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Jaguar Explorer Online Volume 2 Issue 1
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: Volume 2, Issue 1 JAGUAR EXPLORER ONLINE February 9, 1998 ::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: ::
:: JAGUAR .............. News, Reviews, & Solutions ............ JAGUAR ::
:: EXPLORER ........... For the Online Jaguar .......... EXPLORER ::
:: ONLINE ................. Community .............. ONLINE ::
:: ::
:: Published and Copyright (c) 1998 by White Space Publishers ::
:: All Rights Reserved ::
:: """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ::
:: Publisher Emeritus Plus .................... Michael Lindsay ::
:: Publisher Emeritus .............................. Travis Guy ::
:: Editor/Publisher ............................ Clay Halliwell ::
:: WWW Spinner .................................. Frans Keylard ::
:: JEO Mailing List Maintainer .................. Joachim Vance ::
:: Genie Uploader .............................. Clay Halliwell ::
:: CompuServe Uploader ......................... Richard Turner ::
:: America Online Uploader ....................... Lonnie Smith ::
:: FidoNet Uploader ................................ Troy Cheek ::
:: ::
:: Contributors: ::
:: (voluntary and otherwise) ::
:: """"""""""""""""""""""""" ::
:: Jason Hill, Christian Svennson, Jeff Minter, Scott Le Grand, ::
:: Mark Santora, Pat Forhan, Carl Forhan, ::
:: Damien Jones, Chris Johnston ::
:: ::
:: Telecommunicated to you via: ::
:: """""""""""""""""""""""""""" ::
:: GEnie: ST/JAGUAR RT Library 15 ::
:: AOL: VIDEO GAMES FORUM Hints, Tips and Tricks II Library ::
:: CompuServe: ATARIGAMING and VIDGAME Forums ::
:: FidoNet: ATARI_ST and VID_GAME Echoes ::
:: ::
:: World Wide Web: http://www.ior.com/~fkeylard/aeo.htm ::
:: http://www.mcc.ac.uk/~dlms/atari.html ::
:: ::
:: E-Mail Request address: JEO-request@maximized.com ::
:: ::
:: To subscribe to JEO, send e-mail to the request address, ::
:: with the following line (no subject): ::
:: ::
:: subscribe JEO ::
:: ::
:: Your request will be automatically processed and your e-mail ::
:: address will be subscribed to the list. To unsubscribe from ::
:: the JEO list, send the following: ::
:: ::
:: unsubscribe JEO ::
:: ::
:: to the same request address, making sure you send it from ::
:: the same address you subscribed from. ::
:: ::
:: Subscription problems requiring human assistance can be sent ::
:: to JEO-help@maximized.com. Thanks to Maximized Software for ::
:: hosting the JEO list. ::
:: ::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Table of Contents
* From the Editor .......................................... JEO: Year One.
* Jaguar Tackboard .................. Newsletters, Message Boards, Mailing
Lists, FAQs, Codes, Development
List, Mail Order Directory.
* CyberChatter .......................................... Overheard Online.
* BattleSphere News ..................................... 4Play Marches On.
* Llatest from Llamaland ........................................ Yak yaks.
* Iron Soldier 2 Cart Review .................. The Destruction Never Ends.
* The Voice Modem FAQ ....................................... One Hot Baud.
* Temporary Sanity Travails ....................... Virtual VCS and Beyond.
* BrainDead 13 Walkthrough ........................ Finally Lay it to Rest.
* The Ten Jaguar Commandments ....................... Thou Shalt Read This!
* Shutdown ............................ Around the world and up your block.
--==--==--==--==--
|| From the Editor
|| By: Clay Halliwell
\__// halliwee@ts436.dyess.af.mil
------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're one of the few people who actually reads this section of JEO,
you've probably noticed a consistent theme in these things-- continual
amazement that, long after Atari officially abandoned the Jaguar, there's
still news to report. But it just keeps coming, and coming, and coming. Who
would've thought?
And now a little something bizarre... over my Christmas/New Years vacation,
I visited a friend who had an N64 with, among other things, San Francisco
Rush. After spending hours playing it, I was suddenly struck by its many
similarities to... Club Drive! SF Rush and Club Drive both: Let you race
the streets of San Francisco; have secret hidden areas and shortcuts; allow
you to drive wherever you want; have a very liberal physics model; show a
rather wacky sense of humor; have mechanisms for withdrawing the player
from places they're not supposed to be; have a very accurate collision
model. It's difficult to explain to someone who hasn't spent a lot of time
playing both games, but SF Rush feels like the game Club Drive was intended
to be. Weird.
In other news, I hope you'll forgive my inclusion of so much Project X news
in a purportedly Jag-only forum. But in a thematic sense, Project X really
is the Jaguar 2 (or Jaguar 3, if you want to get picky). There's a
startling quantity of former Atari employees working on it, and more
importantly, it's the good ones. Who knows... by 1999, this newsletter may
have become "Project X Online"...
--==--==--==--==--
|| Jaguar Tackboard
|| Confirmed information about Atari's Jaguar
\__// Compiled from online and official sources
-----------------------------------------------------------------
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Atari Times Jaguar Newsletter
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Greg "Fruitman" George <greggeorge@worldnet.att.net> publishes a Jaguar-
specific newsletter called The Atari Times. The newsletter is FREE, but
cash donations are greatly appreciated. To subscribe, write to:
Greg George
1531 Stevens Loop Rd.
Babson Park, FL 33827
Also, an online version is available at:
<http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/8341>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Jaguar Message Boards
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Anyone with web browsing capability can join in on the discussions on three
web-based Jaguar message boards out there on the net. Note that, due to the
rapid message turnover and instant-update nature of these boards, they have
a tendency to burn through topics in a matter of days instead of weeks (or
hours instead of days).
Just point your browser to:
Jaguar Interactive (maintained by Ken Baum)
<http://www.magicalfox.com/ken/postit.cgi>
Toad Computer's JagTalk
<http://www.ataricentral.com/wwwboard/jagtalk.html>
Club Drive Avenue Atari Message Board
<http://www.insidetheweb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi/mb7005>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Jaguar Chat
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Anyone with web browsing capability who wants to chat in real-time with
their fellow Jaguar enthusiasts, but has no access to IRC, should take
advantage of this Jag chat page:
JFPN's Jaguar Chat
<http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/5916/chat.html>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Jaguar Discussion Mailing List
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Anyone with Internet e-mail access can join the discussions on the Jaguar
mailing list. To "subscribe" to the list, send an e-mail to the following
address: <majordomo@colossus.net>
With the following as the body message:
subscribe jaguar FirstName LastName
(Where "FirstName" is your real first name and "LastName" is your real last
name.)
You should then soon receive the subscription information. Since the list
moved, digesting is no longer available.
The actual list address is: <jaguar@redsun.net>. All mail will go to the
list server and be sent to the dozens of readers of the list.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Atari Underground Mailing List
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Anyone with Internet e-mail access can request to be added to the Atari
Underground mailing list. This is a read-only mailing list maintained by
Matt "MHz" B., generating periodic messages describing current events of
interest to Atari Jaguar owners.
To subscribe to the list, send an e-mail request to <MHz@earthlink.net>.
Please do not confuse the Atari Underground mailing list with the Jaguar
Underground hackers.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Jaguar FAQ
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Robert Jung <rjung@netcom.com> maintains the Jaguar FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions) file, a continually updated list of Jaguar specs and facts. The
Jaguar FAQ is posted to rec.games.video.atari on Usenet around the first of
every month, and can also be found via FTP, address: ftp.netcom.com, in
Andy Eddy's /pub/vidgames/faqs directory.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Jaguar Cheats and Codes
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Clay "No Handle" Halliwell <halliwee@ts436.dyess.af.mil> maintains the
Atari Jaguar Game Cheats and Codes FAQ. It's available by e-mail request,
from Andy Eddy's FTP site (see above), or from Jaguar Interactive
<http://www.magicalfox.com/ken/jagcheat.txt>.
Lonnie "The Mage" Smith <themage1@aol.com> maintains the Concise Compendium
of Frequently Asked Codes, Moves, and Cheats (FACMAC). It's available via
FTP from <users.aol.com:/TheMage1/jaguar>, or from <http://users.aol.com/
TheMage1/jaguar/jagcodes.txt>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Independent Association of Jaguar Developers
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The IAJD (Independent Association of Jaguar Developers) is still accepting
members on Genie. The IAJD is a private group where confidential
discussions can be freely held. (Category 64 of the ST RoundTable is the
IAJD meeting place.) Consequently, membership in the IAJD is limited to
Jaguar developers who are registered with JTS Corp. To apply for
membership, send e-mail to ENTRY$ on Genie (or <entry$@genie.com> if you're
not on Genie). Regular e-mail correspondence with the IAJD should be sent
to IAJD$ (again, or <iajd$@genie.com> if you're not on Genie).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// JEO Development List
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The following list of game titles has been confirmed to the best of JEO's
ability as of publication. Entries in the "S"tatus column reflect any
"u"pdates, "n"ew titles, or "?"uestionable listings since the last JEO
list. Entries in the "M"edia column reflect whether the title is "C"D-ROM
or "J"aguar Server/BJL (blank entries indicate cartridge software). "NEW"
indicates titles released since the last issue of JEO.
ETA dates are dates that have been provided by the developer or publisher.
//// Titles in Development or Limbo
S M Title ETA Developer Publisher
" " """"" """ """"""""" """""""""
? Arena Football ? V-Real Productions
u BattleSphere 2Q/98 4Play 4Play
n J Bong+ 1999 ? Just Claws Software
? Brett Hull Hockey ? Ringler Studios
? C Brett Hull Hockey CD ? Ringler Studios
? Charles Barkley Basketball ? Ringler Studios
? C Creature Shock ? Argonaut
? Deathwatch ? Data Design
? C Demolition Man ? Virgin Interactive
J Gorf 2000 ? Krunch Korporation
? C Highlander II ? Lore Design Ltd.
? Hyper Force ? C-West
J Jagmania (PacMania clone) ? Matthias Domin
n J Jagmarble (Marble Madness clone) ? Matthias Domin
n J JagTris (Tetris clone) ? Bastian Schick
J Native ? Duranik Software
Painter ? Sinister
? Skyhammer ? Rebellion
? C Soulstar ? Core Design Ltd.
? Space War 2000 ? Atari
u Worms 1998 Team 17 Telegames
//// Current Software Releases
M Title Rated Developer Publisher
" """"" """"" """"""""" """""""""
AirCars 5 MidNite ICD
Alien vs. Predator 9 Rebellion Atari
Atari Karts 6 Miracle Design Atari
Attack of the Mutant Penguins 6 Sunrise Games Ltd. Atari
C Baldies 6 Creative Edge Atari
C Battlemorph 10 Attention to Detail Atari
C Blue Lightning 6 Attention to Detail Atari
C BrainDead 13 5 ReadySoft ReadySoft
Breakout 2000 7 MP Games Telegames
Brutal Sports Football 6 Millennium/Teque Telegames
Bubsy 5 Imagitec Design Atari
Cannon Fodder 8 Virgin Interactive C-West
Checkered Flag 4 Rebellion Atari
Club Drive 5 Atari Atari
Crescent Galaxy 3 Atari Atari
Cybermorph 7 Attention to Detail Atari
Defender 2000 8 Llamasoft Atari
Doom 8 id Software Atari
Double Dragon V 4 Williams Enter. Williams
C Dragon's Lair 5 ReadySoft ReadySoft
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story 6 Virgin Interactive Atari
Evolution: Dino Dudes 6 Imagitec Design Atari
Fever Pitch Soccer 6 U.S. Gold Atari
Fight For Life 6 Atari Atari
Flashback 7 Tiertex Ltd. U.S. Gold
Flip Out! 6 Gorilla Systems Atari
C Highlander I 8 Lore Design Ltd. Atari
Hover Strike 5 Atari Atari
C Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands 7 Atari Atari
Iron Soldier 9 Eclipse Atari
C Iron Soldier 2 CD 10 Eclipse Telegames
Iron Soldier 2 10 NEW Eclipse Telegames
I-War 4 Imagitec Design Atari
Kasumi Ninja 5 Hand Made Software Atari
Missile Command 3D 8 Virtuality Atari
C Myst 9 Atari Atari
NBA Jam: Tournament Edition 9 High Voltage Atari
Pinball Fantasies 6 Spider Soft C-West
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure 8 Imagitec Design Atari
Power Drive Rally 7 Rage Software TWI
C Primal Rage 7 Probe TWI
Raiden 6 Imagitec Design Atari
Rayman 10 UBI Soft UBI Soft
Ruiner 6 High Voltage Atari
Sensible Soccer 6 Williams Brothers Telegames
C Space Ace 3 ReadySoft ReadySoft
Super Burnout 7 Shen Atari
Supercross 3D 5 Tiertex Ltd. Atari
Syndicate 7 Bullfrog Ocean
Tempest 2000 10 Llamasoft Atari
Theme Park 6 Bullfrog Ocean
Towers II 7 JV Enterprises Telegames
Troy Aikman NFL Football 6 Telegames Williams
Ultra Vortek 8 Beyond Games Atari
Val d'Isere Skiing/Snowboarding 7 Virtual Studio Atari
C Vid Grid 6 High Voltage Atari
C VLM 9 Llamasoft Atari
White Men Can't Jump 6 High Voltage Atari
Wolfenstein 3D 7 id Software Atari
C World Tour Racing 6 Teque London Ltd. Telegames
Zero 5 6 Caspian Software Telegames
Zool 2 7 Gremlin Graphics Atari
Zoop 6 Viacom Atari
Total Carts 49
Total CDs 15 (counting VLM)
Total Combined 64
Pts Stars JEO Ratings
""" """"" """""""""""
10 ***** THE ULTIMATE - Flawless, beautiful, deviously addictive.
9 ****+ EXCELLENT - Something to throw in the face of N64-heads.
8 **** SMEGGIN' GREAT - Something to kick on the shoes of N64-heads.
7 ***+ DARN GOOD - Plays as good as it looks.
6 *** DECENT - Plays better than it looks (or vice versa).
5 **+ TIME KILLER - If there's nothing else to do, you play this.
4 ** INEPT - The programmer's first Jag game?
3 *+ INCOMPETENT - The programmer's first game ever?
2 * UNPUBLISHABLE - Heaven help us!
1 + INCONCEIVABLE BAD - ...but someone conceived it. Too bad.
0 - EXECRABLE - This is an April Fool's joke, right?
//// Current Hardware Releases
Item Manufacturer
""""" """"""""""""
Jaguar 64 Atari
Jaguar 64 CD-ROM Drive Atari
3-button Controller Atari
6-button ProController Atari
Team Tap Atari
Jag-Link Atari
Memory Track Atari
Composite Cable Atari
S-Video Cable Atari
CatBox ICD/Black Cat Design
Lap Cat/Lap Cat Pro joystick Ben Aein
Jaguar Extreme Joystick Dark Knight Games (modded Gravis Blackhawk)
Jaguar Server devkit Roine Stenberg (Istari Software)
Behind Jaggy Lines devkit Bastian Schick
//// The Short Term Schedule
Sadly, there are no for-sure release dates at this time. We know Worms and
BattleSphere are coming Real Soon Now though.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// JEO Mail Order Directory 1.10
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The following list of vendors carrying Jaguar software/hardware has been
confirmed to the best of JEO's ability. Please e-mail JEO for additions/
corrections.
//// B&C ComputerVisions
Mail 1725 De La Cruz Blvd #7
Santa Clara, CA 95050-3011
Voice 408-986-9960 (Tue-Fri, 10am-6pm)
Fax 408-986-9968
Email <myatari2@juno.com>
Web <http://www.myatari.com/>
//// Best Electronics
Mail 2021 The Alameda, Suite 290
San Jose, CA 95126-1127
Voice 408-243-6950
//// Bits of Fun
Mail PO Box 12345
San Luis Obispo, CA
Phone 800-FUN-JAGS
Email <ddavis@cwest.com>
Web <http://www.cwest.com/atari>
//// BRE Software
Mail 352 W. Bedford Ave., Suite 104
Fresno, CA 93711
Voice 209-432-2684
Fax 209-432-2599
FaxBak 209-432-2644
Email <bresw@aol.com>
Web <http://www.cybergate.com/~bre>
//// Buy-Rite Video Games
Voice 919-850-9473
Fax 919-872-7561
Email <buyrite@interpath.com>
Web <http://www.buyrite1.com>
//// Demand Systems
Voice 805-482-7900
Orders 800-593-0059
Fax 805-484-3745
805-987-1998
Email <mbrown@demand-sys.com>
Web <http://www2.demand-sys.com/demand>
//// Electronics Boutique
Voice 800-800-5166
Orders 800-800-0032
Email <feedback@ebworld.com>
Web <http://www.ebworld.com>
//// Flashback Video Games
Mail 2284 Kresge Drive
Amherst, OH 44001
Voice 216-960-1622
Fax 216-960-1663
Email <flashback@usa.net>
Web <http://www.sunmarkinc.com/products/flashback>
//// GameMasters
Mail 14393 E. 14th Street, Suite 208
San Leandro, CA 94577
Voice 510-483-4263
Email <mchaddon@game-masters.com>
Web <http://www.game-masters.com>
//// Game Pedler
Voice 801-273-0787 (ask for Internet Sales)
Fax 801-273-1357
Email <sales@gamepedler.com>
Web <http://www.gamepedler.com>
//// Games To Go
Mail 7632 Lyndale Avenue So.
Richfield, MN 55423
Voice 612-798-5879
Fax 612-869-5925
Email <sales@gamestogo.com> (orders)
<inquiries@gamestogo.com> (info)
Web <http://www.gamestogo.com>
//// Hardysoft
Mail 24 Lawnside Drive
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
Orders 609-883-1083
Fax 609-538-8674
Email <hardysoft@genie.com>
<hardysoft@prodigy.com>
<hardysoft@compuserve.com>
Web <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hardysoft>
//// STeve's Computer Technologies
Mail 405 Main Street
Woodland, CA 95695
Voice 916-661-3328
Fax 916-661-1201
Email <steves@woodland.net>
Web <http://woodland.net/wdm/steves>
//// Telegames
Mail P.O. Box 901
Lancaster, Texas 75146
Voice 972-228-0690
Orders 972-224-7200
Fax 972-228-0693
Email <sales@telegames.com>
Web <http://www.telegames.com>
//// TigerDirect Inc.
Mail 8700 West Flagler Street, 4th Floor
Miami, FL 33174-2428
Voice 305-229-1119
Orders 800-879-1597
305-228-5200 (international customers)
Fax 305-228-3400
Email <tmcguinness@tigerdirect.com>
Web <http://www.tigerdirect.com/todays_special_012197.htm>
//// Toad Computers, Inc.
Mail 570 Ritchie Highway
Severna Park, MD 21146-2925
Voice 410-544-6943
Orders 800-448-8623
BBS 410-544-6999
Fax 410-544-1329
FaxBak 410-544-0098
Email <info@toad.net>
Web <http://www.ataricentral.com>
//// United Game Source
Mail 210 Ring Ave Unit 104
Palm Bay, FL 32907
Voice 407-726-6867
Orders 800-564-1458
Fax 407-726-6903
Email <unitedgame@aol.com>
Web <http://members.aol.com/unitedgame/index.htm>
//// Video Game Advantage
Mail 6861 Anthony Lane
Parma Heights, OH 44130
Orders 216-843-8815 (24-hr answering machine)
Email <vga2000@ix.netcom.com>
<vga2000@io.com>
<dw901@cleveland.freenet.edu>
Web <http://www.io.com/~vga2000>
//// Video Game Liquidators
Mail 4058 Tujunga Ave, #B
Studio City, CA 91604
Orders 818-505-1666 (9am-5pm PST)
888-944-4263 (toll free)
Fax 818-505-1686
Email <vglq@vglq.com>
Web <http://www.vglq.com>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// EB Updates
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Many (but not all) Electronics Boutiques have been stocking the new
Telegames releases. Vince Valenti of JV Games has been tracking EB
"sightings". This is the list so far:
List of Electronics Boutique stores stocking the New Jaguar Titles.
========================================================================
Towers II - Breakout 2000 - Iron Soldier II - World Tour Racing - Zero 5
10/5/97
Total: 58 stores.
(EBX) = Electronics Boutique Exchange
(WS) = WaldenSoft
St.| Location | Address, City | Zip | Phone
===|===================|===============================|======|============
Any|EB Internet Store | http://www.ebstore.com | N/A | N/A
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
AL |Madison Square (WS)|5901 University #105,Huntsville|35806 |205-721-0899
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
CA |Lakewood Center |108 Lakewood Center, Lakewood |90712 |310-634-6354
|Stonestown Galleria|3251 20th Ave, San Francisco |94132 |415-564-7567
|Tanforan Center |113 Tanforan Ave, San Bruno |94066 |415-794-0994
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
CO |Aurora Mall |14200 E Alameda Ave, Aurora |80012 |303-343-8404
|Crossroads Mall |1700 28th St Spc 318, Boulder |80301 |303-440-7820
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
CT |Crystal Mall |850 Hartford Turnpike,Waterford|06385 |860-437-3356
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
FL |Altamonte Mall |451 Altamonte Ave#857,Altamonte|32701 |407-260-9443
|Sawgrass Mills Mall|12801 W Sunrise Blvd, Sunrise |33323 |954-846-8593
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
IL |Ford City |7601 S Cicero Ave #1316,Chicago|60652 |312-585-5665
|Gurnee Mills |6170 Grand Ave Spc 343, Gurnee |60031 |847-855-1540
|Woodfield Mall |327 Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg |60173 |847-330-1080
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
IN |Greenwood Park |1251 US 31N, Greenwood |46142 |317-888-4951
|University Park |6501 Grape Rd Ste 382,Mishawaka|46545 |219-273-0698
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
KS |Oak Park Mall |11421 W 95th St, Overland Park |66214 |913-541-1515
|Towne East Square |7700 E. Kellogg, Wichita |67207 |316-686-7111
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
KY |Ashland Town Center|7th & Winchester Ave, Ashland |41105 |606-325-9410
|Fayette Mall (WS) |3419 Nicholasville, Lexington |40503 |606-271-4022
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
LA |New Orleans Center |1400 Poydras St, New Orleans |70112 |504-525-8478
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
MA |Arsenal Mall |485 Arsenal St, Watertown |02172 |617-923-8331
|Auburn Mall (WS) |385 Southbridge St, Auburn |01501 |508-832-5119
|Independence Mall |Independence Mall Way, Kingston|02364 |617-585-1437
|Square One |1277 Broadway Street, Saugus |01906 |617-231-4750
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
MD |Columbia Mall |10300 Little Patuxent, Columbia|21044 |410-730-7402
|Lake Forest (EBX) |701 Russell #123, Gaithersburg |20877 |301-990-4339
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
MI |Eastland Mall |18000 Vernier Rd, Harper Woods |48225 |313-526-8340
|Fairlane |18900 Michigan Avenue, Dearborn|48126 |313-271-2449
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
MN |Mall of America |124 E Broadway, Bloomington |55425 |612-853-0223
|Mall of America-EBX|342 E Broadway, Bloomington |55425 |612-853-9981
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
NJ |Cherry Hill |1026 Cherry Hill, Cherry Hill |08002 |609-663-0875
|Willowbrook Mall |1336 Willowbrook Mall, Wayne |07470 |201-785-8710
|Woodbridge Center |425 Woodbridge Dr,Woodbridge |07095 |908-636-1611
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
NV |The Meadows |4300 Meadows Lane, Las Vegas |89107 |702-258-9177
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
NY |Crossgates |Space C205, Albany |12203 |518-456-7270
|Eastern Hills |4545 Transit #716,Williamsville|14221 |716-633-9987
|Manhattan Mall |901 Ave Of The America #C, NY |10001 |212-564-4156
|McKinley Mall |108 Mckinley Mall, Blasedell |14219 |716-823-2522
|Staten Island |2655 Richmond Ave,Staten Island|10314 |718-370-9848
|Walden Galleria |Space A 201, Buffalo |14225 |716-685-3655
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
OH |Fairfield Commons |2727-W227 Fairfield,BeaverCreek|45431 |513-320-9257
|Forest Fair Mall |726 Forest Fair Dr, Cincinnati |45240 |513-671-2203
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
OR |Lloyd Center |955 Lloyd Ctr, Portland |97232 |503-282-9091
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
PA |Exton Square |Route 100 & 30 Space 107, Exton|19341 |610-363-8357
|North Hanover Mall |1155 Carlisle Street, Hanover |17331 |717-632-9262
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
RI |Rhode Island Mall |156 Rhode Island Mall, Warwick |02886 |401-823-9520
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
TX |Northpark (EBX) |744 Northpark Ctr, Dallas |75225 |214-750-1441
|Ridgmar Mall |1702 Green Oaks Rd, Fort Worth |76116 |817-763-5830
|Vista Ridge |2401 S Stemmons 1144,Lewisville|75067 |972-315-8229
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
VA |Fair Oaks (EBX) |11989 Fair Oaks, Fairfax |22033 |703-385-0542
|Landmark Center |5801 Duke St, Alexandria |22304 |703-914-0021
|Patrick Henry (WS) |12300 Jefferson, Newport News |23602 |757-881-9437
|Tysons Corner (WS) |1961 Chain Bridge Rd, McLean |22102 |703-760-8947
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
VT |Diamond Run Mall |#240 Rt 7, Rutland |05701 |802-773-1202
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
WA |Alderwood |3000 184th St. SW, Lynnwood |98037 |206-771-5712
|Everett Mall (WS) |1402 Everett Mall Way, Everett |98204 |206-353-5062
|Northgate Mall |410 Northgate Mall, Seattle |98125 |206-440-9049
---|-------------------|-------------------------------|------|------------
WV |Huntington Mall |Huntington #605, Barboursville |25504 |304-736-5395
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess EB actually placed the games in more than 50 stores. Although I
don't know how many more.
UPDATE: EB has announced that they will no longer be stocking Jaguar
titles. So grab 'em while you can!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// BattleSphere: The Soundtrack
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Stephanie Wukovitz of 4Play has indicated that she would probably publish a
BattleSphere soundtrack CD if there was enough interest. If you'd like to
have your name put on the BS Soundtrack petition, browse to
<http://jaguar.holyoak.com/bspetition.html>, or send an email to powell@
easilink.com.
Samples of Stephanie's work can be found on her home page <http://www.
best.com/~sebab/>.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Jaguar Modification Service
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If you'd like to play the new Jaguar Server games being written, but are
afraid to undertake the required modifications to your Jaguar, Scott
Walters <swalters@flash.net> has started a modification service. This is
the info from his web page <http://www.flash.net/~swalters/>:
Frequently Asked Questions
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. What do you charge?
A. There are two options:
1) If you send me your Jag (Jag only, no joystick, no power supply, etc.)
the cost is $79.00
2) If you want a Jag already modified (including joystick, power supply and
RF modulator) the cost is $119.00
Q. About how long should it take?
A. I do all mods on Saturdays. And then ship on Mondays. The longest would
be if I received your Jag on a Monday, as it wouldn't get worked on until
Saturday, and then shipped out the following Monday.
Q. How do you ship the Jaguar back?
A. I always use Air not Ground. Mostly UPS, but sometimes US Priority.
Q. What guarantees, if any, do you make?
A. If you send me your Jag, it must work when I unpack it. I will not open
the unit if it is not functioning first. I will guarantee the work for 90
days after I ship it back. However, I'll only pay the shipping one way (me
to you).
Q. Can I use the Jag (after mod) as usual ?
A. The modification involves adding another EPROM to the Jag. I install a
switch in the back of the Jag so that you can toggle which ROM you want to
boot from. This allows you to use the Jag as if nothing had been done to
it.
Q. Any other important information?
A. You need to be aware that you must have a PC with a bidirectional
parallel port. Also, Bastian has noticed some problems with parallel ports
which are built onto the motherboard. He recommends (for now at least) that
you have a parallel port which plugs into an ISA slot (something about one
of the signal pins not having enough power for the Jag to recognize it).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Native Demo Released
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[this is the text (slightly edited) of the README file that accompanied the
Native demo release <http://members.aol.com/duranik/index.htm>]
- N A T I V E D E M O -
Copyright 1997 by Duranik
This demo does not contain sounds, level bosses, and the Native extra
weapon system due the low amount of available work RAM.
Remember: It is not possible to reload data with the current version of the
Jag-Server software, therefore we have to store all the
compressed Native data in memory. We have to divide the memory
into 1 MB work RAM and 1 MB compressed data. It was simply not
possible to include more data like all the sounds and the 2 level
bosses. Sorry.
//// General
Native is a horizontal 2D shoot'em up. Press the A, B, or C button to get
started.
//// Controls
Use the JagPad to move your spaceship. The weapons are controlled with the
B and C buttons of the pad. With the B button you are able to shoot. It is
only a shot with low energy. But be careful-- some enemies need more than
one low energy shot to blast. Therefore use the C button to fire a shot
with more energy. You can see the amount of energy for your Power Shot on
the left bottom of your screen.
//// Extra Weapons (not included in the demo!)
Native does contain two combined extra weapon systems. Some of the
destroyed enemies leave a coin or a star. Collect the money to buy extra
weapons in the shop in the middle of each level. You can buy for example a
satellite, lives, energy etc... The star is something different. It
contains a letter like for example a "O" or "X". Every letter picked up
will transform your ship completely. There exist five different classes of
ships. If you pick up the same letter again you will power up the shot
power of your ship (again 5 different power classes for each ship).
It is the same system used in the best ST shoot'em ups-- Wings of Death and
Lethal Xcess.
Remember: The extra weapon system is not included in the demo. You can
collect the money; the stars can't be collected in the demo.
//// Some Technical Details
[] 60 FPS (50 Hz PAL is not supported in the demo)
[] 16 Bit CrY mode
[] Up to 4 layers of parallax scrolling
[] Transparency and lighting effects
[] Up to 120 sprites (OP-Objects) on-screen
[] Scaling effects (OP)
[] Real time data decrunch (DSP)
[] Game engine running completely on the GPU
[] Rotation effects (not included in demo - not enough work RAM)
If you want to know something special about the techniques used write us an
e-mail.
//// Credits
Roland Graf - Coding
Johannes Graf - All graphics
- Level design
Gordon Gibson - ICE decrunch routine
Write your error reports, suggestions, comments or anything else to:
<duranik@aol.com>
//// Publishing
We don't have a publisher for Native yet. If we don't find a solution in
the next 4 weeks we will stop any work on this game. As you can see on the
demo size it is not possible to make a 16 MBit (2 MByte) cartridge out of
this game. The complete level with the 2 bosses and FX samples will take
about 1.6 MByte (and still does not contain any music). We are using a good
compression algorithm but 2D graphics do need a lot of memory. The only
solution is a CD version but we don't have a CD-devkit...
Native demo is freeware. You can copy it as long as no profit is made. If
you want to put this demo on your home page or do anything else with it
please ask us.
It is not allowed to put this demo on any kind of CD-ROM without our
written permission.
***************************************************************************
Attention: You use this program at your own risk. We are in no event liable
for consequential or incidental damages resulting from this
product.
***************************************************************************
Release date: Oct 24 1997
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Native Release Unlikely
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[this is an email from Duranik member Johannes Graf to concerned Jaguarian
Rudi Reider. English translation by Rudi.]
Hello,
>As far as I understand, your primary problem is
>that you didn't have (or couldn't get) a CD-DevKit - right??
Right, that was our problem. In the meantime we could probably get one,
however we want possibly to do something quite different which has nothing to
do with the Jaguar anymore. If that works, we would have no more time to
finish Native for the Jaguar.
>Or do you need financial support? (for what?)
No.
Normally I don't care what Scott Le Grand says. They should actually finish
their game instead of giving people wise advice.
>And I would like to have the game too !! So come on !! ;-)
So, as said above, I believe that is rather improbable.
regards
Johannes
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Backtrack!? Nevermind...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Recent visitors to Telegames' web page may have noticed Backtrack, a new
Win95 dungeon-crawl they're selling. Backtrack bears a remarkable likeness
to Towers II. Could a Jag version be in the works? JV Games' Vince Valenti
had this to say on the subject:
"Yes, we did write BackTrack. That game was an in-between project. We talked
about what it would take to port to the Jaguar. But there exist two major
problems. :)
One: The game runs on 6megs of RAM. The graphics chewed far more RAM than
Towers II did.
Two: This is a budget game, a spoof of a Doom clone. There is no network
support, or modem stuff in it at all. I could not see this game going for $60.
We originally had no intention of doing this project, as we are trying to
develop our new engine."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Fun With Nolan
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From the San Jose Mercury News:
NOLAN BUSHNELL'S sale of his Woodside home has at least one group of people
a bit upset. And it's not the neighbors.
Bushnell's faltering San Francisco game software company, PlayNet, owes a
number of its employees back pay, according to some of those who have
worked and are still working for the company. For programmer Scott Anthony,
it's about $10,000. He estimates that 60 people, mostly those laid off in
early July, are owed wages or reimbursement for expenses by PlayNet.
"People are getting pretty upset," he said. "We were basically promised a
lot that never came through." In addition to six weeks of wages, Anthony
said he was promised a start-up bonus.
All of PlayNet's employees will get paid, said Bushnell, who is best known
for inventing Pong and launching the video game business. PlayNet has been
having some financial problems and it's currently negotiating for more
funding. He wouldn't disclose the source of the funding. "There are some
people who are owed money," said Bushnell, PlayNet's director of strategic
planning and one of its founders. "It's just a timing issue."
Bushnell said last week that he sold his house -- his real estate agency
wouldn't disclose the price -- to move to England for a year to work to
develop PlayNet's European market, while spending time with his children.
PlayNet employees were particularly upset to hear that news. "He's taking
it outside the U.S. without paying everybody what they're owed," said
Anthony. "If that's the case, he's gotten a lot of value from people for
free."
The asking price for the Woodside house was $5.9 million -- and while
Bushnell has probably made a nice bit of cash on that transaction he's not
obligated to use his personal funds to help his business. Bushnell,
furthermore, said he's not been the one to manage PlayNet's finances. "The
part of the business I hate is the financial stuff and all that folderol,"
he said.
"He doesn't have any legal obligation to pay anybody," said Anthony. "But
it sure doesn't look good."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Nintendo, Sony, Sega and ???
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[This article originally appeared at Next Generation Online
<http://www.next-generation.com>. Reprinted with permission.]
November 4, 1997
Sony's head of R&D, Bill Rehbock, has left the company to work on VM Labs'
new hardware. Next Generation Online spoke with Rehbock where he reveals
that a fourth major player will be joining the hardware wars.
Just when you thought the market was stable and that all the players in the
industry had already placed their bids, up pops a new technology and a
"major" backer that promises to make things just a bit more interesting
again.
While Next Generation Magazine has provided some early insights into VM
Labs in its last issue, little has been said of the mysterious "Project X"
that the company promises will be "the next Mario-killing hardware."
Friday was Bill Rehbock's last day at Sony and Monday will mark his first
day at VM Labs. Said Rehbock, "The guys at VM Labs waited to approach me
until they had something to show me so that I would have an easy decision
to make. Needless to say they knocked my socks off."
In addition to the hardware (and here's the key), VM Labs already has a
deal signed with a "major" but as yet unknown manufacturer. "Every company
that VM Labs approached was of the magnitude of a Sony. One of them
eventually signed," said Rehbock. "I wouldn't have left my position at the
'country club' in Foster City (Sony) if this weren't a sure thing." Already
speculation as to who the backer is in the Next Generation office is
running rampant. Time frame for the system release is said to be a cryptic
"really soon".
In his new role at VM Labs, Rehbock will be the vice-president of software
development (which was a role he originally played at both Atari and to
some degree early on in his position at Sony). In this role, he will be
trying to solicit third party support for the new hardware in addition to
overseeing internal projects. Obviously one of the major feathers in the
new hardware's cap is the support from coding genius Jeff Minter. Minter's
forte is clearly in the realm of fast action, psychedelic games such as
Tempest 2000, Llamatron and Defender 2000.
Other members of the team include former Atari employees Jon Mathieson
(known to some as the "Father of the Jaguar") and Richard Miller (who seems
to be the mastermind on the project). Despite the obvious Atari heritage,
Rehbock is keen to point out that "this is not Atari and that it is an
entirely different company with entirely new technology."
When asked what he felt of potential technology competitors 3Dfx and
PowerVR, Rehbock commented, "3Dfx has good performance, but it's still a
bit pricey, and I don't think PowerVR will ever be a significant factor in
the market." Assuming that in his position at Sony Rehbock also had
knowledge of Sony's forthcoming hardware and Project X still impressed him,
it raises some interesting questions as to the power of this system.
With regard to differences between VM Labs and Sony, Rehbock pointed to the
difference in developer support and tools for the systems. "I don't think
the team at VM Labs has left a stone unturned with regard to development
tools," said Rehbock. "I'm used to good tools, having worked at Sony. But
the guys at VM Labs hail from all facets of the gaming industry and have
written tools from a game programmer's perspective. The teams we've put
together at Sony, while they offered the best support around, simply
weren't gamers."
In terms of who VM Labs will be going to first for development support,
Rehbock indicated that "it will be all the obvious ones" (clearly not
wanting to give away much of his plans). "We already have a few development
systems seeded out there but for now we're going to be working with a few
select developers at first. It sounds funny, but it's true, we need to
focus on quality first. When developers see this hardware and the tools at
their disposal, I think my job isn't going to be very hard."
To sum up, VM Labs has working hardware. It has development systems in a
few developers' offices already and probably most importantly, it
supposedly has "major backing from a company the size of Sony." The next
generation hardware wars are getting extremely interesting.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// VM Labs Takes Aim At Sony and Nintendo
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[This article originally appeared at Next Generation Online
<http://www.next-generation.com>. Reprinted with permission.]
January 23, 1998
Next Generation Online met with VM Labs today to see Project X and learned
more about the state of the system.
VM Labs will be moving to a new building in Los Altos, CA some time in
April or May. This is more than a slight upgrade from the understated
offices it currently occupies. Nestled in Los Altos, VM Labs is located an
unassuming office on the second floor of a small office building that you
would probably miss unless you stopped into the real estate office on the
ground floor to ask directions. With such humble beginnings, it is
difficult to believe that such a company could ever become a force in the
videogame industry, but based upon the demos Next Generation Online saw
today, looks can be deceiving.
As previously reported, VM Labs did show off some of these demonstrations
at CES in an effort to solicit new partners and developers. According to
Nicholas Lefevre, VM Labs' VP of business affairs and general counsel, the
trip to CES met with great responses from a number of new potential
partners in the electronics industry. As previously reported, VM Labs will
be attempting something of a 3DO `open platform' business model though it
still has several twists to it that it still isn't willing to reveal.
"We'll be shedding more light on the business plan and exactly who our
partners are at E3," said Lefevre.
The first technology demonstration shown was of Doom compiled straight from
John Carmack's recently released source code. The game was running
completely unoptimized using a mere fraction of the cycles the unit
actually has, but it still clicked along at a respectable pace (though it
wasn't exactly smooth). According to Bill Rehbock, VM Labs' VP of third
party development, the demo is an excellent example of how solid the unit's
compiler (which is based around the GNU C compiler) is. This was simply a
demo and is not going to ever be a commercial product.
The next demo shown was a classic arcade title. While the editors were
asked not to reveal what title it was specifically, it takes little effort
to figure out what it was given that Jeff Minter is one of the gurus behind
many of the libraries created for the unit (some which go by the names of
Llama and Camel). Running in an extremely high resolution (via interlacing)
the game is exceptionally bright, colorful and now one of the most eagerly
anticipated titles by the editors. Next Generation Online will have the
first screen-shots of this game in the coming days (if you haven't figured
it out, fear not all will be clear soon).
A fairly standard Mandlebrot fractal demo was one of the next ones shown.
Exploring the fractal was possible via the use of the system's controller
where players could endlessly zoom deeper into the fractal. This showcased
the integer capabilities of the unit.
Finally, the last demo was a combination of demos where a number of cubes
had all of the other demos all running in real-time mapped to each of the
surfaces.
According to Rehbock, whose job it is to solicit new developers for the
system, there are around 15 systems currently out in circulation with two
more systems going out the door every day. Currently there is development
taking place in California, New Hampshire, Belgium and the UK. Development
is expected to be started shortly in Japan, Singapore and several other
locales. While it is currently unwilling to reveal exactly what developers
it is working with, more than a few hints pointed to some of the largest
US, Japanese and European developers which would ensure the translation of
some of today's biggest arcade and console properties to the new system.
The development system itself (dubbed Oz) ships in a PC case (though the
form the editors saw it in was an exposed PCB) and is connected to a
developer's network via Ethernet. Using standard TCP/IP, it is possible to
hook the system up to an office LAN (or even an International WAN) and have
multiple programmers working on the same board. With respect to cost of the
developments system, VM Labs' indicated that it was about one third of the
costs of its competitors development kits making it considerably more
accessible.
The future for VM Labs is bright despite the fact it hasn't yet made clear
who its partners will be. It is expecting to have Project X on shelves by
the end of the year and in millions of homes by the end of 1999. While we
wouldn't have thought so before we saw it with our own eyes, based upon
what the editors have seen thus far, Sony, Sega and Nintendo will indeed be
caught by surprise by VM Labs' entrance through the back door.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Revealing Project X's Secrets
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[This article originally appeared at GameSpot News <http://headline.
gamespot.com/news>. Reprinted with permission.]
For months, gamers have been hearing about the mysterious system called
Project X. As reported earlier by GS News, it was shown at the Winter CES
behind closed doors at VM Labs' hotel suite. This reporter was there to get
a first-hand look at the company's technology, and it's now possible to
reveal new details about the Project X.
First of all, the Project X is a core technology. VM Labs is not a hardware
manufacturer, but instead will license Project X hardware out to other OEMs
(Original Equipment Manufacturers) to manufacture. But that's really where
any similarity ends between what VM Labs is doing and what 3DO did.
Coming from a video game industry background, a new system from a virtually
unknown company like VM Labs is met with skepticism. How can what it's got
possibly beat what Sony, Nintendo, and Sega have, or will have in the next
year or two?
No system specs have been released, so there's no telling how powerful this
system really is.... Will it get developer support, or more importantly,
Japanese developer support?
The demonstration of the hardware I was given was impressive. One of the
games running on Project X hardware was none other than id Software's Doom.
Taking the game's source code (a Christmas present from John Carmack to the
world), the VM Labs guys had the game running in two days - using about 15
percent of the system's power, unoptimized - and playable.
While Doom won't be one of the Project X's games, it was shown as a
demonstration of how easy it is to port a PC title to the platform and
squeeze performance out of it in a short amount of time.
Those following Jeff Minter's site already know that he is working on a
game for the system. Being a big fan of Tempest 2000, I was happy to see an
enhanced version of Minter's update running on the Project X hardware
without any trace of polygons or pixels. It was running smoothly and
uniformly, with trademark Minter effects.
It was playable, but only to the point of moving across the Web (which
moved in a wave-like motion) and shooting baddies. Still, it looked
amazingly sharp.
There were also other demonstrations of what the system is capable of.
Animatek put together a rendered, moving dancer in only a few weeks -
extremely detailed, moving very fast and smoothly.
What this could mean for future games on the platform is that characters
could have a nice, rounded lifelike look rather than the boxy "polygon"
look that so many people associate with PlayStation and N64 games. Just
imagining a fighting game where the characters actually look like they do
in the opening cinema to the game is an amazing prospect.
Aside from the demonstrations (which included a more-impressive-than-it-
sounds "moving balls over water" demo), what really matters is software
support. Currently, there are a dozen software developers with development
hardware - with more in line to receive kits. Right now, the timetable is
to get the technology in the hands of consumers in late '98, with at least
half a dozen games at launch.
Will developers support this machine? From my perspective, after having
seen the technology and what it's capable of (a lot of which hasn't been
announced yet), I can't imagine any developer passing up the opportunity to
make games for the Project X once they've seen the hardware's features and
what it can do.
Project X is truly an open, developer-friendly platform that has huge
potential, after seeing demos done in days or only a few weeks.
There are going to be a few factors that make or break the Project X. For
example, price: Just like any new hardware, a video game system needs to
fall into the lucrative $200-$400 range. VM Labs is aiming for the low end
of that spectrum, which is great considering the power the Project X is
pushing. As 3DO learned up front, pricing too high at the beginning is a
mistake you never recover from, no matter how good the system.
Project X will need a "killer app" at launch: New gaming platforms just
cannot survive without at least one must-have title. Sony did it with Ridge
Racer, Tekken, and Toshinden.
It will also need top developers: Killer apps coming from lead developers
will sweeten the deal.
Can it be done? Yes. Will it happen? That's all in the hands of VM Labs and
its OEMs. They have a capable machine; they just need to spread the word.
We'll have more on Project X in the coming months.
By Chris Johnston, GameSpot News
Provided under license by SpotMedia Communications. Copyright 1997/1998
SpotMedia Communications. All rights reserved.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// New Cheats and Codes
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Memory Track Manager
Commands:
Delete File A/B/C
Set Sort Type Option
Set Sort & Save 1+Option/3+Option
Edit Name/Size 7+9+Option (not recommended!)
Delete All Files *+#+Option
Self Test *+0+#+Option
Exit *+#
//// Zero 5
Cheat Codes:
At the Options screen, select Change Mission. Hold Pause while entering
code. Sound confirms.
Unlock Mission 1 0,5,0,5,0,5
Unlock Missions 1-2 6,8,9,2,1,4
Unlock Missions 1-3 1,2,2,1,6,9
NOTE: Entering a mission-unlock code will lock all missions above and
beyond that one, even if you've previously unlocked them.
--==--==--==--==--
|| CyberChatter
|| Random topics about the Jaguar
\__// Compiled from online public discussion areas
-----------------------------------------------------------------
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Zero 5... Great?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 11/17/97 18:17 from ad57-197.arl.compuserve.com (Doug Engel)
Subject: RE: RE: RE:^4 My thoughts on you and Zero-5
>Okay, your point is dull here. Of course you only have
>one gun (well...two with the super laser), but it's
>upgradeable. You DO get new ships in Z5, sorta...you
>fight in different ships. Different types of missions,
>just like IS.
That's a pretty LAME excuse to use against a very legitimate gripe with the
game.
If that's how you feel, then maybe this would be a more realistic scenario:
Imagine Iron Soldier II where you get the Shield, the missile launchers,
the rail gun and the chain saw at the beginning of the game, and NEVER get
a new weapon for the rest of the game.
Sound like Z5? Yup.
Beatable? Yup.
As rewarding? Nope.
Frustrating? Yup.
Good? Yup.
Great? Nope.
Thunderbird
4Play
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 11/18/97 9:11 from bitsuser2.demon.co.uk (Matthew Gosling)
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE:^4 My thoughts on you and Zero-5
>Great? Nope.
>
>Thunderbird
>4Play
Jesus, here we go again.
Okay, here's a few things to look out for in Jaguar games that were
developed throughout 1995:
Actually finished? Yup.
Looks like a bad Genesis port? Nope.
Attempts to go some way towards backing up Sam Tramiel's ludicrous claims
that the Jag is "about the same power as the Saturn, and a little below the
Playstation"? Yup.
Look, they're all going to buy Battlesphere, you don't have to keep kicking
Zero 5 in the teeth every 5 minutes. Compromises were made in order to get
the DAMN thing finished - this obviously doesn't mean much now that the
Jaguar is dead and Telegames are milking the few remaining diehards for $60
a go, but at the time, the concept of finishing the game while the system
was still alive was considered pretty damn important - for both the game
AND the Jaguar.
If a few more people had, like, FINISHED a few products that actually
pushed the Jag's abilities a little (and Atari had actually released them -
SkyHammer springs to mind), maybe things wouldn't have turned quite so
shitty for Jag owners. My point being that a flawed but technically decent
game in early '96 would have been a damn sight more useful to the Jag than
a near-perfect one in '98. Just a thought...
-MG-
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 12/21/97 10:33 from tinycat.demon.co.uk
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Zero-5 ... What a rush!
Hi,
This is my first posting to this newsgroup. Can I thank everyone who
posted nice comments about Zero-5.
The comments you made are far more constructive than any Atari gave us.
The game could have done with a lot more play testing, but it did come out!
As those of you who follow this newsgroup know, we got paid very little for
the game, and finished it only with our own money, only to see the game be
sold to Telegames, without a penny coming to us!!
There has been a lot said about Zero-5, most I agree with, but, I have to
say, that some of the things said, have I feel, been wrong, simply because
people don't understand what the game is about.
If Caspian Software had been involved in the release of the title, we would
have made it quite clear that Zero-5 was a fast paced shoot-em-up, which is
like no other out there. It was never intended to appeal to a mass market.
If you can't play it, or you find the pace too fast, GOOD, then the team at
Caspian and myself produced the game we wanted.
Most people find Zero-5 impossible at first, but believe me, there comes a
point where like magic, the whole thing, speed, camera, patterns, etc.,
falls into place. At that point you have mastered Zero-5 and discovered a
new dimension in game-play.
Myself and Matthew come from an arcade background, where we used to insert
coin after coin in an attempt to master a game - this is what Zero-5 is
about.
Zero-5 should be played in a dark room, where the full effect of the colour
and lighting effects can be seen. The game is meant to be FAST, VERY FAST.
If you have to think about what to do next, you've lost.
The trench sections are in fact very easy, once you realize that all of
Zero-5's game-play is based upon patterns. Have a look and you will start
to see things-- 2, 3, 2, as in, 2 walls, turn 180', 3 walls, turn 180', 2
walls.
Can I also point out just how BAD the Jag is to program. We had to work
around so many bugs in the hardware. I know some people have experienced
problems with Zero-5 booting when they have a CD unit connected. I can't
comment on this, apart from the fact that Atari never supplied us with a CD
unit to test the game with. Also, the game uses the official Atari boot
code which we had to use. We had written our own code which worked fine,
and was bug free.
In think in the course of the project, we must have received 3 different
versions of Atari's boot code, all with bugs. They simply did not have a
clue about what they were doing.
We also had to fit both the PAL and NTSC versions of the game into a 2MB
cart. There was a lot more we wanted to do, but space would not allow it.
Compare N64 games with Zero-5, but realize that A, they don't have to fit
both NTSC and PAL versions on the same cart, and B, their carts are between
32 and 64Mbits, NOT 16 Mbits!!!!
That's me done...
Bye, and thank you all for your support, and I hope all those left
developing on the Jag have an easier time than we did!
Chris Dillon
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// BattleSphere Ramblings
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: BATTLESPHERE COMPLETION ANNOUNCEMENT
From: "Thunderbird" <Thunderbird@sprynet.com>
Date: 1998/01/17
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.atari
BattleSphere's release announcement will be posted to all the appropriate
areas by the 4Play Team, immediately upon completion of the game.
It is important to note that the game's "finished" status will NOT appear
first on some well-meaning but premature Jaguar Fan's Web-Page.
For now, suffice it to say, BattleSphere is _NOT_ "finished".
The game is STILL being playtested, and lacks several music tracks, and has
bugs in the NVRAM setup parameters. Once all the music is complete, any ROM
space left over will then have to be allocated to one or more several
"bonus" features which have yet to be designed.
Once again, I repeat: BattleSphere is _NOT_ "Finished".
It is very close, but not quite there yet.
Please do not let this rumor spread. It will only serve to injure 4Play in
the long run.
Thank you for your understanding.
Thunderbird
4Play
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: Re: Battlesphere Vs. Darklight Conflict
From: legrand@tesla.mbi.ucla.edu
Date: 1997/12/09
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.atari
In article <66h78a$1lm6$1@news.rchland.ibm.com>,
pforhan@cs.truman.edu wrote:
>
> In <rjungEKr4xH.EGC@netcom.com>, rjung@netcom.com (Robert A. Jung)
> writes:
> >In article <3488A226.452E@ticon.net> save2600@ticon.net writes:
> >> I was checking out some new Saturn games at our local Toys 'R Us the
> >>other day and noticed a game by Electronic Arts called Darklight
> >>Conflict. Looking at the back of the card, it seems very Battlesphere-
> >>ish with it's light sourcing and lens flares. I was just curious if
> >>anyone who is into the Jag/Battlesphere had seen and or played this
> >> cool looking game and what your thoughts were...
>
> Note that, as I understand it, 4Play didn't have enough room to
> implement Light-sourcing things...
Bzzzt... Actually, there is one global light source. What we don't have
that DC has is specular highlights (which look really nice in our embryonic
Win32 engine BTW which is something I work on now between bug reports), and
positional (local) light sources for weapons and explosions.
> I must disagree. While it didn't have the scope of, say, TIE fighter
> (and, hopefully, BattleSphere) where there are a hundred things going on,
> the game is intensely beautiful, and very playable, and challenging, as
> well. The movement was more realistic than most space games (for example,
> the original Elite or Privateer) where you are not always moving in the
> direction you are pointing.
I like Darklight better than Colony Wars. I admit that it really made me
regret the absence of specular lighting in Battle Sphere, but the Jag
really isn't set up to do that without going into 24 bit RGB (which would
annihilate the framerate and the ability to use most of the Jag's shading
hardware) or I could have hacked it in at the last minute. In summation:
this is a hardware rather than a software issue.
> To me, it seems more of a dogfighting game. You have to balance when to
> fire your main weapon and when to use your shields (since they are
> mutually exclusive). Each of the ten or fifteen weapons are
> significantly different, and are used differently. If you can't beat a
> mission after a while, it makes a huge difference just by changing your
> tactics.
I loathe the fire/shield thing in DC. I loathe the acceleration in CW. I
love the jump gate in DC, I loathe the jumpgate in CW. I love the nebulae
in CW, I love the lighting in DC. I love the capitol ships in DC, I think
the capitol ships in CW suck. I despise the gun turrets in DC, I despise
the tactical displays in both of them. I prefer the tractor beam of DC. I
love the docking in DC, I loathe the lack thereof in CW. I get a sense of
combat out of DC, I get a sense of Disneyland ride out of CW.
> It is by no means perfect, for sure. It is not as epic as TIE fighter,
> Elite, or Star Raiders. You are the center of the action. Control
> (for the PC) is not perfect. But it is a good game, especially for the
> $15 or less price you can get it for (and the PC version comes with
> two full CDs!).
Absolutely. I recommend DC as a cheap thrill. I do not recommend CW.
But if you wanna talk complete lack of control, try Shadows of the Empire
with Microsoft's no-calibrate-I Force Feedback Sidewinder Pro.
> > Still waiting for BATTLESPHERE,
>
> The world holds its breath...
Tell me about it :-(...
Scott Le Grand
Lead Coder
4Play
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 1/15/98 17:16 from LEGRAND.ag3d.com (Scott Le Grand)
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Important Questions Regarding Jaguar Programming
If I were to go back and do pixel shatter on the Jag (and I considered
doing this effect for Battle Sphere, but we didn't have enough RAM left), I
would render an exploding object into an offscreen buffer at the moment of
its death. Then, I would use the blitter to pixel shatter it from that
perspective for the next 2 seconds or so...
Alternately, I once had a melt-o-vision effect going with the explosions:
the trouble was it required a 128x128 offscreen buffer for each explosion.
However, since no 2 explosions were ever the same and they flowed in the
most amazing way, it resulted in the best looking animated explosions I
have >EVER< seen before or since...
Anyway, those are a few of the outtakes from the BattleSphere project that
4 megs of RAM would have cured... Hell, 2.5 would have cured it... But 2
was just too close to the edge...
C'est la vie...
Scott
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// AvP Reminiscing
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: Re: CD? Syndrome
From: danm_die_spam_die@microware.com (Dan McNamee)
Date: 1997/12/02
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.atari,alt.atari-jaguar.discussion
On Mon, 01 Dec 1997 18:10:58 -0600, Dan Mazurowski
<smedley.antispam@gte.net> wrote:
>On the contrary. The Jag had been out for al least a year when AvP was
>released. Atari had sent the program back to Rebellion several times to
>be re-worked, I think Atari put more into making sure AvP was an
>excellent title than any other Jag cart. From what I can recall from the
>time it was being worked on, it was sent back for a major overhaul once
>to increase the detail of the graphics (look at the screenshots from
>early versions on your Jag box - very pixelated). Unfortunately, this
>increased detail meant reduced frame rate, but I'm very happy with the
>final product. Other requested changes I heard about - make the eggs
>part of the game (originally they just sat there - the only face huggers
>you encountered were running around loose, not freshly hatched) and to
>make the game "more immersive" (sounds like a request to make it more
>RPG-ish and less Doom-ish).
Actually most of the graphics were really good, we just added some
additional items and cleaned up some of their stuff that needed a bit of
work. The really big thing we did was redesign all of the levels and the
gameplay, as well as come up with the entire story line and the ability to
play as Alien, Predator or Marine.
The problem with the levels as originally designed was that they were HUGE,
totally random mazes based on a 64x64 grid. This caused several debugging
problems since we had to make sure that all of the walls were actually
there. It also caused problems in that Rebellion's engine could only
handle so many objects on a level, not just creatures, but all objects
other than walls, enemies, medkits, ammo and scenery items, so it made the
levels very sparse so you could wander around for a VERY long time
(sometimes up to an hour) without running into anything at all, and the
random maze layout of the levels just made it all frustrating. Anyway, so
we reduced the level size to a 32x32 grid and went from there. Admittedly,
the levels are still mazes, but we did try to make each level have a
purpose as well as a semi rational layout as a working space station/
military base/training facility. We also tried to make each game as
different as possible within the structure of the game engine, so the
Marine game was a bit of a RPG, the Alien game a bit more strategy and the
Predator game more of a shoot-em-up, basically a little of something for
everyone.
>And yes, much of the slow movement is intentional. Look at how fast you
>move when playing the alien! Though as the marine, I think they could
>have let you turn faster, or choose to run, instead of always moving at
>a walk.
Yes, the slower movement was intentional. All of the characters could have
moved as fast as the alien, but we wanted each to have it's own feel. We
did complain quite a bit about the turning speed, but were told that there
wasn't anything that could be done with it. We also requested a run for
the Marine and Predator as well, but it got pushed down the priority list
and dropped due to the need to get the game out. We also had a lot of
other nifty things we wanted to put into the game that got cut because of
time.
Dan
ex-Atari, Lead Tester of AvP
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: Re: CD? Syndrome
From: danm_die_spam_die@microware.com (Dan McNamee)
Date: 1997/12/05
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.atari,alt.atari-jaguar.discussion
On Thu, 04 Dec 1997 20:41:07 -0600, Dan Mazurowski
<smedley.antispam@gte.net> wrote:
>Hi Dan! Pleasant surprise, seeing you around here again.
Hi Dan. ;-) I've always been here. Mostly lurking, though.
>> out. We also had a lot of other nifty things we wanted to put into
>> the game that got cut because of time.
>>
>
>I assume that includes the fabled grenade launcher? Are there any other
>interesting items cut out that you would care to share with us?
Yep, the grenade launcher was one. We wanted to put in a run and jump for
all of the characters. We wanted a jump attack for the alien where you
would be impervious to attack (or take less damage at least) during the
jump. This was since the alien didn't have any distance weapons/attacks.
We wanted outside views on the station (i.e. on the outer walls you could
open the portholes and see outside). Network play (of course <G>). That's
just a few I can remember off the top of my head.
Dan
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: Re: CD? Syndrome
From: danm_die_spam_die@microware.com (Dan McNamee)
Date: 1997/12/23
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.atari,alt.atari-jaguar.discussion
On Tue, 23 Dec 1997 06:00:46 GMT, mike.harvey@worldnet.att.net (Mike
Harvey) wrote:
>Dan, towards the end of Atari's relations with the Jaguar, I did a
>few interviews/discussions with Don Thomas. He had said they would
>never do AVP #2, either as a second cartridge or a CD-ROM with all
>that extra room for extra graphics, sound, etc...
>He made it sound mostly like a finicial reason. Do you have any
>inside info you can pass along now?
It was basically a licensing issue. Fox wouldn't let us buy the license to
do a sequel or an improved CD version. We could have put the AvP cart on
CD, but it would have had to have been the exact same game as the cart, no
changes at all.
Dan
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Color Conflicts
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 12/20/97 12:31 from slc221.modem.xmission.com (Curtis J.)
Subject: Telegame's response (re: IS2 label)
Here is the e-mail I received from Telegames in response to my
query about IS2:
----------------------------------------------------------------
We stated "color" label, not "full color" label. It has a color label.
We have some production overruns that will be sold.
Regards
----------------------------------------------------------------
Well, so there you have it! Ok...and black is a color and so is white, but
black & white generally isn't classified to be "color" last time I checked.
So sure "technically" a silver label with black writing could be construed
as a "color" label- since silver is a color. Anyway I guess this may
explain why my last roll of "color" film turned out to be just silver &
black- heh heh! Good to know that IS2 *does* have a color label
afterall...I'm glad Telegames clarified this so idiots like me would know.
;)
Newsflash! This just in:
The Game Boy is a "color" system...hurray! Long live vomit green & black!
;)
Now I have a couple of questions for Telegames:
1) Why weren't B2K, Towers II & Zero 5 advertised as having color labels?
(I kinda like the black and red version of "color" better than the shrunken
silver & black version...black and red at least fit in with the Jaguar
logo, etc...)
2) If Telegames is so confident that IS2 has a "color" label then why did
they feel like they needed to alter/delete the reference to a color label
on their order page? Interesting...
Finally since Telegames now admits that extra IS2 cartridges were produced
contrary to their previous assertations that only enough to cover prepayed
orders would be made, does this mean that "Limited Edition Cartridge" will
now be redefined as "there are a finite number of them available as opposed
to an infinite number of them?" Sheesh! ;) To be fair it's very possible
that they may have had to order a certain minimum number of cartridges and
once they're gone, they're gone, but based on Telegames seemingly less than
forthright actions about the IS2 cartridge recently I wouldn't be surprised
at all to see these "production overruns" last indefinately...
And for anybody that thinks I'm picking on poor Telegames who is doing us
all such a big favor out of the goodness of their hearts... Consider that I
payed a total of $76.49 for this baby, and I've been a loyal Telegames
customer for nearly a decade now- spending many hundreds of dollars in the
process. (I've bought every Jaguar/Jaguar CD release they've ever made with
the exception of WTR, and I was doing business with them clear back when
they were still actively supporting the old Colecovision in a similar way
to how they support the Jaguar now...not to mention buying a bunch of their
expensive European SMS imports!) I've also recommended them to countless
people both on the internet (witness my plug for the IS2 cartridge back in
October on the newsgroups...) and in my previous experience as a videogames
retailer I sent many a potential customer their way. I'm sorry to say that
as of today I no longer feel good about recommending them to anyone-
receiving a tersely worded, technical, "we gotcha!" type of response to a
legitimate concern (with nary a hint of a thank you for doing business with
them to be found) is something that certainly makes me feel a large degree
of unease at the prospect of doing any further business with them in the
future. I believe customer service should enhance the customer's confidence
in doing further business, not detract from it...
(My right, my choice, flames cheerfully ignored...)
What follows is a copy of my original query to Telegames:
----------------------------------------------------------
>Hi,
>
>Received IS2 cartridge in excellent shape today- thanks for the
>nice packaging, I appreciate it. =) I did miss the originally
>promised full color label though as stated on your web page at
>the time I prepayed for the game- that was one of the reasons I
>could justify the price of it. What happened? Also your web page
>gives the impression that IS2 cartridge is still available for
>order...is this correct? If so you might have some angry people
>who justified their purchase by it being a limited edition- as for
>me I'm just happy to have the cartridge, but I would appreciate an
>explanation on the label at least.
>
>In any case, thanks very much for your continued support of Jaguar
>and happy holidays!
>
>Curtis J.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 12/20/97 17:44 from 130.166.253.24
Subject: Telegames' Response To Me
(And wow, is it ever friendly and courteous!! ;)
Thanks for your comments, although we take exception with most of them.
Our web site stated a "color" label, not "full color" label. We will not
argue the semantics, but can only assure you that we produced what we had
in mind originally. We tried to delineate between a genuine, manufactured
label and a "white" laser printed label.
We have never dealt in deceptive trade practices and resent your
statements.
We have made ZERO profit on the conversion and sale of the IS2 cartridges.
The pre-orders were so low that we had to either produce additional ones at
our expense or cancel the entire offerring. Obviously, we chose to go ahead
because we thought it was important that all Jag loyalists had an
opportunity to acquire this quality product.
A letter like your provides no motivation for our continued efforts to
bring products to an abandoned market. By the way, these responses have
been cleared with management and are not just the opinion of an "e-mail
answerer".
Regards
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Minter Overrated?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: The Minter Thing.
From: Gareth Davies <xrb56@dial.pipex.com>
Date: 1997/12/16
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.atari
Okay, here goes. I know some asshole is going to take personal offence to
this so let me say at the start that Jeff Minter has produced some
incredible games - I'll blow sunshine up the great man's ass when it's due;
still here's a very critical bashing - don't read on if you're too precious
to accept it for what it is - *just* my opinions.
First, he's been there from (almost) the very beginning - Vic20 to Jaguar.
This is an achievement in itself. But what has he been there with? Most of
his early games were Vid Kidz inspired Centipede rip-offs or, with name and
graphic changes, copies of other peoples creations - Gridrunner, Matric,
TurboFlex, Attack of the Mutant Camels................. (The two exceptions
are the incredibly playable Hovver Bover and the incredibly fun Colour
Space/Psychadelia - old ideas never die, they live again on the Jag!
There's nothing necessarily wrong with this. Indeed, at the time when most
software companies/one man bands were creating Pac-Man and Scramble clones
Jeff Minter was filling a gap in the home computer market - bringing
'sphincter tightening' action in to peoples homes. There were some great
games - I played Vic-20 Matrix last week on a real Vic-20. The term
incredible doesn't do justice to it - it terms of playability, and even
sound, it has a lot in common with Tempest 2000 (yes, I know it doesn't
have the music.) There were some real stinkers though - Vic-20 Deffenda was
so substandard it should never have seen the light of day. It was so bugged
as to be unplayable and when Williams - for some reason - put their foot
down it was re-released as the equally unplayable Andes Attack. I could -
and did - do better myself.
The genius of Jeff Minter lay mainly in clever marketing - pushing an
instantly recognisable and interesting icon, the Llama and hippy. It also
rested in game design in the most general sense: ideas. As programs most of
Minter's work was *very* simple - it had to be to fit into a 3 1/2 K VIC-
20!! But it was also *very* formulaic - again, there's nothing necessarily
wrong with this; it was the Llamasoft trademark and, unarguably, it worked.
But there were programmers at the time who were pushing the boundaries of
the 8 bit machines. Paul Woakes, another one man band, through Mercenary -
and the data disks - for Atari and C64 created what was an entirely new
gaming experience. In terms of marketing, the data disks were also a new
arrival. My opinion of Jeff Minter as a programmer took a nose dive when I
read a magazine interview with him in which he explained why Revenge of the
Mutant Camels was not possible on the Atari XL: the Atari XL didn't have as
many sprites/PM graphics as the C64. I had never heard that explanation as
a reason for a programmer's inability to port a C64 game to Atari XL!
My point is this: to put it bluntly as a programmer Minter is limited and
*very* overrated. His creations for the Atari ST suggest that he never
really made the transition, **as a one man band**, from 8 to 16 bit
programmer (just my opinion remember!) The atrociously unplayable ST
version of Revenge of the Mutant Camels was an insult - an insult because
it attempted to prick the shareware conscience. Llamatron was/is an
incredible ST game - no less incredible for being a *very* simple piece of
programming. The extremely playable, retro, ST version of Defender harked
back to the old ideas - nothing technically impressive; just plain old
Defender. It wasn't a huge success and achieved only mediocre review
scores. It was perhaps unfortunate that it was released as the ST was well
and truly on the wane. As a comparison Paul Woakes seemed to make the
transition more easily with his technically impressive 16 bit version of
Mercenary - Damocles.
On to the Jaguar. Ironically, the success of Tempest 2000 says a lot about
what was wrong with the Jaguar, or more accurately, Atari's support for it.
I remember, in 1994, there being a lot of discussion in this group about
the limited nature of the Jaguar development system - it put too much of a
burden on developers to create there own development libraries; developers
didn't have enough experience with the Jaguar to create their own optimised
code - it would take time to learn how to program a multi-processor system
whose CPU wasn't really *the* CPU. (PlayStation developers have faced
simialr problems but have had time and support to create their own
libraries.) I also remember reading, in this group, the report of someone -
don't know who - who had been given an Atari guided tour of the Jag. Whilst
playing about with the software he managed to find some interesting looking
effects/development libraries which the Atari engineers hadn't shown him.
Immediately, the engineers interrupted him and asked him to stop what he
was doing. Jeff Minter replied in this group that those libraries were
development tools written by Atari engineers specifically for him. This is
interesting because it suggests that the creation of Tempest 2000 may have
relied heavily on a specialist development system not available to other
developers - similar to the mail-merge method of programming favoured by
many PlayStation developers?! This is, of course, speculation - NDA's mean
that we'll probably never know the truth but it does suggest that Atari had
some pretty effective development libraries which they were not prepared to
share with other developers. Given the poor software quality of the
standard Jag development kit and the difficulties faced by programmers
writing optimised Jag code, Atari's failure to share the tools is
incredible.
Anyway, back to "The Minter thing." Personally I was underwhelmed by
Tempest 2000 - and the PS version. Not really my type of game to be honest
although I can appreciate that it was/is an incredibly playable game and,
with the exception of Doom and Iron Soldier, probably the best Jaguar game
ever released. The point is that it shouldn't have been. It didn't offer
much new in terms of graphical effects - video feedback was the game's
fingerprint. Again, there's nothing wrong with this but it needs to be
pointed out that in terms of programming tricks things hadn't progressed
*much* since Atari XL Attack of the Mutant Camels. I'm not saying that
Tempest 2000 is a bad game; it isn't.
A couple of weeks ago I saw Defender 2000 for the first time. Surprise and
dissapointment. Surprise that Atari could have released such a lacklustre
game at the very time they needed to pull a rabbit out of the hat - the
change from CD format didn't help much; no multimedia "experience" then.
Dissapointment that, after all the hype, the 2000 version was basically
plain old Defender with parallax scrolling and that the original version
was nothing like, well, the *original* version.
I think Minter's involvement with Project X needs to be viewed against the
backdrop I've outlined. His main contribution should be as a games designer
- dealing with (limited) ideas - rather than as a games programmer. Perhaps
as a programmer managing a team of more technically accomplished
programmers? Certainly not as a one man band - that would spell disaster
for Project X. Competing against the pure genius of Namco and Nintendo's
Mr. Miyamoto (sic?) is a hard task - Minter, as a programmer, is quite
simply not up to it.
Gareth Davies.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: Re: The Minter Thing.
From: Scott Le Grand <varelse@bestSPAMMENOT.com>
Date: 1997/12/16
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.atari
It's de novo sphincter tearing time...
Gareth Davies opined
>Iron Soldier - another good game but a little slow; not quite up to the
>standard of the similar 32X game - can't remember the name. Not much
>texture mapping to be seen in it either - scenery is pretty bland.
>Still, as you say, playability is what counts - I don't suppose a 300 >ft
robot is very nippy!
Are you f'ing kidding me? Metal Head was a 32 bit disaster. It creaked at
5 fps, its t-mapping was sub-Wolf3D quality, and it simply wasn't any fun.
The only game on the 32X which I thought was worth its snuff was the vastly
underrated Shadow Squadron: the last really fun space game put out by the
entire industry IMO...
Iron Soldier is the >ONLY< mech game I've ever enjoyed because it's the
>ONLY< mech game that ever provided that Frankenstein Junior/Godzilla
thrill of running around in a 300 foot robot and beating up buildings with
your bare hands. Despite tens of millions of dollars spent on other mech
games across every conceivable platform, no other developer has hit on this
simple formula for success, not even the vastly overrated Miyamoto (checked
out Starfox 64? P U! I thought Argonaut had suffered an aneurism until I
found out the ugly truth)...
Which brings me to my main point...
>Anyway, back to "The Minter thing." Personally I was underwhelmed by
>Tempest 200 - and the PS version. Not really my type of game to be
>honest although I can appreciate that it was/is an incredibly playable
>game and, with the exception of Doom and Iron Soldier, probably the
>best Jaguar game ever released. The point is that it shouldn't have
>been. It didn't offer much new in terms of graphical effects - video
>feedback was the game's fingerprint.
The Playstation version is to Jaguar Tempest 2000 what Metalhead is to Iron
Soldier: an abortion. Even Minter said as much (who incidentally was not
even consulted as a playtester). The difference between the two editions
is exactly the difference between a lone genius hacking a videogame Mona
Lisa and game design by the suits at Interplay, the same Einsteins who
brought us Starfleet Academy and other "I'm not a bad game, I just play one
on your PC" blockbusters.
You freely admit it's not your kind of game. If Iron Soldier and Tempest
2000 are not your kind of game, I feel we have little common ground for
they are both in my top ten favorites of all time (In no particular order:
Rescue on Fractalus, Doom, Tempest 2000, Star Raiders, Iron Soldier,
Starfox, Street Fighter II, Discs of Tron, Stargate, Warcraft II).
Video feedback was a special effect used well in T2K, but the fingerprint
of a Minter game is the John Woo pacing: Much like anyone can make an
action flick and only John Woo can make excessive gunfire flow like ballet,
Minter's games are mind-altering onslaughts that have only been matched by
the likes of a much younger and now seemingly burned out Eugene Jarvis.
Yeah, Minter has made some stinkers along the way: nobody's perfect, but
when he's on target, he's a god from whom any aspiring designer can
learn...
What I'd really like to see is Minter try his hands at the FPS genre...
Scott Le Grand
Lead Coder
4Play
Who has realized to his dismay that he really doesn't have a clear favorite
videogame for 1997: this was the year of buggy software starting with
Diablo all the way to Quake 2. What a lousy graphics-obsessed year...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Subject: Re: The Minter Thing.
From: rjung@netcom.com (Robert A. Jung)
Date: 1997/12/17
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.atari
You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I think you miss the point
-- the reason a lot of people (especially Atarians[*]) like Jeff Minter's
work is BECAUSE he stays rooted in the past. While other people are
experimenting with first-person exploration graphical clicking multimedia
whoosis, Minter builds his games on the gameplaying foundations of the
"Golden Age" of video games, the simple and dynamic interplay of a few
basic rules.
A Minter game is not about using the newest texture-mapped subroutine to
make a realist-looking cave and populating it with lifelike figures, it's
about creating a game that blots out needless distraction, grabs your
attention, and doesn't let go until you wake up from a pixel-blasting daze
hours later. Nifty sights and sounds are nice, sure, but the most
important thing behind Jeff's titles is the gameplay itself.
You don't play a Minter game because you want state-of-the-art eye candy;
you play a Minter game because you want to recapture the lighting-fast
adrenaline rush that you used to get with ASTEROIDS or JOUST...
(* = Long-time Atarians tend to be big Minter fans, IMO, because we grew up
with this kind of uncomplicated gameplay. I suspect that fans of Jeff's
games snap up those "Classics" emulations like cookies. I know I do... B-)
--R.J.
B-)
////////////////////////////////////|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Send whatevers to rjung@netcom.com | If it has pixels, I'm for it.
------------------------------------+----------------------------Lynx up!
"You weren't chosen because you are the best pilot in the Air Force. You
were chosen because you are the class clown and frankly, you're
expendable."
---- Visit Rob on the web! ------ http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/ -----
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Unfinished Games/Hyper Image
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 1/17/98 10:0 from ad35-240.arl.compuserve.com (Doug Engel)
Subject: RE: RE: MORE strange Jaguar rumors... That may be true...!
>None of those sound like games totally done to me, with
>the exception of Brett Hull Hockey. I don't MKIII was far
>along,
I'm not sure it was even STARTED.
>although Thea Realm Fighters MIGHT have been,
It was bout 25% done.
> phaze zero was but needed missions to be added,
>although everything else was done.
No it was not. All that was done was the game engine and a mission briefing
screen. There were a couple of out-game screens done too, but they were low
quality and looked like placeholders. The game-engine itself was nice to
look at, but crashed very often. The engine seemed very incomplete, not
only due to the fact that it crashed, but also because it had the variety
of a game of tic-tac-toe. There were 5 or 6 levels done (but I could only
see 4 of them because that's the farthest I could get in 5 minutes between
crashes once I mastered the first levels). ALL of the levels were identical
except the landscape colors and terrain were different (big deal). The
missions all started with some text telling you to rescue some downed pilot
or pick up a spy or something like that. So, you'd fly around these maps
shooting the same enemy ships until you found the same little pilot figure
(which was the same image even if it were a man or woman you were supposed
to rescue) and then the level would end. Whoopee.
The game had a lot of promise, but it was only about 50% done when Magic
Arts...er.... Hyper-Image started getting money from Atari for it which
they could spend on their Saturn Game development. Once that happened, then
work stopped on the game.
> Highlanders were probably not far along, as
>it seemed the first one still needed some tweeking.
Possibly.
>Games that probably were done include Skyhammer,
I have heard this one was finished enough for release.
>Arena Football,
Don't know.
>Soulstar,
Possibly. No info on this one either has surfaced.
>and maybe a couple others. Most still had some or a lot of work left.
>I wonder how far Legions of the Undead was along (it was a redone AVP
>engine which would included angled ceilings and a higher framerate)
I don't think it was very far along.
Thunderbird
4Play
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Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 1/17/98 12:12 from ad35-240.arl.compuserve.com (Doug Engel)
Subject: RE: Hyper Image
>I thought they were doing PlayStation game development.
>I remembered seeing them mentioned on a list of
>third-party developers that was flashed on a PlayStation
>promotional video back in 1995, just as the PlayStation
>was being released. So they were doing a Saturn game,
>too? Interesting.
No. You have it out of sequence.
They took the advance on royalties from Atari and used that to become
Saturn Developers. THEN they took the advance on royalties from THAT
project and used it to become a PSX developer. I'm not sure how much money
they have squandered without producing a single complete (or near complete)
product. The ironic thing is that honest people who WANT to develop games
can't get funding, while these guys can (even with their reputation).
>Do you know what game(s) they were working on? Did that
>Saturn game ever get released, or did it suffer the same
>fate as Phase Zero?
My understanding is that they have yet to finish a project. I think Scott
has more info on what they were doing.
Thunderbird
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 1/17/98 12:34 from pool044-max2.mpop3-ca-us.dialup.
earthlink.net (Mark Santora)
Subject: RE: Hyper Image
> Did that Saturn game ever get released, or did it suffer the same
> fate as Phase Zero?
>
>Sal Manfredonia (hysteria@gti.net)
The shmucks at Hyper Image/Magic Arts have NEVER relased ANY GAMES on any
platform. They've gotten MILLIONS of dollars and never produced scrap one.
Sure, I've got Phase Zero for the Jag, it's a pretty good engine, too bad
the gameplay isn't all that interesting. And their space shooter for the
PSX is in limbo (another year of "Development" down the tubes). Did I
mention they fired one of the original team for "creative differences?" I
have no respect for those guys, especially with all the bashing they did
over/at Atari in their last days.
-Mark "Stingray" Santora
santora@earthlink.net
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Jaguar Interactive
Date received: 1/17/98 13:18 from dynamic53.pm02.san-jose.best.com (Scott
Le Grand)
Subject: RE: RE: Hyper Image
Don't forget to mention that the guy they fired is the one who initially
funded them from the money he made from the auto accident he was in which
cost him his spleen. Can you get any lower than this?
Scott
--==--==--==--==--
|| BattleSphere News
|| By: Scott Le Grand and Mark Santora
\__// legrand@tesla.mbi.ucla.edu, santora@earthlink.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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//// BattleSphere Countdown
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[from Scott Le Grand's Official BattleSphere Countdown page <http://www.
best.com/~varelse/sphere.html>.]
Last updated 1/16/98
There are now:
*** 2 ***
coding days to the completion of Battle Sphere.
Here's what I have left to do in those 2 days:
General stuff
1. Final Music Assignment
What am I doing right now?
10/26/97 - Alright, I'm breaking my own rules. Battle Sphere has been in
playtesting for the past 3 weeks. It's still not out of the woods yet
though. We've found tons of strange ways to cheat AAtE (well Doug mostly,
I'm much too predictable a player), a few bizarro crash bugs (which get
harder and harder to isolate as they become rarer and rarer), and some just
plain dumb mistakes. I thought you guys deserved to know what's up with us
when I noticed that it's been 3 weeks since I last said anything.
11/12/97 - Was off on a mission the weekend of 11/7 and returned with a
nasty fever and 13 new bugs. Killed six of them last night, know how to
kill 4 more, and need to think about the remaining 3. They're getting
really niggly now which is good because that means the game's stable enough
for Doug and Mark to actually notice such things. I'm still REALLY stumped
about one of them though...
11/23/97 - We've been through two drafts of the game code since the last
update and we've managed to find bugs in each edition. A new edition was
sent out tonight: we will see what comes of it.
12/01/97 - Astute observers will notice that an item just disappeared from
the to-do list. While we are still waiting on the final soundtrack, all 10+
Easter Eggs are now activated in their final form. That's the good news.
The bad news is that we have a weird controller lockup in BattleSphere mode
that needs to be fixed and by now you know what that means about the
countdown ARRRRGH! During a lull this weekend, I wrote up Rev 0.01 or so of
the Win95 graphics engine. Our ships look pretty good under OpenGL, but
specular highlights really suck and I'm not quite sure why (Darklight
Conflict has them and they look pretty good there). I was starting to
investigate this when BAM in came the BattleSphere bug which is tonight's
nightmare.
12/04/97 - Just a program note, BattleSphere is now 358,758 lines of code.
The biggest program I ever worked on before this topped off at about 40,000
lines. Anyway, I think this helps explains why the damned thing has taken
so long. Last summer, we were at 157,000 lines or so. In other areas, drunk
drivers really really really deserve to die. Thomas Rodman, who had been
waiting patiently for BattleSphere's release, was killed by a drunk driver
on Thanksgiving. I am angry, sad, and depressed about this senseless random
death. A car is a lethal weapon. Why do we not treat drunk driving like
discharging a firearm in a crowd?
12/15/97 - OK, Steph went to the hospital last Friday and was out that
evening, boy was that a scare! Meanwhile, there are some dangling threads
left, but things are finally coming to a close (assuming a little problem
we encountered with Doug's Jags involving the networking of 3+ players is
just his hardware and not a game issue). When Steph gives us the final
soundtrack, the above final list item will be removed and the clock finally
moves down to 2 coding days. Between playtesting the thing, I'm studying
the state of the art of polyhedron detail management and collision
detection, real-time physics, and network optimization. We got a lot right
in this Jaguar game well ahead of its time and some of its algorithms will
survive intact into the PC edition. In fact, we used some tricks the id
guys didn't discover until Quake 2. Hopefully, the schedule for PC Sphere
will be a lot shorter so we're still ahead of the curve by the time we
release the thing. Who knows? I do know that it's getting really tough to
do these things right as the demands for realism increase (I could kvetch
for an hour about Quake 2, but since they did an incredible job on the
graphics engine and we haven't even shipped our first game I think I'll
just shut up now :-)). What's promising is that the game mags are starting
to catch on at last about what a bunch of stinkers the space games of the
past 2 years have been and how it's time for someone new to enter the
genre. Now if only we can get some funding...
1/16/98 - The EEROM hardware issues have been resolved, we are setting up
the final configuration and await only the final soundtrack. The game has
been in playtesting for 3 months now and very few bugs were found after the
initial avalanche. We are closing up and preparing for production. That
will be a whole new adventure. Oh yeah, the problem with networking
mentioned a month ago had to do with one of Doug's TVs giving off lots of
RF and messing with the network cables. This may turn out to give some
grief to people going for 8 console networks, but it works for us, so it
can work for you, too. We've never seen this happen with 2 player networks.
Expect a tongue-in-cheek section in the manual on ambitious BattleSphere
networks...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// BattleSphere Playtester's Report
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[from Mark Santora's BattleSphere Playtester's Page <http://home.earthlink.
net/~santora/playtstb.html>]
//// The October 1997 Report
THE PLOT
In the future, an intergalactic war is about to break out. Eight different
races were set to fight until they controlled the galaxy. But in a brief
moment of intelligence, the races agreed to save the galaxy from being
ravaged by war. They did this by placing their best pilots in an enclosed
area of space to fight until one remained. Which ever race that was, would
rule the galaxy. Here lies the plot for Battlesphere.
So, it's been about three months since my last report and a lot has
happened. So let me see where to start....
ALONE AGAINST THE EMPIRES
The mode has quickly progressed from early prototype to finished play mode.
I'm not going to repeat what I've said here previously about the playmodes
- check the previous reports at the bottom of the page.
In a galaxy of 64 sectors you command your forces to protect your starbases
from incoming forces. You can order the forces to any sector (although only
one "set" of forces may occupy a sector at a time). A good idea is to have
them sit on the starbases and wait for the bad guys to come try to destroy
them. Of course you can make them intercept incoming forces. However, you
have a limited number of friendly forces - use them wisely.
Depending on the skill level (Trainee, Recruit, Pilot, Ace, Destroyer,
Starfighter, and Starkiller), your hyperspace jumps will range from easy to
hard. It takes quite a bit of use to get the hyperspace controls accurate
in the advanced levels.
Other options include the ability to either have or not have friendly
forces (say you want to go it alone - a really stupid idea), the type of
ship (Fighter to Supership), and if you want one race or all of them to
come in and kick your ass. Either way it's just as fun.
Support is now in for the ProController (THANK GOD!). Yes, doing 3D moves
is now a breeze thanks to the "advanced" controller from Atari. As for the
modified Gravis joystick from DKG, I don't know how the game will play with
it. I mean I know the joystick is solid and well built (Gravis did design
the thing), but BattleSphere is a very fast game and you can't exactly stop
the game to pick up the joypad to find the button to switch your weapons
(which by the way is not set up as A, B, or C). While BattleSphere could be
fun to play with a joystick, I don't foresee any joystick adding to the
game. If you don't own a ProController, go buy one - you'll need it.
Unlike the Gauntlet mode, the enemy vessels in AAtE do not attack in
squadrons. So the feel of this mode is closer to Free for All than any
other of the playmodes. However, it is designed (with the obvious nod to
Star Raiders) as more of a combination of the Gauntlet modes (defend your
starbases) and the Free for All (general gameplay design). This is a great
one-player game.
NETWORKING
Unfortunately, I only have two Jags right now. That third one is just
sitting at Kay Bee waiting for me to come into $40. Anyway, with the two I
have - an original Jag from 1993 (Motorola chipset) and a developer Jag - I
have tested Battlesphere with the JagLink. I do not have two CatBoxes.
Anyway, for those out there who only want to have two Jags for BattleSphere
and don't want to drop $140 for two CatBoxes, the JagLink works just fine.
It plugs into the port next to the video card so you can run your SVideo-
A/V modes and network. I haven't played the BattleSphere mode yet. But that
will come soon enough.
THE BATTLE SPHERE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO - TAKE 2
Well, with the original video completed, I thought my job was done. But NO!
The 4Play team felt that the interview footage was a bit obtrusive, so they
asked me to put another together. So, I have completed the next "script"
and am starting to gather footage and lay down the floorplan as you will in
Premiere. I expect this edition to run under 8 minutes as the original ran
in at just over 9.
This video will show off all the gameplay modes, not just general shots of
the Free for All mode, which is what graced the original video. Now there
are just gameplay shots, and I think the 4Play team and others who see it
will enjoy it more. One of the 30-second spots I created for it can be
found at the GameSpot site. It also features original music by Stephanie
Wukovitz (wife to Mr. Scott Le Grand and 4Play member).
Well, that about does it for now. More as more of the bugs disappear and we
get into production of the cartridge.
//// The November 1997 Report
MINOR UPDATE
We've had a few recent additions to the wonderful game I like to call
BattleSphere, and I'll quickly tell you about them.
First, we have now added the Wingman Control to the game. It allows you to
send a friendly fighter to attack or protect an object. For example, should
you point your wingman at a starbase, he will protect it. If you point him
at a fighter, he will engage it. This helps a lot at the higher skill
levels in Alone Against the Empires as you don't always have to wait at the
starbases for them to come to you. The activation button is 0 on the
keypad.
Second, Doug has gone and changed the weapons and hull integrity
indicators. They look more polished now. I think people will like them. It
doesn't make that much difference, but it looks nicer.
Aside from that, we've found all types of assorted bugs and stuff. Most
things that don't make a big difference. I hope to put a few screenshots of
my own up soon.
--Mark "Stingray" Santora
--==--==--==--==--
|| Llatest from Llamaland
|| By: Jeff "Yak" Minter
\__// net.yak@yak.net
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[All of the following postings are taken from Jeff Minter's web page, Yak's
Zoo <http://www.magicnet.net/~yak/zoo.html>. Check it out, and see what
else Jeff has yakked up lately.]
//// 7 Nov 1997
Well, I finally made it - I am now officially a Welsh git again :-). Jeez,
it has taken some time though - I haven't updated for ages, mainly because
it just didn't feel right to do so while I was still in transition-mode.
The whole process took rather longer than I had hoped - it started out
quite well, with me taking a 10-day trip to Wales in search of new abodes
in August as soon as I had delagged from the flight back... I trucked
around, viewing various abodes, most of them entirely unsuitable in one way
or another, until I found the one I was looking for. During that time I
found out that I really don't like the modern houses around here that much
- sure, nice cozy bungalows abound, but somehow they lack any kind of a
nice feel, at least to me. I like a place with a bit of character.
Anyway, after tooling around in a hired ship for a few days, drinking beer
and having chips and curry, I came across a rather nice gaff - built around
a 200-year-old shepherd's cottage (appropriately enough), but with various
outbuildings having been merged with it over time. My workroom, hugely
appropriately, used to be a 5-stall cow barn :-). The place is set in some
rather nice formal gardens (which I will have to hire a gardener to
maintain, since I am no gardener meself and they are rather too nice to
just stick a goat on and forget about) - and surrounded by some 6 acres of
very nice fields - plenty of room for Flossie to come home, and also to add
a goat or two and a few llamas, too :-)
Of course, finding the place was just the start. Then I had to sort out a
mortgage, which took ages, with lots of faffing around; then I had to wait
while the legal stuff was all sorted, and then I had to wait some more
while the present incumbent in turn found a place to go to. I finally got
in here only last Monday. Since then the place has been crawling with
workdudes doing various bits of necessary spiffing-up, and my furniture
only arrived yesterday, thank you so very much bloody British customs, who
insisted on delaying my shipment and poking their nose into it for no
apparent reason for a week. Jeez. So I finally get to be sitting in front
of my computer actually at a desk again and in a position to chill out and
do an update. Ironically I only get a few hours to finally enjoy it, since
I have to immediately bugger off back to the US for a couple of weeks -
Project X has reached supercritical stage and I need to go back there to
come up to speed on the latest developments.
Things are looking very cool X-wize, and if you have been reading Next Gen
or Edge you may well know a bit more about it than before. The feline
entity is slowly but surely emerging from the bag. I am very glad it has
finally reached this stage, and you can expect to be hearing a lot more
about us in the very near future. Secrecy mode is finally ending, and soon
I'll actually be able to show off some of the fruits of our labours over
the last year and a half. I don't think you will be disappointed :-)
Other stuff that has occurred in the interim - I bought a new ship (or at
least a not-that-used one), a Toyota RAV4 - not quite as sporty as the Red
Ship, but considerably more suited to rural life in Wales, where the roads
can get a bit iffy in the winter and where all your mates live down shitty
tracks; and where you might have to stick a goat in the back on occasion.
I also upgraded my computer, so now I have a nice spankin' P-II 300 with
all the bells and whistles, and a mighty fine box it is too, and no
mistake. Everything in my emulator collection runs at full framerate, with
zero exceptions. Llovely.
Speaking of my emulators, if you haven't taken a download of MAME recently,
you should definitely do so. MAME is rapidly shaping up to be just about
the only coin-op emulator you will ever need. It currently runs over 200
of the old games, including such classics as Star Wars, all the old
Williams classics, you name it! the mouse driver on Star Wars needs a bit
of a seeing-to - at the moment there is acceleration coded in, which makes
control a bit dodgy, I reckon (I know that it is possible to play Star Wars
well with a mouse, since I became very proficient at the the excellent
Atari ST version many moons ago). I have also been renewing my Robotron
addiction, as I am wont to do every few months or so, and attaining
considerable proficiency at the little-known sequel to Robotron, Blaster.
There has also been an update to the PC-Engine emulator which allows it to
run CD-ROMS (I haven't tried this out yet, but once I have a bit more time
I certainly shall, since I anticipate spending a few hours reacquainting
myself with the joys of Super Wonder Boy in Monster Land :-). The
emulation is so good now that if you turn on Scan Lines mode then for all
intents and purposes you are playing a PC-Engine. The lads came round the
other weekend and we spent the time getting mildly intoxicated and playing
lots of Devil Crash and Alien Crush, just like old times. Cool.
I also bought a UK N64 - since I am going to be living here now it helps if
I can buy local games rather than having to import from the US, and
besides, my US system was in my shipment, and judging by the amount of time
they took, was probably being enjoyed by all the guys at whatever Customs
place my stuff came in at. I've been playing Extreme-G, the Wipeout-
wannabe from Acclaim for N64. I am not sure it is quite as classy as
Wipeout, and the choons certainly aren't anywhere near as good, but the
game is good fun and the tracks are interesting, featuring all kinds of
weird loops and gravity inversions. It also supports simultaneous play by
up to 4 players, which I look forward to checking out when the lads come
around again. A great game, but I am still waiting to see what the big N
come up with when F-Zero 64 is released...
Well, that's about it for this time - I will do more extensive updating
when I get back from the US and I can really settle in. You can expect
many good things to emerge from the Cow Barn in the future :-)
//// 7 Dec 97
The End of Exile
If one stares at a map of the UK for long enough and partakes of reasonable
quantities of Arcturan Narco-Weed, then the shape of the country can be
seen to resemble, of all things, an old lady riding on a pig. Cornwall is
the pig's front trotter, Norfolk is, some would say appropriately enough,
the pig's arse; and the head of the pig, on the west of the sceptred isle,
is Wales.
A gentle rain falls, as it usually does, on the green hills and valleys of
the principality. It moistens many pubs and many churches; it falls on the
heads of people on the way to the chip shop in Newcastle Emlyn; it drizzles
mildly onto late-night drinkers emerging unsteadily from late-night
sessions in many a country pub. The gentle rain falls onto many, many
bleating ovine entities, rendering them pleasantly aromatic; for Wales has
the highest sheep density of any country in the world.
Somewhere in West Wales, the rain falls onto six green acres upon which
stands an old shepherd's cottage, with what used to be a cow barn attached
to it. The lights are on in the cow barn, and there is the sound of techno
music coming from within.
If you were to enter the cottage, the first thing you would see would be a
life-sized sheep-shaped stool and a one-fourth-scale Highland cow on wheels
in the entrance lobby. If you were to open the door and go into the cow
barn, you would see:
In the corner of the room, a Dell Pentium II-300 PC next to a desk upon
which is a large monitor, a keyboard, some speakers, a power supply and a
naked circuit board with glowing LEDs. A small plush cow sits on one of
the speakers; a small plush llama on the other. Cables snake from the
circuit board to the PC and to a large Sony wide-screen telly against one
of the walls. There is a large, plush goat standing on top of the
monitor. There is a 2-foot-high plush dromedary camel standing on top of
the telly; on its hump sprawls a somewhat smaller and rather stoned-looking
additional plush camel. Next to the telly on the left is a stereo; there
is a medium-sized plush dromedary camel standing on it. To the right of
the telly is a speaker; there is, as I am sure you have come to expect, a
small plush camel standing on the speaker.
To the left of the stereo is a wooden cabinet containing two Nintendo 64s
(one US, one UK); a PlayStation, a Saturn, a 3D0, and a shitload of games.
Joysticks and controllers lie in profusion in front of the cabinet, and a
bunch of cables snake out of the back off towards the big telly. To the
left of the cabinet is the other speaker; a somewhat confused-looking plush
goat stands on the speaker.
On the other side of the room, facing the telly, is a couch and an
armchair. In front of these are two tables. On one of the tables, there
is a mug that recently contained a cup of tea, three remote controls, a
green Nintendo 64 controller with rumble pack attachment, a packet of fags
and three copies of New Scientist. The other table is mostly filled by a
large, seated, plush Bactrian camel.
In the corner, there is a massive CD collection and a big pile of Red Dwarf
videotapes. On the walls there are some pictures: one of a cow, three of
llamas, three of individual sheep and one of a flock of sheep, and, above
the fireplace, a framed picture of a herd of camels.
On the screen of the big Sony, the beginnings of a new videogame are
displayed. The image is unusual; for there are no visible pixels.
Yak is home.
My, but it's taken a while to get here though... but hey, it's worth it :-)
I left the US on the 22nd of August, and spent the next few days de-
lagging, drinking lager and eating curry, a deep necessity to restore the
dangerous lack of proper British Vindaloo sauce in my metabolism, a non-
trivial condition resulting from too long spent in Foreign Parts. Once the
curry balance was safely restored, I hired a ship and headed off up to
Wales, with the intention of crashing at an obliging mate's for a few days
and searching for places that the Prettiest Sheep in the World and the Yak
might happily live peacefully. I traveled hither and yon and whatever is
beyond yon, examining a multitude of places, most of which were not quite
right in a number of ways - some were too new and had no character, some
had neighbours close by who would not be best chuffed to have some hairy
oik staying up all hours cranking techno and indulging in sheep for a
neighbour. Some were too small, some didn't have enough room for the
Prettiest One, and many were just way too far from the pub.
I was not disheartened; I went on searching, drinking beer and having
occasional curries (just to be on the safe side). And eventually, sitting
in a chip shop on Lammas St in Carmarthen (almost a supremely excellently-
named street, that - I am sorely tempted to go out there one night with
some paint and fix the spelling) - anyway, sitting in that chip shop,
reading through piles of estate agent's bumf, I spotted this really nice
place - or at least I read about it, for although there was a picture it
was very blurry, and anyway, as we all know, estate agents use special
reality-distorting cameras, which make even the tattiest old hovel look
lovely and which can magically make a gaff surrounded closely by houses on
all sides appear to be standing in splendid isolation in idyllic
countryside. I was fully expecting that when I went to visit I would find
yet another unsuitable place and that it would probably be next door to a
particularly busy bus-station.
Nonetheless, I thought, finishing my chips, it's probably worth a look; so
I leaped into the hired ship and tootled off in the general direction
indicated by the estate agent's directions. After an initial amount of
automotive faffing around during which I missed the place entirely, I found
it and was pleasantly surprised - nice land, stables even, and a really
nice gaff surrounded by some cool gardens. I was greeted by the little old
lady who was selling the place, and the first thing she said to me was
"It's under three offers already".
Bugger! thought I.
Still, since I was there, I thought I'd better have a butcher's anyway, and
it became apparent that this was by far the best gaff I had seen. Nice
cottage, a bit bigger than when I lived in Wales before - I could stand up
in all the rooms and walk through doorways without risk of smashing my
brains out, always a bonus. And this big room that was a converted 5-stall
cow barn that just had "Media Room" written all over it. Two bathrooms,
useful for when the lads come to visit (coz that bastard Mark always hogs
the bathroom. God knows what he gets up
to in there). One of the
bathrooms even has one of those things in it for washing your arse - not
that I have ever used one, but for a habitual curry-eater, who knows, one
day it might come in useful... Nice land, stables, pretty back field with
a tree in it and a gate that I could just see Flossie waiting at for the
morning Digestive, and room enough for plenty of other furry ungulates.
Not too far from the pub. Not too close to the village. Just right, in
fact.
And, as it turned out, none of the other interested parties (one of whom
was some Icelandic diplomat, apparently) actually had the wonga ready to
hand, being as they were all caught up in the dreaded House Buying Chain.
Since I had no house to sell, if I could organise financing smartish, there
was every chance that I could nip to the head of the queue and nab the
place out from under their respective noses. I envisioned this happening,
and imagined the Icelandic cursing that would undoubtedly ensue under those
circumstances, and decided to give it a shot. All I had to do was sort the
mortgage and get in there, hire a solicitor, and it'd be done and dusted in
a couple of weeks. Sorted.
Hah!
Fat chance mate.
It's never quite that simple, is it?
I went to the bank and went to see the mortgage dude, an amiable-enough
Welsh gentleman who amused me by trying to pronounce my email address
"llamaman" like it was a Welsh place name, and we began the initial round
of paperwork filling in forms about filling in forms, which I hoped would
result in being granted permission to actually apply for a mortgage. They
needed information from America, which is, helpfully enough, more or less
perfectly out of sync with the British business day. And it was bank
holiday in America too, so a few days got wasted there.
Then, once the possibility of maybe being granted a mortgage is arrived at,
the mortgage people have to hire a surveyor to go in there and basically
tell them that the place is not going to fall down. There is then a wait
until said surveyor actually gets his act together and goes in (he didn't
go one day, apparently, because "it was raining". It's Wales! Of course
it's raining! That guy probably only does ten day's work a year! hehe).
And then, bless his little cotton hoof-coverings, the surveyor decides to
recommend that the bank not grant the full mortgage until some work is done
on the roof and some damp-proofing on a couple of the walls. Joy.
This means that I now have to arrange and send in my own round of
surveyors, to assess how much the work is going to cost, which takes
another couple of weeks, and the little old lady is getting very pissed off
with all these people coming in and is making noises about the Icelandic
dude. I can feel his Nordic breath breathing down my neck, but he still
isn't ready, so the process carries on.
Finally, after my guys are done, the bank send their person in again (and
the little old lady is doing her nut) and, lo and behold, he decides that
it isn't as bad as all that after all, and there is no need to withhold the
mortgage! Two weeks of faffing about that was totally unnecessary! Oh
well - at least it's sorted now, and we can advance to the next level,
which is actually applying for the mortgage. More forms, and then head
Office decide they need more information from America (actually they
already had a letter signed by the CEO containing the info they needed, but
it wasn't actually addressed to the specific guy who was dealing with it
and was therefore, apparently invalid). Eventually - oh joy! I am granted
a mortgage.
But still, it's not over. Now I have financing, but there is still a bunch
of legal jiggery-pokery, the actual conveyancing, that needs to be done,
and until this is completed, one of the other dudes could still get in
there and snatch the place out from under my bovine nose, which would
definitely provoke a protracted fit of colourful swearing in darkest
hexadecimal. I have to sit and sweat it for another month or so, fretting
and eating extra amounts of super-strength chicken Vindaloo and drinking
more lager to keep my strength and spirits up. The deeds get lost and have
to be found again. The present occupier is unable to name a definite
completion date. I wait. I hope. I eat curry.
Finally, getting on for three months after I left the US, I move in.
Unfortunately, my furniture does not, since although it has been in the
country for a couple of weeks, those lovely people at UK Customs had
decided to waylay my shipment and poke their official noses into every nook
and cranny, searching for Ghu alone knows what; so my first few days in my
new abode are spent sitting on the floor by day and sleeping on a leaky
lilo at night. Finally on a Friday a large truck arrives with my stuff,
which the Customs dudes have finally decided contains nothing nefarious.
Fine - except that on the Saturday, I had to leave for the US...
So, it's only really in the last couple of weeks that I have actually been
able to live in the new house; and for the first few days it was fairly
chaotic, with nothing in place and much stuff still lying around in
cardboard boxes. But now, looking around the Cow Barn and its
accouterments, it finally feels like I am home. And, after the last few
months, I certainly don't intend to move again in the forseeable future. I
have a nice gaff, room for plenty of beasties, and an amazingly wicked
system to write games on. Tomorrow I am going to see a fencing dude and
have him fix up the back field, and shortly after I shall be reunited with
the Prettiest Sheep in the World. Soon there will be a pinball machine in
the entrance lobby along with the cow and the sheep. And next weekend the
lads are coming up for the inaugural Welsh Weekend - a good hearty piss-up
and mega games playing session, hopefully the first of many.
I know I've found a good space, a place where I can create wicked games,
play lots of Robotron X and Top Gear Rally, get off it with my mates on
occasion, watch East Enders, listen to music at all hours, eat takeaway
Chicken Vindaloo, and be with many beasties. There will be llamas here,
real ones, not plushies.
YaK is in his lair, and all's right with the world :-)
//// 10 Jan 98
Apologiez for no updates for a few weeks - I have been a'bustin' my buns to
get a (very early) demo of my first Project X game ready for CES, where it
is now, along with various other bits of X-ish niceness, being shown to
privileged, fortunate souls who have been invited to see what we've been up
to all this time. After not a few late nights, several gallons of tea, and
much swearing and cursing at the keyboard of my Penty I came up with
something that I think looks well tasty, not bad for about 4 weeks of work,
and which has no pixels at all. You can move your player around on the
playing surface and blow away a large herd of enemies into rather sweet-
looking clouds of translucent particle thingies, and it looks particularly
nice with the lights off and some kool techno music playing, as any game of
mine should :-). It's proving very difficult to slow the X-beast down. I
keep chucking in stuff that requires a totally ludicrous amount of number
crunching and bit-twiddling and the bugger just refuses to get slowed to a
crawl. This is really nice, and the opposite of what usually happens when
you get onto a new system - you get all fired up about how cool the new
system is going to be and dream up all this wonderful stuff you're going to
do, then discover that there are some serious bottlenecks you'd not
anticipated and end up having to let go of some of your more outrageous
ideas to keep the frame rate up. With X, I'm getting more or less exactly
the performance I had been expecting, and I know I'll be able to shovel in
the tons of enemies and wicked-o FX that I had been imagining, and it'll
keep up with my vision. It's already doing a mind-numbing amount of stuff
and having got the demo together in a hurry, it's nowhere near optimized
yet. There's still a ton of slack in the system - I am probably not even
using up 50 percent of the capacity as it stands. This is very reassuring,
not to mention exciting - when I think of the coolness and extreme niceity
I'll be able to put into even the tiniest details, it just makes me slaver
:-). Always before, one had to trade off on beauty to keep up the speed.
With X, one can afford to err on the side of beauty. I like it, lots :-)
I'm still enjoying my new Welsh status, and breaking the Cow Barn in with
lots of mega coding sessions and games of San Francisco Rush on the old
Ninty 64. I bought the game when I was out in the US at the end of
November, and it has proved to be a favourite with just about everyone who
played it - when the lads came over the other weekend the session turned
into what was basically a non-stop SFR-a-thon. There are definitely better-
looking driving games on the Ninty, and at first when you play it you get
the distinct impression that the cars just don't steer as much as they
should do, but once you learn the tracks and get used to the idea that you
need to slack off the accelerator a bit at times and learn the proper line
to cut off the corners and keep your speed up, you soon start getting into
it. SFR chucks any attempt at realism firmly in the bin and comes down
solidly on the side of pure fun. This is particularly evident in the fact
that you actually spend almost as much time in the air as you do driving
along the road - drive over the slightest hump in the road and you'll lift
off; drive quickly over the crest of a hill and you launch into an amazing,
vertiginous leap that is as exhilarating as it is unrealistic. Line up your
takeoff wrong and there is plenty of scope for somersaulting madly out of
control or ploughing into the side of a large building, usually resulting
in a large fireball. There is also scope for pulling off some totally
ludicrous jammy survivals - launch into the air, spin end-over-end a few
times, and then find that you have landed safely on top of a building a
couple of hundred feet up in the air! The tracks contain numerous shortcuts
and hidden things, and you can play them forwards or backwards and
mirrored, which adds a bit to the game's longevity. The drivers of the
other cars are, as they should be, complete bastards, and think nothing of
ramming you into the side of a building at 130MPH. They are not infallible
though, and it's satisfying to be flying down some huge hill and see the
fireballs of a couple of your opponents burning away on the ground where
they cocked it up and ploughed in. Definitely a game that falls squarely
into the "good laff" school of gameplay, and a good one to get out when
your mates come around.
It's been racing game mania time on the N64 recently, and I also picked up
"Extreme G" and "Top Gear Rally" - the former is a Wipeout-wannabe which I
would consider excellent if I hadn't already seen Wipeout XL. As it is,
it's a nice enough game, very pretty, with some cool undulating tracks that
certainly look better than those on Wipeout, but the gameplay just isn't
quite as polished and satisfying as that in WOXL. Fun, and worth a look if
you don't have a PS as well as a Ninty, but I am still drooling away
waiting for the release of what is now going to be called "F-Zero X" on the
N64 (ironic, really, how the trend is to call games [something] X - F-Zero
X, Robotron X, and (hehe - very ironic really) Tempest X :-))...
Top Gear Rally is fun in a totally different way - it attempts to be more
of a simulator than the others, and it requires quite a bit of diligent
practice before you get the hang of how to powerslide the car around the
corners. You have to play really carefully, because basically, if you have
a serious crash, you're buggered. You almost always end up facing the wrong
way, and by the time you've pootled around thrashing about doing N-point
turns to get your car facing the right way again, you might as well just
hit Restart, because the chances of winning are just about zero. Especially
when you get the more powerful cars, you just can't afford to hold down the
throttle and expect to survive - you won't. I've played up to the point
where the first Snow track occurs, but I haven't finished that one yet, I'm
just all over the place and haven't had the time to put in the extra
practice I'll need to have a chance of winning that one. Not a bad game,
but definitely one you'll need to put some time and effort into to get the
most out of.
I also picked up "Diddy Kong Racing", and while I think it's a fun game, I
can't seem to build up the enthusiasm for it that many people seem to.
Sure, it's a very fun kart game with the addition of a couple of other
vehicles - the little planes are fun - but for me, it's nothing to rave
about - the tracks are numerous but short, and it's good fun but nothing
that I haven't played before, really. Maybe I'm just all Kart'ed out, I
dunno.
On the emulator front, I have been enjoying a couple of the latest console
emulators - Genecyst is a cool Genesis/Megadrive emulator, and SNES9X and
ZSNES are rather good SNES replicators, and they all run at full speed on
this Penty. I had a visit from a mate of mine recently who happened to have
with him a couple of CD-ROMS full of game images for the Megadrive and
SNES, so, of course, as it's of dubious legality, I definitely did not
offload them onto my capacious hard drive, thereby saving myself an awful
lot of downloading time. Trawling through them it becomes apparent how
badly the 16-bit scene got stagnated towards the end of its days - no end
of mediocre run-jump-and-collect games that are instantly forgettable and
which really haven't withstood the test of time at all well. There are some
classics that are worth playing though - original F-Zero, of course, on the
SNES, and the Mario games; and it's kind of nice to have all your Sonics in
one place for a quick go on the Megadrive, when the urge strikes you.
There has just been a major new release of the ultimate coin-op emulator,
MAME, which is now up to version 0.30 and supports a mind-boggling array of
classic coin-ops. Indeed, I have decided to start up a new section, Yak's
Picks of MAME, where I shall be reviewing my favourites from the giant herd
of coin-op games that MAME supports. If you don't have it, go and get it
immediately. If you have any love at all of games, MAME is a must-have, and
now that original Tempest and most of the Williams games are faithfully
emulated and free of bugs, worth the download if only so you can worship at
the shrines of Theurer and Jarvis.
1998 looks like being a good gaming year, what with the upcoming release of
F-Zero X (hehe) and, as I read in the latest Edge, a couple of potentially
great updates of some old classics - in particular, two games that I have
often wondered why nobody got around to updating them because they were
both firmly ahead of their time when first released. These games are
Sentinel, which Geoff Crammond originally wrote one day back in the 80's
when he had a mental aberration and decided not to do a racing game - the
result was a marvelous, weird and spooky game unlike any other that I look
forward to playing again; and (hallelujah!) Virus, which was known as Zarch
on the Archimedes, where it originated. Virus is basically a cross between
Thrust and Defender in 3D. Slated by some on account of it taking more than
thirty seconds to learn to fly the ship, which looked like a flying
Northerner's flat cap, if you put in the practice and learned to fly
successfully, Virus was an excellent 3D blaster. Reaching the point of
being able to handle yourself in a dogfight with a great herd of nasty
Mutants and emerge victorious was deep videogame joy. The graphics were
good for their time, although they would be considered plain and overtly
polygonal today, back then polygons were shiny and new, and the game looked
quite impressive, moving fluidly and having some tidy particle effects to
boot. Doubtless in Virus 2000 (for this is what the new game will be
called) the graphics will be llovely, and they have modified the control of
the ship to make it easier for those wimps who didn't have the male
reproductive spheroids or the tapered transparent cylindrical liquid
container to handle the learning curve of the original game. Should be very
cool.
Of course, the game I am most eagerly looking forward to is the one that is
taking shape on my little Sony monitor :-)
Now that my demo is safely in the bag, I can get down to the serious
business of properly settling in here - I haven't really done much at all
except code since I got my arse in the door here, and now I can get back to
a more sane work pace, I can allow myself the occasional evening to sort
out something important - namely, establishing myself in a decent drinking-
establishment. There are a few pubs around here, none of which are as close
as the Fox used to be in my old place, but there are a few within walking
distance (if you don't mind a bit of exercise). One has the reputation of
being a bit rough, which I am not sure would suit me, since I am a non-
pugilistic geek who values the continued occupancy of his teeth in his
head. One has the reputation of being a bit strange, in that they
apparently will not serve you if they don't like you, and getting to be a
regular there is a bit like joining the Freemasons, you have to be invited
and then they have to not loathe you. I haven't been there yet, although
apparently there is somebody willing to "propose" me, so I will reserve
judgement there until I have been and decided whether or not I like them.
There is a third pub which I have been to a few times, which is nice but
which involves a stiff walk along a section of road that is a bit scary -
it's the main road from Carmarthen to Lampeter, and the bit I have to walk
down is twisty with no edges to speak of, and the cars zip past at an
alarming rate. I think I will have to invest in some luminous armbands like
cyclists wear if I decide to go down there, which will make me look a
proper prat I am sure, but not so much of a prat as I would look splattered
all over somebody's vehicle with my spleen flying through the air. Anyway,
if you see some long haired sheepish-looking git who looks a bit of a prat
wearing luminous armbands when you are driving down the Lampeter road,
please give him a wide berth or that Project X game might never get
finished!
--==--==--==--==--
|| Mini-Review: Iron Soldier 2 cart
|| By: Clay Halliwell
\__// halliwee@ts436.dyess.af.mil
-----------------------------------------------------------------
In late December, Telegames released their limited edition cartridge
version of Iron Soldier 2. This review only touches on the differences
between this version and the CD release. For a full review, see JEO Vol.1,
#2.
IS2 cart comes in the same packaging as IS2 CD, except the "CD" sticker is
absent from the box (as it also was from the first, CD-R run of IS2). The
cartridge itself is a standard, yet strangely heavy, Jag cartridge case,
with a small silver-gray label.
Surprisingly little was sacrificed in the transition from 600+ megabyte CD
to 2-megabyte cartridge. All the FMV is gone (no great loss), as is the in-
game music (a rather more significant loss). Everywhere that FMV existed
in the CD version, still images from the FMV have taken their place.
Interestingly, the stills are from the source renders of the FMV, instead
of the CinePak-mangled versions we've seen before. After months of playing
IS2 CD, it's startling to see how sharp and detailed the uncompressed
images are.
As for the music, while all in-game tunes are gone, there's still a song
that plays during the menu screens. This was chip-generated even on the CD
version, and remains so. One oddity... even though there is no in-game
music, you can still adjust the music volume while paused. Overall, the
loss of in-game music is unfortunate, but not crippling. IS players are
known for turning off the in-game music anyway... it gives the game more of
a "sim" feel.
In addition to the excised music and video, the cart drops the number of
save-game slots down from 10 to 4. This is still much better than IS1,
which only supported a single saved game.
That's basically it. No music, no video, and fewer save slots. Other than
that, IS2 cart is 100% identical to IS2 CD, and well-worth owning if you
don't have a CD player. Even if you do own a CD player, you might consider
picking it up so you can still play IS2 years from now after your CD player
has gone out of alignment (assuming you're paranoid about that sort of
thing...).
A final note... to reach the break-even point on their production run,
Telegames manufactured slightly more IS2 cartridges than they received pre-
orders for. So if you'd like to pick up a copy of this rarity, you might
still be able to.
//// Final Ratings
Title: Iron Soldier 2 JagNet: No
Design: Eclipse Players: 1
Published by: Telegames Media: 16 megabit cart
Retail: $69.95 Availability: NOW - LIMITED
A Summary of Ratings:
"*" is a whole
"+" is a half
5 stars maximum
Graphics - ***** Lots of texturing at a smooth frame rate.
Audio - **** No in-game music, but we're used to that, right?
Control - ***** Same as IS1. A bit of a learning curve, but gets
the job done.
Gameplay - ***** A near-perfect mix of strategy and reflexes.
Overall - ***** A must-have for Jaggers without CD players.
Key to Clay's ratings
(a Swiss Army state of mind)
***** - The Knife
**** - Bottle Opener
*** - Nail File
** - Corkscrew
* - Toothpick Holder
--==--==--==--==--
|| The Voice Modem FAQ
|| By: Patrick and Carl Forhan
\__// pforhan@cs.truman.edu, forhan@midas.millcomm.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Buried Treasure: A Look at the Jaguar Voice Modem
Forward by Carl Forhan
JVM FAQ by Patrick Forhan
My brother and I found an opportunity to acquire some Jaguar Voice Modems in
1997. We've mostly kept this knowledge to ourselves, but have now decided to
share the info we've learned about this extremely rare unreleased peripheral.
To that end, Patrick has assembled the unofficial Jaguar Voice Modem FAQ,
included below.
Atari seemed to have the right idea in mind with the Lynx and Jaguar, by
enabling networking capabilities for their game consoles. In the Jag's case,
however, Atari eventually ignored networking beyond the buggy DOOM, and
(apparently) only Ultra Vortek included VM support.
The VM does away with the common complaints around console networking -- too
much trouble to lug around consoles and TVs, takes too much space, etc. It
also makes you wonder how much work it would've taken to make the Jag a cheap
internet machine (not that that did a lot for Saturn sales, mind you).
I've enjoyed the VM so far. Pat and I tried it on many evenings when he was
living in Rochester, and most of our connections were a blast. I also have
tried to get the modem to work with other games rumored to have VM support,
such as Iron Soldier II, but no success yet.
So enjoy this FAQ on the elusive but most definitely existent Jaguar Voice
Modem.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Atari Jaguar Voice Modem (JVM) FAQ
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Authored by:
Patrick Forhan (pforhan@cs.truman.edu)
Latest version located at:
http://cs-sun1.truman.edu/~pforhan/jvmfaq.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We've all heard about it... some of us have dreamed about it. But we've always
been told to think as if it doesn't exist. What is it?
The Jaguar Voice Modem!
------------------------------
1. Does it really exist?
Yes!!! There are a couple sites out there on the internet with photographs of
them. Check at the Atari Headquarters <http://www.atarihq.com> in the Jaguar &
Lynx Museum section. Also, see the Atari Prototypes and Vaporware site
<http://www.atari.nu> for a picture and brief description.
------------------------------
2. How many exist?
Sources indicate that fewer than 100 exist.
------------------------------
3. Who are some people that own one?
1. Carl Forhan forhan@millcomm.com
2. Patrick Forhan pforhan@cs.truman.edu
3. Curt Vendel cvendel@aol.com
------------------------------
4. What games work with it?
As of this writing, only Ultra Vortek. Type "911" on the keypad during the
title screen, and the program will attempt to initialize the modem. Only if
you have one, though, can you proceed. But the background and lettering you
see there are the ones used in all the modem screens.
Note that various rumors exist that, for example, Iron Soldier 2 supports the
JVM. While this has not been tested exhaustively, it seems to be very
doubtful.
Of course, one can always dream that more games using it will come
out...
------------------------------
5. How does UV play and handle with the modem?
After initializing the modem, a menu comes up:
Answer Phone
Dial Opponent
Exit
The usual UV music plays in the background. Should you chose "Dial Opponent",
you will be presented with some further prompts, telling you to enter a
number. Using the keypad, you may enter up to 16 numbers, stars, pounds, or
pauses. "A" dials the current number (which also is an available menu
selection), "B" inserts a pause (a 1.5 second wait, sometimes needed at the
beginning of the dial string, to allow the modem to properly take the line
off-hook), "C" backspaces the number, to correct mistakes.
The "Answer Phone" option immediately picks up the phone and initiates
handshaking, regardless of whether it is a person or a modem calling. If the
modem does not get a reverse of the same dial tone sequence in response, it
simply leaves the connection up. This way you can talk, and explain why you
just did that to the person
Note: Since the handshaking starts with a simple series of dial tones,
selecting this function when the phone is not ringing is treated as a dial
out. Fortunately, I believe it starts with the equivalent of "9", so it will
not make a long distance call. I think.
After connection, a menu very similar (lacking, I think, the single-player
option; adding a hang-up option) to the turbo-enabled single-console version
appears. From this point onward, it acts as if there were simply two players
on one console (except for modem-specific messages, like "Connection Lost").
Each player can Pause, move about, etc., as if they were on one Jag and one
TV.
Read on for more details of UV + modem.
------------------------------
6. At what speeds does it run?
The official specifications name five different speeds: 19200, 16800, 14400,
12000, 9600. However, UV most often connects at 16800, 19200, or 9600 (in that
order). Primary difference among the three is quality of voice.
------------------------------
7. Does it work well? How reliable is it? How often does it lose its
connection?
It does work. And it works moderately well. Only at its very worst performance
do you even notice anything like "lag" on the internet, or, in other words,
slowdowns in gameplay. Usually, it does extremely well.
However, its reliability seems to be heavily dependent upon the quality of the
phone lines of your city. There are reports of extended long play, over long
distance, even. My experience has been mixed.
Interestingly, connecting at a higher rate (19200) is not necessarily better
than at a lower one. For instance, the most stable experience can be had at
16800, and, at least in Rochester, Minnesota, this is the most common connect
speed. We had no problems at this speed.
At 19200, the connection seems particularly unstable, sometimes even hanging
up on the spur of the moment. The voice is clearest here, of course, but the
gameplay will frequently slow to a crawl, sometimes recovering, sometimes not.
I suspect that the modem is having some kind of difficulty if a line suddenly
goes bad. Similar problems seem to occur when connections are on the low end,
too.
Looking at the documentation, it seems that the software can request a speed.
Perhaps this could allow for more consistent connections when the highest
speeds are either not needed or not stable.
------------------------------
8. How does the voice sound?
The voice is always understandable, even at the lowest speeds. Of course, the
quality goes down as the data connect rate goes down. This is especially
noticeable at 9600, where voice sounds especially tinny. Sample rates are
always less than 8000/second (see Technical Specs), for those of you who have
played with sound cards...
Of course, there are some problems. It may just be our (admittedly kinda
cheap) microphone headsets, but there seems to be some kind of echo effect
feedback. If only one microphone is hooked up, there seems to be no problem.
But if you have two, and you talk too loudly, you will get a loud scream in
your ear. This usually subsides within a second or so. Two ways to work around
this: keep the headphone off your ear, or talk quietly!
Of course, when you beat somebody up (like you tend to do in UV) it is hard
not to gloat loudly.
------------------------------
9. Can you play without headphones and a microphone?
Absolutely. But believe me, you will be missing out on a lot. There is
nothing like the gurgles and cries of a dying friend. Of course, you save
yourself from some of the loud mishaps that happen from time to time (see
Sound).
Please note here that if only one person has a microphone plugged in, that
person is liable to say some pretty crazy things... I guess they just get
lonely... after all, the only way they know if anyone is listening is when
they see someone lop off their head on the game!
------------------------------
10. Is it documented?
Yes, it is. The official Jaguar Development System specifications include an
entire "Jaguar Voice Modem" section. The section is 22 pages long, and
contains a lot of text, tables, flowcharts, and a command reference. Below I
have included some of them.
------------------------------
11. What are the technical specifications?
Technically, there are a lot of these.
* Voice data is compressed, then sent over the phone lines.
* Game data packets are actually inserted into the voice data. That is, they
interrupt the voice data stream, which serves "to keep transport latency to an
absolute minimum." The way I take that is to say that any time-critical data
will arrive when you expect, since it pre-empts voice data, not the other way
around.
* The following is an interesting table detailing voice vs. data bytes-per-
second. Note the huge increase in data BPS for 19200... could this be the root
of the connection problems for UV at this speed?
+-------+-------+-------+------+-------+--------+---------+----------+
| Line | Total | Voice | Voice| Voice | Voice | Voice | Remaining|
| speed | bytes | sample| data | packet| headers| bytes | bytes |
| | per | rate | rate | size | | per | per |
| | second| | | | | second | second |
+-------+-------+-------+------+-------+--------+---------+----------+
| 19200 | 2400 | 7200 | 1800 | 80 | 22.5 | 1822.5 | 577.5 |
| 16800 | 2100 | 6800 | 1700 | 80 | 21.25 | 1721.25 | 378.75 |
| 14400 | 1800 | 5600 | 1400 | 80 | 17.5 | 1417.5 | 382.5 |
| 12000 | 1500 | 4400 | 1100 | 80 | 13.75 | 1113.75 | 386.25 |
| 9600 | 1200 | 3200 | 800 | 80 | 10 | 810 | 390 |
+-------+-------+-------+------+-------+--------+---------+----------+
* Other tables give information about such things as data packet size, error
control information, etc. Mail me if you want me to put those up.
* The specifications allow for call waiting to only pause games, not disrupt
them. I do not have it (since my computer is not so smart), so it has not been
tested.
* The line speed can be set by software -- in other words, a slower, more
steady rate can be chosen, one that is not as prone to line errors and hang-
ups.
* The "magic" dial tone sequence is not specified. This means, likely, that
different games should have different sequences, so that they do not try to
connect to one another.
* A fully-functional telephone can be made in software, with the existing
command set.
------------------------------
12. What kind of chips and stuff are on the board?
I'll only list the biggest/most interesting looking things, since there seem
to be one to two hundred components on the board. And I'm not much on chips
and stuff, so these are just guesses of the chip numbers/names...
* Label:
(c) 1995 ATARI CORPORATION ASSY 700118
ATARI JAGUAR MODEM ASSY REV 9 (written in)
* 2 chips by Phylon: 1x 0115 P-2 , 1x 0202
* 3 identical chips by Motorola (I assume-- looks like (c) only with
an 'M'...): MCM6206DJ20-RQQAA9521
Okay, that's enough... If anyone really wants to know... get your own! Or,
just write me!
------------------------------
13. What sorts of inputs and outputs are on the modem?
There are a bunch of cables/jacks/switches/lights:
* Jacks:
1. Power in jack -- Accepts the standard Jaguar power plug. You divert
the power cable that normally goes into the back of your Jaguar to
provide power to the modem. This is labeled "POWER SOCKET" on the
modem board.
2. Wall jack -- Accepts the standard (RJ-11) phone cable, coming from
the wall. This jack is on the right when you are facing the side
with the jacks. This is labeled "TELEPHONE JACK" on the modem board.
3. Phone jack -- Accepts the standard (RJ-11) phone cable, going to the
phone. This jack is on the left when you are facing the side with the
phone jacks. This is labeled "CN1A" on the modem board.
4. Headphone jack -- Accepts a standard 1/8th inch plug, for headphones.
Headphones with volume control on the cable are highly recommended,
since the output level is quite loud. This jack is on the right when
you are facing the side with the 1/8th inch jacks. This is labeled
"HEAD PHONE JACK" on the modem board.
5. Microphone jack -- Accepts a standard 1/8th inch plug, for a non-
powered, electret (I think) microphone. This jack is on the left when
you are facing the side with the 1/8th inch jacks. This is labeled
"MICROPHONE JACK" on the modem board.
* Cables:
1. DSP cable -- Plugs into the DSP slot on the back of the Jaguar(where
the JagLink goes). This is a shielded cable, with molded plastic
connector, that looks just like the JagLink connection. The base of
the cable is labeled "D.S.P." on the modem board.
2. Power out cable -- Plugs into the power jack on the back of the
Jaguar. The cable that normally goes here is diverted to the "Power
in jack"; see above. This is a shielded cable that appears almost
identical to the standard power cable. The plastic casing of the plug
has two flat sides, as opposed to the round casing of the standard
cable. The base of the cable is labeled "POWER" on the modem board.
3. "Pass-thru" cable -- Apparently, this is another audio out. It is a
shielded cable, ending in a standard 1/8th inch plug. I haven't tried
this yet. The base of the cable is labeled "AUDIO PASS-THRU" on the
modem board.
* Switches and Indicators:
1. Power switch -- Just the run of the mill push on, push off button.
This is labeled "POWER SWITCH" on the modem board.
2. Power indicator -- A red LED that lights when the power button is
"on". This is labeled "POWER L.E.D." on the modem board.
3. Data indicator -- A red LED that lights when data is being
transmitted. This LED is also lit when the modem is on, but the
Jaguar is off. This is labeled "TRAFFIC L.E.D." on the modem board.
End of FAQ
--==--==--==--==--
|| Temporary Sanity Travails
|| By: Damien M. Jones
\__// dmj@fractalus.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// tsd: A Year Ago
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
In January of 1995, Bryan Edewaard and I (Damien Jones) left our jobs in
Dallas, Texas and moved to Florida to start our own business, temporary
sanity designs. Our intent was to write a game for the PC - after all,
since everybody else seemed to be doing such a lousy job of it, we could do
it and maybe make a bit of cash in the process.
For several months we worked on a fast 3D polygon engine, although without
a final goal firmly in mind we didn't get too far (then). In April, we got
the idea that maybe we could do something for Atari's game console, the
Jaguar. This was Atari's attempt to get back into the game console market -
the market they had once dominated with the Atari 2600. Both Bryan and I
had experience with Atari computers in the past, and we were somewhat
familiar with the company.
//// The 2600
What we suggested to Atari was that maybe somebody should write an emulator
for the Jaguar that would run the original games from the 2600 on the
Jaguar - sort of like Activision's 2600 Action Pack for Windows. We
suggested that that somebody be us. We told them one of us (Bryan) had
already written a 6502 CPU emulator (for the Atari ST), so half the work
was already done.
Atari seemed to like the idea, but they weren't too sure about us. After
all, when a company with a name like temporary sanity designs sends you a
project proposal, asking for money and a free development system (we sure
couldn't afford $8,000 for a Jaguar development kit), you're inclined to
treat the whole thing with a bit of skepticism. They asked for a little
"demonstration" that we could produce something.
This presented something of a problem for us, because while Bryan had
written a 6502 CPU emulator, he'd sort of, well, lost the source code to
it. We didn't have it, Atari wanted a demo in fairly short order, and we
didn't want to waste a lot of development time writing a demo for Atari
computers that would be useless on the Jaguar. But we did, in fact, produce
a working demo of the game Combat running on an Atari TT computer. It
wasn't 100%, but it was Combat.
Atari (or at least, the person we'd been dealing with) was impressed. They
sent out a Jaguar development system on loan for sixty days. We had that
long to produce enough of a working demo to show that the entire project
was feasible. Keep in mind, neither Bryan nor I had ever seen programming
details for the Jaguar (they're covered by NDA).
Not only had we never programmed the Jaguar before, but writing an emulator
is a difficult task. (Our demo of Combat was, shall I say, very specific to
Combat.) One of the reasons an emulator is so hard to write, particularly
when dealing with the 2600, is that so much of the program has to be fully
working before you see anything on the screen. Virtually the entire 6502
CPU emulator, and a large part of the custom hardware emulator, must be
written and fully debugged before anything intelligible appears.
To make things even more fun, the 2600 produces video one scanline at a
time. Computers of today produce video one frame at a time. That is, even
if the CPU does absolutely nothing, the video hardware will draw a full
screen image. The CPU only needs to get involved if there needs to be some
change from one frame to the next. The 2600 can only generate one line by
itself. If something is to be different between one screen line and the
next, the CPU needs to change data in the video hardware. Because of this
tight coupling between the CPU and the display, the slightest mistake in
the CPU emulator immediately affects what appears on the screen.
I mention this, only so you will understand how technically difficult
writing a 2600 emulator is. We had a mere 60 days to produce "evidence"
that the project was feasible. Our work was definitely cut out for us.
//// The Emulator
We started out by first learning the Jaguar system. To do this, we wrote a
Julia fractal morpher, that generated real-time Julia fractals. (Kind of
like our JuliaSaver program.) This took us through the weaknesses of the
68000 CPU, the RISC processors, the blitter, and the display processor.
After three weeks, the Julia morpher was done, and we felt like we had
learned a lot about the Jaguar. But that left us with only five weeks to do
something about the emulator.
We put our nose to the grindstone, so to speak. We cranked out an amazing
amount of code. We discovered technical difficulties - some that threatened
the viability of the entire project. We overcame. We finished the 6502/6507
emulator, running on a single RISC processor, a tiny 4K program, and it ran
faster than the 2600's CPU. To make it work, we had to count cycles, trim
instruction sizes, and take massive shortcuts. I'm pretty sure we could
write the fastest 6502 emulator for almost any platform, now.
But that was just the CPU emulator. We still had the hardware emulator to
do, and little more than a week to go before our deadline. This was harder,
because not only did we have to deal with what hardware was being accessed,
but also when the program accessed it. It was difficult, and we missed our
deadline by a week, but we had a 50% working hardware emulator done. We had
a display. We had 2600 games running on the Jaguar!
Relieved, we put the Julia morpher on the program as a title screen, added
a simple menu to let you choose which game to run (Combat, Pac-Man, Yars'
Revenge, Adventure, Berzerk, and Defender), and sent it off to Atari.
//// The Run-Around
They loved it. They really did. At first, they thought the Julia morpher
was a compressed animation, like a QuickTime movie. We patiently explained
that no, it was generated in real time, and if they twiddled with the
console's controller, they could control it themselves.
Then our problems started. Although they liked the demo, they didn't seem
terribly interested in signing a contract with us to finish the emulator.
We later learned that an Atari employee was working in-house on an emulator
of his own. Atari suggested if we had more ideas for games, we should send
them in. So we sort of put the emulator on the back burner and looked
around for other ideas.
In producing the emulator and the Julia morpher, we became quite aware of
some of the limitations the Jaguar had. The hardware was designed very
explicitly to produce Gouraud-shaded polygons and large numbers of sprites.
Although it could do texture-mapping, it wasn't very good at it and could
only do it slowly. We focused on ideas that we thought the Jaguar could do
well. But whenever we submitted an idea to Atari, they would delay for
weeks before telling us "yes" or "no". (They invariably said "no", of
course.)
Without a contract, we were reluctant to work on any serious Jaguar
products, including the emulator. If we had been writing for the PC, there
would have been other companies to sell the work to, but there weren't too
many companies in the Jaguar arena. And since the 2600 emulator sort of
needed Atari's library of games, it didn't make much sense to try to sell
it to somebody else.
We did produce a few other interesting little demos for the Jaguar, though.
Continuing along the fractal theme, we produced a fast IFS fractal morpher
and a Mandelbrot generator. IFS fractals are the "fern" and related types.
We did two of these; one generated 4,096 IFS points at about 20 frames per
second (fps), and the other generated 75,000+ IFS points at 8fps.
The Mandelbrot generator has a few interesting notes. Along with the Jaguar
development kit, Atari included an example program which used the RISC
processor to generate an image of the Mandelbrot set, 256x200 to 256
iterations. This program ran in about eight seconds. Our generator, using
only one RISC processor, generated a 320x480 image to 256 iterations in
five seconds, and we could have easily used both RISC chips. (Atari's code
could only use one.)
One other thing we did was interlacing. The Jaguar hardware is supposed to
support an interlaced display. Atari even claimed this in their advertising
material. Developers, though, were told not to use interlacing, and the
information on how to use it was removed from Jaguar programming material.
Apparently, there was some difficulty in the interlace hardware; it
generated "ugly color bars" or some such. Not knowing this (we somehow
missed the prohibition) we wrote interlace code anyway, which didn't
exhibit any artifacts. At first, Atari people refused to admit our demo was
using interlacing. They thought we were doing something else that only
looked like interlacing. When we told them how our demo worked, they
grudgingly admitted we were doing interlacing - and then refused to admit
that it worked.
We continued talking with Atari, sending them project ideas, for almost six
months. Our contact person left Atari (we don't think it was directly
related to us) and we never seemed to get anywhere after that. It always
seemed like we were just a week away from having a contract... Finally, in
January of 1997, after they'd laid off almost everyone, they told us they
were not accepting any new contracts.
//// Hope
At this point we weren't really sure what to do, so we sort of fumbled
around a bit, kind of half-heartedly working on our long-forgotten polygon
engine. But then an old acquaintance dropped by on vacation and talked to
us about a project he was thinking of doing. We liked the idea, and we
didn't have anything promising of our own (after a couple of months of
looking), so we agreed. And that's basically what we've been doing since
February of 1996. It's our big secret project that we can't talk about
(yet). But it's almost ready for release.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// tsd Today
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Neither I nor Bryan are currently engaged in any Jaguar development at all; we
do not even have the Alpine any more. We do not intend to work on any Jaguar
projects in the future (unless someone with a ton of money decides to pay us
up front for such work). We are working for ICD, but again, *we* are not
working on anything Jaguar-related. ICD and 4Play *are* still working on
BattleSphere, of course; we are not connected with that effort, and are doing
other things.
I don't want anyone to get their hopes up that maybe someone is working on a
2600 emulator. We did have a working emulator, running nine different games,
at very close to the speed of the original 2600 (it was hard to measure
exactly). (I say nine, even though the web page says six, because our first
demo contained three games; Jay Patton asked us to send a newer demo with more
games, so we did. I don't remember the first three games we included.) Many
parts of the emulator did not work, but due to the nature of the 2600, the
6507 CPU emulator must be almost completely finished and perfected before any
recognizable display can be seen. I'm fairly sure we have an Alpine image
somewhere, and of course we still have the source code. We also still have the
TT/Falcon demo of Combat on floppy, although I haven't checked that floppy in
years so it could be bad.
Atari never paid us for any of the work we did (we never signed a contract
with them). Nobody else has worked on our "Virtual VCS" code. I keep it
because I never throw *any* source code away. :) The current version of
BattleSphere does use the Julia fractal morpher code that I wrote to learn the
Jaguar system, and that appeared as a title screen to the Virtual VCS demo. We
also still have the source code to all the other demo programs we wrote for
the Jaguar (IFS morpher, Mandelbrot zoomer, interlace demo). We do have a demo
tape we made from this material, although it is inconvenient to make copies of
it.
--==--==--==--==--
|| BrainDead 13 Walkthrough
|| By: Clay Halliwell
\__// halliwee@ts436.dyess.af.mil
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Conventions:
L - Left
R - Right
U - Up
D - Down
F - Fire
* - Wait until previous action completed (assumed between scenes)
/ - Continue point within a scene if killed
Hallway: L / U / L
Conservatory: L, R, F, U, L
Hallway: L / L
Red Witch: U, R / *F, R, R / R, *D / R, *U / F, U, R, R, *F
Hallway: R
Vivi: U / *F, L /
(shave) F, R / *R
(manicure) U, L, U, R, L, U, L, R /
(facial) F / *F, L
Hallway: U / R
Blue Witch: U, L / *F, L, L, L *D / L, *U / F, U, L, L, *F
Hallway: R
Conservatory: R, L
Hallway: R
Bedroom: D, F, F, F, R
Library: D, U, R
Hallway: U
Garden: R, R / *U / L / L / L / L / *D / D / *R / *U, U
Statue:
(tiles) L, L, L, L /
(rim) *F, R, F, D / F, F, R / R, L, R, *F
(on statue) F, F, *R, *F, F
Hallway: L
Library: D, L, F, F, U, U
Bedroom: D, L, U
Hallway: L
Conservatory: L, R, F, U, L
Hallway: U
Moose: R / F, U, R, R / L, R, U, F, R /
(obstacle course) D, U, U, D, D, L, R, U /
(tower) *L, R / *U, L, *R, R
Hallway: L, U
Fritz Showdown: F
(1st flight) L, F, F, L /
(2nd flight) F, R, L, R /
(3rd flight) L, F /
(4th flight) *R, F, L, F, R /
(5th flight) *F, L, R, L / *R, F
Brain Chamber: L / R / R, *D, L, R, D, *F, *R, U, D, F, *D, F, F, F / *U
--==--==--==--==--
|| Ten Commandments of the Jaguar Owner
|| By: Jason Hill
\__// cougar@hotmail.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1. Thou shalt always get the Particle Laser.
2. Thou shalt brag to thy friends that you have AvP and they do not.
3. Thou shalt place a Jaguar bumper sticker proudly upon thy vehicle.
4. Thou shalt always use the A-10 Thunderbolt for ground missions and
the F-14 Tomcat for air attack missions.
5. Thou shalt accept the fact thy 1st-person shooters have no in-game
music.
6. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's Saturn, Playstation, nor N64.
7. Thou shalt spend $60 on a $40 game in the hopes it will save the
Jaguar's future.
8. Thou shalt mock those who paid 200 bucks for a next-gen system when
you got one for $50.
9. Thou shalt honor thy human victims by becoming visible before
killing them if thou wisheth to gain the Combi-Stick.
10. Thou shalt have no other programmers before Jeff Minter.
--==--==--==--==--
||
|| Shutdown ....................... Power off, * + #, EOL, Game Over
\__// -----------------------------------------------------------------
See ya when BattleSphere is out!
Buzzword Index:
Buzzword Occurrences
HTTP 42
Texture 3
Bug 17
Polygon 8
Render 4
Network 15
Useless Fact O' The Month: The box art for Lynx Gates of Zendocon is just a
retouched (and rotated 90 degrees) copy of the 2600 Asteroids box art.
Until the next issue of JEO, I remain,
Your Editor
Clay Halliwell
<halliwee@ts436.dyess.af.mil>
--==--==--==--==--
(This issue printed on recycled photons)
--==--==--==--==--
Take Control
--==--==--==--==--
How Hard is your Worm?
--==--==--==--==--
Where do you want to play Atari today?
--==--==--==--==--
Jaguar Explorer Online Magazine is a bidimensional publication covering the
Atari Jaguar community. Reprint permission is granted, unless otherwise
noted at the beginning of the article, to registered Atari user groups and
not for profit publications under the following terms only: articles must
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No issue of Jaguar Explorer Online Magazine may be included on any
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Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do not
necessarily reflect those of the staff, or of the publishers. All material
herein is believed accurate at the time of publishing. Just because you're
paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
--==--==--==--==--
Atari, 400/800, XL/XE, 2600, ST, Mega ST, STe, Mega STe, Atari Falcon030,
Blitter, Atari Lynx, ComLynx, Atari Panther, Atari Jaguar, AtariTel, Pong,
and the Atari Fuji Symbol are all trademarks or registered trademarks of
JTS Corporation. All other trademarks and identifying marks mentioned in
this issue belong to their respective owners.
--==--==--==--==--
Jaguar Explorer Online Magazine
"Your Source for Jaguar News"
Copyright (c) 1998, White Space Publishers
******
**
**
** **
****
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: J E O :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: Volume 2, Issue 1 JAGUAR EXPLORER ONLINE February 9, 1998 ::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
