I played Motocross Championship on 32X a week before playing Supercross 3D on Atari Jaguar. I enjoyed Motocross Championship on 32X. Not saying it's the greatest game ever, but I really enjoyed it and played it for a very long time just having a fun time. But Supercross 3D on Jaguar? The first time I saw it's 10 frames per second I seriously said aloud "What the "BLEEP" is this?!?" and this is coming from someone who is very, VERY lenient on graphics and frame rate. The gameplay was horrible as well (go off the track just a tiny bit, you plummet to the floor). The worst part is that Supercross 3D for Jaguar was released some months AFTER Motocross Championship on 32X (which is a MUCH better Motorcross game running on the inferior 32X hardware, yet it plays and looks so much better) and Supercross 3D was released during very late holiday season of 1995... up against the Playstation and Saturn's first holiday season in the U.S. and was up against Playstation launch titles like Ridge Racer. From what I read about Atari behind the scenes (and it was absolute CHAOS during the Atari Jaguar years. To give one example: Allegedly, some Jaguar game testers were doing drugs on the job in the offices. If true, that might explain a lot of things), they knew they were going under by early 1996, so a lot of games were rushed out and they didn't care if they weren't fully functional / polished / finished. Supercross 3D definitely fits that since that game needs at least several months more of development.
Love your bad game review vids. Awesome dude 👌👌👍 BTW I reckon a jaguar cart for the evercade would be AMAZING!!! With the ones from your good game reviews rather than these.... Okay, maybe one of these for comedic reasoning 👍👍
You said it perfectly toward the end, “game was finished and rushed out the door.” That’s the formula that brought down Atari during the 2600 era, games that were finished within a few weeks and pushed out into the market. It’s why we never got to see what the Atari could really do until homebrew developers started making games. I’ll bet the Jaguar could do so much more than what we saw in the released library of games.
The same can be said of any console really, a lot of homebrew developers have the benefit of time and better understanding of hardware plus programing techniques that programers couldn't even dream of back then. Plus with cart based systems larger ROM chips being cheaper to get than back then.
It can also be said for the development of the 32X and 3DO versions of Doom, since both ports of that game were rushed pretty badly too. But that one is a whole different story.
@@LeoDoesAllThis You might have squoze another few frames a second or maybe a slightly bigger screen on the 32x but a real effort would required a rewite for the 32 from the ground up. No one was going to put in that kind of effort. From scratch, I think you could do even better for sure. The fact is the 32x version is hardly the worst version and is really quite good considering. It like most console ports of the time used the Jaguar version of the code was used(since it was the official and first console source from id themselves)if not ported directly, certainly for reference. It's really not that bad and hey.... it even has the music....not that this ever concerned me that the Jag did'nt...I was well sick of hearing the music from the PC version and turned music off even on the PC after a while.
I debated about buying a Jaguar when it came out. I instead decided to expand my Genesis and SNES libraries. After watching this video, I believe I made the right choice.
Overall, I'd say that was probably the right choice. I did by one as soon as they were out. It's unfortunate that there were so few games being release because for the first year and a half, it was kind of mind blowing. People scoff at it now, but Cybermorph, a free flying open world game in 1993 was a pretty big deal. And until the Saturn and Playstation came out, I couldn't keep people out of my dorm room because of Doom, Tempest 2000 and AvP. Heck, some of my friends even liked Trevor McFur.
Atariage is slowly building up the jaguar library. The jag can push pixels better than most any console. That should be focused on, imo. The polygon pushing is lacking.
You had both Genesis and SNES? Congratulations, it was one of the best console combinations ever, you probably spent the Console Wars laughing at the fans of each system while you played great games.
@@Hektols I wouldn't say that I laughed at them. I was a big Nintendo fanboy in the early 90s and bought a SNES as soon as it came out. But the Genesis had so many great games, and I really wanted to play a lot of them, so I caved in and bought one. I definitely supported both companies and got away from the "which system is better" nonsense that the fans got carried away with back then.
The Power Balls in Club Drive always reminded me of the everlasting gobstoppers from Willy Wonka :D But I swear it's a tech demo or unfinished game they shoved out the door. Atari did do that with, Fight for Life was another.
@@johnhancockretro Oh yeah, Atari released an unfinished build as the creator refused to give Atari the finished game until they paid him! So they thought "screw it" and released it anyway! He released the final build a few years ago, it is a much better game!
@@Larry I do wish you'd post both sides of a story when you give accounts like this Larry, you did it with Zero 5,going off a quote from Matthew Gosling, rather than getting Caspain Software bosses account and that of Darryl Still, Atari UK. Here's Atari Corps side of things: Statement from Don Thomas : FIGHT for LIFE To me, it seems like a decade since the Fight for Life project began. For a long time, Mr. Francois Yves Bertrand, it’s creator, worked in a cubicle next to mine at 1196 on Borregas Avenue. Every once in a while, Francois would invite to peer over the wall at his latest revisions and little by little I saw Fight for Life come together as if I were watching time lapse photography. Francois is an extremely talented individual. He initiated the project virtually on a single handed basis. As he developed the project, he solicited the talents of other wizards to help with some of the bit maps, texture maps and sound effects used in the game. By the time Francois was finished and submitted the final copy, the Fight for Life team was numerous, exhausted and proud… and they should be proud. Atari Corporation has always prioritized the famous “fun factor” over almost any other element in a game. The reason for this is because eye candy is only appealing in the store or when you show off a game to a friend for the first time. If the game isn’t fun, then consumers look for ways to return or sell it as soon as they decided it is boring to play. Bill Rehbock, the executive producer, and J Patton, the producer of Fight for Life believed very much in the “fun factor” formula and asked Francois to work on those parts of the game engine first. As he did, news began to leak out that Atari was working on a polygonal fighter and before long, Atari was pressed into providing work-in-progress demos to the gaming press. Unfortunately, the gaming magazines decided to evaluate the game by terms other than how it was being developed. While Francois was spending relatively little time making it look good and a lot of time at making it play well, the magazines insisted on evaluations based on how well the screen shots appeared in their glossy magazine pages. By the end of the third quarter of 1995, Atari felt compelled to announce that Fight for Life was “indefinitely postponed” while, behind the scenes, Francois and his team accelerated final development with a focus on the graphic elements of the game. On Friday, April 19, 1996, Atari released Fight for Life to the Jaguar community. As you will see below by unsolicited Internet feedback, the game is being touted as an excellent new addition to the Jaguar library. I finally got a chance to look at it this morning. Please let me say first, that I am not pretending to be a polygonal fighter expert. I’ve seen the Virtual Fighter clones, but I have not played them any more than maybe a quarter’s worth each. That being established, Fight for Life definitely has the fun factor elements I’d expect from an Atari product. Not only does the game look GREAT!, but the mechanism to “earn” new moves as I win bouts is a challenging motivation. I also like the fact that each bout feels like a real time fight. Even in instances where I found a particular one move that seems to defeat my opponent, I have to work hard using it to win. I’ll let the comments that follow speak for themselves, but overall, I’d say Fight for Life kicks BUTTered buns! And another: Ted Hoff: I would like to also share with you that Francois Bertrand has been asked back to complete work on Fight for Life. It’s important that I also tell you that our official position is the same as it has been for months…. that FFL will be released IF and WHEN it meets Atari standards. As you may have heard, the latest test reports have been favorable and I’m delighted to review it, but if Atari personnel answer your inquiries that the title remains on hold, then they are answering your question accurately. Atari remains faithful to publishing software under strict guidelines so that the product Atari customers buy meets or exceeds their expectations. You've also got: Bill Rehbock in his interview with Arcade Attack,talks of Atari playing with the big boys with regard F.F.L… Since Sega’s Virtual Fighter was not fully texture mapped,Atari wanted to do a fully texture mapped game on the Jaguar and Bill himself admits the system wasn’t geared up to do this. He also talked of Sam Tramiel focus group testing the game,knew it would review badly,ecen though some in the group thought the game was pretty cool,but Jaguar badly needed a game in this genre so it was green lit to be shipped,where as other companies would of simply pulled the plug on it. Bill went onto say the game needed another 3 artists for art and animation and entire thing needed a bigger budget. And further still from the Arcade Attack interview : Silvio Porretta There are strong rumors that the released Fight for Life was not fully completed and rushed to meet the release deadline. Is this true, and if, so how much pressure did you feel while working on this title? Not so much. All I had to do is learn the new tools and adapt quickly. I always delivered and the president of Atari was very satisfied with my work. I think the pressure was mostly on FYB. It is also rumored that a fabled more complete version of the game was completed by FYB but never released. Do you know if he or anyone else has the complete version of the game anywhere, and if so, how different was this version to the released game? It’s possible that FYB has a more complete, unreleased version of the game. He would be the only person to have such version. I would think that the difference would only be in the performance and maybe a few improved animations. You can't go off single source quotes, they never present the full story and it's straightforward to find others talking about the games development.
I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Double Dragon V before, especially the Jaguar version. Not just that it suffered from graphics that tried to be better than its 16-bit ports, but ended up being worse and awkward music, but it also had much worse controls which would lead to the player losing in almost every single battle, thanks to how surprisingly cheap their opponents were.
Man I still love my Jaguar! Alien vs Predator, Doom, Raiden and Wolfenstein are some of my favorites. I can’t believe what the console and games are going for these days! I bought mine at Kay B toys back in 97 for $20 for the console and $5 per game.
I sort of regret selling my Jaguar. Tempest 2K was an all time classic for ANY system (as evidenced by the fact it got ported to everything) and it had a lot of other underrated games (Power Drive Rally and Iron Soldier among them).
Trevor McFur is like one of those cursed games, most awful games generally go away if you don't actively seek out and play them. But Trevor McFur is always there! It's something lurking just beyond the edge of your vision, but you know it's still there and it'll still be there when you're in your grave and beyond.
I actually like Trevor McFur. But I want to stress I said "like" not love. I liked the special weapons, the bosses, and there's a good variety of enemies. The flat backgrounds are lame, the sound is awful, and the level design is minimal. In my opinion, it averages out to a reasonably enjoyable game. There were definitely better shooters on the 16 bit systems, but I also played some that were far worse. I'm not sure how Trevor McFur became the poster child for terrible shooters.
I like that Jaguar games tried to use the whole color palate - they resembled what an an acid trip would be like in video game form - a must own for Tempest 2000 though.
Me too. I also vividly recall around that exact same time KB Toys was also liquidating the last of their NES stock, which seemed to take quite a few years for them to fully drain. In particular I can remember them having Punch-Out!! w/Mr. Dream, Final Fantasy, Mega Man 6, Metroid (yellow rerelease), Kirby's Adventure, Wario's Woods, Yoshi, and Yoshi's Cookie, all for $4.99!!!! Could you imagine nowadays?! A SEALED Mega Man game for $4.99?!!
I actually legitimately loved Club Drive for all it's faults. It was glitchy as hell and definitely not a racing game, but the exploration was fun. It was definitely a bad game, but I enjoyed it.
@@dad7275 I think, if they used Club Drive engine on Checkered Flag, then the CF game would be better. Frame rate on Club Drive is smooth compared to CF.
I am absolutely love Club Drive! Every time I hear that corny music, it puts a hugh smile on my face! Club Drive falls in the category of "so bad, it's good"!
Atari Jaguar SDK was based around the Atari TT and that was not as familiar to many developers.And many developers ran the game code around the 68000 because it was familiar to them unlike the custom chips inside the Atari Jaguar.And Atari had told developers that the 68000 was to be used as a controller chip, and the Tom and Jerry custom chips should be used to push the main game code.So not surprising that the machine produced less than impressive versions of some games titles.When it was coded well it could produce some good versions of games titles.Syndicate was a good example comparable to the Windows PC version and much better than the 16 bit versions.I personally bought an Atari Jaguar for games titles like Syndicate, Alien Vs Predator, Theme Park and was quite happy with the machine and the entertainment it gave me at the time.And it was a lot less expensive than buying a Windows PC to play Syndicate on that's for sure.
You hit the nail on the head with all of them except for WMCJ. I was a teen during the time that game came out and sure, it wasn't NBA Jam T.E. but for the sake of perspective of when not only development for this game started (in 1994 before the PSX release), it was a decent game and allowed you to play with all your friends. Easily far more playable than the other 4 you mentioned combined. The Jaguar isn't a bad console, the programmers who made the games are or were. SuperCross 3D? Not even finished. Cherry on the top? That was the programmer's first 3D game. Pay close attention to the title screen and you soon realize it doesn't even say SuperCross 3D. That's because Atari rushed the unfinished game out the door, like they did with many of their games sadly. Did you hear the Nirvna rip-off soundtrack in SuperCross? Surely a placeholder but shipped cause who cares!? Talk about a sore thumb indeed. (those who remember the thumb ad ;-) ) With that said, playing WMCJ in 2021 is painful as hell and is not something to waste a good Saturday night doing lol
In the Trevor McFur case, it doesn't help that the damned game has NO BACKGROUND MUSIC!!!! Music could make a bad game tolerable. But they didn't even TRY with this game, lol.
Honestly, that's how I felt about the whole 5th generation. And not just looking back in horror, even at the time I wasn't a big fan. I had an Atari Jaguar, so that system is where the novelty of 3D graphics wore off. When I realize I bet on the wrong horse, I considered buying a Saturn just because that was really the only system getting many 2D games at the time. But in the end, I didn't buy any of those consoles and just made due with my Jag and SNES while I waited for 3D mature in the next generation. I hear people crying about how they want an N64 mini, and I feel ill just thinking about it.
I loved my Saturn. But other than Clockwork Knight, it’s best games were 3D, but stylized 3D (Nights into Dreams, Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon Series)
@provisionalhypothesis Well, no. I wouldn't buy another console until the Wii. Again, one thing that made me want a Saturn was it more 2D games than PS and N64. Although looking back, I think some of the games I thought I would have been able to get were actually Japan only Saturn games. I remember the game magazines back then used to preview games from Japan but something like 75% of Saturn games in Japan never got a North American release.
The graphics on Crescent Galaxy lack depth, plus no parallax scrolling on a 64-bit architecture machine, yet your 16-bit rivals do it in their sleep? Epic fail.
What part of an unfinished port from an unreleased console doesn't everyone get? It was another lazy rush job out the door. The only redeeming quality of this 'game' was the incredible high color depth it used. Nothing of it's time would have pushed colors that deep around that fast without spending serious graphics card money on a PC. No console at the time was capable in hardware other than the 3DO. Then you got the PS1 and others after.
You forgot to mention one of the worst parts of Trevor McFur - it had no music! But Club Drive had to be the worst Jaguar game I played, hands down. I had a bunch of other games before I sold my system, but I don't really remember many of them being bad. A lot of them were just... boring.
I don't know, the title music was so bad on Trevor McFur, I think they did us a favor by not having any in game. I'd agree with your comment that most Jag games weren't awful. But too many of them felt like they were just trying to be average Genesis games with fancier graphics.
I played the Jaguar at my friends house when I was a kid and I didn’t even know it existed. We played a couple of shooters and I was like meh 😑… my brother and I just vastly preferred the SNES and Genisus at the time. The games for those consoles were just far more superior.
This period where we got the Jaguar, Jaguar CD, 3DO, CD-i and other varying attempts at alternative gaming consoles really shows that you have to be so much better than what these companies put out to be competitive. Club Drive is dumpster Fire, wait, no, Nuclear Dumpster Fire bad from the looks of it. The whole "64 bit" push was an obvious lie and the Jaguar constantly suffered due to Atari's efforts. YIKES with these titles, I'm thankful you showed us these John. I hope to see more!
The Atari Jaguar definitely had 64bit power but it was not a truly fully 64bit machine.Rather a hybrid that had 16bit, 32bit and 64bit features to it which complicated things for Atari Jaguar games developers at the time.At a time when most games developers were more familiar with the 16bit machines of the same era.
I am a big fan of the Jaguar, one of my favorite systems. Before watching this video I would guess the 5 games are Aircars, Checkered Flag, White Men Can't Jump, Trevor McFur, and Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales.
Well I got two of them right. The Jaguar had several bad games on it, but it has excellent games like Doom, Tempest 2000, Rayman, AvP, Missile Command 3D, NBA Jam TE, Worms, Ultra Vortek, etc.
@@cooladee Man... Ultra Vortek is such an overlooked sleeper and is truly a beautiful game. The developers at Beyond Games really poured their hearts and soul into and it shows. It's not Mortal Kombat and that's perfectly fine but the game is awesome, even if a tad slower on the action side than MK. However, Atari should have dropped every single Time Warner license they were bothering with for MK3 in the end, period. Keep the FMV CDs and give everyone MK3 instead. That's what should have happened.
Aircars is horrendous, but I'm guessing it wouldn't make this list because it was released after Atari shut down. Apart from Double Dragon 5, which I never played, I can honestly say Aircars is much worse than anything on this list.
@@ressljs The funny thing about AirCars is they got the networking right, so at least you could play with a few friends networked. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too huh? ( in fairness the game wasn't finished....another songbird unfinished 'finished' release if memory serves.)
@@GORF_EMPIRE If I had multiple Jaguars and could invite friends over to play multiplayer AirCars... I'm guessing I'd no longer have friends. It wasn't a Songbird release. I can't remember who originally released it, but it wasn't Songbird. It got a second run from Wave 1 Games/Good Deal Games. As far as it being unfinished, that's not hard to believe. But there's nothing that is blatantly unfinished. No levels without enemies, pick ups that don't do anything, etc.
Love videos like this because it takes me back to the 90’s where they took nothing but risks. Most failed but it was fun to see them try. Sometimes it’s fun to play a horrible game and laugh at it. I didn’t know that the Jaguar was this bad. All those games look like a plug n play.🤣
Atari Jaguar: How you want your racing games? Literally No one: Ones that look like they were made in MS Paint with slideshow framerate. Atari Jaguar: I gotchu.
One day, me and a couple friends got together to get drunk and browse through my game collection. It quickly went to finding and playing the bad ones. This one was that one game we all got the most enjoyment out of. The bad gameplay, the bad audio, the windows 95 1000-in-1 CDs full of klik-n-play games kind of feel.... A lasting memory, for sure.
Yeah I made the mistake of buying Double Dragon 5 with my system. It sucked, especially as I was expecting a scrolling brawler in the style of DD1 and DD2. Iron Solider was another game I got when I bought the console and it was actually one of if not the best Mech game I think I've ever played. Light years ahead of what it had to compete with in 1994. There was a PS1 version, Iron Solider 3. It improves on the original Jag games in a lot of ways (you can use analog sticks for a start), but something about Iron Solider 1 will for me always be the best.
Having played Trevor McFur, White Men Can't Jump, and Supercross 3D, I totally agree with your analysis. I've also played Double Dragon V, but on SNES and it was terrible on there. I would also add Cybermorph to my personal list of worst Jaguar games.
I remember trying the Jag at an older neighbor's when I was a kid and being like "??? what IS this system, what are these games??" lol the controller and games struck me as so weird compared to what I was used to - Nintendo/Sega
0:37 hey john you ever encounter a 'Cat Box' for the Jag back in the day? my cousin and his friend both had Jags, but his friend Howie has a Cat Box which connected to the back of the Jag's card edge connectors to break out to RGB, specifically the Atari Monitor could be used (as Howie showed us using my cousin's ST monitor to play AVP.
Good video! Unfortunately, I do have all of these bad Jaguar games in this video! They are bad. I remember getting some of these on the cheap, when Atari was getting rid of them.
I had about 30 or more of the games and when my sister came to visit, her son only wanted to play Club Drive. It was funny how much he liked that game. He was somewhere under 10 years old at the time.
I almost bought a Jaguar back in the day for Tempest 2000, then I kept talking myself out of it because there weren’t enough other games that interested me/looked decent. Tempest X3 eventually showed up on PSX and I got that instead and loved it.
No mention of Katsumi Ninja. John wants to keep it secret that his alter ego is Angus from Katsumi Ninja. If word gets out, John will be forever harassed about how specifically he can shoot fireballs.
Let's talk about the graphic design of the box for trevor mcfur, what would possess them to put huge lettering for the first part of the title, then make the location it's set in small, offset to the side and looking like a nintendo seal of quality?
Jury is still out, exactly who asked for Supercross 3D to be Texture-Mapped, even though they knew it'd kill the frame rate. Leonard Tramiel or the boss of Tiertex.
The real horror is the potential this game had. Keep in mind. This was an unfinished title ported over from the Panther console, as was Cybermorph and the other two titles. Very little effort was put into this game. However, to give it props wher due, the color depth was second to none and no PC, never mind any console at the time could ever push that bit depth at such a frame rate. Unfortunately, pretty graphics need decent game play.Trevor just did not have that.
Todd Powers had wanted Club Drive to be driving game all about driving a miniature toy car, and the physics showed that. Atari kept pushing Todd to make it more of a "serious" racing game, and that really hurt it.
I got one as a kid... It was like the system someone created if and when a parent needed to buy a game system but didnt do any research on the games or quality. I was def. The weird kid with the weird game system for a solid year... The joysticks were completly hilarious and the number pad was useless. Thing shouldve made calls internationally.
I had never actually seen a Jaguar system or game for sale at any store as a kid. The only time I've seen one was at a retro-game shop as an adult. Still have never actually touched one, but have always been very curious over the system.
A good system plagued by really sloppy programming due to horrid coding tools. the power is there but only a few games show it. Even those could have been better with a decent dev kit. When you have the other systems of the time allowing for C/C++ dev kits, Jaguar devs were old Amiga and ST 68k based coders with assembler.
I purchased a clearance Club Drive which turned out to be defective. No sound whatsoever. I think Highlander on Jag Cd deserves an honorable mention. I found Highlander to be nearly unplayable.
not sure if it's an emulator bug yet to be ironed out, but when I tried Supercross 3D on Virtual Jaguar, I found it hilarious that sometimes the bike just refuses to turn any direction, and you can drive straight through the walls into a brown void
Emu bug probably. I never came across it on the real deal but I also did not play the game much after a while when I realized what an inexcusably piss poor ( hardly an)effort it was.
Ah yes, Trevor McFur, with such exciting enemies as "cube", "sphere", and "rock". No seriously, let the game play, and it shows you those as the enemies to fight. The lion in the military uniform is the best part of this game.
The Jag is an example of backwards hurting a current gen console. So many developers just converted their current 68000 CPU games to use the control chip.
I used to pester my parents for the Atari Jaguar, it was 64bit. Had Doom and AVP and it was the best looking next gen console. Little did i know that there was nothing else to the game except some decent Amiga ports.
Considering how difficult Jag was to program , it's no surprise. The tools were awful , and assembly language ? Even the straight ports from Amiga were stripped right down.
I am surprised Checkered Flag didn't make the list. I guess the game has some redeeming value with all of its courses and decent music. That frame rate though makes it so unplayable.
Its the controls. the frame rate is not nearly as bad when you go in and set the controls options a bit more to one personal liking. It could have been so much more.
Its playable. If you use high airfoil and wet tires it'll control better and you won't crash as much. It doesn't control like an arcade racer so you'll need to use the brakes to navigate most of the turns.
The jag was such a schitt system overall. It was a painfully obscure architecture that was badly documented and had no SDK's to speak of. To top it off, the only familiar programing anchor the system had was the anemic 68000 cpu running at only 12.5mhz. Had they used the original design and either omitted the 68k cpu and forced devs to use Tom and Jerry for game logic, or used a more powerful cpu like an 020 25mhz, this system could have had some games that were competitive with other systems. Especially if the support tools and documentation had been there. Otherwise this console was DOE. The cost of carts eroded developer budgets and combined with a horrible system to program, and you got a library where these kinds of games were the norm. It has one consolation though, its plastic molds were used for dentistry equipment. So it was useful after all.
The Atari Jaguar was a missed opportunity it had decent calculating power.But unfortunately a lacklustre SDK based around the Atari TT, most games developers were not used to the hybrid system that the Atari Jaguar used.
I still have my original copy of club Drive CIB and yes I know it’s not a good game but when I was 11 years old and it was one of the first polygon based games, it was pretty fun. But it definitely deserves a place on this list. I really can’t think of anything else to put on this list but if the creator of club Drive is watching and reading comments, I enjoyed it, and I still have my original copy. Jerome’s pad rocks!
I love that game and never understood the hate. It runs so fast and smooth! I was a little disappointed, given my still high expectations for what 64-bit games would be, that the gameplay was a bit shallow, but what it did, it did well.
I kind of like the Motorcross game... or I did when it came out. It looked ok for when it was released. I was also pretty good at the game. I was totally use to bad framerates so this didn't bother me. It wasn't great but me and my friends played it a lot.
I was trying to remember when I played Club Drive then I remembered it was one of the games on Atari 50. You're correct the game is terrible I have no idea how to play or even what the object of the game is. You are usually right on the mark when it comes to bad games.
I like Kasumi NInja, Mc Fur and Cybermorph. But my favorite driving game of all time is : Drive Club. It had real physics that was way ahead of it’s time.
I wish Atari used their vast stores of wealth and relationships with companies like Sega to make a console that was truly next-gen. They really could have catapulted the market forward. Instead, they acted like a start-up out of someone's garage.
I remember having the debate with friends at school if the Jaguar was really 64 bit. Funnily enough we also had a similar debate about the Lynx being 16 bit or not too!
@@FantasyVisuals That chip (Suzy which is 16bits) in the Lynx out classed even some of the more powerful consoles of the time. It could do all sorts of hardware tricks like polygons, scaling, rotations and unlimited sprites as long as you had memory for them. Like the Turbogfx16 which only had an 8 bit processor, it to was not unreasonably called a 16 bit game system...same with the Jaguar... only the blitter and OPL are 64 bits but the RISC is only 32 bits. Calling it a 64 bit system is not unreasonable. The argument to some is that no processor in the Jaguar on it's own is 64 bit Turing complete( which essentially means that a device on its own can do any kind of computation on its own at a particular bit level.) The Jaguar can certainly do any kind of computing up to 32 bits at a time with the two riscs and even internally on the 68k. but the OPL and blitter are not complete processors as they are special purpose chips designed for gfx manipulation. You can't add two numbers on either with a command( though they do simple math internally.) Quite honestly the Turing argument is a stupid one from a much earlier time and is not fairly aaplied considring the types of hardware. Most machines since the dawn of home consoles and computers including the Jaguar use devices that are of all different kind of bit widths and are perfectly Turing complete as a system. Turing complete is actually a misnomer since it was original referring to a computer language. Hardware wise as a system Jaguar is a turing complete 64 bit SYSTEM..ie..as in how the parts can work together fora result...so the argument is silly on it's face. Jaguar's main power was designed in the GFX chips and they are indeed 64 bits on a 64 bit bus.
I thought it was a half decent game. And some of my friends liked it too. It wasn't amazing, but I also don't think it deserves the "worst shooter ever" reputation it has.
You forgot Checkered Flag. It was impossible to control the car. I bought the Jag the first week it came out and kept telling myself it wasn't that bad....lol.
Every one says or thinks its the frame rate. It's not... it is definitely the controls. I do have the source to it. I should try to see if I can fix the control and sway out the joy pad for a rotary encoder. I already have encoder code for the DSP and it works well with an adapter to allow use of Atari driving controllers..up to 8 per console.
Good Jaguar games here:
th-cam.com/video/3dBgCyKpJQU/w-d-xo.html
I played Motocross Championship on 32X a week before playing Supercross 3D on Atari Jaguar. I enjoyed Motocross Championship on 32X. Not saying it's the greatest game ever, but I really enjoyed it and played it for a very long time just having a fun time. But Supercross 3D on Jaguar? The first time I saw it's 10 frames per second I seriously said aloud "What the "BLEEP" is this?!?" and this is coming from someone who is very, VERY lenient on graphics and frame rate. The gameplay was horrible as well (go off the track just a tiny bit, you plummet to the floor). The worst part is that Supercross 3D for Jaguar was released some months AFTER Motocross Championship on 32X (which is a MUCH better Motorcross game running on the inferior 32X hardware, yet it plays and looks so much better) and Supercross 3D was released during very late holiday season of 1995... up against the Playstation and Saturn's first holiday season in the U.S. and was up against Playstation launch titles like Ridge Racer. From what I read about Atari behind the scenes (and it was absolute CHAOS during the Atari Jaguar years. To give one example: Allegedly, some Jaguar game testers were doing drugs on the job in the offices. If true, that might explain a lot of things), they knew they were going under by early 1996, so a lot of games were rushed out and they didn't care if they weren't fully functional / polished / finished. Supercross 3D definitely fits that since that game needs at least several months more of development.
Let land on Jaguar, @JamesRalph @AVGN #AVGN
Love your bad game review vids. Awesome dude 👌👌👍 BTW I reckon a jaguar cart for the evercade would be AMAZING!!! With the ones from your good game reviews rather than these.... Okay, maybe one of these for comedic reasoning 👍👍
The first game looks like some badly designed Roomba Simulator
I don't think there *are* 5 good Jaguar games lol
You said it perfectly toward the end, “game was finished and rushed out the door.” That’s the formula that brought down Atari during the 2600 era, games that were finished within a few weeks and pushed out into the market. It’s why we never got to see what the Atari could really do until homebrew developers started making games. I’ll bet the Jaguar could do so much more than what we saw in the released library of games.
The same can be said of any console really, a lot of homebrew developers have the benefit of time and better understanding of hardware plus programing techniques that programers couldn't even dream of back then. Plus with cart based systems larger ROM chips being cheaper to get than back then.
@@The_Real_DCT very true
It can also be said for the development of the 32X and 3DO versions of Doom, since both ports of that game were rushed pretty badly too. But that one is a whole different story.
Just look at what they are doing with the 2600 nowadays. For those willing toput in the effort.... there is still gold in that little black kitty.
@@LeoDoesAllThis You might have squoze another few frames a second or maybe a slightly bigger screen on the 32x but a real effort would required a rewite for the 32 from the ground up. No one was going to put in that kind of effort. From scratch, I think you could do even better for sure. The fact is the 32x version is hardly the worst version and is really quite good considering. It like most console ports of the time used the Jaguar version of the code was used(since it was the official and first console source from id themselves)if not ported directly, certainly for reference. It's really not that bad and hey.... it even has the music....not that this ever concerned me that the Jag did'nt...I was well sick of hearing the music from the PC version and turned music off even on the PC after a while.
I debated about buying a Jaguar when it came out. I instead decided to expand my Genesis and SNES libraries. After watching this video, I believe I made the right choice.
Overall, I'd say that was probably the right choice. I did by one as soon as they were out. It's unfortunate that there were so few games being release because for the first year and a half, it was kind of mind blowing. People scoff at it now, but Cybermorph, a free flying open world game in 1993 was a pretty big deal. And until the Saturn and Playstation came out, I couldn't keep people out of my dorm room because of Doom, Tempest 2000 and AvP. Heck, some of my friends even liked Trevor McFur.
I enjoyed my Atari jaguar. Wish I never sold it all those years ago.
Atariage is slowly building up the jaguar library. The jag can push pixels better than most any console. That should be focused on, imo. The polygon pushing is lacking.
You had both Genesis and SNES? Congratulations, it was one of the best console combinations ever, you probably spent the Console Wars laughing at the fans of each system while you played great games.
@@Hektols I wouldn't say that I laughed at them. I was a big Nintendo fanboy in the early 90s and bought a SNES as soon as it came out. But the Genesis had so many great games, and I really wanted to play a lot of them, so I caved in and bought one. I definitely supported both companies and got away from the "which system is better" nonsense that the fans got carried away with back then.
The Power Balls in Club Drive always reminded me of the everlasting gobstoppers from Willy Wonka :D
But I swear it's a tech demo or unfinished game they shoved out the door. Atari did do that with, Fight for Life was another.
While Fight for Life was indeed broken, I enjoyed it haha.
@@johnhancockretro Oh yeah, Atari released an unfinished build as the creator refused to give Atari the finished game until they paid him! So they thought "screw it" and released it anyway!
He released the final build a few years ago, it is a much better game!
@@Larry I do wish you'd post both sides of a story when you give accounts like this Larry, you did it with Zero 5,going off a quote from Matthew Gosling, rather than getting Caspain Software bosses account and that of Darryl Still, Atari UK.
Here's Atari Corps side of things:
Statement from Don Thomas :
FIGHT for LIFE
To me, it seems like a decade since the Fight for Life
project began. For a long time, Mr. Francois Yves Bertrand,
it’s creator, worked in a cubicle next to mine at 1196 on
Borregas Avenue. Every once in a while, Francois would
invite to peer over the wall at his latest revisions and
little by little I saw Fight for Life come together as if I
were watching time lapse photography.
Francois is an extremely talented individual. He initiated
the project virtually on a single handed basis. As he
developed the project, he solicited the talents of other
wizards to help with some of the bit maps, texture maps and
sound effects used in the game. By the time Francois was
finished and submitted the final copy, the Fight for Life
team was numerous, exhausted and proud… and they should be
proud.
Atari Corporation has always prioritized the famous “fun
factor” over almost any other element in a game. The reason
for this is because eye candy is only appealing in the store
or when you show off a game to a friend for the first time.
If the game isn’t fun, then consumers look for ways to
return or sell it as soon as they decided it is boring to
play.
Bill Rehbock, the executive producer, and J Patton, the
producer of Fight for Life believed very much in the “fun
factor” formula and asked Francois to work on those parts of
the game engine first. As he did, news began to leak out
that Atari was working on a polygonal fighter and before
long, Atari was pressed into providing work-in-progress
demos to the gaming press. Unfortunately, the gaming
magazines decided to evaluate the game by terms other than
how it was being developed. While Francois was spending
relatively little time making it look good and a lot of time
at making it play well, the magazines insisted on
evaluations based on how well the screen shots appeared in
their glossy magazine pages. By the end of the third quarter
of 1995, Atari felt compelled to announce that Fight for
Life was “indefinitely postponed” while, behind the scenes,
Francois and his team accelerated final development with a
focus on the graphic elements of the game.
On Friday, April 19, 1996, Atari released Fight for Life to
the Jaguar community. As you will see below by unsolicited
Internet feedback, the game is being touted as an excellent
new addition to the Jaguar library. I finally got a chance
to look at it this morning. Please let me say first, that I
am not pretending to be a polygonal fighter expert. I’ve
seen the Virtual Fighter clones, but I have not played them
any more than maybe a quarter’s worth each. That being
established, Fight for Life definitely has the fun factor
elements I’d expect from an Atari product. Not only does the
game look GREAT!, but the mechanism to “earn” new moves as I
win bouts is a challenging motivation. I also like the fact
that each bout feels like a real time fight. Even in
instances where I found a particular one move that seems to
defeat my opponent, I have to work hard using it to win.
I’ll let the comments that follow speak for themselves, but
overall, I’d say Fight for Life kicks BUTTered buns!
And another:
Ted Hoff: I would like to also share with you that Francois Bertrand
has been asked back to complete work on Fight for Life.
It’s important that I also tell you that our official
position is the same as it has been for months…. that FFL
will be released IF and WHEN it meets Atari standards.
As you may have heard, the latest test reports have been
favorable and I’m delighted to review it, but if Atari
personnel answer your inquiries that the title remains on
hold, then they are answering your question accurately.
Atari remains faithful to publishing software under strict
guidelines so that the product Atari customers buy meets
or exceeds their expectations.
You've also got:
Bill Rehbock in his interview with Arcade Attack,talks of Atari playing with the big boys with regard F.F.L…
Since Sega’s Virtual Fighter was not fully texture mapped,Atari wanted to do a fully texture mapped game on the Jaguar and Bill himself admits the system wasn’t geared up to do this.
He also talked of Sam Tramiel focus group testing the game,knew it would review badly,ecen though some in the group thought the game was pretty cool,but Jaguar badly needed a game in this genre so it was green lit to be shipped,where as other companies would of simply pulled the plug on it.
Bill went onto say the game needed another 3 artists for art and animation and entire thing needed a bigger budget.
And further still from the Arcade Attack interview :
Silvio Porretta
There are strong rumors that the released Fight for Life was not fully completed and rushed to meet the release deadline. Is this true, and if, so how much pressure did you feel while working on this title?
Not so much. All I had to do is learn the new tools and adapt quickly. I always delivered and the president of Atari was very satisfied with my work. I think the pressure was mostly on FYB.
It is also rumored that a fabled more complete version of the game was completed by FYB but never released. Do you know if he or anyone else has the complete version of the game anywhere, and if so, how different was this version to the released game?
It’s possible that FYB has a more complete, unreleased version of the game. He would be the only person to have such version. I would think that the difference would only be in the performance and maybe a few improved animations.
You can't go off single source quotes, they never present the full story and it's straightforward to find others talking about the games development.
Hello you
@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 If a story makes a big company look bad then they'll stick with that version without even second guessing anything.
'We can disagree and still get along' ; what a wonderfully healthy attitude
I’m doing the math and I think Atari forgot to carry a one somewhere on that dirt bike game
I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Double Dragon V before, especially the Jaguar version. Not just that it suffered from graphics that tried to be better than its 16-bit ports, but ended up being worse and awkward music, but it also had much worse controls which would lead to the player losing in almost every single battle, thanks to how surprisingly cheap their opponents were.
Man I still love my Jaguar! Alien vs Predator, Doom, Raiden and Wolfenstein are some of my favorites. I can’t believe what the console and games are going for these days! I bought mine at Kay B toys back in 97 for $20 for the console and $5 per game.
I sort of regret selling my Jaguar. Tempest 2K was an all time classic for ANY system (as evidenced by the fact it got ported to everything) and it had a lot of other underrated games (Power Drive Rally and Iron Soldier among them).
KB Toys... Jeez that takes me back
You gotta love console clearances. I bought 8 Jags for $10 each back when they dumped it. Man I wish I bought many more.
That Trevor McPur lion head immediately made me think about the lion head center framed in Samurai Cop. There will never be another 90's ever again!
😂
Trevor McFur is like one of those cursed games, most awful games generally go away if you don't actively seek out and play them. But Trevor McFur is always there! It's something lurking just beyond the edge of your vision, but you know it's still there and it'll still be there when you're in your grave and beyond.
I actually like Trevor McFur. But I want to stress I said "like" not love. I liked the special weapons, the bosses, and there's a good variety of enemies. The flat backgrounds are lame, the sound is awful, and the level design is minimal. In my opinion, it averages out to a reasonably enjoyable game. There were definitely better shooters on the 16 bit systems, but I also played some that were far worse. I'm not sure how Trevor McFur became the poster child for terrible shooters.
I like that Jaguar games tried to use the whole color palate - they resembled what an an acid trip would be like in video game form - a must own for Tempest 2000 though.
I remember seeing the Jaguar on closeout at KB Toys about 20+ years ago for like $29.99 and all the games they had were about $10.
Me too. I also vividly recall around that exact same time KB Toys was also liquidating the last of their NES stock, which seemed to take quite a few years for them to fully drain. In particular I can remember them having Punch-Out!! w/Mr. Dream, Final Fantasy, Mega Man 6, Metroid (yellow rerelease), Kirby's Adventure, Wario's Woods, Yoshi, and Yoshi's Cookie, all for $4.99!!!! Could you imagine nowadays?! A SEALED Mega Man game for $4.99?!!
@provisionalhypothesis Right?!?
That Motocross game looks more like one frame per second.
I have to admit I had some fun with Supercross 3D (finished it) and with Trevor McFur.
Club Drive on the other hand... 🤬🤯
Oh my god that game Trever Mcfur In The ? 😂
Yes. That Trevor McFur... 😔
I actually legitimately loved Club Drive for all it's faults. It was glitchy as hell and definitely not a racing game, but the exploration was fun. It was definitely a bad game, but I enjoyed it.
I get that. I feel the same about Checkered Flag.
@@dad7275 I think, if they used Club Drive engine on Checkered Flag, then the CF game would be better. Frame rate on Club Drive is smooth compared to CF.
@@dvuemedia true. With a much better frame rate cf would have been great in my opinion.
I am absolutely love Club Drive! Every time I hear that corny music, it puts a hugh smile on my face! Club Drive falls in the category of "so bad, it's good"!
Yeah it actually looks like it could've been fun: too bad Checkered Flag has a lower framerate than 3D games on the original 1989 Gameboy.
Atari Jaguar SDK was based around the Atari TT and that was not as familiar to many developers.And many developers ran the game code around the 68000 because it was familiar to them unlike the custom chips inside the Atari Jaguar.And Atari had told developers that the 68000 was to be used as a controller chip, and the Tom and Jerry custom chips should be used to push the main game code.So not surprising that the machine produced less than impressive versions of some games titles.When it was coded well it could produce some good versions of games titles.Syndicate was a good example comparable to the Windows PC version and much better than the 16 bit versions.I personally bought an Atari Jaguar for games titles like Syndicate, Alien Vs Predator, Theme Park and was quite happy with the machine and the entertainment it gave me at the time.And it was a lot less expensive than buying a Windows PC to play Syndicate on that's for sure.
You hit the nail on the head with all of them except for WMCJ. I was a teen during the time that game came out and sure, it wasn't NBA Jam T.E. but for the sake of perspective of when not only development for this game started (in 1994 before the PSX release), it was a decent game and allowed you to play with all your friends. Easily far more playable than the other 4 you mentioned combined. The Jaguar isn't a bad console, the programmers who made the games are or were. SuperCross 3D? Not even finished. Cherry on the top? That was the programmer's first 3D game. Pay close attention to the title screen and you soon realize it doesn't even say SuperCross 3D. That's because Atari rushed the unfinished game out the door, like they did with many of their games sadly. Did you hear the Nirvna rip-off soundtrack in SuperCross? Surely a placeholder but shipped cause who cares!? Talk about a sore thumb indeed. (those who remember the thumb ad ;-) ) With that said, playing WMCJ in 2021 is painful as hell and is not something to waste a good Saturday night doing lol
This is awesome love seeing the Jaguar stuff since I missed out on that console completely! Have a great day
You didn't miss out. Terrible console, a regrettable purchase wish I never bothered, sold it when it still had some value.
In the Trevor McFur case, it doesn't help that the damned game has NO BACKGROUND MUSIC!!!!
Music could make a bad game tolerable. But they didn't even TRY with this game, lol.
That clip of Supercross 3D almost gave me motion sickness, so I can't even imagine playing it for any length of time.
Some early 3D games made you wish they'd never entered the third dimension!
Honestly, that's how I felt about the whole 5th generation. And not just looking back in horror, even at the time I wasn't a big fan. I had an Atari Jaguar, so that system is where the novelty of 3D graphics wore off. When I realize I bet on the wrong horse, I considered buying a Saturn just because that was really the only system getting many 2D games at the time. But in the end, I didn't buy any of those consoles and just made due with my Jag and SNES while I waited for 3D mature in the next generation. I hear people crying about how they want an N64 mini, and I feel ill just thinking about it.
I loved my Saturn. But other than Clockwork Knight, it’s best games were 3D, but stylized 3D (Nights into Dreams, Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon Series)
@provisionalhypothesis Well, no. I wouldn't buy another console until the Wii. Again, one thing that made me want a Saturn was it more 2D games than PS and N64. Although looking back, I think some of the games I thought I would have been able to get were actually Japan only Saturn games. I remember the game magazines back then used to preview games from Japan but something like 75% of Saturn games in Japan never got a North American release.
The graphics on Crescent Galaxy lack depth, plus no parallax scrolling on a 64-bit architecture machine, yet your 16-bit rivals do it in their sleep?
Epic fail.
What part of an unfinished port from an unreleased console doesn't everyone get? It was another lazy rush job out the door. The only redeeming quality of this 'game' was the incredible high color depth it used. Nothing of it's time would have pushed colors that deep around that fast without spending serious graphics card money on a PC. No console at the time was capable in hardware other than the 3DO. Then you got the PS1 and others after.
You forgot to mention one of the worst parts of Trevor McFur - it had no music! But Club Drive had to be the worst Jaguar game I played, hands down. I had a bunch of other games before I sold my system, but I don't really remember many of them being bad. A lot of them were just... boring.
I don't know, the title music was so bad on Trevor McFur, I think they did us a favor by not having any in game. I'd agree with your comment that most Jag games weren't awful. But too many of them felt like they were just trying to be average Genesis games with fancier graphics.
Mcfur was simply a graphic demo made into a game.
That is not even far from the truth. It was an unfinished rushed out port from the Panther console that was canceled by Atari in favor of the Jaguar.
Heh. I have that same "VERT DER FERK" shirt. Good stuff.
Me too!
That shmup reminds me of like and old Win 95 educational game, so it feels nostalgic to me even tho I've never heard of it lol
I played the Jaguar at my friends house when I was a kid and I didn’t even know it existed. We played a couple of shooters and I was like meh 😑… my brother and I just vastly preferred the SNES and Genisus at the time. The games for those consoles were just far more superior.
This period where we got the Jaguar, Jaguar CD, 3DO, CD-i and other varying attempts at alternative gaming consoles really shows that you have to be so much better than what these companies put out to be competitive. Club Drive is dumpster Fire, wait, no, Nuclear Dumpster Fire bad from the looks of it. The whole "64 bit" push was an obvious lie and the Jaguar constantly suffered due to Atari's efforts. YIKES with these titles, I'm thankful you showed us these John. I hope to see more!
The Atari Jaguar definitely had 64bit power but it was not a truly fully 64bit machine.Rather a hybrid that had 16bit, 32bit and 64bit features to it which complicated things for Atari Jaguar games developers at the time.At a time when most games developers were more familiar with the 16bit machines of the same era.
It was not a lie. Go look at the schematics. You will see a 64 bit data bus. That is not there for show.
I am a big fan of the Jaguar, one of my favorite systems. Before watching this video I would guess the 5 games are Aircars, Checkered Flag, White Men Can't Jump, Trevor McFur, and Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales.
Well I got two of them right. The Jaguar had several bad games on it, but it has excellent games like Doom, Tempest 2000, Rayman, AvP, Missile Command 3D, NBA Jam TE, Worms, Ultra Vortek, etc.
@@cooladee Man... Ultra Vortek is such an overlooked sleeper and is truly a beautiful game. The developers at Beyond Games really poured their hearts and soul into and it shows. It's not Mortal Kombat and that's perfectly fine but the game is awesome, even if a tad slower on the action side than MK. However, Atari should have dropped every single Time Warner license they were bothering with for MK3 in the end, period. Keep the FMV CDs and give everyone MK3 instead. That's what should have happened.
Aircars is horrendous, but I'm guessing it wouldn't make this list because it was released after Atari shut down. Apart from Double Dragon 5, which I never played, I can honestly say Aircars is much worse than anything on this list.
@@ressljs The funny thing about AirCars is they got the networking right, so at least you could play with a few friends networked. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too huh? ( in fairness the game wasn't finished....another songbird unfinished 'finished' release if memory serves.)
@@GORF_EMPIRE If I had multiple Jaguars and could invite friends over to play multiplayer AirCars... I'm guessing I'd no longer have friends. It wasn't a Songbird release. I can't remember who originally released it, but it wasn't Songbird. It got a second run from Wave 1 Games/Good Deal Games. As far as it being unfinished, that's not hard to believe. But there's nothing that is blatantly unfinished. No levels without enemies, pick ups that don't do anything, etc.
You've got some Dr. Steve Brule Vibes goin on sometimes :) I'm a fan.
Love videos like this because it takes me back to the 90’s where they took nothing but risks. Most failed but it was fun to see them try. Sometimes it’s fun to play a horrible game and laugh at it. I didn’t know that the Jaguar was this bad. All those games look like a plug n play.🤣
5.35 when u said what the heck is that? I lost it ....best laugh I've had in a min... the lion head 😂
"where did you learn to fly?" play some defender 2k until you see the hands for some fun
I'm so glad I didn't spend my summer job money on this system back in the day.
I enjoyed it a lot. Drive Club was the best driving game at that time. It had real physics contrary to ridge racer and Daytona usa
Well... its worth way more than most consoles. So there is a plus side. Atari collectors will pay 400 dollars to set it on the shelf.
Don't let these games leave a bad taste in your mouth. There are much better titles that would show Jag in a much better light.
Atari Jaguar: How you want your racing games?
Literally No one: Ones that look like they were made in MS Paint with slideshow framerate.
Atari Jaguar: I gotchu.
I actually liked Trevor McFur back in the day.
I really enjoyed Trevor as well. I would never admit it in public of course.
One day, me and a couple friends got together to get drunk and browse through my game collection. It quickly went to finding and playing the bad ones. This one was that one game we all got the most enjoyment out of. The bad gameplay, the bad audio, the windows 95 1000-in-1 CDs full of klik-n-play games kind of feel.... A lasting memory, for sure.
is he a Jaguar, perhaps?
I like it too. Its not all that bad. Ive played worse.
I enjoyed it too. I still own it 😎
1:28 Terrible graphics? or no graphics? That game has just solid colors 🤣
Yeah I made the mistake of buying Double Dragon 5 with my system. It sucked, especially as I was expecting a scrolling brawler in the style of DD1 and DD2.
Iron Solider was another game I got when I bought the console and it was actually one of if not the best Mech game I think I've ever played. Light years ahead of what it had to compete with in 1994. There was a PS1 version, Iron Solider 3. It improves on the original Jag games in a lot of ways (you can use analog sticks for a start), but something about Iron Solider 1 will for me always be the best.
Miss Checkered Flag and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Kasumi Ninja is bad but funny
Agreed dragon and checkered flag are the worst games on the system 😃
Kasumi Ninja was so bad. 3 seconds of input lag in a fighting game...
@@Psaurus81 yeah but it came with a sweet head band 😃
I started watching your video and have to say, your cap is awesome!! :D
Having played Trevor McFur, White Men Can't Jump, and Supercross 3D, I totally agree with your analysis. I've also played Double Dragon V, but on SNES and it was terrible on there. I would also add Cybermorph to my personal list of worst Jaguar games.
Club Drive and Motocross are horrible. Crescent Moon is not that bad, i've seen lots of shooters much worse.
I remember trying the Jag at an older neighbor's when I was a kid and being like "??? what IS this system, what are these games??" lol the controller and games struck me as so weird compared to what I was used to - Nintendo/Sega
Wow, what a story! I saw a mouse a few days ago!
@@datacipher Is your life really this boring that you need to bust DreamcastQ's balls?
@@GORF_EMPIRE AWWWW....I'M SOWWY Bubby. It's gonna be OK. You're a big boy.
"Bangin' up high the handle homey beef" ~ An actual line in _White Men Can't Jump_ . And yes, there are more like it.
Funny how a compilation video of bad games is pretty watchable. It's like an episode of bloopers.
0:37 hey john you ever encounter a 'Cat Box' for the Jag back in the day? my cousin and his friend both had Jags, but his friend Howie has a Cat Box which connected to the back of the Jag's card edge connectors to break out to RGB, specifically the Atari Monitor could be used (as Howie showed us using my cousin's ST monitor to play AVP.
Never had one, they are quite rare.
@@johnhancockretro shame someone cant make a repro one for production, it's very 'my life in gaming' for the RGB fans out there.
Good video! Unfortunately, I do have all of these bad Jaguar games in this video! They are bad. I remember getting some of these on the cheap, when Atari was getting rid of them.
I remember seeing Motorcross 3D at my local Babbage's games store long time ago at the clearance bin. Now years later, I understand why.
Loving the Content man
thought i was gonna heave watching the dirt bike game
9:05 I laughed out loud when everyone on the court just laid down and died for a while.
I had about 30 or more of the games and when my sister came to visit, her son only wanted to play Club Drive. It was funny how much he liked that game. He was somewhere under 10 years old at the time.
Nice Video. I really enjoy the channel
I almost bought a Jaguar back in the day for Tempest 2000, then I kept talking myself out of it because there weren’t enough other games that interested me/looked decent.
Tempest X3 eventually showed up on PSX and I got that instead and loved it.
Take a shot every time he says “oh my goodness”. I’ll be at your funeral.
I don’t really remember the title to a flying game for the Jaguar but “ Where did you learn to fly?” Repeated constantly .
Cybermorph
No mention of Katsumi Ninja. John wants to keep it secret that his alter ego is Angus from Katsumi Ninja. If word gets out, John will be forever harassed about how specifically he can shoot fireballs.
That Supercross 3D clip and gameplay was like finger nails on a chalkboard!
You nailed it John - well done
That Double Dragon 5 game reminds me of 80’s early 90’s style Saturday cartoons XD
You make me laugh SO hard because you’re so polite and such a nice guy and describing absolute trash games 😂🤣
Let's talk about the graphic design of the box for trevor mcfur, what would possess them to put huge lettering for the first part of the title, then make the location it's set in small, offset to the side and looking like a nintendo seal of quality?
I think you were generous when you said the motocross game had 15 frames per second. I was thinking 5.
He was being nice. He had to have been. I'd give it ten fps max but I too am being generous.
Jury is still out, exactly who asked for Supercross 3D to be Texture-Mapped, even though they knew it'd kill the frame rate.
Leonard Tramiel or the boss of Tiertex.
It is hardly pushing any polygons. Laying off the 68k is what the game needed.
Kasumi Ninja was that terrible fighting game that I loved the hell out of as a kid.
Balls of Fire!!!!
Totally forgot about the horror, that is Trevor mc fur! Great laughs John!!!
The real horror is the potential this game had. Keep in mind. This was an unfinished title ported over from the Panther console, as was Cybermorph and the other two titles. Very little effort was put into this game. However, to give it props wher due, the color depth was second to none and no PC, never mind any console at the time could ever push that bit depth at such a frame rate. Unfortunately, pretty graphics need decent game play.Trevor just did not have that.
The Double Dragon fighter on Neo Geo was amazing.
Agree and in theory the Jaguar could have had more potent 2D fighting games than what we saw in Neo Geo but it never had one.
Todd Powers had wanted Club Drive to be driving game all about driving a miniature toy car, and the physics showed that. Atari kept pushing Todd to make it more of a "serious" racing game, and that really hurt it.
I got one as a kid...
It was like the system someone created if and when a parent needed to buy a game system but didnt do any research on the games or quality. I was def. The weird kid with the weird game system for a solid year... The joysticks were completly hilarious and the number pad was useless. Thing shouldve made calls internationally.
I had never actually seen a Jaguar system or game for sale at any store as a kid. The only time I've seen one was at a retro-game shop as an adult. Still have never actually touched one, but have always been very curious over the system.
Bubsy on the Jag is another game that's considered as really bad, but I actually really like it.
I guess Jaguar's maths didn't add up.
A good system plagued by really sloppy programming due to horrid coding tools. the power is there but only a few games show it. Even those could have been better with a decent dev kit. When you have the other systems of the time allowing for C/C++ dev kits, Jaguar devs were old Amiga and ST 68k based coders with assembler.
I purchased a clearance Club Drive which turned out to be defective. No sound whatsoever. I think Highlander on Jag Cd deserves an honorable mention. I found Highlander to be nearly unplayable.
not sure if it's an emulator bug yet to be ironed out, but when I tried Supercross 3D on Virtual Jaguar, I found it hilarious that sometimes the bike just refuses to turn any direction, and you can drive straight through the walls into a brown void
Emu bug probably. I never came across it on the real deal but I also did not play the game much after a while when I realized what an inexcusably piss poor ( hardly an)effort it was.
I loved my Jaguar, but Goddamn some games were horrible. Great video!
Club Drive doesn't actually look that bad. For the time pretty alright.
Ah yes, Trevor McFur, with such exciting enemies as "cube", "sphere", and "rock". No seriously, let the game play, and it shows you those as the enemies to fight. The lion in the military uniform is the best part of this game.
There's actually a furry feline centric shoot 'em up on DOS called Interpose, not a great game by any means but it's a lot better than this one.
The Jag is an example of backwards hurting a current gen console. So many developers just converted their current 68000 CPU games to use the control chip.
Wow. Those are some stinkers. I think the biggest fail of the Jaguar is the controller. Great video. Thanks, John.
Glad to see this will be a series now.
I used to pester my parents for the Atari Jaguar, it was 64bit. Had Doom and AVP and it was the best looking next gen console. Little did i know that there was nothing else to the game except some decent Amiga ports.
Considering how difficult Jag was to program , it's no surprise. The tools were awful , and assembly language ?
Even the straight ports from Amiga were stripped right down.
These are my favorite vids you do!
I am surprised Checkered Flag didn't make the list. I guess the game has some redeeming value with all of its courses and decent music. That frame rate though makes it so unplayable.
Its the controls. the frame rate is not nearly as bad when you go in and set the controls options a bit more to one personal liking. It could have been so much more.
Its playable. If you use high airfoil and wet tires it'll control better and you won't crash as much. It doesn't control like an arcade racer so you'll need to use the brakes to navigate most of the turns.
The jag was such a schitt system overall. It was a painfully obscure architecture that was badly documented and had no SDK's to speak of. To top it off, the only familiar programing anchor the system had was the anemic 68000 cpu running at only 12.5mhz. Had they used the original design and either omitted the 68k cpu and forced devs to use Tom and Jerry for game logic, or used a more powerful cpu like an 020 25mhz, this system could have had some games that were competitive with other systems. Especially if the support tools and documentation had been there. Otherwise this console was DOE. The cost of carts eroded developer budgets and combined with a horrible system to program, and you got a library where these kinds of games were the norm.
It has one consolation though, its plastic molds were used for dentistry equipment. So it was useful after all.
The Atari Jaguar was a missed opportunity it had decent calculating power.But unfortunately a lacklustre SDK based around the Atari TT, most games developers were not used to the hybrid system that the Atari Jaguar used.
I still have my original copy of club Drive CIB and yes I know it’s not a good game but when I was 11 years old and it was one of the first polygon based games, it was pretty fun. But it definitely deserves a place on this list. I really can’t think of anything else to put on this list but if the creator of club Drive is watching and reading comments, I enjoyed it, and I still have my original copy. Jerome’s pad rocks!
That Val D’Isere Snowboarding game usually gets a while lot of flak, but I actually enjoy it.
I love that game and never understood the hate. It runs so fast and smooth! I was a little disappointed, given my still high expectations for what 64-bit games would be, that the gameplay was a bit shallow, but what it did, it did well.
I kind of like the Motorcross game... or I did when it came out. It looked ok for when it was released. I was also pretty good at the game. I was totally use to bad framerates so this didn't bother me. It wasn't great but me and my friends played it a lot.
I was trying to remember when I played Club Drive then I remembered it was one of the games on Atari 50. You're correct the game is terrible I have no idea how to play or even what the object of the game is. You are usually right on the mark when it comes to bad games.
I like Kasumi NInja, Mc Fur and Cybermorph. But my favorite driving game of all time is : Drive Club. It had real physics that was way ahead of it’s time.
"Where did you learn to fly?"
I wish Atari used their vast stores of wealth and relationships with companies like Sega to make a console that was truly next-gen. They really could have catapulted the market forward. Instead, they acted like a start-up out of someone's garage.
good video, audio was a bit harsh in this one tho
Haven't watched this episode, but betting Highlander is on this list....
That was Jaguar CD
@@PBBoogie99 Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't have lumped the entire system together like that. The pain.... It still stings though.
Most Atari Jaguar owners never actually bought the Atari Jaguar CD unit add-on.
05:44 this reminds me of the hidden shooter on MK3 for the snes haha... anyone remembers that?
I remember having the debate with friends at school if the Jaguar was really 64 bit.
Funnily enough we also had a similar debate about the Lynx being 16 bit or not too!
Lynx had an 8 bit processor and lower resolution than even the Gameboy but the hardware otherwise was amazing.
The graphics chips was World class
@@FantasyVisuals That chip (Suzy which is 16bits) in the Lynx out classed even some of the more powerful consoles of the time. It could do all sorts of hardware tricks like polygons, scaling, rotations and unlimited sprites as long as you had memory for them. Like the Turbogfx16 which only had an 8 bit processor, it to was not unreasonably called a 16 bit game system...same with the Jaguar... only the blitter and OPL are 64 bits but the RISC is only 32 bits. Calling it a 64 bit system is not unreasonable. The argument to some is that no processor in the Jaguar on it's own is 64 bit Turing complete( which essentially means that a device on its own can do any kind of computation on its own at a particular bit level.) The Jaguar can certainly do any kind of computing up to 32 bits at a time with the two riscs and even internally on the 68k. but the OPL and blitter are not complete processors as they are special purpose chips designed for gfx manipulation. You can't add two numbers on either with a command( though they do simple math internally.) Quite honestly the Turing argument is a stupid one from a much earlier time and is not fairly aaplied considring the types of hardware. Most machines since the dawn of home consoles and computers including the Jaguar use devices that are of all different kind of bit widths and are perfectly Turing complete as a system. Turing complete is actually a misnomer since it was original referring to a computer language. Hardware wise as a system Jaguar is a turing complete 64 bit SYSTEM..ie..as in how the parts can work together fora result...so the argument is silly on it's face. Jaguar's main power was designed in the GFX chips and they are indeed 64 bits on a 64 bit bus.
That shootem up game looked like something I would play lol
I thought it was a half decent game. And some of my friends liked it too. It wasn't amazing, but I also don't think it deserves the "worst shooter ever" reputation it has.
You forgot Checkered Flag. It was impossible to control the car. I bought the Jag the first week it came out and kept telling myself it wasn't that bad....lol.
Every one says or thinks its the frame rate. It's not... it is definitely the controls. I do have the source to it. I should try to see if I can fix the control and sway out the joy pad for a rotary encoder. I already have encoder code for the DSP and it works well with an adapter to allow use of Atari driving controllers..up to 8 per console.