After spending a good amount of time with both, Jaguar > 3DO

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Checkered Flag is a steaming pile. It has a shitty frame-rate and the car floats around the track. I-War is another one of those Atari titles that just doesn't make much sense, like Cybermorph. It's not all that fun to play.

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Cybermorph doesn't make sense? I played it and got the hang of it almost right away . . . not the most exciting 3D shooter around (and not as simple to understand as a railshooter), but decent gameplay. Hell, it was a lot easier to get the hang of that then some of the stages in Soul Star. :p

Honestly, I was just thinking about Cybermorph (and a few other jag games) get killed by some art design choices and/or lack of music. It really ruins the feel of the game: the models, poly count, framerate, and shading are all fine, but the color scheme used as well as the lack of a nice looking 2D BG made it feel kind of lifeless and ugly. Lack of music (let alone good music) also ruined the mood.
Seriously, that's the kind of stuff that can make an average or mediocre game into something really fun to play . . . unless you totally don't care about art quality or music. :p (Imagine Sipheed with super gaudy colors and no music at all and grating/bland speech -well, Starblade already does a fair chunk of that but, yeah)


)

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There are some things I do like about Cybermorph, but it's all of the things it does wrong that really takes all the fun out of playing it. Yeah, your goal is to collect the yellow object and then exit the level. It would have been more interesting if the game had more enemies to fight while doing this and better level design as well. It reminds me a lot of the early 2600 titles, that had one very simple goal and a whole lot of nothing else in between. For every game like Warlords, there was 4 or 5 games like Space War or Slot Racer.

So I ordered the official jaguar gamers guide a while back and it arrived today. I love getting magazines dedicated to specific platforms because it gives you a peak into the mindset of the die hard fanbase mentality for each platform from the time they were alive. I read tons of Amiga power and Amiga format when researching those computers, and I have every issue of turbo force as two examples. Unfortunately the jaguar never had a dedicated magazine, nor really any official guides for exclusive games like aliens vs predator. This single book is the closest you get to an official jaguar publication and guide book. Dice I have every game listed on the cover - 18 titles - I figured it be neat to pick up as a nice addition to my library.

Well let me tell you how blown away I am by the book. First up, the book covers more games than listed on the cover - stuff like checkered flag is also covered. Each game has a full guide that covers maps, hidden secrets, cheats, tactics, and so forth. They also have interviews with developers and short reviews for each game. What is so mindblowing is how candid and honest the book is, and the surprising amount of technical knowledge inside. It calls out cheap, unfair event tactics and will slam a game for them. As far as I can tell, this was internally produced by Atari - you can see them taking pictures of Jeff minter in Atari's internally produced e3 video than are used in the book - which makes the candid tone a lot more interesting. The review of cybermorph, for example, admits that it is an unimpressive as a pack in and that the psx and Saturn were packed in with more impressive games (I have no idea what psx game that were referring to, though).

When I say the book is surprisingly technical, I mean it. The book opens with an introduction to the jaguar and, for example, gives a basic overview of the primary functions of the programmable object processor, going into detail about quirks with the blitter, bugs in the dsp, etc. It's bizarre to see this sort of stuff in a strategy guide. They go into detail about games you wouldn't expect, too. The tempest 2000 section, for example, gives you a few tricks you can try to crash the game, and also details an obscure double buffer error that will corrupt the graphics, then interviews Jeff minter himself and has him explain why and how the error works. It's fascinating and interesting as hell. Minter isn't the only one interviewed either, they really dug for info.

The guides themselves are well written. The alien vs predator one, for example, compared the game structure to metroid... which I had never considered. It actually has made me go back and give the game another go. It explains that the marine scenario is the main scenario they developed and how there are multiple ways to beat his scenario, as its non linear.

This is one hell of a book and I'm shocked jaguar fans don't recommend it. It's only like $7 and it's super common. No scans of the book exist online either, so I jumped in blind and got pleasantly surprised. I recommend it to anyone interested in the jaguar.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

There are some things I do like about Cybermorph, but it's all of the things it does wrong that really takes all the fun out of playing it. Yeah, your goal is to collect the yellow object and then exit the level. It would have been more interesting if the game had more enemies to fight while doing this and better level design as well. It reminds me a lot of the early 2600 titles, that had one very simple goal and a whole lot of nothing else in between. For every game like Warlords, there was 4 or 5 games like Space War or Slot Racer.

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Really, you use those as examples? Not the dozens of Space Invaders or Missle Command style games? (good or bad, there were a ton of them ;))

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Originally Posted by gamevet

There are some things I do like about Cybermorph, but it's all of the things it does wrong that really takes all the fun out of playing it. Yeah, your goal is to collect the yellow object and then exit the level. It would have been more interesting if the game had more enemies to fight while doing this and better level design as well. It reminds me a lot of the early 2600 titles, that had one very simple goal and a whole lot of nothing else in between. For every game like Warlords, there was 4 or 5 games like Space War or Slot Racer.

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The sequel sounds right up your ally. They ditch the dot collecting mechanic in favor of interesting mission objectives. Like there is one mission where you have to escort a train and protect it from enemy attacks, or another where you're searching for documents to a secret enemy weapon. It's much more interesting.

If I could somewhat compare the original to a sort of 3d pacman, then I'd compare battle morph to desert strike.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

So I ordered the official jaguar gamers guide a while back and it arrived today. I love getting magazines dedicated to specific platforms because it gives you a peak into the mindset of the die hard fanbase mentality for each platform from the time they were alive. I read tons of Amiga power and Amiga format when researching those computers, and I have every issue of turbo force as two examples. Unfortunately the jaguar never had a dedicated magazine, nor really any official guides for exclusive games like aliens vs predator. This single book is the closest you get to an official jaguar publication and guide book. Dice I have every game listed on the cover - 18 titles - I figured it be neat to pick up as a nice addition to my library.

Well let me tell you how blown away I am by the book. First up, the book covers more games than listed on the cover - stuff like checkered flag is also covered. Each game has a full guide that covers maps, hidden secrets, cheats, tactics, and so forth. They also have interviews with developers and short reviews for each game. What is so mindblowing is how candid and honest the book is, and the surprising amount of technical knowledge inside. It calls out cheap, unfair event tactics and will slam a game for them. As far as I can tell, this was internally produced by Atari - you can see them taking pictures of Jeff minter in Atari's internally produced e3 video than are used in the book - which makes the candid tone a lot more interesting. The review of cybermorph, for example, admits that it is an unimpressive as a pack in and that the psx and Saturn were packed in with more impressive games (I have no idea what psx game that were referring to, though).

When I say the book is surprisingly technical, I mean it. The book opens with an introduction to the jaguar and, for example, gives a basic overview of the primary functions of the programmable object processor, going into detail about quirks with the blitter, bugs in the dsp, etc. It's bizarre to see this sort of stuff in a strategy guide. They go into detail about games you wouldn't expect, too. The tempest 2000 section, for example, gives you a few tricks you can try to crash the game, and also details an obscure double buffer error that will corrupt the graphics, then interviews Jeff minter himself and has him explain why and how the error works. It's fascinating and interesting as hell. Minter isn't the only one interviewed either, they really dug for info.

The guides themselves are well written. The alien vs predator one, for example, compared the game structure to metroid... which I had never considered. It actually has made me go back and give the game another go. It explains that the marine scenario is the main scenario they developed and how there are multiple ways to beat his scenario, as its non linear.

This is one hell of a book and I'm shocked jaguar fans don't recommend it. It's only like $7 and it's super common. No scans of the book exist online either, so I jumped in blind and got pleasantly surprised. I recommend it to anyone interested in the jaguar.

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"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to TheSonicRetard again."
Awesome post and delightful info provided. That's the kind of stuff that makes me admire you and the kind of stuff this forums needs more and more! True gamer's post, fuck yeah!

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Originally Posted by Barone

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to TheSonicRetard again."
Awesome post and delightful info provided. That's the kind of stuff that makes me admire you and the kind of stuff this forums needs more and more! True gamer's post, fuck yeah!

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Heh, I don't take in this sort of stuff for validation, I do it because I love it. To paraphrase a sentiment from coolio, "If hip-hop didn't pay, I'd rap for free" pretty much sums up my views on all things video games. Which is good, because they don't pay for me, haha.

I forgot to mention that the book also covers a beta version of Rayman. It's the only portion of the book that isn't in detail, and they explain that the book had already been delayed twice so they couldn't push it back any further to accommodate rayman, but they felt the need to cover it in some capacity so they went over a mid-development build. I haven't read that section in detail so I don't know if anything was different, but the background in the Tay-man section looked different from a quick glance.

It's interesting how, despite the jaguar nature of the book, so many of the games are multiplatform that you don't need to be a jaguar owner to enjoy it. The Doom section, for example, is a damn good guide to doom, jaguar or not.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Really, you use those as examples? Not the dozens of Space Invaders or Missle Command style games? (good or bad, there were a ton of them ;))

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I thinking more along the lines of the games that were made specifically for the console. I never played Warlords in the arcade, so I always thought of it as an Atari 2600 title. Space Invaders was a good port of a Taito arcade game.

I guess a better example would have been Yar's Revenge; A simple, yet great game. Adventure, another simple title with replay value. Combat with it's simple maps, but so much variety like invisible tanks.

It appears that most of the talented guys that were with Atari during the 2600 days moved on to form comanies like Activision. The 5200, 7800 and Jaguar didn't get a lot of great games from in house, and most of the good stuff on the 5200 was just old arcade ports of popular titles.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

I thinking more along the lines of the games that were made specifically for the console. I never played Warlords in the arcade, so I always thought of it as an Atari 2600 title. Space Invaders was a good port of a Taito arcade game.

I guess a better example would have been Yar's Revenge; A simple, yet great game. Adventure, another simple title with replay value. Combat with it's simple maps, but so much variety like invisible tanks.

It appears that most of the talented guys that were with Atari during the 2600 days moved on to form comanies like Activision. The 5200, 7800 and Jaguar didn't get a lot of great games from in house, and most of the good stuff on the 5200 was just old arcade ports of popular titles.

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I'd say you're looking at the wrong Atari 8-bit line if you're looking for good Atari output. You shouldn't be looking at the 5200, but rather than hardware it was based on - the Atari 8-bit line of computers, specifically the Atari 400/800. Atari had a bunch of great games from first party development on those platforms. Not surprisingly they also achieved much greater success than the 5200.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

I'd say you're looking at the wrong Atari 8-bit line if you're looking for good Atari output. You shouldn't be looking at the 5200, but rather than hardware it was based on - the Atari 8-bit line of computers, specifically the Atari 400/800. Atari had a bunch of great games from first party development on those platforms. Not surprisingly they also achieved much greater success than the 5200.

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I've played/own most of those Atarisoft games on the C-64. Most of them were solid arcade ports. I don't recall many Atarisoft titles on the 8-bit computers, that weren't also on the Atari home consoles, except Donkey Kong. The big titles of the time like River Raid and H.E.R.O were coming from the former Atari guys at Activision.

I was in the enviable position to have both systems in 1995-1996. Both were purchased for $50 from my local EB and played ad nauseam along with my Sega Stack and SNES/NES.

The 3D0 I only had a handful of games, really really like Out of this world and was kinda impressed with Alone in the Dark but never got far in either. I really liked Brain Dead 13 and actually beat it on the 3D0. Played that futuristic Taxi Cab killing game as well but that's about it.

Now for the Jag...


I had the CD unit too, so I had both and played Blue Lightning, MEH. But OMG Rayman, was in love, makes the system and I dedicated months to that game. I purchased Power Drive Rally brand new in the box and played it until I master it. I enjoyed Cyber Morph for what it is worth and even Dyno Dudes. The Jaguar was really like having an Amiga to me, very colorful, fast, great sound, I even mastered Checkered Flag for Christs sakes.

I have to go Jag for me, it even replaced my Model 1 Sega CD as my CD played with the VLM, all my friends were impressed. The Jag owned me for a bout a year and then I got a PS1 and the hell with everything else. I had a Saturn too but just the basic games and panzer dragon.


The Jag, it defines that specialy 1995-1996 for me, it's all there was. I love it.

Is Rayman far superior on the Atari Jaguar compared to other platforms?

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Originally Posted by Gogogadget

Is Rayman far superior on the Atari Jaguar compared to other platforms?

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The first version of Rayman I got was the saturn version, near launch. I liked it, but gave up at bandland when it got infuriatingly difficult. I gave it another go on the GBA years later and found it unplayable due to how scaled in the screen is. I yet again gave it another chance when I got the PSX version at a garage sale, but found that version far inferior to the saturn version in many, many ways.

Finally, I got the jaguar version last and absolutely fell in love. There are a lot of minor level design changes in the jaguar version that aren't in other versions that make it slightly easier in some spots, and much harder in other. For example, Bandland no longer has slippery floors where you constantly push forward without the ability to stop, so in that regards it's easier. However, in the other version, the intertia mechanic of bandland facilitated a number of jumps that would be impossible on the jaguar version - a like timing your jump to a dip in the road so that you go flying through the air to a far off platform. Since you don't have this built up high interia in the jaguar version, the space between where you leap and where the end platform should be is filled in with complex platforming paths, rather than air.

It adds up to a game that I found much more enjoyable after numerous attempts to get deep into the game. I've since completely beaten the jaguar version 100%, and even went back and finished up the saturn version (using a PAR code to get past bandland with infinite lives) and I found that, even in later levels, I found myself enjoying the level design in the jaguar version quite a bit more.

It's a preference thing, I can completely understand how the entirely different graphics in the saturn version would be more appealing to one person, or how they might prefer the slippery bandland over the complex platforming, stuff like that. The Jaguar version really clicked with me. I can't personally understand how anybody could prefer the PSX, GBA, or GBC versions of the game, though, since they're inferior to the Jaguar, Saturn, and PC versions in a number of technical ways, but I don't sweat it.

Keep in mind that the Jaguar version of Rayman was the lead version. It helps that Rayman is one of the best jaguar games, too. I'll admit that, when i picked up the jaguar version, I wasn't going in looking to fall in love with the game again, but rather attempting to obtain every must-have jaguar game. My enjoyment was a pleasant surprise.

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Originally Posted by evilevoix

I was in the enviable position to have both systems in 1995-1996. Both were purchased for $50 from my local EB and played ad nauseam along with my Sega Stack and SNES/NES.

The 3D0 I only had a handful of games, really really like Out of this world and was kinda impressed with Alone in the Dark but never got far in either. I really liked Brain Dead 13 and actually beat it on the 3D0. Played that futuristic Taxi Cab killing game as well but that's about it.

Now for the Jag...


I had the CD unit too, so I had both and played Blue Lightning, MEH. But OMG Rayman, was in love, makes the system and I dedicated months to that game. I purchased Power Drive Rally brand new in the box and played it until I master it. I enjoyed Cyber Morph for what it is worth and even Dyno Dudes. The Jaguar was really like having an Amiga to me, very colorful, fast, great sound, I even mastered Checkered Flag for Christs sakes.

I have to go Jag for me, it even replaced my Model 1 Sega CD as my CD played with the VLM, all my friends were impressed. The Jag owned me for a bout a year and then I got a PS1 and the hell with everything else. I had a Saturn too but just the basic games and panzer dragon.


The Jag, it defines that specialy 1995-1996 for me, it's all there was. I love it.

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What a neat post, thanks for posting it. Blue lightning is such a disappointing series to me, because both the jaguar and lynx games feel so poor yet the promise underneath is so large. It's like a series full of unfulfilled promises - awesome scaling effects wasted on ugly sprites, for example. It's clear the intent - it was supposed to be Atari's answer to afterburner, like Checkered Flag was supposed to be their answer to Virtua Racing, like Fight for Life was supposed to be their answer to Virtua Fighter. All the Sega games they're aping are among my favorite games of all time, so I'd welcome a blatant rip-off with arms wide open... if they were done well. The only one that seemed to get it right was Super Burnout - that is an awesome Hang On clone. I actually think the Lynx blue lightning is better than the jaguar version, but neither games are good. Both are overrated by atari fans, I've found.

Your comparison to the Amiga is spot on, I've made the comparison myself several times. There is quite a bit of overlap between the two libraries (at least amongst the top titles) and the ports from the Amiga to the Jaguar are generally well done. Between Zool 2, Syndicate, Cannon Fodder, Sensible World of Soccer, and Pinball Fantasies, and including new ports like Soccer Kid, I wouldn't doubt those games had their biggest US push on the jaguar, despite dos versions existing. I've found in my experiences online that Europeans in general seem more receptive to Atari than Americans, likely owing to their computer line. The Jaguar feels like a very european-centric game console to me.

Luckily I dig european gaming. I think it's a wonderful untapped source of gaming that most ignore.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

What a neat post, thanks for posting it. Blue lightning is such a disappointing series to me, because both the jaguar and lynx games feel so poor yet the promise underneath is so large. It's like a series full of unfulfilled promises - awesome scaling effects wasted on ugly sprites, for example. It's clear the intent - it was supposed to be Atari's answer to afterburner, like Checkered Flag was supposed to be their answer to Virtua Racing, like Fight for Life was supposed to be their answer to Virtua Fighter. All the Sega games they're aping are among my favorite games of all time, so I'd welcome a blatant rip-off with arms wide open... if they were done well. The only one that seemed to get it right was Super Burnout - that is an awesome Hang On clone. I actually think the Lynx blue lightning is better than the jaguar version, but neither games are good. Both are overrated by atari fans, I've found.

Your comparison to the Amiga is spot on, I've made the comparison myself several times. There is quite a bit of overlap between the two libraries (at least amongst the top titles) and the ports from the Amiga to the Jaguar are generally well done. Between Zool 2, Syndicate, Cannon Fodder, Sensible World of Soccer, and Pinball Fantasies, and including new ports like Soccer Kid, I wouldn't doubt those games had their biggest US push on the jaguar, despite dos versions existing. I've found in my experiences online that Europeans in general seem more receptive to Atari than Americans, likely owing to their computer line. The Jaguar feels like a very european-centric game console to me.

Luckily I dig european gaming. I think it's a wonderful untapped source of gaming that most ignore.

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I remember being in the Bittness stage too, wondering when the true 64 bit games would be coming, I had FAITH in that system, bought every remaining game brand new for $5 and really enjoyed it. When it died I was really sad but then for Christmas I was playing Duke Nukem 3D and a Parapa the Rapper Demo disk, I never looked back but now I got my jag back and have a SCART lead, it is amazing.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

I'd say you're looking at the wrong Atari 8-bit line if you're looking for good Atari output. You shouldn't be looking at the 5200, but rather than hardware it was based on - the Atari 8-bit line of computers, specifically the Atari 400/800. Atari had a bunch of great games from first party development on those platforms. Not surprisingly they also achieved much greater success than the 5200.

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The computers got more, but several games had better versions on the 5200, so it's not so black and white. (not a hardware limitation either . . . and in several cases simply due to the computer versions being older and using less ROM and/or RAM)

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Originally Posted by gamevet

It appears that most of the talented guys that were with Atari during the 2600 days moved on to form comanies like Activision. The 5200, 7800 and Jaguar didn't get a lot of great games from in house, and most of the good stuff on the 5200 was just old arcade ports of popular titles.

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A ton of them were still there up to mid 1984, some new talent gained and others left (much like the industry still is today -and the ).

In July 1984, Warner abruptly liquidated the entirety of Atari Inc, with the arcade staff rolled over into Atari Games and the rest completely laid off (including management). Atari Corp was left to pick up the pieces in the wake of that mess. -To be fair, Atari Corp probably would have cut things back further than Morgan planned to (and shifted priorities), but they certainly lost a lot of very useful staff -and some other resources- with the sloppy way Warner handled the liquidation. (and Atari Corp wasted more time and resources actually sifting though that mess)
There had been no warning or preparation for Atari Inc. Morgan and any staff keeping tabs on current events in the news would have known of Warner's plans to sell Atari Inc, but the expectation was that they'd just change ownership. The complete liquidation of the company came out of left field and made a horrible mess.

As such, any software developed by Atari Corp either came from new staff (often outsourced) or from the handful of Atari Inc developers/programmers that actually were picked up by Atari Corp.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

A ton of them were still there up to mid 1984, some new talent gained and others left (much like the industry still is today -and the ).

In July 1984, Warner abruptly liquidated the entirety of Atari Inc, with the arcade staff rolled over into Atari Games and the rest completely laid off (including management). Atari Corp was left to pick up the pieces in the wake of that mess. -To be fair, Atari Corp probably would have cut things back further than Morgan planned to (and shifted priorities), but they certainly lost a lot of very useful staff -and some other resources- with the sloppy way Warner handled the liquidation. (and Atari Corp wasted more time and resources actually sifting though that mess)
There had been no warning or preparation for Atari Inc. Morgan and any staff keeping tabs on current events in the news would have known of Warner's plans to sell Atari Inc, but the expectation was that they'd just change ownership. The complete liquidation of the company came out of left field and made a horrible mess.

As such, any software developed by Atari Corp either came from new staff (often outsourced) or from the handful of Atari Inc developers/programmers that actually were picked up by Atari Corp.

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Guys like Howard Scott Warshaw (Yars Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark) were gone after 1982. Looking back at the software for the 5200, 7800 and Jag, I'm not seeing a whole lot of greatness (Ballblazer?) coming from Atari's in-house programmers.

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Originally Posted by Barone

StarBlade: Much better video quality than the PS1 version.

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I'm curious on why? I thought PS1 port will be better than the 3DO version.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Guys like Howard Scott Warshaw (Yars Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark) were gone after 1982. Looking back at the software for the 5200, 7800 and Jag, I'm not seeing a whole lot of greatness (Ballblazer?) coming from Atari's in-house programmers.

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Again, lumping the 5200, 7800, and Jag all together is just wrong. If you want to compare things in the context of talent choosing to leave Atari in the early 80s (Activision style), then compare software completed/published up to July 1984 and no later.

Atari Inc ceased to exist in 1984, and anything after that would be a very, very different situation to what Atari Inc had been immediately prior. (as I already detailed at length above . . . and have done before in an even more lengthy manner :p )

That, and the 7800 launch titles were all programmed by GCC, and they'd all be 1984 examples anyway. (completed or nearly completed in preparation for the fall 1984 launch)

And ballblazer was a 3rd party (Lucasfilm) computer game . . . unless you're talking about porting it to the 7800. (Atari did a lot of publishing of Lucasfilm developed stuff, both Inc and Corp)

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Originally Posted by ThunderForce

I'm curious on why? I thought PS1 port will be better than the 3DO version.

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Both versions, unlike the Sega CD port, use video playback for the backgrounds and the PS1 version is filled with nasty video artifacts. You'll vomit if you play it using a SCART or component cable, but even in composite it's easy to notice that... While on the 3DO you'll have a really hard time to find any artifacts and I think that's why most of the magazine reviews at the time described the game as if it was all polygons (they didn't noticed it was mostly a FMV game) and a very good rendition of the arcade game (it was the 3DO's pack-in game for some time).
The 3DO version also seems to scale the foreground objects (not video playback here) smoother than the PS1 version... The only down side of the 3DO's is that it doesn't have any sort of analog support, while the PS1 version has mouse support and even the Sega CD version has mouse and analog stick (XE-1AP controller) support.

I really don't know much about the technical details, but I know that most of the early PS1 and SAT games had better video playback quality in their 3DO versions.
Some 3DO games also had better video quality than their PC releases, like The Daedalus Encounter and Brain Dead 13.

Doesn't the Jaguar Version of Rayman have twice the colors of the PS1's version?

I'm selling a 3DO system in case this thread is making anyone hungry.

3DO is probably one the most overambitious consoles of all time. It was hyped to no end back in 1993, but in actual reality it wasn't all that powerful. Only one 12MHZ 32-bit RISC CPU and completely incapable of actual true 3D polygon rendering or geometrics PS1 practically left it in the dust spec wise and Saturn had a threefold leap over its power. I'd say its $600-700 price was because 3DO sold it at wholesale.

3DO has a very oddball library. Very well done Arcade conversions, Mixed FMV, and some original projects. I only got to try 3DO once or twice(Twice to be exact) in my life. Actually at Sam Goody or Suncoast.

Myst was probably the best original title for the system though I would recommend Wing Commander.

And as for Jaguar. I've only played Cypermorph,Tempest 2000, and Alien VS Predator. I recommend all 3 of these.

Oh, no! Not again...

And MrSega gets himself one puff closer to the grave.

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Originally Posted by MrSega

3DO is probably one the most overambitious consoles of all time. It was hyped to no end back in 1993, but in actual reality it wasn't all that powerful. Only one 12MHZ 32-bit RISC CPU and completely incapable of actual true 3D polygon rendering or geometrics PS1 practically left it in the dust spec wise and Saturn had a threefold leap over its power. I'd say its $600-700 price was because 3DO sold it at wholesale.

3DO has a very oddball library. Very well done Arcade conversions, Mixed FMV, and some original projects. I only got to try 3DO once or twice(Twice to be exact) in my life. Actually at Sam Goody or Suncoast.

Myst was probably the best original title for the system though I would recommend Wing Commander.

And as for Jaguar. I've only played Cypermorph,Tempest 2000, and Alien VS Predator. I recommend all 3 of these.

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in 1993, the 3do specs were mindblowing. also, 3do didn't sell the consoles, nor did they produce them. Panasonic, Sanyo, goldstar, and creative labs made and sold 3dos. and of course the bom was factored into the cost - those companies didn't earn anything from licensing. They received no cut from any games developed.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

I'd agree that for a price conscious consumer, the 3DO is a better choice. But if money is no problem, i feel like the Jaguar has more to offer.

Lists and videos also don't do some of these games justice. Iron Soldier 2 and Missile Command 3D are much better than people will lead you to believe online. The only videos I can find for either are taken from early levels - later ones get more impressive. There is a dragon boss in MC3D that is very impressive for the time and hardware. Plus it's fun to play.

I think the 3DO actually does have a place, though. beyond the normally quoted AAA games, the system is my go-to spot for FMV games. Stuff like Sewer Shark or Mad Dog McCree look much, much better than most other ports of the games, running with more colors at higher resolutions with more FPS.

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SEGA CD/MEGA CD is watered down System 24 silicon which in turn uses 2 MT68000 16-bit CPUs both the Genesis/MD's processor and its own. 3DO uses a single 32-bit RISC CPU and has quadruple the colors of both MEGA CD and System 24. So games like "Sewer Shark" and "Night Trap" are of course going to look 50X better on 3DO then on SEGA CD.

Wing Commander I have to say was the game that pushed its FMV capabilities to its limits. Fantastic picture quality. CD FMV is normally grainy. But Wing Commander looks like semi-Standard DVD quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUK4NS8_XGk

I'm aware that 3DO was 2nd party contract licensed mostly by Panasonic and Goldstar/LG . I'm just surprised it was sold at wholesale without BOM.

MrSega, do you want to buy my 3DO? :p

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Originally Posted by Guntz

MrSega, do you want to buy my 3DO? :p

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For how much? I ain't spending more than $300 on the system itself.

I'm selling an FZ-1 with a sweet controller and Shockwave for $110, shipping is separate.

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Originally Posted by MrSega

SEGA CD/MEGA CD is watered down System 24 silicon which in turn uses 2 MT68000 16-bit CPUs both the Genesis/MD's processor and its own. 3DO uses a single 32-bit RISC CPU and has quadruple the colors of both MEGA CD and System 24. So games like "Sewer Shark" and "Night Trap" are of course going to look 50X better on 3DO then on SEGA CD.

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Sega CD has nothing to do with the System 24, and I doubt that "rumor" about Pioneer/Sega planning a CD system around the System 24 has bearing in reality either.

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Wing Commander I have to say was the game that pushed its FMV capabilities to its limits. Fantastic picture quality. CD FMV is normally grainy. But Wing Commander looks like semi-Standard DVD quality.

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It looks worse than good quality (ie good encoding) VCDs or good examples of PSX FMV. I've seen arguments that 3DO WCIII looks better than PSX, but from what I've seen that's not really the case. (I haven't seen a direct side by side comparison though . . . and I mean in person, not with video captures)

I know for a fact that the PSX's video decoding hardware uses formats technically superior to cinepak, either its MJPEG decoding or H.261. Depending on the specific sort of video being compressed (animation/filming style and framerate), either format could be preferable. (MJPEG is all intraframe compression -each frame is a distinct compressed image- so good for things with relatively low framerates and a lot changing each frame -- H.261 does motion compensation -interframe compression- which caters well to higher framerates and/or relatively limited on-screen movement/change from one frame to the next)
I'm betting WCIII uses H.261.


It's good quality for the 3DO though, probably 2x bitrate highcolor cinepak . . . though I thought the 3DO version used only 4 discs like the PC and PSX versions, and PC used almost entirely 1x bitrate video so I'm not sure how that'd be possible.

In any case it looks better than the 256 color custom RLE compression the PC version used, though that format in itself is pretty interesting. (Wing Commander IV uses a similar format but using YUV color interpolated to highcolor RGB . . . TBH it's not that much better looking than the 256 color stuff, especially considering it's double the bitrate for most cases)
I do wonder if it looks better than 256 color cinepak would have . . . of course, they'd have had to pay a license for using Cinepak too (or Indeo for that matter) . . . unless they used a Cinepak-like in-house vector quantizer. (like Sega and a few others did on the MCD, and Activision did too -most notably used on Return to Zork)

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Again, lumping the 5200, 7800, and Jag all together is just wrong. If you want to compare things in the context of talent choosing to leave Atari in the early 80s (Activision style), then compare software completed/published up to July 1984 and no later.

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That's not too hard to do. You can just look at the 5200 library that was loaded with ports of older arcade games like Pole Position, Galaxian, Super Breakout, Defender, Centipede, Jungle Hunt and Dig Dug. There were very few original Atari developed games for the system.

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Atari Inc ceased to exist in 1984, and anything after that would be a very, very different situation to what Atari Inc had been immediately prior. (as I already detailed at length above . . . and have done before in an even more lengthy manner :p )

That, and the 7800 launch titles were all programmed by GCC, and they'd all be 1984 examples anyway. (completed or nearly completed in preparation for the fall 1984 launch)

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Sort of goes back to my point. Atari's in-house developement was pretty bad after the 2600 and you have to wonder how well the 5200 might have done, if guys like Whitehead, Crane, Kaplan and Miller were still making games exclusively for Atari? Imagic also had former members from Atari and Mattel, making games.

Atari became more of a developer of licensed games with the 5200 and 7800. I don't think Tramiel ever considered making a decent 1st party software group when he took over the company. He was a hardware man 1st, while the early days of Atari focused on the games and the hardware to make it happen. That's why I don't see the days after the 2600 as being good for Atari as a software developer for their own consoles.

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And ballblazer was a 3rd party (Lucasfilm) computer game . . . unless you're talking about porting it to the 7800. (Atari did a lot of publishing of Lucasfilm developed stuff, both Inc and Corp)

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That's why I put a question mark behind it. I just remember it was one of the titles that was being touted for the Atari 5200 and 800 computers. I always forget that it was a LucasArts game, because of it's tie-in with Atari, who published the title.

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Originally Posted by Barone

3DO Starblade conversation

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Sending you a PM.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

That's not too hard to do. You can just look at the 5200 library that was loaded with ports of older arcade games like Pole Position, Galaxian, Super Breakout, Defender, Centipede, Jungle Hunt and Dig Dug. There were very few original Atari developed games for the system.

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This is really silly. Of course those games were going to be on there, they were major arcade games being pushed (or cloned) on most major platforms of the time . . . and a big intention was to show the 5200 as being capable of better versions of games also on the 2600. Some were straight ports of older Atari 8-bit games, while others got some enhancements. (Centipede has arcade perfect sound, for example)
That, and some were there just to bulk up the software library. (in the case of some 8-bit ports)

I'm not saying that the 5200 was positioned well on the market or was a good idea in general (compared to alternatives -8-bit computers or the cancelled 3200), but your statements say absolutely nothing about the quality of Atari's in-house developers at the time. (be it arcade or console) . . . Honestly, I wouldn't even argue the 7800 made all that much sense in its own right (either in its planned position at Atari Inc or the one it ended up in at Atari Corp), but that's a whole other discussion.

You'd have to look at all in-house software on the 2600, 8-bit, and 5200 (perhaps look at arcade releases separately), and that's including both arcade ports (and quality of said conversions) and "original" games (which may include ports between computer/console) up through July 1984 (development dates, not release dates -several completed games were shelved until much later . . . including basically any 5200 games released after mid 1984).

And, of course, this period was also a time where most console developers had started publishing for competing platforms as well. (Mattel and Coleco on Atari and vice versa) It was a weird time that kind of got reset by the collapse following the crash.

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Sort of goes back to my point. Atari's in-house developement was pretty bad after the 2600 and you have to wonder how well the 5200 might have done, if guys like Whitehead, Crane, Kaplan and Miller were still making games exclusively for Atari?

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You're missing my point. My point was that there was only a very short period between Atari's (claimed) "loss of talent" and the total liquidation of Atari Inc in 1984.

Tramiel had nothing to with the 5200 development . . . the console had been discontinued before Atari Inc was liquidated, and Atari Corp did nothing but sell off old stock and release a handful of games that were already there. (some delayed more than others)

2600 and 7800 development continued in 1985 though, mostly targeting computer game ports and a handful of original games. (mostly on commission, since in-house entertainment software R&D resources were very limited at the time -it improved a bit at the end of the 7800's life and in the Lynx years, for a while at least, but that's another story)

In any case, this (Atari Corp) is a totally separate discussion from my comments about Atari Inc.

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Atari became more of a developer of licensed games with the 5200 and 7800. I don't think Tramiel ever considered making a decent 1st party software group when he took over the company. He was a hardware man 1st, while the early days of Atari focused on the games and the hardware to make it happen. That's why I don't see the days after the 2600 as being good for Atari as a software developer for their own consoles.

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Again, why the hell are you lumping in the 5200 with the 7800? They are totally different animals supported by companies in very different situations.

The 5200 was being supported much like the 2600 and 8-bit computers at the time (with some viariables in each case), all 3 had a mix of original games and ports of hot arcade licenses (which composed several killer apps on all the systems).

The 7800 OTOH, in its 1986 release form, had a chunk of old licensed games/ports already developed by GCC in 1984 and then a trickling of whatever computer game ports they could manage to swing onto the system along with a handful of other IPs they had licenses for already (like Mario Bros). Nintendo had a lock on Japanese arcade (and console) licenses and eventually on any US developed console games as well, so those were the only practical options for the 7800 outside of Europe (why they didn't push for Euro computer games is a separate topic).

Importantly, the 7800 was also being targeted as a budget console at that point, with lower price points being one of the marketing strategies . . . and Atari Corp themselves having much lower development budgets. (regardless of programming talent)
There were a few exceptions to this, like Epyx managing to push for carts with 32 kB SRAM chips onboard (Summer and Winter games), but those were definitely major exceptions to the rule. (same for the couple POKEY games . . . others were basic ROM carts with ROM sizes lower than the average on new releases on the NES and SMS)

I'm so glad that this thread has gathered so much attention. This is truly a worthy thread. TSR, you are the man! :ok:

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

This is really silly. Of course those games were going to be on there, they were major arcade games being pushed (or cloned) on most major platforms of the time . . . and a big intention was to show the 5200 as being capable of better versions of games also on the 2600. Some were straight ports of older Atari 8-bit games, while others got some enhancements. (Centipede has arcade perfect sound, for example)
That, and some were there just to bulk up the software library. (in the case of some 8-bit ports)

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Most were considered old, or less popular arcade games by then. Especially when the Colecovision was offering newer arcade hits like Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Zaxxon and Sub-Roc 3D. Where was the next Pitfall like game?

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I'm not saying that the 5200 was positioned well on the market or was a good idea in general (compared to alternatives -8-bit computers or the cancelled 3200), but your statements say absolutely nothing about the quality of Atari's in-house developers at the time. (be it arcade or console) . . . Honestly, I wouldn't even argue the 7800 made all that much sense in its own right (either in its planned position at Atari Inc or the one it ended up in at Atari Corp), but that's a whole other discussion.

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How does it not? The titles from Activision and Imagic became the big sellers on the console, while Atari's in-house games were starting to faulter. Just look at the catalog of games from Activision alone, and you'll see them at the top of the must-have games for the 2600.

Activision games:

Pitfall
Enduro
Kaboom!
Decathlete
H.E.R.O.
Megamania
River Raid
Robot Tank
Starmaster
Laser Blast
Keystone Kapers
Grand Prix
Beam Rider
Chopper Command
Pressure Cooker
Spider Fighter
Stampede
Barn Storming

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You'd have to look at all in-house software on the 2600, 8-bit, and 5200 (perhaps look at arcade releases separately), and that's including both arcade ports (and quality of said conversions) and "original" games (which may include ports between computer/console) up through July 1984 (development dates, not release dates -several completed games were shelved until much later . . . including basically any 5200 games released after mid 1984).

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I have. The good games (not arcade ports) were Yar's Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Haunted House, Demons to Diamonds and......it's a pretty short list.

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And, of course, this period was also a time where most console developers had started publishing for competing platforms as well. (Mattel and Coleco on Atari and vice versa) It was a weird time that kind of got reset by the collapse following the crash.

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I don't see how that has any relation to Atari's in-house development for their own consoles.

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You're missing my point. My point was that there was only a very short period between Atari's (claimed) "loss of talent" and the total liquidation of Atari Inc in 1984.

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Activision was formed in late 1979, with their first release in 1980. Imagic was formed in 1981 and had hits with games like Demon Attack and Atlantis. The market fell out in late 1982.

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Tramiel had nothing to with the 5200 development . . . the console had been discontinued before Atari Inc was liquidated, and Atari Corp did nothing but sell off old stock and release a handful of games that were already there. (some delayed more than others)

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I never said he had anything to do with 5200 development. I'm saying that Atari failed to replace the talent that was lost, when their key in-house software developers left the company. You were the one that said: " If you want to compare things in the context of talent choosing to leave Atari in the early 80s (Activision style), then compare software completed/published up to July 1984 and no later."

My comments on Tramiel, are in relation to the 7800 and the Jag. Atari didn't have a lot of unique titles from in-house and outsourced a lot of the programming of their published games to other developers. Tramiel didn't really bother to bring back in-house development for the Atari systems and it showed with the games being published by Atari after 1984. There were very few titles on the Jag, that were developed in-house, and the titles that were in-house had very poor quality.

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In any case, this (Atari Corp) is a totally separate discussion from my comments about Atari Inc.

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That's a seperate discussion. I'm saying that Atari's home consumer systems, didn't have the in-house development like they had in the late 70s' and very early 80s'.

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Originally Posted by Guntz

I'm selling an FZ-1 with a sweet controller and Shockwave for $110, shipping is separate.

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Not too bad. I'll have to think about,though especially regarding 3DO's accessories. If not then I believe you've got a huge shot at making a sale on amazon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o7eVhfQFEok

Don't ask...

That video made me laugh.

Instant favorite, that video swag hard

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Originally Posted by Soulis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o7eVhfQFEok
Don't ask...

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Holy crap, that's an actual Jaguar ROM! :rofl:

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Originally Posted by gamevet

How does it not? The titles from Activision and Imagic became the big sellers on the console, while Atari's in-house games were starting to faulter. Just look at the catalog of games from Activision alone, and you'll see them at the top of the must-have games for the 2600.

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I'm not going to go into lists of "good" games as such . . . with subjective opinions (even generally accepted ones) on the quality of those. That's enough to go into a separate discussion if there's really interest.

But I will say this: remember Atari was putting a lot of their programming/development/design (mostly the same people handling all that in those days) into producing arcade conversions on top of any console-specific original titles. You had programmers specifically dedicated to the arcade side of things with relatively limited overlap, though there was a fair amount of programming overlap between computer/console stuff with some exceptions.

Activision and Imagic OTOH didn't really deal with producing arcade licenses, and even Coleco and Mattel dealt with considerably fewer in-house licensed arcade games than Atari. (though there were a fair number of imitations too) And, hell, a big chunk of Atari's arcade licenses were their own IPs from the coin-op division. (of course, most of those console/computer ports still had to be programmed completely from scratch . . . there wouldn't be much overlap between arcade hardware coding and the console/computer stuff and it wouldn't normally involve the same programmers either)

So, IMO, arcade ports MUST be included in the list. However, the actual quality of the arcade ports in question could certainly be contended. (the extreme mediocrity of Pac Man on the VCS would be a prime example . . . )

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I never said he had anything to do with 5200 development. I'm saying that Atari failed to replace the talent that was lost, when their key in-house software developers left the company. You were the one that said: " If you want to compare things in the context of talent choosing to leave Atari in the early 80s (Activision style), then compare software completed/published up to July 1984 and no later."

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You kept bringing up "5200 and 7800" though, which necessarily implied stuff after that point . . . unless you're talking about the 1984 launch games, none of which were programmed in-house anyway. (all were programmed by GCC . . . and, technically speaking, Ms Pac Man was designed by GCC as well :p )

OTOH, that does being the interesting issue of 2nd party collaboration into question: there's a strong argument that investing a lot in partnerships like that is healthy/necessary compared to relying mostly (or entirely) in internal (1st party) resources. (be it simply handling publication and distribution or actually having further involvement in the game development/funding)
That could apply to the number of developers Atari was publishing for in the early 80s . . . and, of course, if you actually want to go into 7800 (late 80s) games, then the majority of those were either commissioned and handed off to 3rd parties, or totally independently developed and just published/distributed though Atari. (something like that probably would have happened under Morgan's Atari Inc. reorganization too, but without the -near- total loss of in-house talent . . . among other things screwed up during the chaos Warner's liquidation, not to mention some other aspects specific to what Trammel Technologies was aimed at already -ie diverting resources to the RBP project, ie ST)

I will agree that the in-house software development environment changed somewhat in the early 80s, but I will disagree completely that it was anywhere near the overall situation with the 7800 at Atari Corp or that Atari Inc no longer had considerable in-house talent in 1981-1984.

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My comments on Tramiel, are in relation to the 7800 and the Jag. Atari didn't have a lot of unique titles from in-house and outsourced a lot of the programming of their published games to other developers. Tramiel didn't really bother to bring back in-house development for the Atari systems and it showed with the games being published by Atari after 1984. There were very few titles on the Jag, that were developed in-house, and the titles that were in-house had very poor quality.

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It was a lack of funding for the most part . . . the company was very limited in the mid 80s, and for the short period of relative prosperity in ~1987-1989, the 7800 was still a niche/budget platform and Atari was just starting to build up actual in-house software resources. Then they followed that up with having no follow up to the 7800 (Panther -and any other potential designs- cancelled and nothing by Lynx until 1993). By the time of the Jaguar, they were in a hellish financial state once again, and the company itself (management and staffing) was well behind what it had been even in late 1984. In '93, Atari had a skeleton crew of staff and was stepped in debt with ever declining revenue and investor support (prior to the Jaguar PR campaign, on the revenue end), the one-time multi-division company had been stripped down to basically a single-division single-product company, the Entertainment division itself had more or less ceased to exist too, and the position Make Katz had created back in 1985 ceased to exist as well. (iirc Bernie Stolar was the last president of Atari Corp Entertainment in mid/late 1992)

Now, for 1989-1992 there were a handful of late 7800 releases (some interesting original titles, if still below average NES/SMS standards), you had in-house Lynx programming (a lot going to ports, but a handful of original games too . . . or games directly from 2nd parties like Epyx). They also did some in-house ST game programming IIRC.

But, overall, things were already falling apart in 1989, Jack Tramiel had left things to Sam (who proved a far less capable manager of the company) and Mike Katz left at the beginning of 1989, so his management and leadership on the entertainment end was lost too. It really makes me wonder how things might have gone with Jack and Katz still there, since they had a lot more potential for investment than prior to that, and Katz had been the brains behind making the best use of limited advertising and software development funds he was allotted. (and certainly for pushing for as much investment as he managed to get . . . and for the forming of the Entertainment division of Atari Corp itself)

With better management, the 1988 onward period could have marked a significant increase in internal software R&D as well as improving connections with 2nd/3rd party developers and publishers . . . that happened to some extent as it was, but it was a mess overall and the only viable new game platform was the Lynx, which itself was poorly managed. (kind of Ironic that Katz left just a few months before that launched, especially since it came from Epyx -where he'd come from immediately prior to Atari Corp and with which he'd created a solid bond with on the 7800)
The state of Atari's computer division is another topic though, and having Jack Tramiel there probably wasn't the only major problem with the decline. (I'd be willing to be the competitive business side of things would have been better at least, but the ST had the major issue of lacking good/logical/efficient follow on hardware ranges released -STe, TT, and Falcon were all messes in different respects, be it timing and/or marketing and/or cost)