeah, the Jaguar reminds me a lot of the types of games I played as a kid, growing up with the Atari 2600.

 

I know you're new here, so just to mention if you haven't seen it personally, there's a HUGE homebrew market for the Jaguar. I'd say there's probably just as many games that came out after Atari folded, than when Atari was still in business.

 

[Tommywilley84]

4 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

Haha, I'm a bit older, but that's the same thing I did when I was a kid to buy my first Nintendo. I think it was like 1985 or something. We had an Atari 2600, and my parents said NO to getting a Nintendo. I saved up all the money I could doing odd-jobs around the neighborhood, and I rode my bike to Toys R' Us with ~170, which included a huge back of change. I probably had close to 40 dollars in change to make up that $170 total. They shut down the isle, and the lady at the register was pissed. Back in those days, they'd give you a little sheet, and you'd pay for that, and then take the coupon to a shack in the front where they had all the games.

 

I got the Jaguar after Atari had already gone bankrupt and sold to JTS. I graduated HS in 1996, and at that point, I wasn't really playing games anymore. But now I had expendable income, and saw the Jaguar for sale at KayBee Toys for cheap. This was probably the best "deal" I've ever gotten. They had boxed, brand new Jaguars, for $25. Cartridge games were $5, and CD games were $7. I bought one of everything. I ended up getting AvP, Wolfenstein, Atari Karts, Doom, and all the super-rare games for $5. They had ALL the CD games there, so I bought all of them, paid $7 for each. No one was buying them. But... yeah, the Jaguar reminds me a lot of the types of games I played as a kid, growing up with the Atari 2600.

 

I know you're new here, so just to mention if you haven't seen it personally, there's a HUGE homebrew market for the Jaguar. I'd say there's probably just as many games that came out after Atari folded, than when Atari was still in business.

 

Yes. Once my Jaguar official titles are built up some more I am definitely going to start collecting some Homebrew games as well. I think it's amazing that so many people to this day are developing games for this underappreciated system

[fultonbot]

I bought my brother a Jaguar in like 1996/97 under similar KayBee circumstances.  They only had about 6 games, but I got everything they had.  

he still has it.   It was just "okay", but couldn't even come close to matching my PSX with Namco Museum 1, Crash Bandicoot and Soviet Strike.  It never got much play, but I think it had lots of potential.  Tramiel Atari just did not care enough about video games to make it work (IMHO).   

[Warmsignal]

I think a lot of people feel a similar way about it. It's one of those mysterious consoles that many of us never had much of a shot at back in it's day. For me, that's definitely how I felt towards the SEGA Saturn, and also the Jaguar. Back in the mid 90s, my whole world was basically Nintendo. I was still quite fixated on Super NES, and my sights were narrowly focused on all the rumors concerning what the N64 was gonna be - a mega powerful console with totally realistic games and graphics so good it'll look like real life, as far as I knew.

 

I wish I could say that I was aboard the Jaguar hype train, but in reality I didn't find about about it's existence before the end of 90s. It was such a weird thing to realize that Atari had made another game console that I didn't know about. I had previously assumed that they'd given up after the 7800. I couldn't even tell you when I first discovered the Lynx, maybe the mid-2000s? This stuff was just so obscure to anyone who didn't frequently read gaming magazines or have reliable Internet until around the early 2000s. Hell, I was still having my neighbor printing off cheat codes for me when I was playing PS1 and Dreamcast. I don't even recall seeing Saturn in any stores during the 90s. When I decided to spring for PS1 in 98', I had at least heard the name. So I asked around - should I get a Saturn or a PlayStation? Everyone said PlayStation without hesitating, and so it was.

 

Finally ended up getting a Jag around 2012 or so. Found it in the wild with one game for $60, but I wasn't ready to pay out the real asking prices back then.

 

In retrospect, I honestly think it's not a bad console. I think it's far over-hated. It might have been disappointing for those who bought it at launch. But now, looking back at any of the 5th gen consoles, none of them are technically impressive and certain aspects of them have not aged particularly well, whether you're talking PS1, Saturn, N64, 3DO or Jag. It's easier to see them more on a level playing field now. If we're going to be honest, much of the games that were shoved out the door during that era were too ambitious for ANY of the hardware on the market, and almost every game lacked polish and had a certain crudeness to them that's very apparent today. I still love those game though, with their faults and all.

 

Nowadays, we've all mostly come to our senses and realized, graphics actually don't make the game. Polygons or no, the game can still be fun and the kinds of expectations we held at the time were silly. I'm completely over the notion of Jaguar's "64-bit" translating into graphics that are on par with N64. Who cares anymore? The games on Jag look fine, for the most part. Have you seen how ugly some N64 games actually look, lately? Some of those textured polygons? Yikes. How about the PS1 with it's polygons dancing all around and disappearing as you play? Is the Jag really all that much "worse", graphically speaking? Like Saturn, a good chunk of the games are 2D which look perfectly fine. Even Cybermorph's untextured polygons have a much cleaner, aesthetically pleasing look that your average PS1 or N64 polygon game.

 

I actually really like the Jag, and I'm of the opinion that most of the original titles are pretty solid. The only real disappointment for me is the library was cut so short, and so many potential games were canned. People often say the Saturn was never given a chance to live up to it's potential... well that's even more true about the Jag. It almost wasn't even given a chance. I suppose it was just too early to try to be releasing next-gen hardware when they did and the true next-gen games just weren't there yet.

[agradeneu]

1 hour ago, Warmsignal said:

The games on Jag look fine, for the most part. Have you seen how ugly some N64 games actually look, lately? Some of those textured polygons? Yikes. How about the PS1 with it's polygons dancing all around and disappearing as you play? Is the Jag really all that much "worse", graphically speaking? Like Saturn, a good chunk of the games are 2D which look perfectly fine. Even Cybermorph's untextured polygons have a much cleaner, aesthetically pleasing look that your average PS1 or N64 polygon game.

 

 

By todays standards they ALL look pitiful so the Jaguar appears not that worse compared to e.g. a PSX. But in the 90s the diffference in polygon rendering and frame rates was day and night really! First time I played Wipe Out on the PS1, it was a huge reveal how detailed and fluid texture mapped 3D on a console could look and play. It was the first time when a home system could almost match expensive arcade machines, like Namco or Sega AM2 systems. We decided to buy a PS1 after we saw the official Formula 1 game previewed in a magazine. That looked like everything you could dream of as a kid. Later the game was used in german TV to present/preview F1 tracks. Everyone thought that it looked soooo realistic. 

There are a couple of PS1 games still looking great, like the Wipe Out, Crash Bandicoot and the first Resident Evil. If you like Alien vs Predator, Skyhammer or Doom on the Jaguar there is really no reason to "hate" on PS1 games. Everyone would love/go crazy to play Riiiiidge Racer on the Jag, no doubt! Remember that we got something like Club Drive or Checkered Flag instead. The reason a game like Alien vs Predator is still held in high regard is that it was very special for a system that seriously lacked cutting edge high quality games. Imagine the game on the PS1 and it would be a quite mediocre expierience. So yeah, judgement is not quite impartial when it comes the Jaguar lol.  

Edited May 26, 2020 by agradeneu

[zzip]

Having grown up with the 2600, Atari 8-bit line, etc.   I had a soft spot for Atari and wanted them to succeed, but seeing how underwhelming they were as a games company during Tramiel years, I wasn't about to pay full retail for one.

 

But when I saw the Jaguar and Jag-CD on clearance for something like $49 each,  it was too good to pass up!   I got it and picked up a number of games.

 

I liked the system, but this was also at the point in my life when I was getting near graduating college, building my first PC, didn't yet have my own place and dating my fiance, getting ready to get married..     I didn't have a lot of time or space for a Jag.   I also realized that I could get a number of the Jaguar games I enjoyed on PC, and that made the Jaguar feel less necessary.   So I made the decision to sell it.   I think I even got most of my money back! 

[marcio_napoli]

I love such discussions, so I'm jumping in.  If you read my post on the CM thread, it would appear I'm hating on the Jag saying Jag devs lacked artistic skills. On the contrary, the Jag is possibly my favorite system of all time. If you gave me a PS5 today, I'd trade it for another Jag unit in a heart beat. And no, I'm not nostalgic for the Jag. I hated it back in the 90s to the point of having pity of it.  

 

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.

 

That said, why is the Jag my favorite of all time? I'd love to put that in a You Tube video if I had spare time.

 

People forget what 1993 was like. It was a world 80% analogue. No one had cellphones, internet, graphics workstations at home. No digital cameras, no gaming pcs, there was hardly anything digital. Even Hollywood had both its feet in analogue special FXs, film where shot and distributed in actual film, etc.

  

You get my point already.

 

My family purchased back in 1994 a SUPER EXPENSIVE Power Mac. It ran on 60 mHz and was considered an extremely powerful graphics workstation in 1994. How much? Have no idea. If I had to guess it was something like 5 thousand USD, in 94 money. Crazy expensive.

 

It had a real time 3d app pre installed, where you could rotate 3d objects, I remember being wowed by a 3d apple and a car. 

 

The car itself, a single gourand rendered car, rotated at barely 10 fps (and hardly what you'd call a "decent" poly count).

 

Even with all its mighty, this Mac could barely render 7-10 fps a single object!

 

If you opened a 2d image in a program that came pre installed, it could barely handle scrolling an image at 10 fps.

 

This, my friends, was a powerful workstation from 1994.

 

When I think all the things the Jag did with 1993's tech and 250 USD, it was insanely powerful.

 

So I kind laugh when people hate on the Jag for rendering 3d games at 12 fps, people have no idea what 1993 was like.   

 

The Jag was moving mountains given the tech available, so when you consider all the context, I find deep respect for what both the console and developers achieved with that hardware.

 

It's downright fascinating when people go against all the odds and challenge the impossible, this kinda explains why I love more the Jag than I ever will the PS4 and 5. 

 

Would love to talk hours about the subject, but kinda in a hurry.

[+cubanismo]

4 hours ago, Tommywilley84 said:

It was the one who got away.

Amen.

[agradeneu]

40 minutes ago, marcio_napoli said:

I love such discussions, so I'm jumping in.  If you read my post on the CM thread, it would appear I'm hating on the Jag saying Jag devs lacked artistic skills. On the contrary, the Jag is possibly my favorite system of all time. If you gave me a PS5 today, I'd trade it for another Jag unit in a heart beat. And no, I'm not nostalgic for the Jag. I hated it back in the 90s to the point of having pity of it.  

 

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.

 

That said, why is the Jag my favorite of all time? I'd love to put that in a You Tube video if I had spare time.

 

People forget what 1993 was like. It was a world 80% analogue. No one had cellphones, internet, graphics workstations at home. No digital cameras, no gaming pcs, there was hardly anything digital. Even Hollywood had both its feet in analogue special FXs, film where shot and distributed in actual film, etc.

  

You get my point already.

 

My family purchased back in 1994 a SUPER EXPENSIVE Power Mac. It ran on 60 mHz and was considered an extremely powerful graphics workstation in 1994. How much? Have no idea. If I had to guess it was something like 5 thousand USD, in 94 money. Crazy expensive.

 

It had a real time 3d app pre installed, where you could rotate 3d objects, I remember being wowed by a 3d apple and a car. 

 

The car itself, a single gourand rendered car, rotated at barely 10 fps (and hardly what you'd call a "decent" poly count).

 

Even with all its mighty, this Mac could barely render 7-10 fps a single object!

 

If you opened a 2d image in a program that came pre installed, it could barely handle scrolling an image at 10 fps.

 

This, my friends, was a powerful workstation from 1994.

 

When I think all the things the Jag did with 1993's tech and 250 USD, it was insanely powerful.

 

So I kind laugh when people hate on the Jag for rendering 3d games at 12 fps, people have no idea what 1993 was like.   

 

The Jag was moving mountains given the tech available, so when you consider all the context, I find deep respect for what both the console and developers achieved with that hardware.

 

It's downright fascinating when people go against all the odds and challenge the impossible, this kinda explains why I love more the Jag than I ever will the PS4 and 5. 

 

Would love to talk hours about the subject, but kinda in a hurry.

The real good thing about modern hardware like PS4 or PC is that technology doe not get int the way of game creators just doing their thing, making the best game possible, You can really concentrate on crafting games rather then to find workarounds for technical issues. I also like how engineers and artists work closely together to push the envelope and create better expierience for the player. I respect most of the stuff that is done by todays game creators and generally games become much more versatile, diverse, creative and technically accomplished then ever before. I like how cutting 3D tech coexists with 2D pixel art stuff. The latter still looking for creative new interpretions of classic games like platformers. Its a great inspiration for doing Jaguar and Lynx homebrews. Unlike e.g. PS4 you have to deal with a lot of limitations though and probably might end up making compromises, e.g. lowering quality of graphic assets, simplifiying level designs to keep frame rate happy. Nontheless, it's very special and rewarding to do stuff on those old machines.  

Edited May 26, 2020 by agradeneu

[marcio_napoli]

Agradeneu, I totally understand your view, 100%, and obviously respect a lot your opinion. Personaly I still find more love for things done in the past in a much harder way.  I mean, a single PS4 probably has more processing power than NASA did in the early 90s.

 

No kidding, 1 PS4 has more rendering power than the entire Industrial Light and Magic had when Jurassic Park was made.

 

Engines like Unity or Unreal 4 give developers every single tool they need to craft superb games almost effortlessly (from a technical POV, of course), I would almost say it has become "easy" to create games (of course easy is in quote unquote).

 

OTOH, programmers had to have b@lls of steel to code 3d games for the Jag, when all tools were in its absolute infancy, and you had to have nuts of adamantium to make art out of that.

 

I'm no luddite, I've been doing 3d animation, visual effects, and all kind of things with visual imagery since 1994 when I got that Power Mac at 14 yo.  When it comes to my own work, I enjoy a lot having my immensely more powerful modern pc.

 

But when it comes to appreciate effort invested, creativity, skills to overcome mountains, I appreciate a lot more what people did in the hard, old days.

 

It's sort of comparing how Jurassic Park was made vs Jurassic World.  Won't dig too much into that, but there's a special, charming quality to how challenges were overcome back in those much harder days.

 

[agradeneu]

1 hour ago, marcio_napoli said:

Agradeneu, I totally understand your view, 100%, and obviously respect a lot your opinion. Personaly I still find more love for things done in the past in a much harder way.  I mean, a single PS4 probably has more processing power than NASA did in the early 90s.

 

No kidding, 1 PS4 has more rendering power than the entire Industrial Light and Magic had when Jurassic Park was made.

 

Engines like Unity or Unreal 4 give developers every single tool they need to craft superb games almost effortlessly (from a technical POV, of course), I would almost say it has become "easy" to create games (of course easy is in quote unquote).

 

OTOH, programmers had to have b@lls of steel to code 3d games for the Jag, when all tools were in its absolute infancy, and you had to have nuts of adamantium to make art out of that.

 

I'm no luddite, I've been doing 3d animation, visual effects, and all kind of things with visual imagery since 1994 when I got that Power Mac at 14 yo.  When it comes to my own work, I enjoy a lot having my immensely more powerful modern pc.

 

But when it comes to appreciate effort invested, creativity, skills to overcome mountains, I appreciate a lot more what people did in the hard, old days.

 

It's sort of comparing how Jurassic Park was made vs Jurassic World.  Won't dig too much into that, but there's a special, charming quality to how challenges were overcome back in those much harder days.

 

That might be the reason we saw only a few really good games on that machine.;-) So in the end, that elitist paradigm simply did not work, for Atari, more so for the player. We are here to play good games, aren't we?  Don't forget that all the "easy peasy" super powerful hardware and middleware like Unreal Engine is developed by extremely skillful people and those engineers are providing the framework for game creators to concentrate on creating content. In the end its not about who has the" biggest balls", but who makes the most enjoyable game and make it fun and entertaining for the player. BTW It's still VERY hard to create enjoyable level design, artwork, story telling, character designs especially at those high level of quality. Nobody can't afford a medicocre game anymore, competition is fierce. That's the hard part. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by agradeneu

[Warmsignal]

3 hours ago, agradeneu said:

There are a couple of PS1 games still looking great, like the Wipe Out, Crash Bandicoot and the first Resident Evil. If you like Alien vs Predator, Skyhammer or Doom on the Jaguar there is really no reason to "hate" on PS1 games. Everyone would love/go crazy to play Riiiiidge Racer on the Jag, no doubt! Remember that we got something like Club Drive or Checkered Flag instead. The reason a game like Alien vs Predator is still held in high regard is that it was very special for a system that seriously lacked cutting edge high quality games. Imagine the game on the PS1 and it would be a quite mediocre expierience. So yeah, judgement is not quite impartial when it comes the Jaguar lol.  

I would have to disagree with this assessment. Alien Trilogy is a game that even today is touted as being one of the top notch FPS games on both the PS1 and Saturn. Although, PS1 and especially Saturn were never regarded (to my knowledge) as being FPS powerhouses. If any console were crowned that title, it would be N64 (excluding PC of course). When it comes to quality FPS titles on PS1, people generally think Alien Trilogy, Doom, and Quake perhaps. My point being, Alien Trilogy is to PS1 was Alien Vs Predator was to Jaguar. Except, AVP came first by quite a while, and certainly well before N64 started to pump out FPS gems. So I think you should give credit where it's due, AVP was an impressive game, and would have been on any console for at least the first half of the gen until FPS games started to vastly improve later on with more 3D rendering, etc.

 

I'm not hating PS1, just pointing out that it wasn't a flawless machine. Being an N64 fan back then, trust me I noticed the PS1's graphical shortcomings, while turning a blind eye to the N64's. Yeah, Ridge Racer looks better than Checkered Flag, but shouldn't it? Ridge Racer came later. Checkered Flag was among the first playable polygon racers, emphasis on playable. Hard Drivin' was simply not playable. Virtua Racing is a more fair comparison to Checkered Flag. Although Ridge Racer if I recall, had way less tracks than even Checkered Flag, maybe just like 1 or 2 tracks? Still, Ridge Racer was a good game on PS1, and should be regarded as such no matter which console.

 

I don't blame people though, for wanting to rub a killer app in the faces in of all the Jag haters. We like to see this console do impressive things, and it can, but often times naysayers want to take that victory away by downplaying the results by comparing what the PS1 or N64 did in 97' or 98', to what the Jag was doing at launch in 93'.

2 hours ago, 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.

Sure the N64 had some of the best looking games of the gen, but going back to them now? I'm not as impressed. There are a number of butt-ugly titles that have not aged well at all. Some of the poly textures in Chameleon Twist (great game regardless) are downright laughable, and the filtering effect they used that caused the "jagged lines", the short draw distance they masked by grey fog. In hindsight, the N64 was not perfect. Although at the time a lot of the tricks they used made it seem like it was. While I agree there were some good looking games on N64, comparing them to Dreamcast? I think is quite the stretch.

I've looked at N64s modded for better video output to CRT and even still, the improvement is negligible. However, most of my Jag games hooked up through s-video look pretty damn sharp and colorful. Plus Jag natively supports SCART if you have a Trinitron you can mod to accept it. The N64 isn't gonna clean up as well as the Jag, or even the Saturn. N64 was kinda designed to hamper it's own video output with it's filtering effects that were ultimately unneccasry.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the N64. But the thing is not perfect, and my point is in terms of gen 5 - pick your poison. Jag was not the only console with downsides.

Edited May 26, 2020 by Warmsignal

[agradeneu]

4 minutes ago, Warmsignal said:

I would have to disagree with this assessment. Alien Trilogy is a game that even today is touted as being one of the top notch FPS games on both the PS1 and Saturn. Although, PS1 and especially Saturn were never regarded (to my knowledge) as being FPS powerhouses. If any console were crowned that title, it would be N64 (excluding PC of course). When it comes to quality FPS titles on PS1, people generally think Alien Trilogy, Doom, and Quake perhaps. My point being, Alien Trilogy is to PS1 was Alien Vs Predator was to Jaguar. Except, AVP came first by quite a while, and certainly well before N64 started to pump out FPS gems. So I think you should give credit where it's due, AVP was an impressive game, and would have been on any console for at least the first half of the gen until FPS games started to vastly improve later on with more 3D rendering, etc.

 

I'm not hating PS1, just pointing out that it wasn't a flawless machine. Being an N64 fan back then, trust me I noticed the PS1's graphical shortcomings, while turning a blind eye to the N64's. Yeah, Ridge Racer looks better than Checkered Flag, but shouldn't it? Ridge Racer came later. Checkered Flag was among the first playable polygon racers, emphasis on playable. Hard Drivin' was simply not playable. Virtua Racing is a more fair comparison to Checkered Flag. Although Ridge Racer if I recall, had way less tracks than even Checkered Flag, maybe just like 1 or 2 tracks? Still, Ridge Racer was a good game on PS1, and should be regarded as such no matter which console.

 

I don't blame people though, for wanting to rub a killer app in the faces in of all the Jag haters. We like to see this console do impressive things, and it can, but often times naysayers want to take that victory away by downplaying the results by comparing what the PS1 or N64 did in 97' or 98', to what the Jag was doing at launch in 93'.

Sure the N64 had some of the best looking games of the gen, but going back to them now? I'm not as impressed. There are a number of butt-ugly titles that have not aged well at all. Some of the poly textures in Chameleon Twist (great game regardless) are downright laughable, and the filtering effect they used that caused the "jagged lines", the short draw distance they masked by grey fog. In hindsight, the N64 was not perfect. Although at the time a lot of the tricks they used made it seem like it was. While I agree there were some good looking games on N64, comparing them to Dreamcast? I think is quite the stretch.

I've looked at N64s modded for better video output to CRT and even still, the improvement is negligible. However, most of my Jag games hooked up through s-video look pretty damn sharp and colorful. Plus Jag natively supports SCART if you have a Trinitron you can mod to accept it. The N64 isn't gonna clean up as well as the Jag, or even the Saturn. N64 was kinda designed to hamper it's own video output with it's filtering effects that were ultimately unneccasry.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the N64. But the thing is not perfect, and my point is in terms of gen 5 - pick your poison. Jag was not the only console with downsides.

Ridge Racer Arcade is from 1993. PS1 Ridge Racer was available in Japan 1994, e.g. german magazines reviewed it BEFORE Checkered Flag. Sad but true.  I agree Alien vs Predator was great for a 1994 game, but Atari failed to deliver more of that quality games, unf. it got worse, e.g. Supercross 3D was released 1996 (!)

[Warmsignal]

8 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Ridge Racer Arcade is from 1993. PS1 Ridge Racer was available in Japan 1994, e.g. german magazines reviewed it BEFORE Checkered Flag. Sad but true.  I agree Alien vs Predator was great for a 1994 game, but Atari failed to deliver more of that quality games, unf. it got worse, e.g. Supercross 3D was released 1996 (!)

Ridge Racer arcade was a totally different beast. There's a reason even the Neo Geo AES retailed for like $700 compared to a $200 SNES, or $189 Genesis. Home consoles didn't catch up to arcades until about mid 2000s, actually. I will grant you that Namco did deliver a good PS1 conversion pretty early on, but North America didn't see that for another year. At the time, it was Virtua Racing, Stunt Race FX, or Checkered Flag. Comparing to a game like RR there's a trade off - one single track with better graphics, or 10 tracks and lesser graphics and frames? Personally, I prefer Checkered Flag and Virtua Racing, probably VR more so. The only real issue I have with CF are the frames. Decent soundtrack, though.

[agradeneu]

6 hours ago, Warmsignal said:

Ridge Racer arcade was a totally different beast. There's a reason even the Neo Geo AES retailed for like $700 compared to a $200 SNES, or $189 Genesis. Home consoles didn't catch up to arcades until about mid 2000s, actually. I will grant you that Namco did deliver a good PS1 conversion pretty early on, but North America didn't see that for another year. At the time, it was Virtua Racing, Stunt Race FX, or Checkered Flag. Comparing to a game like RR there's a trade off - one single track with better graphics, or 10 tracks and lesser graphics and frames? Personally, I prefer Checkered Flag and Virtua Racing, probably VR more so. The only real issue I have with CF are the frames. Decent soundtrack, though.

- Both Ridge Racer and Virtua Racing have 3 tracks

- Checkered Flag has 10 but plays terrible, so maybe Atari was thinking that was a good trade off, but most players disagree, 10x terrible is not better than 3x great. 

- Stunt Race was released in 1993 on "last generation" hardware. 1994 it was already outdated but still much better than CF on a next generation console. Ouch!!

 

- Arcade hardware tech started to fade and lost its technology frontrunner role to PC chipsets and new console hardware around 2000-2002.  Sega and Namco were using PC chipsets from PowerVR, nvidia and ATi for their Arcade machines. None of those chipsets could match the latest high end chipsets that were available for the PC market in the same timeframe. Namco used PS2 hardware roughly from 2002 - 2006 (!). Sega Triforce is based on GameCube hardware, ca. 2005. BTW The same year saw the release of Xbox360. The original Xbox was released 2002 and introduced the cutting edge Geforce 3 chipset with Pixelshader 1.0 technology. That chipset was used later for Arcade hardware a couple of years on, while the PC consumer market already raced to new and much more powerful chipsets.  Check this out: http://www.system16.com/museum.php?id=7

Edited May 27, 2020 by agradeneu

[JaggingUK]

Same as many I started off with an Atari 2600 - £129 I think and games at £29.99 each so games back down where expensive if we take into account inflation and rise in wages since the late 70s, then a shop called VisionHire (bit like radio rental) started renting Intellivision machines for about £8 a month - you got two games with it and could swap them for two other games at the end of a months hire. Then I got a Colecovision on a bargain when they were being sold for cheap by the local Co-Op, the price for a coleco was dropped to £50 and that came with some extra games as well - by then though I had bought into the ZX Spectrum world (£129.99 for 16K machine £179.99 for 48K machine and games from £4.99 to £14.99 for something like The Hobbit adventure game)... The Jaguar came much later and was the steal of the century when it went bust as the machines and games were being sold for £5 each other here in the UK - I really wish I had cleaned that shop out LOL. After that machine I decided I wanted an N64 to play Goldeneye on so set about winning one by concocting a star letter for the magazine 'Computer and Video games' and after three letters to the magazine I eventually got star lettter - the prize - an N64 plus 5 games of my choice. Other the years I have had other machines like Megadrive etc, and picked up lots of things at car boots and charity shops, Snes, nes, 3Do, etc, but I have always had a real soft spot for Atari - the 2600 was my first proper machine, but my love of Atari really comes from the Jaguar - I am a person who loves a bargain, and still does so my Jaguar for £5 is probably one of my fondest memories ever when I walked in that Electronics Boutique store in East Kilbride and spotted that mountain of Jaguar machined and games being cleared out - and Tempest 2000 was so great.

I have other the years collected lots of games from car boot/garage sales - i even put a few adverts in local papers years ago in the wanted section when I was looking for gaming stuff and arcade machines and ended up with a 1960's Wurlitzer jukebox for my efforts and some gaming stuff too - but it is the Jaguar that I do still love for some reason.

I do think it has something to do with Atari for me being the original gaming brand - it's even there on Blade Runner, that's how highly as a brand it was considered back in the day.

There was a company in the UK called Joystick Junkies and they used to do some great t-shirts with the Atari logos on them, I had one or two, and when I went to America and had those t-shirts on it would actually strike up conversations with people of a certain age who all remembered that logo fondly from childhood - I guess the Jaguar was not the greatest machine but it was lucky to have the Atari logo on it, had it not had the Atari logo on it and it was a new machine from the Intellivision or Colecovision stable then maybe all the affection lots of us have for it would maybe not be there - there really is something nostalgic about that logo that makes me delighted that I walked into that game store all those years ago and started my Jaguar collection for £5 - I just wish I had bought every machine in that store as there literally was a mountain of them!

[Warmsignal]

7 hours ago, agradeneu said:

- Both Ridge Racer and Virtua Racing have 3 tracks

- Checkered Flag has 10 but plays terrible, so maybe Atari was thinking that was a good trade off, but most players disagree, 10x terrible is not better than 3x great. 

- Stunt Race was released in 1993 on "last generation" hardware. 1994 it was already outdated but still much better than CF on a next generation console. Ouch!!

 

I'm gonna play the devil's advocate and remind you without the FX chip in the cart the SNES could never have done Stunt Race FX at all. So is it fair to call that last gen? Even then, CF looks quite a bit better than Stunt Race, and it's also full screen. Regarding Ridge Racer the PS1 conversion - "A single course is featured, and it consists of four configurations of increasing difficulty: Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Time Trial (the latter two are extended)." So technically that's the same track done a few different ways. ?

[Zerosquare]

16 hours ago, Warmsignal said:

Checkered Flag was among the first playable polygon racers, emphasis on playable.

It's the first time I hear someone describe Checkered Flag as "playable".

[Warmsignal]

3 minutes ago, Zerosquare said:

It's the first time I hear someone describe Checkered Flag as "playable".

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.

[agradeneu]

4 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.

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.

Edited May 27, 2020 by agradeneu

[agradeneu]

5 hours ago, Warmsignal said:

I'm gonna play the devil's advocate and remind you without the FX chip in the cart the SNES could never have done Stunt Race FX at all. So is it fair to call that last gen? Even then, CF looks quite a bit better than Stunt Race, and it's also full screen. Regarding Ridge Racer the PS1 conversion - "A single course is featured, and it consists of four configurations of increasing difficulty: Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Time Trial (the latter two are extended)." So technically that's the same track done a few different ways. ?

Yes, because you don't need to invest in new hardware and can play it on a standard SNES while the Jaguar required spending money on new hardware and was advertised as "64 bit" next generation. 

Technically 3 different track layouts are not the same as 1 track.  Actually Virtua Racing does that too. I think we can stop arguing about that. 

Edit: Ridge Racer Revolution contains 3 quite distinct track layouts. The advanced layouts reveal new scenery of the island. I got that confused with the original Japan release from 1994 which contains just 2 layouts and a reverse one.

Edited May 27, 2020 by agradeneu

[Gummy Bear]

6 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

 

Technically 3 different track layouts are not the same as 1 track.  Actually Virtua Racing does that too. I think we can stop arguing about that. 

Incorrect. 

Virtua Racing has 3 distinct tracks. 

 

Also: when you bought a Super FX game, you were technically investing in new hardware. 

The entire game was rendered in the cart. 

[agradeneu]

40 minutes ago, Gummy Bear said:

Incorrect. 

Virtua Racing has 3 distinct tracks. 

 

Also: when you bought a Super FX game, you were technically investing in new hardware. 

The entire game was rendered in the cart. 

Yes to the first, no to the second. You just buy the cartridge with no extra cost. With hardware I mean investing in a new console base unit. Technically any cartridge is hardware. Quite some Nintendo games used co processors on the cartridge. Edit: BTW the SuperFX coprocessor does not substitute the hardware of the SNES. You still need the graphics system of the SNES to display anything on screen.

Edited May 27, 2020 by agradeneu

[UHATEIT]

The jaguar is not necessarily a good console but it too is MY all-time favorite. My #2 favorite is the Nintendo Virtual Boy, and my #3 is the 3DO. SO yeah I like the BAD consoles you could say. I feel like anyone can enjoy a well created and presented console with good games like the NES, Genesis, SNES, and so on. But I find something intriguing in the ones that flopped.