captainblack Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 Hey folks, I dont own the physical console because of its market price atm. Thanks to the Pheonix emulator I have been able to play all games but the 2 Iron Soldier games. a thread from a year ago says Phoenix is the best emulator for the Jaguar, is that still true? If so is the project being worked on in the emulation community or is it stagnant? Alternatively are there any Retron type pirate consoles that can play Jaguar? Any rumors of a Jaguar mini? (who even owns the trademarks at this point anyways?) Any plans for them to be added to PS Network or Switch shop or something like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 Emulator works pretty well, use a bluetooth or USB controller. And just search for roms. Best way I can think of short of getting a Jaguar. If you do, the Iron Solider games are... a 90's graphics games. Hasn't aged well, but in concept still fun and worth a play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainblack Posted July 9, 2020 Author Share Posted July 9, 2020 Ya VJ was my original attempt at emulation because its not in Russian, but the Iron Soldier games didnt work on it either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TTman Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 You could get an original Playstation and Iron Soldier 3. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 A Grand?! You should be able to get a Jag and both games for about $400. -Jaguar....$250, won't go too much higher https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-Launch-Edition-Black-Console-all-og-equipment-tested-works-great/184356030239?epid=170144261&hash=item2aec79c71f:g:hyYAAOSwgO9fBJv- -Iron Soldier on ebay, $40 https://www.ebay.com/itm/IRON-SOLDIER-Atari-Jaguar-Game-w-Box-Manual/254623724978?epid=56222871&hash=item3b48c1b5b2:g:zJQAAOSwsVVe44a0 -Iron Soldier 2 on Songbird.com https://songbird-productions.com/product/is2-cartridge/ $125 Total: $450ish Yeah thats a lot to play just those two games....lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainblack Posted July 9, 2020 Author Share Posted July 9, 2020 12 hours ago, TTman said: You could get an original Playstation and Iron Soldier 3. How similar is the play style? Do they use the same engine? One reason I find the IS games so interesting is because of what they were able to achieve with the hardware, but I guess PS1 is not too far off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper_Eye Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 It's pretty much Iron Soldier with upgraded graphics. IS2 is a nice graphical upgrade over IS1. IS3 is probably an even more substantial improvement. Other than that it is a very similar experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 Is2 has some affine warping the first one doesn't Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 Hell - you could find a Nuon and the unreleased IS3 for under a grand. Get a 1st gen Playstation and the game for probably $25. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidGameR186496 Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 It really pisses me off that, as a fan, I can't play the original Iron Soldier on an emulator, since I'm still looking for a Jaguar console with a good deal. It really does and despite its age, IS1 is legitimately a great Jaguar game. And it also sucks we can't play IS2. I may need to burn a CD-R with IS3 to play it on PS1... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFG 9000 Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 (edited) Disregard, sorry. Edited July 10, 2020 by PFG 9000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainblack Posted July 10, 2020 Author Share Posted July 10, 2020 (edited) Looking at gameplay the graphics difference between IS1 and IS3 are night and day. Ever if the gameplay is the same it would probably be a different experience. We need someone to make an IS3 rom hack that recreates the first game, so we can play it on PS1/emulation lol Edited July 10, 2020 by captainblack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cubanismo Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 (edited) When I first felt the need to go and play some Jaguar games after watching some YouTube videos, I remembered about ten years back selling my SNES for ~$30, $5-10 for carts, and figured I'd jump on the bay and pick up a full set for ~$200. First thing I did was look up a CD unit, say "Oh hell no", close the browser window, and download Virtual Jaguar and a mess of ROMs. Clearly the retro scene had been lost to a bunch of crazy hipster collector types trying to relive their glory days. Nerds ? Well, Virtual Jaguar's a great debugging tool, and it plays OK I guess, if you're into plugging a gamepad into your PC, sitting in your desk chair and playing console games, or hooking up a PC to your TV like I used to before every TV-connected device could play streaming media and install emulators of some form. I tried the RetroArch version on my Android TV box so I could game from the couch and, well, don't bother. It runs at about 5 FPS when it isn't crashing IIRC. I started scouring a bit harder and found the Phoenix emulator. If you just want to play all the games (except Iron Soldier apparently), I have to say, it works pretty well, but the Android version doesn't seem to exist anymore, and it just didn't feel that fun/retro-like sitting in front of my computer playing 90's console games with a shitty off-brand Playstation 2 controller + USB adapter I found in my bin-o-parts. I've had the same problem with perfectly emulated systems like SNES/NES/Genesis even with USB adapters for their native controllers as well: It's just not the same. It's not even that great sitting ~8 feet away from a big screen flat panel playing them. At the same time, during all this Googling for an emulator, I started to stumble through the Jaguar forums again and again. I found the @Songbird website. I found the @WAVE 1 GAMES website and wondered why people were releasing games about flying food for a system I hadn't cared about in 20+ years (I'm still waiting for my Saucer Wars order to ship Jeff). I stumbled upon the BJL howto's, the Skunkboard project, Reboot, and of course this and this, which probably should have put me off retro gaming entirely but just left me more intrigued by the passion of the community. Did they know something I didn't? At some point, something flipped in my mind and I dove in head first: I tracked down a CRT TV locally, ordered up a Jag on eBay for pennies under the original $249.99 list price, Cybermorph and all, and a handful of not-rare games, including Iron Soldier. I splurged a bit for AvP and Tempest 2k because of the universal acclaim. I'd tried Tempest on the emulator but I bought AvP blind. I didn't want to ruin my first experience at this point; I wanted to see it how I would have in the 90's. I still don't really consider myself a collector since I get by with loose carts, reproductions, and burned CDs for the rarer out-of-production stuff, but on some level I'd become one of those retro nerds grasping at a better age of gaming. So getting to the point: For me it was well worth the ~$300 (well under $1000 at any rate) I paid to play Iron Soldier. You can add on another ~$100 for Iron Solder 2 I guess, but considering inflation, that's probably less than what you would have paid for the lot new in the 90's anyway. Don't short-change yourself. These aren't ground-breaking games anymore, but they're still fun games, and experiencing them the way they were meant to be played is well worth the investment. If you're still not convinced, there's always this: If that doesn't have you yelling "TAKE MY MONEY EBAY," you have no blood in your veins. (Forgive me, I couldn't resist adding a copy of JagADS 2.0 to my last B&C order, and I had way too much fun watching it) Edited July 10, 2020 by cubanismo typos 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 3 hours ago, KidGameR186496 said: It really does and despite its age, IS1 is legitimately a great Jaguar game. I don't know why we're still apologizing for Jaguar games that are good and fun to play. Iron Soldier is an excellent game, period. Complaining that IS falls short of modern efforts is like complaining about Zork because it doesn't have graphics. Just enjoy it, people! 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 (edited) The best emulation option as of late is the Phoenix emulator. I have been messing around with it here and it seems to have near perfect emulation....first time I have seen Jag games run correctly on a PC. Edit: Nevermind. It works quite well with 95% of the Jag collection....but neither IS1 or IS2 run correctly at least for me. Sorry! Weird because games like Zero 5 (which I consider to really be pushing the Jag's hardware) seem to run fine. Edited July 10, 2020 by eightbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidGameR186496 Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 (edited) 16 hours ago, davidcalgary29 said: I don't know why we're still apologizing for Jaguar games that are good and fun to play. Iron Soldier is an excellent game, period. Complaining that IS falls short of modern efforts is like complaining about Zork because it doesn't have graphics. Just enjoy it, people! The reason I said "despite its age" is because some people won't look IS1 with the same eyes like us here who have played it in terms of visuals and gameplay. But as I said before, I love IS1 and it really sucks that neither it and the sequel are playable on current emulators. Edited July 10, 2020 by KidGameR186496 Typo correction. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainblack Posted July 11, 2020 Author Share Posted July 11, 2020 Russian guy who made Phoenix, if you read this some time in the future, I will paypal you 50 bucks if you make IS work. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcio_napoli Posted July 11, 2020 Share Posted July 11, 2020 On 7/9/2020 at 3:50 PM, Rick Dangerous said: A Grand?! You should be able to get a Jag and both games for about $400. -Jaguar....$250, won't go too much higher https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-Launch-Edition-Black-Console-all-og-equipment-tested-works-great/184356030239?epid=170144261&hash=item2aec79c71f:g:hyYAAOSwgO9fBJv- -Iron Soldier on ebay, $40 https://www.ebay.com/itm/IRON-SOLDIER-Atari-Jaguar-Game-w-Box-Manual/254623724978?epid=56222871&hash=item3b48c1b5b2:g:zJQAAOSwsVVe44a0 -Iron Soldier 2 on Songbird.com https://songbird-productions.com/product/is2-cartridge/ $125 Total: $450ish Yeah thats a lot to play just those two games....lol Hey Rick, thanks for the tip! I didn't know Songbird was selling Iron Soldier 2 and Towers 2 official copies, these are 100% on my radar as soon as pockets allow it. Really glad to know, you've got Songbird 2 sales somewhere in the future Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted July 11, 2020 Share Posted July 11, 2020 (edited) On 7/9/2020 at 2:50 PM, Rick Dangerous said: A Grand?! You should be able to get a Jag and both games for about $400. -Jaguar....$250, won't go too much higher https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-Launch-Edition-Black-Console-all-og-equipment-tested-works-great/184356030239?epid=170144261&hash=item2aec79c71f:g:hyYAAOSwgO9fBJv- -Iron Soldier on ebay, $40 https://www.ebay.com/itm/IRON-SOLDIER-Atari-Jaguar-Game-w-Box-Manual/254623724978?epid=56222871&hash=item3b48c1b5b2:g:zJQAAOSwsVVe44a0 -Iron Soldier 2 on Songbird.com https://songbird-productions.com/product/is2-cartridge/ $125 Total: $450ish Yeah thats a lot to play just those two games....lol Well, not bad actually if you think of the purchases as to NOT just play those two games...but to be able to buy and play all of the great games released so far by AtariAge, Songbird and many others....and the great games to come. If I didn't have a Jag at all I would certainly chunk down the money to be able to do that. I understand just as much as anyone that money is very tight now though. It's a sad state of affairs. The Jaguar really deserves the "mini" treatment many other consoles have received....but I doubt that will happen any time soon (if ever). Edited July 11, 2020 by eightbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted July 11, 2020 Share Posted July 11, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, captainblack said: Russian guy who made Phoenix, if you read this some time in the future, I will paypal you 50 bucks if you make IS work. I wouldn't go that far. Emulation has indeed been slow in regard to the Jag (I have been following emulation attempts of this console since the late 90's) and while not too many major strides have occurred in that time I was pretty floored in what I saw with this emulator. I suspect it will work sometime soon. What I would really like to see is more work on the FPGA front with the Jaguar core for the MiSTer. I have tested that core and it works well with homebrews so far which is good. Maybe someday a good FPGA implementation will happen and people will have more options to play games for the aging hardware. Edited July 11, 2020 by eightbit 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captainblack Posted July 11, 2020 Author Share Posted July 11, 2020 14 hours ago, eightbit said: I wouldn't go that far. Emulation has indeed been slow in regard to the Jag (I have been following emulation attempts of this console since the late 90's) and while not too many major strides have occurred in that time I was pretty floored in what I saw with this emulator. I suspect it will work sometime soon. What I would really like to see is more work on the FPGA front with the Jaguar core for the MiSTer. I have tested that core and it works well with homebrews so far which is good. Maybe someday a good FPGA implementation will happen and people will have more options to play games for the aging hardware. Still, last update was 2017. I suspect the project is not on his radar atm. It would for sure be cool to see other options like MiSTer develop though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bhall408 Posted July 12, 2020 Share Posted July 12, 2020 20 hours ago, captainblack said: Still, last update was 2017. I suspect the project is not on his radar atm. It would for sure be cool to see other options like MiSTer develop though. How do people feel about the MAME core for Jaguar? Close enough to be worth finishing up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper_Eye Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 On 7/9/2020 at 2:09 AM, captainblack said: Ya VJ was my original attempt at emulation because its not in Russian, but the Iron Soldier games didnt work on it either. Here is an english translation for Phoenix: https://www.ngemu.com/threads/phoenix-project-3do-emulator-translated-into-english.191753/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 On 7/11/2020 at 3:45 PM, captainblack said: Still, last update was 2017. I suspect the project is not on his radar atm. It would for sure be cool to see other options like MiSTer develop though. I am optimistic that it will happen....might take a lot of time, but it will happen. The beta core shows good progress. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
82-T/A Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 You could also just buy Mech Warrior 2, 3, and 4 on eBay for less than $30 bucks and have an awesome story/theme to go along with the game. Don't flame me, just being honest... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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