Ze_ro
03-13-2004, 01:30 PM
Before I get into this, you should know that before the Jaguar, I had a pretty small involvement with video games. My family had a ColecoVision since before I could even remember, and due to my brother's interest in computers, I was lucky enough to get his hand-me-downs (which included a VIC-20, and eventually a C-64). However, I was never able to convince my parents to buy me a NES, nor a SNES or even a Genesis, so for many years, I was essentially a video game have-not.
By the time October of '93 came around, I was 13 years old and starving for a new video game system. The ColecoVision and C-64 just weren't doing it for me, and my Gameboy was barely quenching my thirst. My parents knew I was into video games, so my dad would often pick up a copy of GamePro for me on his way home from work, and even though almost the magazine had little to offer me (2 or 3 Gameboy reviews at best), I soaked up all the information in the magazine like a sponge. When I was looking through the Oct '93 issue of GamePro, one article hit me like a ton of bricks: a preview of the Atari Jaguar. I just couldn't take my eyes off of it. Not only was the sleek, black system a sight to behold, but the system had unlimited potential! There was a CD add-on that could play movies, the games could do 3D, and... my god... Trevor McFur looks amazing!! Put that in your pipe and smoke it SNES, this is 64-bit power! I knew right then and there that I had a winner on my hands. This time it would be right. This time, I would get in on the ground floor. How could this thing not succeed? It's made by Atari for crying out loud, and Atari pretty much invented video games! I was under their spell.
So, over the course of the next year or so, I was completely addicted to the idea of eventually owning this machine. Remember in "A Christmas Story" how the kid goes on and on about the virtues of the Red Ryder BB gun, and drops subtle (almost subliminal) hints to his parents over and over again? That was me. I did it all. I'd always purposely leave magazines open to pages that showed off what the Jaguar could do, and explain every whiz-bang new feature that the machine was capable of, hoping that they would sway my parents into joining my fantasy... none of that ever works of course. It's not until you're much older that you realize that parents aren't THAT gullible, but the same tactics had got me G.I. Joe's in the past, so I did it anyways. I was also completely immune to the effects of any other game system. The 3DO? Bah, childs play. The upcoming PlayStation? Pfft! As if Sony could out-do the mighty Atari! Every magazine that had any coverage of the Jaguar or it's games was completely dog-earred and tattered soon after I got my hands on it. I could have recited those articles word-for-word if someone asked me to (and boy, did I want them to ask me!)
Even though my brainwashing attempts failed, my parents knew that I was really excited about the system. They eventually relented, and bought me one for my birthday the following year. Man, I don't think I had ever been so excited about anything, and probably haven't been since. Seeing that jet-black box with the cat's eyes on it was a dream come true, and holding the system in my hands was like holding the holy grail itself. I hooked the machine up right away, and played Cybermorph for the rest of the day. I know most people didn't like Cybermorph much, but I was in love.
It wasn't long after though, that reality started setting in. Pretty much the only way I had of getting new cartridges was from a small, family-run business that traditionally sold Atari ST's and Falcon's (And eventually they started having some major financial problems of their own), and games were fairly expensive since they had to mail-order them in for me. All my allowances went towards games, and I was able to coax a game or two out of my parents for Christmas's and birthdays. It wasn't easy, but I was able to work up a fairly sizable library of Jaguar games, and even managed to talk my parents into getting me the JagCD (How I pulled that one off will forever be a mystery). It was really exciting when we went on trips into the states, and I was actually able to buy cartridges off the shelves in stores like Babbages.
The magazines weren't too fond of the games, and the Saturn and 3DO (my sworn enemy) were getting some awfully nice looking titles (for some reason, I was especially jealous of 3DO's "Way of the Warrior". If only I had known back then how bad it actually was)... plus, a lot of the games I had been looking forward to slowly evaporated (No Mortal Kombat 3? Nooo!!....). But I was still a true believer. I was quick to correct everyone who had the gaul to doubt that the Jaguar was really 64-bit. Alien vs. Predator was still crazy fun (even though I had beaten it many times over to the point where I could kill predators with the shotgun in my sleep), Tempest 2000 was a sight to behold, Yak was god, and I absolutely loved Battlemorph. I was also really excited about Battlesphere, the space shooter to end all space shooters that sould surely show what the Jaguar was capable of. It was taking it's sweet-ass time, but when it came out, I would be there for it.
Eventually, though, I gradually lost interest. I was a survivor of the Atari sale to JTS, but I faced the reality that I would probably never see another new release. I started to become interested in computers, and most of my video gaming was done in front of a monitor rather than my Jaguar... but it was still hooked up for the occaision game of Power Drive Rally, 2-player Raiden with my brother, or a game of Doom to calm me down when I was angry, but by the time Battlesphere finally did come out, I had pretty much stopped paying attention. I still have my Jaguar, as well as everthing that I ever got for it... and I still enjoy it, but if nothing else, it serves as a reminder to me of how fickle the video game industry is. No longer will I buy a system immediately, going solely on hype. From now on, I'll wait and see what happens before diving in headfirst.
Of course, the only newer systems I have at the moment are the Dreamcast and the Gamecube, so maybe I didn't learn my lesson quite as well as I thought. But oh well, it was a hell of a ride at least.
--Zero
By the time October of '93 came around, I was 13 years old and starving for a new video game system. The ColecoVision and C-64 just weren't doing it for me, and my Gameboy was barely quenching my thirst. My parents knew I was into video games, so my dad would often pick up a copy of GamePro for me on his way home from work, and even though almost the magazine had little to offer me (2 or 3 Gameboy reviews at best), I soaked up all the information in the magazine like a sponge. When I was looking through the Oct '93 issue of GamePro, one article hit me like a ton of bricks: a preview of the Atari Jaguar. I just couldn't take my eyes off of it. Not only was the sleek, black system a sight to behold, but the system had unlimited potential! There was a CD add-on that could play movies, the games could do 3D, and... my god... Trevor McFur looks amazing!! Put that in your pipe and smoke it SNES, this is 64-bit power! I knew right then and there that I had a winner on my hands. This time it would be right. This time, I would get in on the ground floor. How could this thing not succeed? It's made by Atari for crying out loud, and Atari pretty much invented video games! I was under their spell.
So, over the course of the next year or so, I was completely addicted to the idea of eventually owning this machine. Remember in "A Christmas Story" how the kid goes on and on about the virtues of the Red Ryder BB gun, and drops subtle (almost subliminal) hints to his parents over and over again? That was me. I did it all. I'd always purposely leave magazines open to pages that showed off what the Jaguar could do, and explain every whiz-bang new feature that the machine was capable of, hoping that they would sway my parents into joining my fantasy... none of that ever works of course. It's not until you're much older that you realize that parents aren't THAT gullible, but the same tactics had got me G.I. Joe's in the past, so I did it anyways. I was also completely immune to the effects of any other game system. The 3DO? Bah, childs play. The upcoming PlayStation? Pfft! As if Sony could out-do the mighty Atari! Every magazine that had any coverage of the Jaguar or it's games was completely dog-earred and tattered soon after I got my hands on it. I could have recited those articles word-for-word if someone asked me to (and boy, did I want them to ask me!)
Even though my brainwashing attempts failed, my parents knew that I was really excited about the system. They eventually relented, and bought me one for my birthday the following year. Man, I don't think I had ever been so excited about anything, and probably haven't been since. Seeing that jet-black box with the cat's eyes on it was a dream come true, and holding the system in my hands was like holding the holy grail itself. I hooked the machine up right away, and played Cybermorph for the rest of the day. I know most people didn't like Cybermorph much, but I was in love.
It wasn't long after though, that reality started setting in. Pretty much the only way I had of getting new cartridges was from a small, family-run business that traditionally sold Atari ST's and Falcon's (And eventually they started having some major financial problems of their own), and games were fairly expensive since they had to mail-order them in for me. All my allowances went towards games, and I was able to coax a game or two out of my parents for Christmas's and birthdays. It wasn't easy, but I was able to work up a fairly sizable library of Jaguar games, and even managed to talk my parents into getting me the JagCD (How I pulled that one off will forever be a mystery). It was really exciting when we went on trips into the states, and I was actually able to buy cartridges off the shelves in stores like Babbages.
The magazines weren't too fond of the games, and the Saturn and 3DO (my sworn enemy) were getting some awfully nice looking titles (for some reason, I was especially jealous of 3DO's "Way of the Warrior". If only I had known back then how bad it actually was)... plus, a lot of the games I had been looking forward to slowly evaporated (No Mortal Kombat 3? Nooo!!....). But I was still a true believer. I was quick to correct everyone who had the gaul to doubt that the Jaguar was really 64-bit. Alien vs. Predator was still crazy fun (even though I had beaten it many times over to the point where I could kill predators with the shotgun in my sleep), Tempest 2000 was a sight to behold, Yak was god, and I absolutely loved Battlemorph. I was also really excited about Battlesphere, the space shooter to end all space shooters that sould surely show what the Jaguar was capable of. It was taking it's sweet-ass time, but when it came out, I would be there for it.
Eventually, though, I gradually lost interest. I was a survivor of the Atari sale to JTS, but I faced the reality that I would probably never see another new release. I started to become interested in computers, and most of my video gaming was done in front of a monitor rather than my Jaguar... but it was still hooked up for the occaision game of Power Drive Rally, 2-player Raiden with my brother, or a game of Doom to calm me down when I was angry, but by the time Battlesphere finally did come out, I had pretty much stopped paying attention. I still have my Jaguar, as well as everthing that I ever got for it... and I still enjoy it, but if nothing else, it serves as a reminder to me of how fickle the video game industry is. No longer will I buy a system immediately, going solely on hype. From now on, I'll wait and see what happens before diving in headfirst.
Of course, the only newer systems I have at the moment are the Dreamcast and the Gamecube, so maybe I didn't learn my lesson quite as well as I thought. But oh well, it was a hell of a ride at least.
--Zero