Atari Explorer Online Vol 04 Iss 09 / Jan 1, 96
From: Fred Horvat (aa778@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 02/17/96-07:15:24 AM Z
From: aa778@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Fred Horvat)
Subject: Atari Explorer Online Vol 04 Iss 09 / Jan 1, 96
Date: Sat Feb 17 07:15:24 1996
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: Volume 4, Issue 9 ATARI EXPLORER ONLINE January 1, 1996 ::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: ::
:: ATARI .............. News, reviews, & solutions ............ ATARI ::
:: EXPLORER ............ for the online Atari .......... EXPLORER ::
:: ONLINE ................. Community .............. ONLINE ::
:: ::
:: Published and Copyright (c) 1993-1995 by Subspace Publishers ::
:: All Rights Reserved ::
:: """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ::
:: Publisher Emeritus ........................... Michael Lindsay ::
:: Editor/Publisher .................................. Travis Guy ::
:: Assistant Editor GEnie......................... Ron Robinson ::
:: Assistant Editor CompuServe................... Albert Dayes ::
:: Assistant Editor Internet.................. Timothy Wilson ::
:: Assistant Editor Delphi..................... Mark Santora ::
:: Unabashed Atariophile ............... Michael R. Burkley ::
:: User Group Coordinator ..................... Ron Whittam ::
:: 8-bit Editor ............................... John Hardie ::
:: Sunnyvale Editor ........................... Adam Urbano ::
:: UK Correspondent ........................... Iain Laskey ::
:: WWW Spinner ...............................Frans Keylard ::
:: ::
:: Contributors: ::
:: """"""""""""" ::
:: Bryan Edewaard, Clay Halliwell, ::
:: Damien M. Jones, Charles Wells, David A. Wright ::
:: ::
:: Telecommunicated to you via: ::
:: """""""""""""""""""""""""""" ::
:: GEnie: ST/JAGUAR RT Library 38 ::
:: CompuServe: ATARIGAMING Library 10, VIDGAME Library 15 ::
:: AOL: VIDEO GAMES FORUM Hints, Tips and Tricks II Library ::
:: Delphi: ATARI ADVANTAGE & WORLD OF VIDEO GAMES Libraries ::
:: Fnet: AEO Conference, Node 319 ::
:: AtariNet: AEO Conference, Node 51:1/10 ::
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:: Search gopherspace under "aeo" for back issues ::
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Table of Contents
* From the Editors ......................... A toll stop on the Infohighway.
* Preview: Fight For Life .............. Mark tries out a recent version of
this long-time-coming polyfighter.
* Fun 'N Games ........................... What the games magazines saw, at
last fall's game-in at Atari.
* EGM SuperTour ...................... How BattleSphere crashed the Burbank
stop on the gaming tour.
* Jaguar Tackboard ................... The latest Jaguar development list -
Jag PRs - SBO "Punisher" code.
* In The Pub ............................ Jaguar news from the UK, and Iain
is immortalized in silicon.
* NBA Jam TE ........................ "Jag's on Fire!" will be the cry when
this game hits the hot spot.
* Defender 2000 .................... Llock your doors. Llanders are coming!
AEO's exclusive review sizes up
Jeff Minter's latest Jag game.
* Battlemorph ............................... Those pesky Pernitians return
to do battle on Jaguar CD.
* Reprint: CatBox Review ................ A saucy little expansion box that
can spice up your Jaguar gaming.
* I-War ........................................ Another incarnation of the
CyberVirusWarGame theme.
* Pitfall the Mayan Adventure ............. Whips, snakes, an old felt hat.
Haven't we been here before?
* The Unabashed Atariophile .................... PD and Shareware files for
=your= Atari computer.
* Rare Gems .......................................... Quotes worth quoting.
* Developing News ............................. The New Current Notes
In-Touch
HP & Mustek Scanner Drivers
Afterburner040 & FalconFX
Catherine Wheel CD
* Shutdown ............................. Around the world and up your block.
--==--==--==--==--
||| From the Editors ........... Atari Explorer Online: Jaguar Voyagers
||| Travis Guy
/ | \ GEnie: AEO.MAG Delphi: AEO_MAG Internet: aeo.mag@genie.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Life exacts its own tolls in its own time, and your AEO staff has
certainly paid its small share over the previous two months - new
employment, a brief hospital visit, a cross-country move, a budding
romance, computer equipment failure, and in my own case, the past two
weeks recovering from my lower back's sudden refusal to bend despite
my insistance.
Of course there's the perks, like a flood of new Jaguar releases to
keep us busy writing. This issue of Atari Explorer Online is packed
with reviews and previews of just released (and of yet to be seen) Jag
games and new Atari computer files.
As for Jaguar games still off in the future, I can tell you right now
that Phase Zero and Skyhammer are looking very fine, but there'll be
more about them in the next issue... just as soon as I can get up and
around and off the medication. (Hence this shadow of an editorial.)
Please accept from the entire staff of AEO, our best wishes for you
and yours to have a safe and happy 1996!
Peace and Freedom for all.
--==--==--==--==--
||| Jaguar Preview - Fight For Life
||| By: Mark "Stingray" Santora
/ | \ GEnie: AEO.4 AOL: MrSantora
----------------------------------------------------------------
About a year ago, Atari made a big deal over hiring a member of Sega's
AM2 programming team. Francois Bertrand joined Atari as the head of
the AM1 (Atari Magic One) programming team. The first project for AM1
was a 3D fighter for the Jaguar, called Fight For Life.
FFL debuted at last year's E3 in a very early form. The models were
crude, the motion capture was jerky, and the textures really needed to
be redone, but it was still shaping up nicely, and the public was
looking forward to it. Move to this past fall, Atari announces that
FFL is on "Indefinite Hold." When pressed for what this means, Atari's
response is that FFL does not meet up to their new and improved gaming
standards. If the game ever did shape up to meet these criteria, then
Atari would release it.
Back in November, I started a new job with a production company in Los
Angeles. I joined them a few days after they finished shooting the
Atari Jaguar Infomercial (detailed elsewhere in this issue). In
post-production I was able to try out a few games that were still in
development, one of the most noteworthy cartridges was Fight For Life.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Revision 2
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Around the time of ECTS, a couple of shots from the revamped FFL
surfaced on the Internet. They showed improved texturemapping and
sharper imagery. Many of the 'netters quickly dubbed these shots,
"Fight For Life - Extreme." The only comment from Atari was that the
game still did not meet its standards and would not be released.
Then in November, Atari laid off a considerable amount of its
in-house development staff, including most of the AM1 crew. Francois
Bertrand was no longer at Atari and rumor had it that FFL would most
likely never see the light of day. Shortly after, Atari asked Francois
back into the fold to finish the game, and from all accounts, he has
done so, so FFL's final fate lies in the hands of Atari Test and
Atari's management. The preview copy I was able to play was dated
from the end of October, so it is by far, NOT the final word on the
Polyfighter That Wouldn't Die..
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// The Game
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The plot is pretty simple, you're dead and in Hell. Did I mention it's
hot there? The Devil and his son, Junior, have a little tournament -
they take a group of dead people and allow them to fight one another.
The winner of the tournament is given their life back, so I'd guess
that for Hell-based activities, it's fairly popular.
Each fighter starts with some very basic moves, and one or two special
moves. As you beat each opponent, you are given the ability to "steal"
two of their special moves. They then become part of your permanent
character, which is represented by a code entered on the character
selection screen.
While I never played an earlier edition of FFL, I did spend countless
hours in front of an editing system working on the AEO @ E3 video this
past summer, so I feel like I got to know it quite well. Then when I
started playing the October version of FFL, I was blown away. Before
I really get into this preview I want to stress again that this is a
-preview- copy from over two months ago.
Graphically, the new textures on the characters are very sharp. They
blend together well and share a style common to Tekken. It would
appear that the number of polygons in each character has been lowered
since its last public showing (I'm estimating), but if so, the
textures easily make up for that. A major fault I'm afraid I must find
is that the characters do not appear to be Gouraud shaded with a light
source. With this ability built into the Jaguar, its omission is quite
noticeable when compared to other games and other polygon engines.
The fighting area or "ring" is basically the same as all of the other
3D fighting games - it is comprised of pastel squares. It is something
that I hope will be elaborated on by the time the game is released.
However, one of the neat twists on the "ring out" option is that when
you hit the edge of the ring, you get electrified. It's not that gory,
but plumes of smoke emanating from each character would be a nice
touch....
The backgrounds are simple, flat looking bitmaps that wrap around the
ring. The game moves at a fairly decent clip, and I would estimate
that it averages about 24 frames per second. Even with the floating
camera, full 3D motion of the characters, and music, I have never seen
it drop below 21 fps.
As for the sound and music, it's average. There is a fully sampled
guitar riff that accompanies the title credits which is extremely
clear, but then we go back to the standard Euro-tinny in-game music.
Sound fx are also average. There are some voice samples in the game,
but they are sparse.
Now for the big one, control. Thankfully, FFL utilizes the
ProController to its limits. Although the original joypad is usable,
I suggest the ProController. The 4/6(L/R) shifts you left and right in
the 3D world. The 7,8,9(X,Y,Z) are extra punches and kicks. The joypad
works as you think it would, up is jump, down is crouch, left/right
move you left/right. In this version, the control is a bit rough. With
the continual playtesting and Atari's standards, I'm sure that this
game will easily be tweaked to perfection.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Fighting Stereotypes
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I've talked about the graphics, the sound, the control, so what's
left... comparisons. If you own a PlayStation or if you've played
Toshinden, which seems to be everyone's current benchmark, then you
will find FFL extremely rough. It does not have that glossy over-
produced feel that Toshinden has. I don't think that it would be
possible to have FFL come even close to Toshinden without a complete
rewrite of the main game engine and new artwork. But what about Virtua
Fighter on the Saturn? Right now, FFL does LOOK better than VF on the
Saturn, but it does not look as good as VF Remix. Remember though
that FFL is a four megabyte cartridge on a system whose design is
almost two years older than the Saturn and PlayStation. The Jaguar
also has considerable less RAM to work with.
What do I think of Fight For Life right now? I can see why Atari did
not want to release it just yet. It really wasn't ready. Is it ready
now? I hope so. I guess we are just going to have to wait until the
next word comes down from Atari on one of its more public internal
projects.
--==--==--==--==--
||| Fun 'N Games Deux
||| By: Adam Urbano
/ | \ GEnie: AEO.5 Internet: adamu@cue.com
---------------------------------------------------------------
Last June, Atari held a "Press Day", an event where all the members of
the videogaming press were invited to come to the corporate
headquarters and test some of Atari's newer offerings. This October,
Atari held another one of these shows, and will apparently continue to
hold them about once a quarter. If anyone remembers the concept behind
the last show, it is heralded as a "Fun 'N Games" day, in which the
first part of the day is hands on gaming at Atari, and the latter half
is spent at some non-videogaming activity. Last year the activity was
a trip to the local amusement park, Great America. This year, however,
Atari went all out and created an amazing presentation at The Magic
Edge, a local Flight Simulator. But first I'll explain the gaming
portion of the day.
The presentation started a little bit after nine o'clock in the
morning with a speech by Mr. Ted Hoff. The group present for the show
was small enough that Ted didn't even bother using the microphone
system that was set up. Nothing new was brought up during the speech,
Ted just did a quick overview of what Atari's plans for the future
were, including such items as which games they planned for a Christmas
release, and which ones were to be released on the P.C. Immediately
following this, Mr. Hoff pointed out the various Atari employees and
their occupations, and then the press was invited to go and play the
games. Most of the games had at least one programmer, producer or
tester standing by them in order to answer questions.
So, without further delay, the games:
Fever Pitch - This soccer game reminded me very much of some of the
""""""""""" Neo Geo's arcade soccer games. The graphics, play
mechanics, and style of play are very similar. For those of you that
haven't seen one of the arcade games, the action is sprite based, with
a very cartoony look, and a slightly angled perspective on the action.
The game is definitely not a sports "simulation", it is an arcade
game.
Each team has a star player that can perform special feats, such as
strikers who can shoot especially well, or players with extra speed.
Other options include an instant replay with options for reverse
angles and slow motion. This game can support up to four players with
the Team Tap.
Formula One Racing - (Name Will Change) This CD game was probably one
"""""""""""""""""" of the games I felt that had the most potential
of all the games at the show. After Atari's previous attempts at
racing games, (cough, cough, Checkered Flag, cough), I was anxious to
see what they did to improve on their track record. I was pleasantly
surprised to find this nicely texture mapped racer. The graphics are
very similar to something such as Indy Car Racing or NASCAR on the
P.C. Lots of polygons with fairly detailed texture maps covering
mostly everything. The game/graphics engine was quite impressive on
this one, with the only possible down side being the frame rate, which
is most likely a product of the game's earliness. Not to say that the
frame rate is anything like Checkered Flag, the game does run
smoothly, but with a game like this it is worth the nit-picking to
create a perfect product. The largest highlight of this game is the
number of tracks - 16 in all to choose from - and with 1 or 2 player
play, this game should have quite a lot of replay value.
Atari Karts - This game abounds with similarities to Mario Kart on
""""""""""" the SNES. The game's graphics are all very nice texture
maps that have a clean look to them with no pixilation. These texture
mapped grounds are complemented by gorgeous 16-bit parallax scrolling
backdrops. The graphics all scroll along at a perfect smooth-as-silk
framerate. Some of the various levels include a beach complete with
light-effect produced waves, desert stages, antarctic stages,
highways, castle stages, and an oriental stage. The games levels are
divided into various "cups" with a series the various backdrops in
each. There are four skill levels included and a two player
split-screen option.
SuperCross 3D - This is a texture-mapped motorcycle game that has the
""""""""""""" player racing through 14 stadiums, each containing a
different race course. The graphics on this one are very nice, with a
fully texture mapped ground and SGI rendered bikers. The various
courses are interesting, with various jumps of changing size and type,
from little bumps to multi-story drops. The player can even do mid-air
stunts off the jumps. The problem with this game is a sub-par
framerate. The game is rather slow and choppy, and to me that
contributes to poor gameplay. If that aspect can be fixed it will be
an incredible motorcycle game, far superior to the 32X attempt.
NBA JAM Tournament Edition - If any one game was the hit of the show,
"""""""""""""""""""""""""" this was definitely it. This one looks to
be every bit as good as the arcade game. The characters are absolutely
huge, and everything is animated very well. The Team Tap is even
supported for four player play. There really isn't much else that
needs to be said, just go look at the arcade game to see how this one
looks on the Jag. Slam this, EGM!
Phase Zero (a.k.a., Hover Hunter) - This great looking game highlights
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" the hardware potential of the
Jaguar. Using a graphics engine very similar to Commanche on the
PC, Hover Hunter creates a very realistic looking 3D universe. The
landscape is a detailed depiction of natural terrain, with riverbeds,
canyons, hills, and mountains. All of this flies by at a very smooth
15 frames per second. Some of the various areas the player will
encounter include mountains, deserts, the arctic, and a lava filled
fortress. The game has ten of these missions to complete, and each of
the landscapes is immense. Atari has the size of the 3D terrain listed
as "...equivalent in scale to a metropolitan city." and they certainly
don't appear to be exaggerating on this one. The control on this
hovercraft is very well done.
After seeing the initial response to the control in Hover Strike, the
designers have done a good job to make sure that the hovercraft in
this game is fun and easy to steer. The craft steers as if it were a
normal vehicle with friction acting upon it, but there is a certain
amount of "drifting" involved. It is similar to a car with bald tires
on wet pavement. This control scheme actually contributes to a lot of
the enjoyment. The game contains several great sounding options such
as Jaglink support and surround sound. Let's just hope that these
options make it into the final version.
Battlemorph - The sequel to Cybermorph made a showing, and was met
""""""""""" with a very positive response. Most of the concern that
people had with Cybermorph have been dealt with, and these changes
have made Battlemorph a much better game than the original. The basic
goal of the first game ("collect the pods") has been updated, and now
there are several very distinct mission types. These can be everything
from collect missions, to search and destroy missions. The variety is
a welcome and refreshing change from the first one. The graphics also
have taken a slight revamp. The game seems to sport more on-screen
polygons, and a much smoother frame rate. The original "popping" of
polygons onto the horizon is now a "blending" of polygons, with the
background slowly melting into view. The terrain is also more
elaborate, and the color schemes are more realistic. The underwater
section is absolutely stunning - the player merely drops the ship into
the water, and an instant transition to the undersea section is made.
The graphics become slightly distorted, the colors darker, and fish
float quickly by. The effect is very convincing. There really wasn't
much negative to say about this game, and the only people who disliked
it appeared to be the ones who just plain hated Cybermorph from the
beginning.
Baldies - This game uses a top-down perspective to create a vivid, if
""""""" not cartoony, world in which the player must build a society
to conquer the enemy. The player may choose from workers, builders,
soldiers and scientists to help him or her in the quest. This game
has an enormous amount of complexity behind the apparently simple
interface. For example, if you give the scientist a skunk, he may
create a stink bomb. Then, drop the skunk into an enemy house and the
enemies players will run outside. And if the player had happened to
set a minefield right outside the door, that would be a very effective
way of killing the enemy.
Other options for death include the ability to trap enemies,
electrocute them, or just plain drown them. The player can really do
whatever he or she wants in this game. One of the major highlights in
Baldies has got to be the artificial intelligence. The little baldies
live about their lives in a "fishbowl" like setting, in which they do
their normal activities without the aid of the player. With more than
100 different levels, including bonus levels, hidden features, tons of
inventions and secret warps to discover, Baldies should keep players
busy for quite some time.
//// Off to the Edge
After we finished playing the various games, the press was all shipped
off to The Magic Edge. This is similar in concept to Battletech,
however, the game engine for Edge is far, far superior. Each player
is in the cockpit of a fictional fighter aircraft. This cockpit
rotates and shifts up and down, matching the on-screen action, to give
the player a feeling of movement. Each cockpit is powered by a SGI
machine, so the terrain that flows below is silky smooth and
photo-realistic. After a delicious catered lunch of pizza and salad,
each press representative was given a free networked game.
Finally, each person was given an Atari gift bag. This year the bag
was stuffed to the brim with goodies and games to test. The fun-filled
bag included Jag Sunglasses, glasses string, an Atari pen, squirt
bottle, and both a Denim Jag shirt and a baseball style Jaguar shirt.
The games to take home included Battlemorph, Baldies, Missile Command,
NBA Jam, Atari Karts, and Attack of the Mutant Penguins. So you know
all the magazines have plenty of material to print, let's see if they
follow through. All in all, Atari made a very excellent showing at
their press day, with every effort being made to make sure that the
press had a good time. With continued support like this Atari should
be on the track to a good reputation with the various magazines.
--==--==--==--==--
||| Atari at the EGM Supertour
||| By: Mark "Stingray" Santora
/ | \ Genie: AEO.4 AOL: MrSantora
----------------------------------------------------------------
In late October, someone mentioned the EGM tour and reminded me that
it would be in Burbank Saturday November 11, and Sunday November 12.
Living in the San Fernando Valley, I decided to take advantage of the
opportunity to check out the tour and the company that rarely gives
the Jaguar a break.
The week before the event, I mentioned that I would be attending to a
couple of friends of mine, Scott LeGrand and Stephanie Wukovitz. I
suggested that they come along and bring Battlesphere with them to get
some feedback. Alas, they were off to a convention for work, but they
said I could take the latest version and see if the people from EGM
would allow it to be seen. So, Scott worked his behind off to get the
networking really solid before he left, but it was crashing too much.
So they disabled it, updated my FlashROM of the cart (I'm play testing
it), and sent me on my merry way.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// To Burbank
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Burbank is an easy twenty minutes from me by car. After riding down a
couple of different freeways, and there are a lot of them here, I
arrived at the Burbank Media City Mall around 10:30am. I fumbled my
way inside and just figured I would follow the noise to the Set Up.
Unfortunately, the mall was kinda empty at 10:30am but I eventually
found it, placed on the bottom floor of the three level mall in the
atrium. The entire mall could look down on the tour. It proved to be a
very nice spot to have the tour set up.
My first job was to get a lay of the land and see what they had. The
tour consisted of these eight feet tall yellow cylinders which each
house four TV screens and pads beneath them for you to play the game
with. Every company represented had one cylinder. Companies
represented were Sony, Sega, Viacom New Media, Williams, Time Warner
Interactive, X-Band, Panasonic, and our favorite, Atari. But Atari did
not have their systems housed in the standard tour cylinders - Atari
fashioned the tour with four of the Jaguar kiosks. Each kiosk had a
Jag, one or two controllers, depending on the game, and instructions
mounted to the kiosk so you knew how to play. It looked very
professional.
Atari had supplied four FlashROMs for the tour to use. When the tour
started, the games were not available, but by time the tour had hit
Burbank, they all were. Atari had sent Rayman, Super Burnout, Ultra
Vortek, and White Men Can't Jump (which only had two controllers on
it). During my day-long stay at the show I showed off my prowess at
Ultra Vortek and even enabled the turbo code - people really dug that.
Throughout the day, the booths became very crowded, and the Atari
kiosks were very rarely not in use.
Meanwhile, the other systems weren't as lucky. Sure the PSX had
Toshinden running and that was pretty busy, but it also had some sort
of speedo racing game which had real nice graphics, but no gameplay.
You were suspended on a cable as you accelerated down a trench. When
you hit a corner, you swung out. It was like a really bad version of
Stun Runner without it being any fun. Williams had DOOM there for the
SNES, and while it didn't look bad, the play mechanics weren't very
good and the movement was jerky. Mortal Kombat 3 was also there for
the SNES and Genesis - what can I say, it was MK3. They also had a
tournament for it. I was told there would be an Ultra Vortek
tournament on Sunday.
Next I hunted down the manager of this tour. Once I tracked her down
(forgive me, but I can't remember her name and she was so nice to me),
the manager was not only more than happy to let me plug in
BattleSphere, but they announced it over the PA, every 30-45 minutes!
The announcement was usually something along the lines of, "OK Folks,
we have a Jaguar Developer here today (I told her I worked with 4Play
but was not the programmer) who is here to get some feedback on their
new game! Go and play it now months before it gets released and tell
your friends!" Usually after that I was accosted by many people, but
they were all extremely pleasant.
The manager dropped us into the kiosk which ran White Men Can't Jump.
They said that this was the game that generally got left alone the
most at the Atari booth. So, from around 10:45am to 4pm I demoed and
talked to many people about BattleSphere, Atari, the state of Atari,
dispelling rumors, answering questions about the projects, and even
giving out numbers for people who needed to mail order. I should've
been paid by Atari for all the shmoozing I did for them on Saturday.
I even sold the three Jaguars that were at the Electronic's Boutique
on Ultra Vortek, Rayman, and BattleSphere. One of the people was a
person the manager brought over who was looking to spend some money on
a video game system. The manager showed him the PSX, then the SNES and
Genesis and finally the Jaguar. He responded, "These graphics are a
hell of a lot better than the Nintendo one, and I don't have $400." He
went upstairs and nought a Jag, Rayman, Tempest 2000, and Super
Burnout. He showed them to me as he made his way out of the mall. It
brought a smile to my face.
Everyone involved with the tour was great. They were helpful and
really went out of their way to help get BattleSphere some exposure.
Many of the people who played it even mentioned the write up of the
game in Video Games and Computer Entertainment a few months ago.
Common replies to BattleSphere ranged from "very good" to
"excellent." The people who played it, ranging in ages from 6 to 65,
were very impressed. They loved the gameplay, the graphics, the music,
and even the fact that it was going to be networkable. In fact,
several people mentioned networking as being a primary reason they
were going to buy BattleSphere before playing it. But after seeing it
in action, not only were they sold, but they were planning on making
sure their friends bought it too. Another thing that the people liked
was the play options in BattleSphere. A lot of people like the option
to have one player fly using pad 1 while player two uses pad 2 as the
gunner. It really adds to the depth of the gameplay.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// In The End
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The EGM Supertour was a nice way for companies to show off their
wares. A lot of people walk through the mall and usually stop to
look, even if they didn't plan on it. And Atari's presence was felt
there. In one part because of their kiosks which gave the look of the
tour some diversity. Also, EGM gave a Jaguar Core System away on
Saturday which was donated by Atari. According to the manager, Atari
always made sure that there were t-shirts, keychains, Rayman stuff,
etc., available to give away. You could tell that the entire staff was
very pro-gaming, not anti-something. Atari's decision to help finance
the tour, was in this reporter's opinion, a good one. Here's hoping in
the future that Atari continues to expand the awareness of the Jaguar
in such manners as these tours.
--==--==--==--==--
||| Jaguar Tackboard
||| Confirmed information about Atari's Jaguar
/ | \ Compiled from online and official sources
-----------------------------------------------------------------
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Independent Association of Jaguar Developers
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The IAJD (Independent Association of Jaguar Developers) has started
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 Atari
Corp. To apply for membership, send EMail to ENTRY$ on GEnie (or
<entry$@genie.com> if you're not on GEnie). Regular EMail
correspondence with the IAJD should be sent to IAJD$ (again, or
<iajd$@genie.com> if you're not on GEnie).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Internet Jaguar Mailing List
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Anyone with Internet EMail access can join the discussions on the
Jaguar mailing list. To "subscribe" to the list, send an EMail to
the following address: <listserv@bucknell.edu>
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 including such
options as a digest (for those who have requested that in the past).
The actual list address is: <jaguar@bucknell.edu>. All mail will go to
the list server and be sent to the over 250 readers of the list.
IMPORTANT: If your mail server charges you by the character or by the
letter, please be aware that the Jaguar list can generate dozens, and
up to a hundred EMails in a day.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Jaguar FAQ
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Robert Jung <rjung@netcom.com> maintains the Jaguar FAQ (Frequently
Asked Questions) file, an 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.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// AEO Development List 2.10
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Editor: The following list of game titles has been confirmed to
the best of AEO's ability as of December 31, 1995. Entries in the
"S"tatus column reflect any "e"rrors, "u"pdates, "n"ew titles, titles
that are in "P"roduction, or "?"uestionable listings since the last
AEO list. Entries in the "M"edia column reflect whether the title is
"C"D-ROM, "H"ardware, or "V"R software. (Blank entries are assumed to
be cartridge software.)
ETA dates are dates that have been provided by the developer. AMMV.
//// Titles in Development
Rating/
S M Title ETA Developer Publisher
""" """"" """ """"""""" """""""""
Arena Football League Q1/96 V Real Productions Atari
Battlesphere Q1/96 4Play 4Play
? Battlewheels - Beyond Games Beyond Games
? C Braindead 13 - Readysoft Readysoft
Breakout 2000 Q1/96 MP Graphics Atari
u Brett Hull Hockey 2/96 Atari
u C Brett Hull Hockey CD Q1/96 Atari
u C Commander Blood 2/96 Atari
? C Creature Shock - Virgin Interactive Atari
? C Dante - Atari
? Deathwatch - Visual Design Atari
P Defender 2000 2/96*8*LlamaSoft Atari
? C Demolition Man - Virgin Interactive Atari
C Deus ex Machina 1H/96 Silmarils
? Dune Racer - Atari
Fight For Life - Atari Atari
u C Formula 1 Racing (Work Title) Q1/96 Domark Group Ltd. Atari
? C Freelancer 2120 - Imagitec Design Atari
C Highlander II Q1/96 Lore Design Ltd. Atari
C Highlander III H1/96 Lore Design Ltd. Atari
? Horrorscope - V-Real Productions
? Indiana Jags - Virtual Xperience
C Iron Soldier II Q1/96 Eclipse Atari
C Ishar Genesis - Silmarils
? Legions of the Undead - Rebellion Software Atari
? C Litil Divil - Gremlin Interactive
u C Magic Carpet - Atari
u C Mortal Kombat III 4/96 Probe Atari
P NBA Jam TE 1/96*9*High Voltage Atari
u Phase Zero 2/96 Hyper Image Atari
? Return of Magic - Virtual Artistry
? C Return to Zork - Activision
u C Robinson's Requiem 2/96 Silmarils Atari
C Rocky Horror Interactive 6/96
u Skyhammer Q1/96 Rebellion Software Atari
C Soulstar 1996 Core Design Atari
C Space Ace - ReadySoft ReadySoft
u Sudden Impact ?
? T-Mek - Time-Warner
Towers II - JV Enterprises
u C Varuna's Forces 1996 Accent Media Atari
Worms 1996 Team 17
Zero Five Q1/96 Caspian Software Atari
P Zoop 1/96 Atari
? Zzyorxx II - Virtual Xperience
//// Current Releases
M Title Rated Company Publisher
" """"" """"""" """"""" """""""""
Alien vs. Predator 8 Rebellion Atari
Atari Karts - NEW Miracle Designs Atari
Attack of the Mutant Penguins - NEW Sunrise Games Atari
C Baldies - NEW Atari Atari
C Battlemorph 10 NEW Attention to Detail Atari
C Blue Lightning 7 Attention to Detail Atari
Brutal Sports Football 6 Millenium/Teque Telegames
Bubsy 7 Imagitec Design Atari
Cannon Fodder 7 Virgin Interactive C-West
H Cat Box / Black Cat Design Black Cat
Checkered Flag 4 Rebellion Atari
Club Drive 6 Atari Atari
Crescent Galaxy 3 Atari Atari
Cybermorph 7 Attention to Detail Atari
Doom 8 id Software Atari
Double Dragon V 3 Williams Enter. Williams
Dragon 6 Virgin Interactive Atari
C Dragon's Lair 7 NEW ReadySoft ReadySoft
Evolution Dino-Dudes 6 Imagitec Design Atari
Fever Pitch - NEW US Gold Atari
Flashback 6 Tiertex Ltd. U.S. Gold
Flip Out 8 Gorilla Systems Atari
C Highlander I 8 NEW Lore Design Ltd. Atari
Hover Strike 7 Atari Atari
C Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands 8 NEW Atari Atari
I-War 4 NEW Imagitec Design Atari
International Sensible Soccer 6 Williams Brothers Telegames
Iron Soldier 9 Eclipse Atari
Kasumi Ninja 6 Hand Made Software Atari
Missile Command 3D - NEW Atari
C Myst - NEW Atari Atari
C Primal Rage - NEW Probe Time-Warner
Pinball Fantasies 6 Spider Soft C-West
Pitfall 8 NEW Activision Atari
Power Drive Rally 7 Rage Software Time-Warner
Raiden 6 Imagitec Design Atari
RayMan 10 UBI Soft UBI Soft
Ruiner 6 NEW High Voltage Atari
Super Burnout 6 Shen Atari
Supercross 3D 5 NEW Tiertex Atari
Syndicate 7 Bullfrog Ocean
Tempest 2000 10 LlamaSoft Atari
Theme Park 6 Bullfrog Ocean
Troy Aikman NFL Football 6 Telegames Williams
White Men Can't Jump 8 High Voltage Atari
Wolfenstein 3D 7 id Software Atari
Ultra Vortek 10 Beyond Games Atari
Val d'Isere Skiing... 5 Virtual Studio Atari
C VidGrid 6 High Voltage Atari
Zool 2 7 Gremlin Graphics Atari
Pts Stars AEO Ratings
""" """"" """""""""""
10 ***** GAMING NIRVANA!!! - You have left reality behind... for good.
9 ****+ Unbelieveable GAME!! - Your family notices you're often absent.
8 **** Fantastic Game!! - You can't get enough playtime in on this.
7 ***+ Great Game! - Something to show off to friends or 3DOers.
6 *** Good game - You find yourself playing this from time to time.
5 **+ Ho-hum - If there's nothing else to do, you play this.
4 ** Waste of time - Better to play this than play in traffic.
3 *+ Sucks - Playing in traffic sounds like more fun.
2 * Sucks Badly - You'd rather face an IRS audit than play this.
1 + Forget it - ... but you can't; it's so badly done, it haunts you.
0 - Burn it - Disallow programmer from ever writing games again.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Jaguar PRs
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Core System Price Drops to $99
CONTACT: Beth Whyte or Jennifer Hansen
Shandwick U.S.A.
800/444-6663 or 310/479-4997
Atari Corporation's Jaguar 64 Hits Mass Market Price
In Time for Holiday Sales, Jaguar now $99
SUNNYVALE, CA (December 15, 1995) -- In a bold retailing move to
increase its share in the interactive home entertainment market, Atari
Corporation announced that the Jaguar 64 system will be priced at $99.
A premier gaming platform launched nationally in 1994, the Jaguar is a
power home video game system designed to provide game enthusiasts with
top-quality entertainment products. Atari has developed an extensive
software library to support the Jaguar system, and is committed to
aggressively expanding its list of exclusive titles throughout 1996.
Four new Atari titles have been released this week alone for the
Jaguar 64: "Atari Karts", "I-War", "Fever Pitch Soccer" and
"Supercross 3D". The new games will be available at retail stores
before Christmas.
As Ted Hoff, Atari's President of North American Operations explained,
"Atari is proud of the depth and breadth of current Jaguar platform
software titles, and we're committed to enhancing this already
impressive collection. Offering the Jaguar 64 at $99 will allow us to
reach more consumers nationwide with top-quality games."
Hoff indicated the Jaguar 64 systems will be offered at their new
price in retail outlets across the country effective Saturday,
December 16. That means there's still time for Christmas shoppers to
benefit from the $99 price tag.
With its aggressive new pricing, Atari Corporation is offering
consumers a high-end home video game system at a mass market price.
The action reinforces Atari's commitment to the Jaguar gaming
platform, as well as providing consumers with superior and affordable
interactive products.
For more than twenty years, Atari Corporation has provided consumers
with high quality value-priced entertainment. Atari Corporation
markets Jaguar, the only American-made, advanced 64-bit entertainment
system and is located in Sunnyvale, California.
Atari and Jaguar are registered trademarks of Atari Corporation. All
rights reserved.
//// Missile Command 3D Ships
CONTACT: Patricia Kerr or Jennifer Hansen
Shandwick USA
(800)444-6663 or (310)479-4997
Arcade Favorite Receives New Mission
Atari Corporation Launches "Missile Command 3D" for Jaguar 64
SUNNYVALE, CA (December 12, 1995) -- Load your lasers, mark your
missiles and secure your smart bombs, your colony is under alien
attack. Gamers are gearing up after Atari Corporation's announcement
that "Missile Command 3D" is the latest artillery in the Atari Jaguar
64 software arsenal.
Based on the arcade classic, the Jaguar update of "Missile Command 3D"
features both fiercer firepower and nastier bad guys. It takes more
than missiles, lasers and smart bombs to defeat these aliens---gamers
must employ a quick and accurate fighting style to protect their
neighborhoods from the outer space invasion.
"Missile Command 3D" contains three different game options: Original
Missile Command, 3D Missile Command and Virtual Missile Command. The
"Virtual" and "3D" game options boast a number of 3-dimensional worlds
found undersea, in the clouds and in outer space. Stereo sound,
texture mapped graphics and multiple backgrounds compliment the power
of the Jaguar 64 system.
"Atari Corporation continues to provide Jaguar owners with
top-quality, exciting games for their Jaguar 64 systems," said Ted
Hoff, Atari's President of North American Operations. "'Missile
Command 3D' is another outstanding title in our lineup of software
releases for the Atari Jaguar 64 and CD peripheral this holiday
season."
"Missile Command 3D" is available in stores nationwide, has a
suggested retail price of $59.99, and is rated K-A (appropriate for
kids to adults).
For more than twenty years, Atari Corporation has provided consumers
with high quality, value-priced entertainment. Atari Corporation
markets Jaguar, the only American-made, advanced 64-bit entertainment
system and is located in Sunnyvale, California.
//// Jaguar CD Highlander Ships
CONTACT: Patricia Kerr or Jennifer Hansen
Shandwick USA
(310)479-4997 or (800)444-6663
Players Fulfill Their Destiny as "The Highlander"
Atari Corporation Releases Second CD Title in One Week for
Jaguar CD
SUNNYVALE, CA (October 30) -- The rapidly expanding software library
for the newly released Jaguar CD grew again this week, as Atari
Corporation launched its second CD title. "Highlander: The Last of the
MacLeods" was shipped to retailers this morning.
An action adventure game based on the popular animated series,
"Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods" boasts both a truly sensational
storyline and advanced gaming technology. Players assume the role of
Quentin MacLeod, an immortal whose destiny remained unclear until his
mother revealed his true identity as "The Highlander." With this
knowledge, Quentin must set upon a quest to fulfill his destiny,
rescue his village and save humanity from the evil Kortan.
"Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods" features both original dialog
and Cinepak sequences from the animated series. Atari Corporation used
Motion Capture technology in the development of the game, giving the
3D characters lifelike movement.
"By releasing 'Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods' and 'Hoverstrike:
Unconquered Lands' in successive weeks, our Jaguar CD title library is
rapidly growing in scope and depth," said Ted Hoff, Atari's President
of North American Operations. "We will bring Jaguar gamers numerous
top-quality titles for both the Jaguar cartridge and CD formats in the
next several weeks."
"Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods" has a suggested retail price of
$59.99, is rated K-A (appropriate for kids and adults) and is
available in stores nationwide.
For more than twenty years, Atari Corporation has provided consumers
with high quality, value-priced entertainment. Atari Corporation
markets Jaguar the only American-made, advanced 64-bit entertainment
system and is located in Sunnyvale, California.
HIGHLANDER (c) 1994 Gaumont Television. All rights reserved.
Highlander is a protected trademark of Gaumont Television. Licensed to
Atari Corporation. Cinepak and the Cinepak logo is a registered
trademark of Radius Inc. Atari, the Atari logo and Jaguar are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Atari Corporation.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Cool Jag Codes
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Super Burnout "Punisher" Bike Code
[] Key in the sequence "2", "1", "7", "9" and then "4" at the Super
Burnout title screen.
[] You will hear a musical "beep" to confirm the correct code has been
entered.
[] There will be a new motorcycle to select, the "Punisher." Aside
from its impressive performance, it functions like all other Super
Burnout motorcycles.
[] All record times and speeds made using the "Punisher" will be saved
to cartridge as normal.
[] You can still access the "Punisher" after a reset without having to
reenter the code, but the code will have to be reentered after a
power-off/power-on cycle.
--==--==--==--==--
||| In the Pub
||| By: Iain Laskey
/ | \ Internet: ilaskey@cix.compulink.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------
Christmas has come and gone. Santa didn't bring me anything nice for
my Jaguar but then I got some laserdiscs instead so I'm not
complaining! The UK Jag scene crawls along unabated. It's still
proving a bit tough getting much in the way of review carts out of
Atari at the moment. It's ludicrous that Atari UK can't supply review
copies to magazines. Few of the gaming mags give the Jaguar anything
other than an occasional damning mention and most games are hammered.
When a magazine comes along that is willing to give the Jaguar a fair
crack of the whip, do they get games to try? Naah. No spare EPROMs.
Sorry. The excuse is that all the flash cards are being used to demo
the Jaguar to retailers and until that's finished, none can go to
reviewers. (FX:<Clump> Iain gets of his soapbox).
Jaguar sales are down and up. The release of Playstation had an
immediate effect - Jag sales halved overnight. Since the intial shock
they have picked up and now Atari UK report them as being on the up
and up. My contact in a local Electronic Boutique (What an awful name,
they just got changed from their original name of Game Zone), confirms
this and said any JagCDs they get fly out immediately and new titles
sell very well. This from a confirmed PC/Playstation nut too.
I'm yet to see many of the games that have been out in the US for some
time although others such as Missile Command 3D appeared within days
of the US release.
//// Gotcha (or not)
One of the European Dev Centre titles, Gotcha looks like it's going to
end up as a PC only game. A Jag version may get looked at again later
but it has been decided that it's not a suitable title at the moment
and having played an early version some months back, I'd be inclined
to agree.
//// Sega games
A lot of people wonder why Atari are not making good use of the access
they have to Sega's games. It transpires that Jag ports cannot be
started until some 6-8 months after the Sega equivalents have been
released. The net result would be a stream of already out of date
titles. A pity.
//// PC Games
One of the reasons Atari have started to look very hard at PC games is
the enormous success of titles like Microsoft Arcade. Atari still own
the computer rights to a great many titles of yesteryear and they have
seen some pretty fat cheques arrive as payment for publishing Atari
owned titles. This has apparently whetted their appetites for some
serious revenue (and about time too), hence their new found interest
in the PC. Let's hope they dont underestimate the cut-throat market
they are entering and end up getting badly burnt (again).
//// Cross Products
Rather sadly, Cross Products who was working on producing Jaguar
Development kits, have ceased work on the project. It appears that
after many months work and some serious interest and promise of many
orders from Atari, the whole thing has floundered. It appears that
Cross are owned by Sega. Atari felt unable to provide Cross with the
details of Jag II hardware they needed for obvious reasons. Cross were
a little less than enamoured by the sudden dropping of support from
Atari and told me they werent sure exactly why. A pity as Atari have
often been criticised for the low quality of the Jaguar development
kits compared to those of their peers.
//// Zero 5
An eagerly awaited title, Zero 5, has been put back to an Easter
release. The mechanics are all in place but the missions now have to
be created and added in. Also, the title may change. If anyone who has
seen the game has a good idea for a title then let me know and I'll
pass it onto Atari.
//// Team 17
I was hoping to have a Team 17 interview completed for this issue but
Christmas seemed to have got in the way. Hopefully next issue will see
this now. As an aside, Team 17 publish via Ocean who in the UK have
decided to drop Jaguar, Hence Team 17's original line-up of Jaguar
titles has ended up as just one - Worms. Still, this is a cracking
game and I can't wait to see a copy.
//// Five Years Away
21st Century, they of Pinball Dreams have told me they do not intend
to do any more Jaguar titles but dont take it personally, they have
decided to avoid any next generation consoles for the time being. They
did say that its possible that if the policy changes they may go back
to Jag development at a later stage. How about voting with your
wallets? Pinball Dreams is a fine game and well worth buying.
//// Last Call Bits
Atari UK have announced a new distributor - Telstar. Hopefully this
will help get even more Jaguar stuff into our shops. On a less
pleasant note, Silica, an Atari selling and distributing firm since
the dawn of time (I remember getting mailshots from them when I bought
my 2600 back in 1980), has sort of gone down the tubes. They are in
receivership with debts of 8 million GBP and are hoping to get a buyer
very soon to inject some more cash. They blame the downfall on the
demise of the Amiga which accounted for 45% of their sales combined
with a difficulty getting PC stock.
Not entirely Atari related but possibly of interest to computer lovers
who have outgrown their STs but dont want to be just another clone
owner. The former Apple product Division president, Jean-Louis Gassee has
set up his own firm and launched a new computer. Totally different to the
rest of the pack, it is designed to appeal to computer freaks and
tech-heads who must have the best, neatest, most interesting computer.
What he has produced is the BeBox. Powered by 2 Power PC603 processors,
it is equipped to provide high-performance audio and video for just
$1,600. Up to 256Mb of RAM can be installed and the standard hardware
includes 16bit CD quality sound, 4 MIDI ports, a SCSI II port, 4 serial,
1 parallel and 3 infra-red ports. Software includes a graphics server,
database server and digital media tool kit as well as an integrated
development environment called Code Warrior. Already developers are
working on software to utilise its impressive hardware. Most have been
won over by finally having a piece of hardware to live up to their
software dreams. Keep an eye out for it.
Finally, my (albeit) minor claim to fame. Atari's European Development
bought the rights for the Jag version of Fever Pitch from US Gold and
did the port themselves. (I understand it's been released in the US.
Hello! Over here!) This gave them a little room to manoeuvre. Result?
A new team member called Laskey in my honour! Shucks guys!
--==--==--==--==--
||| Jaguar Review: NBA Jam - Tournament Edition
||| By: Damien M. Jones
/ | \ GEnie: DMJ Internet: tsd@gate.net
---------------------------------------------------------------
High Voltage Software's own Adisak Pochanayon (an excellent Jaguar
programmer) has churned out in an amazingly short time what amounts to
a very good port of NBA Jam: Tournament Edition. After wheedling a
review copy out of Travis (who is notably stingy with these things ;-)
I slapped the funky-looking FlashROM cart into my Jaguar and powered
it up.
I should point out here that I'm not a basketball nut. I like to watch
basketball because it's fast and professional players are just
awesome. Basketball is entertaining - but it's not (for me) a way of
life. The last time =I= tried to play basketball, I was completely
devastated within five minutes and had to sit down before my heart
jumped out of my chest and filed a complaint with OSHA. So to help
with this review, I collared a friend of mine (Abe Torres) who is not
only a basketball fan, but also very familiar with NBA Jam on other
systems. Together we sat down in front of a nice big TV, with the
Jaguar and a couple of controllers, to rake Jaguar NBA Jam: Tournament
Edition over the coals.
After a couple of screens full of fine print, there's a nice High
Voltage Software logo, and then the attract mode sequence kicks in.
Right off I notice the music is kinda cheesy, but that's okay, it's a
cartridge, and I'd rather the space was saved for something more
useful, like gameplay. The attract sequence shows off some of the
fancy moves of the players, and talks about all the neat stuff in the
Tournament Edition of NBA Jam. Things like: more moves, more sounds,
more players, substitutions, and so on. Cool stuff, but we didn't want
to sit through the attract sequence, we wanted to =play=. So play we
did, both of us fiddling with the controllers to see what we could
figure out, since we were both too lazy to read the directions. (Who
reads manuals, anyway?)
All right, I won't bore you with the final score (even though I beat
Abe, heh heh) but it was fun. Too bad we didn't have a Team Tap and a
couple of extra controllers handy, because NBA Jam: TE will use one if
you've got it. So we just had ourselves. Two people can play against
each other, or they can both play on the same team against the
computer. Four people, of course, don't need the computer to play.
Our verdict? We enjoyed it, which means right off the bat, this game
is =fun= - always a good thing for a game to be.
For those of you not familiar with NBA Jam (and I can't imagine who
that might be) let me briefly explain the game. There are two players
on each team, and when you start the game you can select from
twenty-seven NBA teams, selecting two of the three players available
from that team to play. There's also a special "Rookies" team with
five players. Each player has their own stats - how fast they are, how
good they are at making field goals, and so on. These stats really do
matter (especially that FG rating!), so it's nice that both players
can choose the same team - that makes a matchup completely fair.
Once you've selected your team, the game begins. There are four
quarters, each three minutes long. And, well, it's basketball.
Players run up and down the court, taking shots at the basket, passing
to their teammate, or trying to block the other guys from making
baskets and steal the ball away from them. There's also a turbo
button which, if pressed, makes your player go faster. Turbo runs out
after a while, though, so you have to use it when it counts. You can
also shove the other guys, which often results in them landing on the
floor. Ya gotta be careful with that shove, 'cause you can push your
own teammate (as I found out the hard way). When you're in the mood
for some impressive moves, you can take a shot while moving and
holding down turbo, and your player will usually do something very
cool and, while he's at it, make a basket. Life is good.
And then there's the Special Options. Just when you think you've got
everything else under control, you can throw in hot spots - if you
shoot from one, you'll get bonus points. Or throw in powerup icons.
(Powerups?!? In basketball?!?) Better yet, there's Juice Mode, where
you can crank up the speed on =everything=. You thought things were
fast before?
For those of you who get addicted to this game, it'll keep stats for
you, too. You can put your initials in, and it will remember your
winning percentage, ranking, and so on. (Just to keep things fair,
powerup and hot spot games don't count for record-keeping.)
=-=-=-=-=
//// Nits
=-=-=-=-=
After beating Abe, I suggested we play again, this time paying a bit
more attention to things in the game besides the gameplay. I'm
ashamed to admit that Abe beat me this time, but at least I have an
excuse. Anyway, we noticed a few things this time that sort of
slipped by us the first time. Some of the players look a bit odd,
but there's only so much detail you can pack into the small heads on
the screen. The Knicks' uniforms were the wrong color (not a big
deal, but if you're an NBA fan like Abe, you notice these things).
Occasionally the announcer would declare a basket to be missed
("Rejected!") when it actually went in. I still have trouble with the
controls, and I keep jumping instead of swiping at the ball. It's
kind of hard to keep track of who is who, especially when the players
are off-screen. And there's the above-mentioned cheeziness to some of
the music.
But these are minor complaints. The colors don't affect gameplay.
The controls are configurable (independently for each controller).
And the sounds don't really matter - real sports announcers make more
screwups than I've heard out of NBAJTE.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Vs. the PlayStation
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Yeah, we have a PlayStation here. So I thought, to really make
things interesting, I'd compare the PlayStation version of NBA Jam:
Tournament Edition to the Jaguar version. And you know, I was really
surprised.
The PSX version has much larger players. Whereas the Jag version has
small players with enlarged heads (so you can recognize the players),
the PlayStation version enlarged the players to match the head size.
This might sound like a good idea, but it cluttered up the PSX's
screen and made it even harder to see what was going on. There's also
the differences you'd expect from a CD vs. a cartridge version -
screen transitions on the Jaguar are snappy, but on the PlayStation
there are noticeable waits between screens. Sound on the PSX is also
better - simply because there is more storage space.
The PlayStation version also plays differently than the Jaguar
version. The players block more aggressively, and for me it wasn't as
much fun. I haven't played the arcade machine, but I've been told by
more than one person that the Jaguar version is closer to the arcade
than the PlayStation version.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Wrap-Up
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
NBA Jam: Tournament Edition for the Jaguar is excellent. The graphics
are good, with lots of details - multiple layers of parallax in the
background, motion in those (cheerleaders!), perspective floor,
perspective backboards, and so on. Sound is decent, and the title
screen proclaims 3D sound (although on my TV, even with a stereo
hookup, didn't seem very 3D). Gameplay is great, it's lots of fun, and
it even edges out the PSX version!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Final Ratings
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: NBA Jam: Tournament Edition Jaglink: No
Developer: High Voltage Software Players: 1-4
Published by: Atari Cart Size: 4 Megabytes
Retail: N/A Availability: 1/96
A Summary of Ratings:
"*" is a whole
"+" is a half
5 stars Maximum
Graphics - **** Excellent, although some players look odd.
Audio - ***+ Pretty good inside the game, "okay" otherwise.
Control - **** Takes a little while to get used to, but
configurable!
Gameplay - ****+ Get a Team Tap and extra controllers and have
fun!
Overall - ****+ Almost as much fun to watch as it is to play!
Key to Damien's Ratings:
(the epicurean state of mind)
***** - Crab and lobster with butter sauce.
****+ - Lasagne--an inspired food.
**** - Barbecued baby-back ribs smothered in sauce.
***+ - 12oz. medium rare steak.
*** - Texas chili with cheese and onions.
**+ - Cheeseburger and fries.
** - Blue and green bread (moldy).
*+ - Asparagus... bleh.
* - Bean sprouts and tofu... gack.
+ - Chicken tartar (raw).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Author's Bio
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Damien M. Jones was born in England in 1972. Since then, he has lived
in Omaha, Las Vegas, Dallas, Germany, and currently, West Palm Beach.
His work in Atari computers started with crude, silly programs in GFA
BASIC, and grew into real programs like Sound Lab and View II. Earlier
this year he started a new company, Temporary Sanity Designs, to
develop game software.
--==--==--==--==--
||| Jaguar Review: Defender 2000
||| By: Bryan C. Edewaard
/ | \ Internet: tsd@gate.net
--------------------------------------------------------------
Coding Guru Jeff Minter does it again - this time with an update to
the classic Williams game: Defender. Created in 1980 by a team headed
up by the legendary Eugene Jarvis, Defender established Williams'
position as the arcade videogame leader of the early '80s. Your
mission in this side-scrolling shooter is to defend a planet and the
astronauts thereon from wave after wave of invading and body-snatching
aliens.
Defender 2000 offers three variations of the original Defender game:
Classic Defender, Defender Plus, and Defender 2000. Each of the games
supports a ProController mode with separate buttons for fire and
thrust. Two player games can be played either with two controllers or
two players sharing one controller.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Classic Defender
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Most mature gamers will immediately recognize Classic Defender in all
of its sixteen color glory, and if you haven't seen the original in a
while, it's quite a rush. All the original elements are here: Landers,
Mutants, Humanoids, Pods, Bombers, Swarmers, and Baiters.
Classic Defender closely resembles the arcade original, but purists
will notice that it deviates on a few points. There are a lot of
slight cosmetic variations between Minter's Classic Defender and the
actual arcade machine: explosions are larger in Minter's Classic, both
in the size of the particles and in the fact that they carry over into
the top area of the screen; the score has rastered colors instead of
the pulsating solid color of the original; the sprites are noticeably
larger; and there is a volcano in the game, which is borrowed from
Defender II (originally Stargate).
Perhaps more seriously, I found Classic easier to play than the arcade
machine. This may be somewhat due to the difference in controls, but
it largely seems to be due to the fact that the landers in Classic are
slightly oversized (as mentioned above) and some enemies exhibit
different behavior than in the original. One good example is the
Mutant, who makes quick jerky motions in the original, but jumps and
jiggles around like he's going critical in Minter's Classic. I feel
that both the oversized enemies and the frantic motion of the mutants
makes them easier to hit.
These are minor things, really, but they are somewhat disappointing.
Back in the 1980s, there were valid reasons for making changes to a
game when it was ported to a different platform. Frequently the
hardware was different, and just couldn't do the same things as the
arcade original. But the Jaguar can certainly do everything the
Williams arcade machine could do, so there really isn't much of a
reason for not having a perfect replica of the old game. And Minter's
Classic Defender, while closer than almost any other attempt, is not
quite perfect.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Defender Plus
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Defender Plus is very similar to Classic Defender except that more
enemies (and elements from the Defender sequel Stargate) have been
added, your fire-power is upped quite a bit, and several new visual
effects have been added. Defender Plus is to Classic Defender what
Tempest 2000 is to Classic Tempest - it retains the feel of the
original, but increases the tempo and intensity.
Visually, there is plenty of eye candy to look at. The background
contains several layers of scrolling stars, and a strange "plasma"
effect hovers over the mountains. The mountains themselves are filled
with a psychedelic moving pattern, and all the sprites have been
given a colorful overhaul. Landers now have a more metallic spaceship
look, and humanoids now look like actual people. (Imagine that.)
Plus also adds Stargate-like warp gates and some nasty new enemies -
although I don't know what to call the new enemies because the
evaluation manual doesn't have pictures of them. Starting with the
fourth wave, huge ships start popping up out of the ground that take
multiple hits to kill. To help keep things even, in addition to the
smart bombs of Classic Defender, you have what Minter calls the
"llightning laser", which will target the closest enemy, wherever it
is on the screen. You only have a limited amount of this, though, so
you have to use it sparingly. If you're a real wimp, you can opt to
have two droid ships fly with you to help you out - they'll zip around
the screen shooting at things and picking up humanoids for you.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Defender 2000
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
In Defender 2000, the game takes on a whole new look with varying
backgound (and foreground) scenery that can scroll up and down as well
as left and right. As you progress from level to level in Defender
2000, the graphics change from desert to mountains to city and so on.
All the game objects have new graphics as well and look very hi-tech
compared to the other versions. The radar, rather than just being a
box sitting above the screen, is partially transparent and allows the
background to be seen through it. And all the game objects are much
larger on the screen, so you can see more detail in them.
Your ship can pick up bonuses that increase firepower - AI Droid, AI
Droid 2, Lightning Laser, and Turbo Lightning Laser. You can also pick
up a shield to protect you from attack. With it, you can be hit twice
without dying, and each time you will bounce off whatever hit you. (If
you're moving quickly when you bounce, it's a little disconcerting to
suddenly be flying back in the other direction.) Another interesting
feature of Defender 2000 is that humanoids that have been picked up
can fire along with you. Each humanoid hangs below the previous one,
so when you get three or four of them strung beneath your ship, you
carry a solid Wall o' Death wherever you go.
There are also warp tokens present. Collect enough of these and you
go to the warp screens, where you must stay on a lit path while
hurtling down surfaces shaped like the levels of Tempest. In fact, it
is very similar to the second warp level of Tempest 2000. ("Stay on
the green path.")
As with Tempest 2000, Defender 2000 includes a bunch of hip new tunes
(portent of a Defender 2000 Soundtrack CD?) and flashy menu graphics.
Some of the other effects - like the end-wave screen where your
humanoid bonus is counted - are also very nicely done. Oh, you'll
undoubtedly see what happens when you let the landers steal all your
humanoids; it's certainly something to make you think, "Uh, maybe I
shouldn't have done that...."
While playing Defender 2000, I noticed that Defender is not an
equation that can be played with as easily as Tempest. While I felt
that Tempest 2000 gave Tempest a new lease on life, Defender 2000
loses some balance in the conversion. Defender 2000 is very cool to
watch, but there can easily be too much going on at once. Once I had
picked up a few bonuses, there was so much happening on the screen
that I was forced to play by watching only the radar at the top. It's
also difficult to pick out the colorful enemies from the colorful
background, I would often collide with them while flying. It's
definitely a game for those gamers who know how to get "into the
zone."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Comments
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I know this will sound negative, but with all that's going on, the
2000 mode lacks the feel of Defender. Defender Plus gets my vote for
the better update to Defender in this package. Plus has a nice, modern
(if wacky) look and formidable new enemies while still preserving the
Defender/Stargate atmosphere. Defender Plus and Classic were very
satisfying games and well worth the price of admission. All the
original game elements are here and the control was very precise.
Overall, I'd recommend Defender 2000 to anyone with a Jaguar who
loves classic games while I'd also recommend the Williams Arcade
Classics pack for PC/Mac owners with a serious craving for the
classic. (Get both, it's only money.)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Final Ratings
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: Defender 2000 Jaglink: No
Programmer: Jeff Minter Players: 1
Published by: Atari Cart Size: 4 Megabytes
Retail: N/A Availability: 2/96
A Summary of Ratings:
"*" is a whole
"+" is a half
5 stars Maximum
Graphics - **** Graphics are very nice, and full of Minteresque
effects although some of them get in the way at
times (much more than in Tempest 2000).
Audio - **** Authentic sounds from the original as well as
many improved effects. Great background music
too!
Control - ***** Dead on controls and thrust-fire option earns
Defender 2000 five stars.
Gameplay - *** Although Classic Defender and Plus play fairly
authentically, Defender 2000 doesn't feel much
like Defender and can be hard to follow.
Overall - **** A nice package if you're into the classics, but
Plus and 2000 versions might not have what it
takes to appeal to people who don't already like
Defender.
--==--==--==--==--
||| Jaguar Review: Battlemorph
||| By: Charles Wells
/ | \ GEnie: C.WELLS10
----------------------------------------------------------------
Battlemorph takes place thirty years after the original Cybermorph.
It seems that with the T-Griffon fighter, Earth was able to push back
the Pernitian invasion. After that, the Earth Defense Council built a
fleet of battle cruisers to patrol the colonies as a deterrent against
future invasions. For some time, things were peaceful, but it was not
to last. The trouble began in the Perseus Star Cluster. Several battle
cruisers disappeared in that area, and Pernitian activity was reported
in eight different clusters of worlds - then all contact was lost with
those worlds. The last remaining cruiser has been by the defense
council on a search and destroy mission, starting with the Perseus
Cluster.
This battlecruiser, the Sutherland, has a very special cargo - the
newest version of the T-Griffon, known as the War Griffon. This ship
comes with morphing technology, customizable weapons bays, underwater
capability, and built-in satellite mapping hookups. By the time you
reach the Perseus cluster, the Sutherland has almost totally exhausted
her energy reserves, so you must defeat the Pernitian general in each
of the eight star clusters. This will give you enough energy to reach
the Pernish cluster, homeworld of the alien menace. It's up to you to
stop the threat at its source, once and for all!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Starting Out
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Battlemorph, like Highlander, is playable in several different
languages: English, French or German, selectable from the options
screen. Once you are ready to start your first game, you'll be able to
enter your name in a screen very similar in layout (and sound effects)
to the one in Blue Lightning. There are five Save Game slots available
if you are using the Memory Track cart, which is highly recommended!!
There are also three difficulty settings (Easy, Medium and Hard), so
those who may not be familiar with the original game can tinker around
on Easy, while Cybermorph vets can plow right in on the higher
settings. There is a box on the right side of the screen which gives
you information about the Save Game slot you currently have
highlighted, such as the weapons you have accumulated, ships in
reserve, etc.
When you start the game, you will move on to the planet select screen.
As in the original game, you can pick any planet in any order you wish
- each planet has its own mission to complete. You must finish off all
the planets before moving on to the next cluster of planets. Each
cluster has its own general, or "boss", to defeat for valuable plasma
energy which the Sutherland needs. When you select a planet you want
to play, you will be given a briefing on the mission objective for
that planet. If this doesn't sound to your liking, you can come back
to this one later - just select Reject and choose another planet. Once
you've decided on the planet you want, it's on to select your weapons.
Your War-Griffon has a built-in twin shot cannon. In addition, you
have four weapons bays to customize as you wish, with the exception
that you can't choose a weapon more than once. Also, you have to find
weapons in this game, so when you start out, you won't have a weapon
for every bay. You start with cruise bombs (great for knocking out
tanks and buildings) and decoys. Decoys are really neat - duplicates
of your ship, they fly around for a brief time and are great for
dodging homing missiles and nasty kamikazes. Although they can't shoot
enemies, decoys can fly through forcefields for you to get at
power-ups you'd normally have a hard time getting to (if you can get
them at all). There are many weapons to be found later on in the game
(in the form of fragments which must be collected) including mines,
mortars and flame-throwers.
Control is similar to the original, with the keypad heavily
utilized. (The game comes with an overlay to help out.)
A moves the ship forward
B fires your selected weapon
C moves the ship backward
Option selects the Map mode. This is a satellite's view of the
landscape of the world, highlighting important structures, items and
objectives. When you move the pointer around on the map screen, your
radar's white arrow will point to it.
Different buttons on the keypad select between your four weapons bays,
turn your targeting crosshair on/off, cycle through several different
cockpit views from your ship (plus a few overhead views). As is usual,
the buttons are customizable to fit different tastes. I'm happy to say
that the new ProController is supported and works quite well. The
Options screen also lets you customize several other things, such as
the volume levels for the music, sound effects and Skylar, or turning
the Cinemas on or off. (I leave them on, since you can bypass them
with a button press if you wish.)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// The Game Screen
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The majority of the screen is taken up by your view of the world. A HUD
at the top of the screen displays your score, your ships in reserve,
and your radar. Skylar (your talking computer, who still looks kinda
like Sinead O'Conner) also pops up from time-to-time here with helpful
comments. (Or the occasional trash talking.) The radar will be
familiar to Cybermorph veterans - skulls are enemies (red ones are
hostile, green are passive, a skull with yellow eyes is an enemy
carrying a powerup), red dots for enemy shots, diamonds are power-ups,
and rectangles are special buildings. Powerups and buildings only show
up if you've collected an enhanced scanning powerup. A closed yellow
arrow points to your mission objective (or to the exit, if the
objectives have been found).
The instrument panel at the bottom of the screen has been changed
a little from the first game. It looks cleaner, less cluttered. There
are readouts for speed (forward or reverse), altitude and energy. When
all your energy is gone, your ship is destroyed. You lose energy from
enemy fire and from crashes. There are "monitors" which display your
different weapons bays (including ammo levels for each weapon), or
other special objects you've collected (such as data pods, batteries,
weapon fragments and keys).
The middle of the screen is where your ship resides. As it flies along
in the virtual worlds, it morphs as it changes velocity, climbs, dives
underwater, etc. As before, the game is not on rails like other games
of similar nature (i.e., Starfox on the Super NES) - you can fly where
you want, when you want. The only real restriction to this is your
ship can't fly above a certain altitude, so certain mountain ranges
will block or hamper access to some areas. If you fly past the
boundaries of the world, you will "wrap" around to the other side. Not
being on rails opens up many possibilities on how you choose to play
the game. You can fly along rather leisurely, exploring every nook and
cranny. Or you can be very quick and aggressive, blasting non-stop as
you fly by enemy tanks, only to turn around to pick off the ones you
missed on your first fly-by.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Powerups
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Powerups are floating cubes texturemapped with differing icons on
them. Some are floating around on the planets when you arrive, others
are dropped when you destroy enemies or buildings. Simply fly through
them to pick them up. Ammo pods supply whatever is pictured on the
pod. Occasionally, these pods will cycle through different kinds of
ammo or energy for your shields. Hint pods, which are textured with a
big question mark, will display a hint for the planet you are on. Keys
open the locked security domes on the surface (or doors in the
underground tunnels), and look like... well... big keys of different
colors. Magazines increase the maximum amount of ammo you can carry
for your weapons. Rapid fire is just that, and works for the entire
level once you pick it up. The powerup with the big eyeball on it is
an enhanced scan, which increases the effectiveness of your radar.
Batteries are used in the power stations. Place one in a power station
to activate the station (or remove it to cut off power to certain
things like forcefields). Weapon fragments are very valuable, find
four and when you get back to the Sutherland, you'll have a new weapon
to use in your fight against the Pernitians. Also keep an eye out for
gold-colored War Griffons; picking one of those up will net you an
extra ship! The rings from the first game are back, too; blue (power)
rings increase your energy back to full and flashing (speed) rings
boost you to incredible speeds, during which you are invincible!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Buildings and Special Objects
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
You will encounter many different buildings in your travels, including
power stations and power lines (which may need to be shut down in
order to drop a forcefield somewhere on the level), teleporters,
security domes (needs a key of matching color to open it), bridges
(blow 'em up and watch the enemies stupidly drive off to a watery
death, hee hee), underground tunnel entrances and a variety of
different bases and silos which launch tanks and fighter craft. There
is also a special building known as a planet cloaker. Take this sucker
out and a bonus planet will be revealed on the planet selection
screen! (The "Tree Planet" is funny...death to all trees! =)
As mentioned earlier, your War-Griffon can now go underwater - this is
really cool and has a nice underwater blur effect (like in Missile
Command 3D), plus bubbles, fish swimming around, and aquatic plants
gently swaying in the current. There are different types of water,
too. Some is acidic and drains your energy, while others heal you or
have a viscosity that allows you to fly through it as if it were air.
Tunnels are another new way of commuting. They are often blocked by
several different types of doors, and are texture mapped and probably
the coolest looking areas in the game. Movement through them is
extremely smooth and fluid - my favorite ones are the dark corridors
with the lights on the sides of the walls.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Enemies
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
There is a wide range of enemies out to do you in, some slightly
familiar. In addition to the standard tanks, destroyers, subs and
fighter craft there are some interesting foes such as fans (which blow
your ship around), worms (remember them? heh heh), leeches (drain your
energy), springs (pop up out of the ground and skewer things, like
your ship), bandits (steal your weapons!) and more. As before, some
enemies are pretty passive, while some seek you out with a vengeance.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Graphics and Sound
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Graphics are pretty faithful to the original game, with the Gourad
shading on the terrain being very impressive. There seems to be a much
better use of color this time around, too. The water is now animated,
and there is quite a bit of texturemapping on the enemies and
structures. The cinemas, tunnel and underwater sequences are all also
very impressive. Rather than just a black sky on the horizon, there
are now assorted mountain ranges, planets and more, which really adds
a lot to the look of the game. The framerate and terrain pop-up have
even been cleaned up since the original game. There are also a lot of
nice touches in the game. I like flying just above the surface of the
water so that you are barely skimming it, leaving a wake behind you.
In-game music has been added to the game, which was one of the major
things missing from Cybermorph. The music in Battlemorph is excellent,
and there appears to be a wide variety of different tunes. One nice
touch is the music changes when you fly either underwater or through
tunnels. Sound effects are also very good, with nice use made of
stereo and depth cueing. I love to listen to this game on a pair of
headphones through the Catbox.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// The Good, the Bad and the Overall
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Well, I honestly don't have anything really bad to say about this
game. The main complaint many people had about Cybermorph was that it
looked like they rushed it out the door, which meant things like
in-game music, polished transitional screens and other minor details
didn't make it into the game in time. That is not the case here, and
there is an obvious... well... attention to detail <g> in this one.
The gameplay is very solid and will offer many repeat playings. This
game also proves you don't have to texturemap everything into oblivion
to make an excellent game. If I was Atari, I would make sure this is
one of the Jag titles that gets ported to the other platforms.
Battlemorph is easily the best game for the Jag CD yet. Fans of the
original will flip over this one.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Final Ratings
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: Battlemorph Jaglink: No
Developer: Attention to Detail Players: 1
Published by: Atari Media: JagCD
Retail: $59.95 Availability: Now
A Summary of Ratings:
"*" is a whole
"+" is a half
5 stars Maximum
Graphics - **** Nothing mind-blowing, but very good nonetheless.
Audio - ***** Excellent tunes and voices, very good sound
effects.
Control - ***** Easy to learn, very precise, flexible, supports
the ProController.
Gameplay - ***** Even better than the first! Not on rails, set
your own pace, tons to explore and do, selectable
difficulty levels.
Overall - ***** The best Jag CD game yet and one of the best Jag
games, period.
Key to Charles' Ratings
(the sharp state of mind)
***** - Ginsu!
**** - Bowie
*** - Swiss Army
** - Steak
* - Rusty
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Author's Bio
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Charles Wells (a.k.a., Ginsu on GEnie) has been into Atari videogames
since Pong and the 2600, owning over the years various systems
including a 5200, 7800, Lynx, 520 ST and a 130 XE. The Jaguar is the
latest addition to the family, along with about two dozen games for
it. Currently residing in Fayetteville, NC, he plans to go to school
for Law Enforcement in the near future. A member of GEnie for about
two years, Battlemorph is his first review for AEO Magazine.
--==--==--==--==--
[Ed: This review originally appeared in AEO's
Special Jaguar Edition E3, May 20, 1995]
||| CatBox Review
||| By: Travis Guy
/ | \ GEnie: AEO.MAG Delphi: AEO_MAG
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I've found a whole new way to play Jaguar - with the CatBox from Black
Cat Designs. Before, I've had my Jag hooked up to my old 19" RCA TV
through an RF connection. The picture was clear, sharp, and the sound
was great. While I have seen Jaguars hooked up to stereos and non-RF
televisions, I had never played one extensively.
But when my CatBox arrived (with an adaptor to allow me to connect to
my old 1040ST's SC1224 monitor), I was able to start seeing and hearing
my games in a whole new fashion.
//// What Is It?
The CatBox is a stainless steel box that connects to an Atari Jaguar
via the Jaguar's DSP & AV Out bus edges, and provides industry standard
connector jacks for S-Video, RGB and composite video; Left and Right
channel stereo RCA jacks; two 1/8" stereo headphone jacks (with volume
adjust); RS-232 and "CatNet" networking ports, and a pass-through Jaguar
DSP bus, so other devices can be daisychained.
Inside the CatBox are two PCBs with the support electronics to drive
old Atari/Amiga era RGB monitors, and to properly do everything else
that is asked of it. It's a very solid piece of engineering.
If you're buying CatBox to drive an RGB monitor, contact Black Cat to
make sure your monitor type is supported. (It should support a scan
rate of 15.75kHz.) There are two jumpers on one of the PCBs inside the
CatBox which a user could set for certain monitor requirements.
Furthermore, a monitor cable adaptor may be required. (I had to have my
SC 1224's brightness increased slightly, but it was well worth the
time... nothing provides a sharper Jaguar display, than an RGB monitor.)
There's two red LEDs that can been seen through holes drilled into the
top of the CatBox. They both light up when the Jaguar is powered up,
and I'm told that when networked, the LEDs will flicker on and off
similar to a modem's Receive Data and Transmit Data LEDs.
The CatBox has no external power needs or supplies. All power that it
uses is drawn from the Jaguar. A nice, neat solution.
//// Network Now For The Future
Networking. A future step that the video game industry will have to
take. CatBox supports RS-232 devices (if a game will support it, you
can connect a standard external modem to the RS-232 port), CatNet
(another networking possibility that uses twisted-pair telephone cable
to daisychain connect multiple Jaguars), and a place to connect
future DSP-port devices.
I don't have another copy of Doom to test networking with myself, but
I've spoken to several third-party developers who swear by CatBox for
their network tests.
//// Final Ratings
Title: CatBox Networking: CatNet, RS-232 and DSP
Designed by: Black Cat Designs Video: RGB, SVideo, composite
Marketed by: ICD, Inc. Available: Now
MSRP: $69.99 Audio: L/R RCA, 2 headphone
Of the three "computer port" games that appeared earlier this spring
for Jaguar (Cannon Fodder, Syndicate, and Theme Park), all experience
some "muddiness" of text when viewed through RF output. Not so when
played on my lowly Goldstar SC1224 monitor through CatBox! Crisp,
clear graphics. (I didn't even know that the starfield in Tempest 2000
wasn't made of =white= stars, till I saw it through CatBox!)
Audio-wise, the stereo jacks work perfectly. (If you only connect one
jack to your amplifier, CatBox will sense this and supply both
channels of audio through the one jack. Nice, Tom!) The amplified
headphone jacks on the CatBox are a =perfect= touch - nice, clean,
loud stereo.
Control and use are a snap. Just make sure your Jaguar is on a solid,
flat surface and that it won't be jarred during play - doing so could
possibly interrupt the Jaguar/CatBox connection.
Overall, this product earns five stars across the board, and the
shortest AEO Jaguar review on record! There's nothing else to say,
CatBox is a perfect addition to your Jaguar, and a definite "buy."
--==--==--==--==--
||| Jaguar Review - I-WAR
||| By: Clay Halliwell
/ | \ GEnie: E.HALLIWELL Internet: halliwee@ts436.dyess.af.mil
--------------------------------------------------------------
Imagitec Design, the folks who brought us such classics as Raiden and
Evolution: Dino Dudes, have struck again with I-War. Developed and
released without fanfare, I-War is both the best and the worst Jaguar
game I've seen.
In the future world of I-War, all the computing tasks on the planet
have been handed over to the Override Mainframe Computer. All is well
for a few years, then the obligatory Bad Things start happening.
Mutant databases begin appearing and clogging up the I-Way with their
datapods. Looks like it's time to hop into your anti-virus tank and
save the world!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Cybertank Driving 101
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I-War can be played in one or two player mode. The two-player mode is
mentioned only in passing in the manual, but seems to be a head-to-
head contest set in a single arena.
At the start of the one-player game you set your difficulty level
(Easy/Medium/Hard), and choose between three different tanks - Light,
Medium, and Heavy. Go for the Heavy. It's not much slower than the
Light tank, and allows you access to all the weapon upgrades. It also
doesn't slide around as much.
You steer your tank by pushing left and right on the control pad, and
move forward and backward by pushing up and down. The default button
configuration is A: Select Weapon, B: Fire Weapon, C: Shields. Option
isn't used. You can select from a variety of Club Drive-style camera
angles with the keypad. Pressing "7" overlays a map of the current
level on the screen. The manual says pressing "8" toggles the texture
mapping, but I couldn't get it to do anything. The usual
music-toggling and volume-adjusting options are also present.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Toys, Wonderful Toys
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
No matter which tank you pick, you're started off with a single
forward-firing laser. Weapon upgrades can be found as you progress
through the game. For example, Mark 2 lasers fire two-shot bursts. The
bigger your tank, the more weapons you can mount simultaneously, so if
you're in a Heavy, you can carry two Mark 2 lasers (a four-shot
spread!) and two racks of missiles. You can eventually acquire the
following goodies (most of which are available in several upgrade
levels):
[] Radar: One of the first items you find. Places a radar display at
the bottom center of your screen.
[] Missiles: These home in on the closest target, and are primarily
for use against airborne targets. Unfortunately, a typical launch
will result in the missile undershooting the target, looping back
over it, and nosediving into the ground.
[] Plasma Cannon: Hold down your fire button to charge this baby up,
then unleash a huge blast of destructive energy at your target.
That's the theory anyway. In practice, it's quicker to just blitz
your target with laser fire. The range of the plasma cannon does
seem to be slightly greater than the lasers though.
[] Mine Dispenser: Tosses mines out the back of your tank. Due to the
way I-War is set up (small rooms, enemies that mostly sit and
shoot), mines are less than useless. Generally you'll forget you
have them, accidentally spew out a few when switching weapons, then
drive over them yourself.
[] Rear Laser: A single peashooter laser that must be selected just
like your main weapons. If you're getting hammered from behind,
it's better to either run, or turn around and engage the enemy with
your main batteries, thus also putting the Rear Laser in the
useless category.
[] Auto Targeting: Not a weapon, but an upgrade which causes your
targeting cursor to float around and lock onto the closest target.
You get this fairly early in the game, and it works great... most
of the time. Annoyingly, you can't force it to cycle through the
available targets, so it will sometimes lock onto, for instance, a
stationary mine instead of the guard tower that's raining plasma
bolts down on your head.
You can toggle Auto Targeting off, but without it you can only fire
straight ahead. Shooting flying enemies is especially problematic,
since the only way to elevate your sights is to enable Auto Targeting,
but since it locks precisely on, it's impossible to lead your target.
[] A.I. Drone: A kissing cousin to Tempest 2000's A.I. Droid, the
Drone will hover over your tank and take potshots at any nearby
threats. Not very powerful (even the upgraded versions), but handy
for alerting you to enemies not in your field of vision. Also good
for shooting over electric barriers. The Drone can be destroyed by
enemy fire.
[] Shields: Your friend in a pinch. Hitting the "shield" button on
your controller will make you temporarily invulnerable.
There's a huge variety of enemies in I-War - bombers, tanks, homing
mines, guard towers - but you deal with almost all of them in exactly
the same way: blast 'em toe-to-toe until they die. Often you'll clear
a room of enemies without ever knowing what was in it.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Netscape Navigation
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Once you get past all the Cyberpunk gobbledygook, I-War is pretty
straightforward. Play consists of driving your tank through a series
of areas connected by teleporters, collecting datapods, upgrading your
weapons, and blowing up anything that gets in your way. Once you
collect all the pods, make your way back to the teleporter to move on
to the next level.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Gameplay is eerily similar to
Cybermorph, except you drive instead of flying. The major difference
is that each level is divided into up to a dozen "rooms" connected by
teleporters. Since the map doesn't show your current location, getting
from place to place can be a major headache. Also unlike Cybermorph,
there's no handy arrow pointing toward the nearest pod. In fact, pods
don't show up on your radar at all!
There is one save-game slot, but it's a tad flaky, and tends to
replace your rear-firing laser with an A.I. Drone.
The terrain is flat, with the occasional bridge, ledge, or platform.
These are accessed by driving onto jumpers, which bounce you up into
the air. (Whee!) There are also intermittent electric barriers, doors,
magnets (pull you in), repellers (push you away), spikes (drain your
shields), spinners (fling you away randomly), and switches. Switches
may activate jumpers, doors, or teleporters. Driving into walls and
off of cliffs doesn't damage you.
Between levels you take a trip down the Data Link, a bonus round
similar to the ones in Tempest 2000. Cruising down a variety of tunnel
shapes, you attempt to avoid stray junk while intercepting at at least
75% of the viruses that come your way. Doing so will net you an extra
life. You have two view modes available in the bonus round - first-
person, which lets you see what's coming but pitches your viewpoint
around so much you can't tell where you are, and third-person, which
lets you see where you are but also sticks your ship directly in the
middle of your field of view.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Graphics
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
At first glance, I-War is the slickest, most professional-looking game
I've seen on the Jaguar. The title screen is wonderfully sharp and
colorful (and I suspect 640x200). All the option and intro graphics
are just superb... large, easy-to-read menu text, lots of
transparencies and gee-whiz animations in the backgrounds, a demo mode
that runs through the game story, a "know your enemies"-type screen,
and some sample gameplay. If you were to simply stare at I-War and
never play it, you'd swear it was the best Jag game ever.
Alas, I made the mistake of playing I-War. The game starts you off in
small rooms with only a few enemies, so the frame rate is good enough
that you don't mind the primarily gouraud-shaded environs. The moment
you make tracks into one of the larger rooms though, the frame rate
drops like a rock, to around 5 FPS. Large numbers of enemies onscreen
at once have the same effect.
It's obvious that I-War's polygon engine isn't up to snuff, yet
inexplicably the programmer seems to try to load it down at every
opportunity. The model of your tank is marvelously detailed... so
detailed that switching to any of the external views cuts the frame
rate almost in half. Every laser shot that hits a wall produces a
shower of polygon sparks, spraying an enemy with laser fire lets loose
such a bloom of shards that you can barely see what you're shooting
at, and the larger rooms in the game are often the ones with the
highest level of architectural detail. There are some even some pretty
impressive effects, like the "TRON"-ish way enemies burst apart when
destroyed, and the mirrored ball that englobes your tank when your
shields are on.
=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Sound
=-=-=-=-=-=
These are the guys behind Tempest 2000's legendary soundtrack, so of
course the music (mild techno) is great. Sound effects are limited
primarily to weapons fire and explosions. There's a computer voice,
which sounds almost exactly like a Type 'n' Talk, but not much else.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Conclusion
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This is very much a two-headed beast. It's apparent that a lot of care
and thought went into I-War, but it's undermined by an inadequate
polygon engine and gameplay which is, while fun at first, ultimately
tedious and repetitive.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Final Ratings
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: I-War JagNet: No
Design: Imagitec Design Players: 1-2
Published by: Atari Cart Size: 2 Megabytes
Retail: $59.99 Availability: Now
A Summary of Ratings:
"*" is a whole
"+" is a half
5 stars Maximum
Graphics - ** First-class intro graphics; pathetic frame rate
when things get busy.
Audio - **** Awesome tunes from the Tempest 2000 guys; so-so
but serviceable sound effects.
Control - **** Maneuvering your way around the I-Way couldn't be
simpler.
Gameplay - ** The variety of weapon upgrades is fun; the
stumbling around lost is not.
Overall - ** Lots of promising stuff here, but the low frame
rate and confusing navigation are the kiss of
death for I-War.
Key to Clay's Ratings
(a cyber state of mind)
***** - WarGames
**** - The Lawnmower Man
*** - Weird Science
** - The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes
* - Hackers/The Net/Viruosity/Wild Palms/Johnny Mnemonic
Clay Halliwell, currently residing in Abilene, TX, is a 27-year-old
computer programmer in the United States Air Force. When he's not
playing Jag games or referring to himself in the third person, he
likes to hack on his 130XE, much to the consternation of his
coworkers.
--==--==--==--==--
||| Jaguar Review: Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
||| By: Mark "Stingray" Santora
/ | \ GEnie: AEO.4 AOL: MrSantora
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Since the Jaguar's release, a little over two years ago, the most
popular games for the system have been the updates of "classic" games.
I am of course referring to Tempest 2000 and the upcoming Breakout 2000
and Defender 2000. These games seem to generate considerable more
interest than Super Duper Mortal Street Combat Fighter XXIIV games -
and with good reason. The original versions of these games are what
spawned todays programmers. They look to the classics with reverence -
even GameBoy has some "classics" out.
The term "classic" games refers to those games in the early to mid
1980's when playability was more important than following in the
latest fad. Most of the games did not have endings, and given your
skill could be played for hours on end while the difficulty just
continued to get harder.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Pitfall Classic
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If you are a first generation gameplayer, than you must have heard of
the original Pitfall! It was written by David Crane for the Atari
2600. When it came out, it was the game to beat, and on the Atari
2600, I would be hard pressed to say that no other game captured my
attention as much as it did. The original Pitfall was simple - take
the role of Pitfall Harry (the original Atari Explorer) and run around
on two platforms, grabbing as many jewels and goodies as you can in
under twenty minutes, while trying not to fall in the pits or the
lakes with alligators, get stung by scorpions, or run over by logs.
You could run, jump, swing from a vine, and climb ladders. I'm sure
I'm forgetting a few objects, but you get the idea.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Pitfall: The Next Generation
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Now Activision has pulled out all the stops to update their classic,
and I gotta tell you, they've done one hell of a job. The plot is
simple, after years of gallivanting around the world, Pitfall Harry
decided to settle down and have some kids. Well, he had a son, Harry,
Jr., who's a lot like his dad - fearless and full of adventure. Seeing
this in his son, this awoke the feelings in Harry Sr, that he hadn't
felt since he settled down. So, he decided to set out on an expedition
with his son to the Mayan Pyramids in Central America. Once there,
Harry Sr. was captured by the evil Warrior Spirit Zakelua. Armed with
his father's notes, a slingshot, and some attitude, Harry Jr. is going
after the biggest treasure of all time, his father.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Playing the Game
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
As is standard with all platformers, as Harry Jr. you can run left and
right, jump up, crouch, and even crawl. That constitutes the main
moves of Harry Jr. However, like his father, Harry Jr can swing from
vines, and even the unconscious carcasses of snakes (more on that
subject later). Unlike his father, Harry Jr. is armed with weapons.
He has a slingshot that slings rocks. (which are plentiful throughout
the game.) He can also use the slingshot as a whip so he does not have
to waste the rocks, this is a good weapon for mice and spiders -
basically those things that are small and close to the ground. Using
your slingshot, you can charge your throws so that they do more
damage.
Throughout the levels you might be fortunate enough to find boomerangs
and exploding stones. The boomerangs whip around until they've hit and
killed everything on the screen. The exploding stones are very useful
when things get a little crazy in front of you. One of these puppies
will clear a nice path for you. You can also ride ziplines, jump on
items (like spider webs or tongues of statues) to bounce you into the
air, bungee jumps, riding runaway mine cars, climbing ropes, and
swinging on vine. As you can tell, the gameplay is varied and never
gets boring.
The screen is laid out rather well with information easily accessible
without being obtrusive. In the upper left hand corner of the screen
in the score. In the upper right hand of the screen is the number of
lives you have left and and image of Harry Jr being chased by a
crocodile. As you loose health, the croc gets closer. You don't want
to let him get too close or else you lose a life. In the lower right
hand corner is is a numeric representation of the amount of the
treasure you have collected so far. Every 50 pieces you collect, you
get another continue. And in the lower left hand corner is the weapon
that you are using and the number of them you have to use (you can not
run out of the whip and you select the weapon by pressing the option
button).
There are a lot of bad guys, and they are very different. First, there
are your basic skeletons. These baddies bounce around the ground as
heads and then when you get close, rise up and start swiping away at
you with their very large swords. Once you hit them, they go down, but
their heads continue to bounce around and eventually reform the entire
body! So, after you knock them down, it's a good idea to take another
swing against the bouncing heads.
Secondly are your snakes, mice and spiders. These are just about
everywhere on most levels. They are very quick and hug the ground.
Using your slingshot against them is usually a futile move. Use the
sling/whip. Ditto for the blood-sucking bats and the butterflies. (!)
Next, you get to play with the Spirits of Chaac. These guys will
really kick your butt if you don't watch yourself. They are fast and
fire at you without mercy. You also run into gargoyles that come to
life and throw axes at you, they're not too fun either. The manual
mentions vapor ghosts - but I haven't seen them yet. There are =many=
other baddies around: monkeys, swinging Great Balls o' Fire, spikes,
temple priests, etc. You won't get bored.
At the end of most levels you run into bosses. These little beasties
(tm. Yak) will jump all over you and rip your health away. They take
multiple hits, but there is a percentage meter above the screen to
tell you how good or bad you are doing. Sometimes, the end-of-level
boss isn't living, and you have a split second to figure out how to
deal with it.... Every time that you complete a level the game asks
you if you would like to save it. Unfortunately there is only one game
save, so only one player can play at a time. Of course the control pad
is completely configurable, so you can adjust the settings to your
liking.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Graphics
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This conversion of Pitfall was handled by the lovely people over at
Imagitec in the UK. They were responsible for last year's Bubsy and
Zool 2 conversions. I know some people didn't like those games
because they weren't "64bit looking," whatever that means. But even
those nay sayers will be impressed by the graphics in Pitfall. They
are very sharp and colorful. The animation is also excellent falling
short only of Rayman status - and for a platformer, that's pretty
darn good. Harry Jr. is animated slightly better than an afternoon
cartoon. Everytime he moves, there is a new expression, his jacket
flares up when he jumps or swings, and he goes into a levitating
trance if you leave him unguided for too long.
The enemies are not overlooked here, either. They are animated
excellently, almost as well as Harry is. Not that it should be that
distracting, after all you have to dispatch them very quickly. Also
the lack of colors, seeing how the Jaguar has so many, they could have
easily been put to good use here by fixing it up. Aside from that,
the graphics rock.
=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Sound
=-=-=-=-=-=
The sound in Pitfall is also very good. There is different music for
each of the levels I have played so far and each movement has a
different effect. Even when Harry Jr. runs, you here his feet crunch
down on dried grass, cement, etc. The music is equally good, never
becoming obtrusive and causing you to get distracted from the game.
It is also of high quality, no distortion that I can hear. The sound
is used very well throughout this game and you can tell that the
programmers payed just as much attention to it as they did to
graphics.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Playability
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
It's all here. You run, jump, shoot, crawl, swing, slide, ride, and
even find treasure. What else could you ask for in a great platformer?
The control is dead on and this game is just fun! On top of that, once
you reach the fourth level, if you find your may to a door which is
guarded by a really simple looking scorpion (it's white and real boxy
- like it was done in the "classic" days of gaming) when you go
through it, you are close to being transported to the original world
of Pitfall.
Yes the original is here - all 4K of it, or was it 8K? Anyway, you get
the three lives like the original and get to play until you lose them.
After that, you are transported back to Pitfall:The Mayan Adventure
and continue to play Jr. exactly where you left off with no loss of
time or lives.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Conclusion
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Pitfall is beautiful to listen to, to look at, and to play.
Everything is there to keep you hooked for a while. It actually plays
a little easier than Rayman, so if that was a little hard or too
frustrating for you, than this is definitely the place to go. And if
Rayman was fun for you, than you will enjoy this as well.
I never thought we'd end up in a time where so many good games were
coming out for the Jag. I know I can't afford to get them all. But if
you like platformers, than I highly suggest this one. It really shines
and Imagitec have done a great job with it.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
//// Final Ratings
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: Pitfall:The Mayan Adventure JagNet: No
Developer: Imagitec Players: 1
Published by: Atari Cart Size: 4 Megabyte
Retail: $59.95 Availability: Now
A Summary of Ratings:
"*" is a whole
"+" is a half
5 stars Maximum
Graphics - ****+ Really sharp. Nicely animated.
Audio - **** Really good. Very clear and solid.
Control - **** It's on. You move, Harry Jr. moves.
Gameplay - ***** It's a good game and it'll take time to
finish it - but you'll enjoy it.
Overall - **** Above and Beyond a solid effort. Worth your
time and money.
Key to Mark's Ratings
The Ultimate State of Action Movie Directors
***** - James Cameron (T2, Aliens)
**** - Steven Speilberg (Jurassic Park)
*** - Peter Hyams (Timecop)
** - John Badham (Point of No Return)
* - Arron Norris (Top Dog - Brother of Chuck)
--==--==--==--==--
||| The Unabashed Atariophile
||| By: Michael R. Burkley
/ | \ Delphi: MRBURKLEY GEnie: M.BURKLEY1 I-Net: mrburkley@delphi.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It's been awhile now since I've written one of these articles, hasn't
it been? I've not been lazing about though. It's been far too easy to
download many, many more files than I can possibly write descriptions
for in the limited time I have (but I'll get to them...soon!).
Nevertheless, I have been able to write a few descriptions here and
there. You'll find about a hundred of them below. Some of the files
are new and others are old (I've been working back through my
downloads!). Enjoy!
But before I go on to my file descriptions I want to tell you about my
newest hardware acquisition. I bought a SyQuest EZ Drive and about 13
cartridges for it. The EZ drive is a Fast, Small, and Inexpensive
(relatively!) removable hard drive that works perfectly on my STE. I
bought it for two reasons, the first was to allow me to easily
transfer data back and forth between my Atari and my Windows 3.1/95
based clone (yes, I have one, mostly because when I first made the
Suzy B's CDs, the CD had to be made on an IBM clone machine. Now I
understand that there is TOS CD mastering software available!). That
works just fine as long as I keep the partition size at 32 meg or
below, except for one problem that Windows 95 causes. For some reason
or another I end up with a lot of "hidden" garbage files written to
the disk that I can't delete with my STE and that mess up the copying
(I have to copy file by file rather than all at once). Windows 3.1
doesn't do that so that's what I use when transferring files. If
anyone can help me to fix that problem with Windows 95, I'd appreciate
it!
The other reason I bought the EZ-Drive is that I needed more room to
store away all of the PD files I download! My 2.2 gig drive is full!
A lot of the drive is backed up on our CD set, but there are several
hundred meg of files I needed to back up. Just having those extra
empty cartridges around makes a big difference!
I also have a SyQuest 44 meg drive (which I'm selling, by the way).
I've had a SyQuest 44 for about 5 years now (though this drive is only
two years old). The access speed on that drive is 28 ms. I thought
that was fast enough until I got this EZ-Drive. It's access time is
13.5 ms with a sustained data transfer rate of 2.4 meg/sec (and a
burst max of 4.0 meg/sec). That's fast! The drive itself is about as
big as the Atari external floppy drive while the cartridges are a
little larger in area than a floppy disk and about three times as
thick. Dave Troy at Toad Computers tells me that the carts are the
same as the SyQuest 270 meg drive except only having one platter
instead of two. Whatever it is, it's a good deal, and I recommend the
EZ-Drive to you.
Now on to the descriptions!
Here are two very welcome files to start a very long list of files!
[] FALCSTUF is the first of the extras disks that came with the Atari
Falcon. Atari has now released them to be fully distributable! This
file contains the Audio Fun Machine, the Falcon Direct to Disk
recording system, and the System Audio Manager (SAM) along with a pile
of sound files (.AVR) for you to use. These all work with the Falcon
(of course), but the SAM program will also work with an STE or TT).
This file includes an installation program which you may use.
Uncompresses to 1.38 meg so you either need a hard drive or uncompress
it bit by bit. Thanks to Atari for releasing this and CLKSTUFF!
[] CLKSTUFF is the second of the extras disks that came with the Atari
Falcon. Atari has now released them to be fully distributable! This
file contains the Atari Breakout game (with lots of features and neat
sounds as the ball hits the "wall," the Calendar/Datebook/Addressbook/
Dialer program, the Atari LandMine clone (again with neat sounds and
lots of features), the ProCalc calculator v.1.3 by John Brochu (a
simple four function calculator OR an advanced scientific bin/hex/
everything calculator as you wish it, and the Atari talking clock
(pretty neat in my book). I think that all of them (except probably
ProCalc) would require an STE or higher (because of the sound
capabilities), but I'm not sure, and I can't test it on an earlier TOS
at the moment. Thanks to Atari for releasing this and FALCSTUF!
Uncompresses to 866K so you either need a hard drive or do it bit by
bit.
[] AGGROINV is the "Extremely Official Party Invitation To The
Aggressive II Party" (on Dec. 28-30th, with a New Years Party
following!). Dated Oct. 11, 1995, this demo -is- the invitation! It
requires a Falcon 030 with at least 4 Mb ram. It does not require an
RGB monitor but it is recommended. It features a very nice motion blur
rotator zoomer and information on the Aggressive Party 2. I found this
on UNI-KL.
[] AVIPL095 is v.0.95 of a simple AVI animation player for all Atari
computers by Dieter Fiebelkorn. This will work with mono, 16, or 256
color displays. This is for all of you who have found AVI animations
but couldn't play them. Now you can! At the moment the viewer supports
only CRAM8, CRAM16 (uncompressed), RLE8, RLE4 (untested) and CVID
format AVI files. Sound is not yet supported, but a utility is
included which will pull the sound information out of the animation
and save it as a WAV sound file. 680x0 support and math co-processor
support included (math-co not required). German and English docs
included. Delphi.
[] BANK_M1 is a GEM-based BankLoader for the KORG M1 synth by Olaf
Schrvder (dated June, 1993). This file contains the original sounds
(in all programs and all combination forms - whatever that means!), a
piano sound, a synthi sound, and two combination sounds. The program
and extensive docs are in German, but it doesn't look too hard to
figure out. The KORG M1 instrument is required.
[] BIGCOLOR is a Big Color v.1.05 by John Dalton (dated 1989). This
is a color emulator for monochrome systems that will work with any TOS
(supposedly) and with all memory configurations. It will yield seven
different gray scales in "low res" and three in "medium." Docs and
source code (.S) included. Recently uploaded again to Delphi.
[] BOOMPREV is the is a preview version of a game for the Falcon
originally to be called Boom (but now changed to Incubator) by the nEw
PoWeR gEnErAtIoN. You can play this, but only to a certain level. The
main part of the game is a hi-color defender type game (with a
constant 30 frames per second), and the rest of the game (bonus
screens, etc) includes a wolfenstein type 3D texture mapped maze with
variable walls (heavy use of the DSP/68030 here), and more. It works
on both VGA and TV/SC1224 monitors. True Color graphics and more.
Requires at least 3 megs of Free RAM. Uncompresses to over 3 meg!
Delphi.
[] BOOTCONF is the TT/Falcon Boot Configuration program v.1.1. Th