Atari Jag

[pineapplehead2]

If they gave the machine a chance, do u think it would have a quailty machine.?

[Gemini-Phoenix]

No. The controller is crap, the graphics are crap, and even th every best games are still crap. And yes, I have evry right to say so as I do own one.

The only machine I regret buying! And I bought one back in the day for nearly £400 (With games)

Had they actually put some effort in and made some decent games, then perhaps Atari wouldn't have had to resort to being a publisher only.


Saying that, I hear Atari are thinking about making a return...

[oesiii]

Fine machine, if you can get one for less than $25-30 with a game then it's a good deal. Tempest 2000 is the premier game for the system and Alien vs. Predator is a great FPS to play in the dark. If you like early FPS then the Jag can't be beat for it's ports of Doom and Wolf3d. If you liked Dragon's Lair in the arcades than you have to check out the JagCD version which beats the 3DO, CDI, and Sega CD versions. There's plenty of good games for the Jag and not too many are expensive so it's a fun system to collect and play.

So I think it's already a quality machine with it's smaller library of games. One thing about the Jag is that you have to buy the console to really try it out. Jag emulation is just beginning and it's not very good right now.

Now if I paid £400 when the Jag came out I wouldn't be too happy because of the crappy release schedule of Atari and new Jag games were $50-70. You wouldn't know which ones were worth it. But buying a cheap Jag 10 years later and spending $5-10 per game is my cup of tea 8-)

[digitalpress]

If they gave the machine a chance, do u think it would have a quailty machine.?

Absolutely!

You can see the promise in its 3D engine when you play Doom or Alien vs. Predator, you can see the promise in the system's speed with Tempest 2000, and it may have been the best polygon-handling console of its time as witnessed by Cybermorph (and to a greater degree, Battlemorph) and Iron Soldier.

Sadly, there were not enough decent games for the thing. Everything was just done so half-heartedly.

But any gamer can see the possibilities. The console itself was just fine but like many other failed consoles before it, lack of third party support brought a quick demise to the Jag.

[DJ_DEEM]

i dotn care but flipout is one of my fav puzzle games, and attack of the mutant pengiuns rocks as does temptest 2000

w0000 rock on jag!

[squirrelnut]

If they gave the machine a chance, do u think it would have a quailty machine.?

Technically the machine was given a chance. It was released to the general public.

[Pantechnicon]

[quote=pineapplehead2]The console itself was just fine but like many other failed consoles before it, lack of third party support brought a quick demise to the Jag.

Something should also be said for what, in my opinion, was a terrible ad campaign. Compare the following contemporaries (near enough) of the Jag:

Atari 2600 - Have you played Atari today?
SNES - Now you're playing with Super power!
Sony Playstation.
...see the trend, right?

Then along comes Jaguar and it tells you to "Do the math". O_O . WTF, is this some sort of homework machine? I don't wanna do math...I want to play games! This terrible emphasis of 64-bits (a dubious clain to begin with) versus 16-bits really didn't help sell consoles so much as it made Atari seem arrogant as all get out.

It's too bad though `cos I really like my Jag...even when it's not helping me get through school.

[le geek]

The Jag was a pretty hot machine techincally for it's day, but Atari released many a shoddy game for it. Trevor McFurr could have been a lot better. Checkered Flag needed more work. Couple that with no real 3rd party support...

Iron Soldier, Rayman and Tempest 2K are great though. And in term of color depth the Playstation was a step backwards!

[SirDrexl]

[quote="digitalpress"][quote=pineapplehead2]Something should also be said for what, in my opinion, was a terrible ad campaign. Compare the following contemporaries (near enough) of the Jag:

Atari 2600 - Have you played Atari today?
SNES - Now you're playing with Super power!
Sony Playstation.
...see the trend, right?

Then along comes Jaguar and it tells you to "Do the math". O_O . WTF, is this some sort of homework machine? I don't wanna do math...I want to play games! This terrible emphasis of 64-bits (a dubious clain to begin with) versus 16-bits really didn't help sell consoles so much as it made Atari seem arrogant as all get out.

Maybe you're on to something. The Dreamcast, which didn't last long, had "It's thinking." It's what?

[JJNova]

Tempest 2000 is the premier game for the system and Alien vs. Predator is a great FPS to play in the dark.

Tempest 2000 was The Yak right?
I just recently found out Unity was canceled, so I have him on the mind.

[dethink]

i bought a jag when it launched back in the day...traded in my genesis and about 20 games for the system + AvP.

sooooooo many fond memories of that game. still my favorite FPS of all time.

even though the Jag's RF output was complete shit, and you had to turn the TV halfway up to hear it, and it was muddy as all get out...i don't know about you guys, but mine felt like it was assembled in someone's garage. LOL

tempest 2K, iron solider, and theme park were also faves.

hell, i even owned checkered flag, and club drive (which i found was quite a fun 2 player game).

but yeah...doomed from the start.

[vincewy]

Difference between Dreamcast and Jag/CD, even though both failed, Sega really tried and it was rejected by the public, Atari, on the other hand, had plenty of support, the system came out even before the infancy of PSOne, had Atari brought out as many good games as Dreamcast did, we may not have seen dominance of PSX.

I have the system, but it's hard for me to want to pick up more games other than the aforementioned titles (I also like Defender 2000 and Tower), the system does have capabilities, but never used unfortunately.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I think the Jag is a awsome system, unparalled graphics at the time (need I mention Tempest 2000) It has a lot of junk but some great games that make it all the more worth it.

[retroman]

against the playstation and Sega Saturn and N64.....No...anything before that yes...if it had a lot better software....it sure had the hardware..and yes i do have a jag..and jaccd...and love it.

[retroman]

Avp wasnt a launch title in the U.S. hate to burst your bubble.

[goatdan]

The Jaguar had a TON of potential that was squandered in some of the following ways:

- Poor advertising campaign -- Do the Math wasn't the problem... the problem was visiblity. I was heavy into video games when the Jag was released, and I didn't know it was released. It was impossible to avoid Playstation stuff when it came out though.

- Attempted focus on 3D games - the Jaguar could've and should've been a 2D power house to challenge the Saturn, and the 3D games should have been a compliment. Instead, Atari tried forcing 3D development of games, and there were tons of failures.

- Focus on texture mapping - the Jaguar had built in gourad shading, but for some reason once texture mapping came out, Atari didn't go with the strength and instead encouraged texture mapping, which the Jag sucked at.

- Non-commitance to the promotion of the machine - Atari finally got some things going it's way near the end. They got one of the main advertising minds behing the Playstation (?) launch who started tons of things, but then his budget was pulled so he quit.

- Failure to bring out innovationgs - the main thing in this category was the VR Helmet. It was a thing of beauty, and instead of bringing it out, Atari cancelled it. It seems that Atari did this after the press declared that it was fake at E3 when they showed it off. Why Atari didn't bring the press in and PROVE it was real is beyond me. From the protos I've tried, it was as solid as the $5000+ arcade machines.

The Jaguar could've been a great machine if Atari had given it a chance. It seems that it was more of a tax write off from the beginning, and therefor Atari doomed their own machine.

As an aside, whoever complains about the Jaguar controller, try comparing it to some other controllers in your collection. Personally, I love the Jag controller and have been surprised by how closely it resembles newer controllers in size and shape. The N64, Dreamcast and Xbox all have controllers that were the same width and height, with buttons in the same location (d-pad for the N64). If you hate the Jaggy controller but like any of those, try it out again with a fresh mind and you might like it.

[Melf]

I really wanted to like the Jag but Atari kept giving me reasons not to. Even now, the only reason to get one is collecability. Tempest 2k plays better on Saturn (best pad ever) and has a red book soundtrack, AvP moves at like 3 frames a second and is almost unplayable, and most of the other games were either ported are aren't really worth tracking down just for fun.

[dojosky]

I got my atari jaguar when it was first released back in November 1993 and I am very glad I did !! i like the system and collect for it my collection for it is almost complete only shy of the newer releases namely: songbird games and air cars ... towers II game etc :( I also have the Jag CD system for it .... I like to collect for it !

[goatdan]

Tempest 2k plays better on Saturn (best pad ever) and has a red book soundtrack

I don't agree. The Saturn port had the enemies changed as well as the ability to quickly cut through the spikes. This changed the entire balance of the game substantially. Jeff Minter has a list somewhere of everything that was changed, and I agree with him.

For reference, I have played through all the way the following versions of that game: Jaguar, PC, Saturn, Playstation and T3K on the NUON (well, as "played through" as you can get). I'd put them in this order:

- Jaguar
- Playstation
- NUON
- Saturn / PC

Just so you know, Alien Vs. Predator was made intentionally slower like that. I havea prototype of the game from it's early development that moves at about double the speed of the released game. The change was an attempt to make the game more scary and atmospheric.

[Garry Silljo]

Maybe they should have advertised its Dental Capabilitites more aggressively at first. If my mom heard there was a system that could help with my teeth, I wouldn't have even had to ask for it.

[Aswald]

Subject: Atari Jaguar.

Status: DOA.

Cause of death: Tramielitis.

[SoulBlazer]

Was Jack still in charge of Atari Corp when the Jaq was released? When did he leave?

[Aswald]

Not soon enough.

[Arcturius]

Had they actually put some effort in and made some decent games, then perhaps Atari wouldn't have had to resort to being a publisher only.

But that isn't the Real Atari that's Infogrames they bought the name Atari and changed over to using it the real Atari ceased to be a long time ago ^-^

[howdoin]

I had to sell my Jag + CD collection to pay for college and I still regret it to this day.

It probably is part of growing up but I have more fond memories of playing my Jag than any system that followed. It was still a time when I really cared to try to finish my good games : AvP gave 100's hours, and so did Tempest 2000 and Highlander.

So yes, I believe the Jag was/is a great system and had it had more 3rd party support it could have been a great system.

[izret101]

I remember back when i knew absolutely nothing about videogames they had one for sale in the mall with 100+ games 2 controllers adn a new system for like 150 bucks and i would always say that thing sucks i would never want that.

I really wish i had asked for that to be a Xmas present one year now because i never see that stuff anywhere.

I think it could have been ok but it was just too much of something.... and too little of something else...

[Aswald]

"A system without good games is like a car without wheels- you can brag about the horsepower all you want, but it won't get you anywhere."

Not-quite an exact quote from "The Jaguar's Edge."

[Goodwill Hunter]

The best part of the Jaguar hardware still has software coming out for it everyday...the Virtual Light Machine in th JagCD will play any music CD and produce a multitude of beautiful and hypnotic patterns onscreen. For me, watching ELO's "Out of the Blue" on the VLM beats any game released.

Still don't know why the newer systems don't have something comparable (or better!).

Rich

[Leo_A]

"Just so you know, Alien Vs. Predator was made intentionally slower like that. I havea prototype of the game from it's early development that moves at about double the speed of the released game. The change was an attempt to make the game more scary and atmospheric."

Frames per second and speed aren't the same thing.

[vincewy]

The Jaguar had a TON of potential that was squandered in some of the following ways:

-------------------------------




Also add this factor:

Sam Tramiel was taking drugs, seriously, this guy had no interest in games, but instead money, only money. I've heard of Sam ripping off other people's gaming concept by first rejecting developers who proposed games for the system, and then copied them with their own name on it later under their own development team.

I partially agree/disagree the notion that they tried too hard on 3D, they have a few 2D releases, but other than Rayman, the rest sucked so hard that they actually hurt to play, like Zool and Bubsy.

The hardware had so much potential, but unfortunately born in the name of Atari, had this been a Sega hardware we would've seen completely dif scenario.

[goatdan]

"Just so you know, Alien Vs. Predator was made intentionally slower like that. I havea prototype of the game from it's early development that moves at about double the speed of the released game. The change was an attempt to make the game more scary and atmospheric."

Frames per second and speed aren't the same thing.

The game runs a hell of a lot faster and smoother because it has more FPS. Try playing the game as an Alien. It runs smoother than too. The "choppyness" of AvP was done as a quick fix to add atmosphere, not as a necessary fix for the Jag's power.