Atari Jaguar

[Crackdown]

Well none of those Jaguar reviews are good. Although whoever gave Double Dragon V an 8 was clearly on crack as the game is a total abomination with no redeeming features.

Theme Park, Ruiner and Hoverstrike are all excellent games and Pinball Fantasies and Troy Aikmen are also very good but they all got slammed in one way or another.

[Thenewguy]

Some were starting to assert that the 3DO and Jaguar were always seen as failures and thus the 32X had no valid reason for existing (it was created specifically to counter the Jaguar).

I can just see it now

Sega guy #1 - "sir! did you hear about the Jaguar! its selling 150,000 a year in the US

Sega guy #2 - "holy crap?! we only sold ~5 million Genesis' last year, if we're not careful Jaguar will take over!"

Sega guy #1 - "yeah, we'd better be careful, I've heard that Capcom, Konami, Taito, Electronic Arts, Data East, Namco, Ubisoft, Virgin Interactive, Eidos, and Activision have no interest in supporting it, but I'm sure Jaguar will be able to grow a healthy software library, they have Jeff Minter!"

Sega Guy #3 - "I'm sure their sales will increase tons soon, though I have heard that they're so low on funds that they're actually struggling to manufacture more than a couple hundred thousand units a year, that could make selling millions of them be a little bit problematic.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

I think what really happened was Sega was actually being run by a giant computer that would give answers based on data it was given. When it was given the data of Atari making a new console in the situation they were in it was so bizarre that the computer just broke and starting shouting random phrases like the following:

"32X!"
"Mushrooms grow out of the Super Mega Drive Genesis!"
"8 Moons of Saturn!"
"Square is the new Triangle!"
"RPGs are the devil!"
"Japan is too Japan for us!"

And Sega tried to interpret it's will as best it could.

[sheath]

Hahah. One of the things I was surprised of is how the companies themselves always at least made a PR statement about answering every product out there. That article I posted about the PS2 supposedly being ready for 1997 shows that Sony was part of that scheme as well.

[Curryman123]

Please post more Jaguar review scans.

[sheath]

Will do, I'm going to have to start over once I'm done with the summer of 1995 and post everything from 1994 as well.

[TheSonicRetard]

Gamepro May 1995 reviews and previews and whatnot.

Whowever gave Double Dragon V higher across the board scores than Pinball Fantasies - one of the best pinball games ever made - is fucking retarded.

[sheath]

Whowever gave Double Dragon V higher across the board scores than Pinball Fantasies - one of the best pinball games ever made - is fucking retarded.

Well, it looks like they gave Pinball Fantasy significantly higher graphics and sound scores than Double Dragon V, which also surprises me as Double Dragon V on Jaguar is definitely not a bad looking game (sounding maybe). If Pinball Fantasies plays at all like Pinball, I'd guess the reviewer just didn't like Pinball, giving it a 1.0 in funfactor definitely doesn't seem very legit.

[Thenewguy]

Pinball Fantasies on Jaguar was 3 years late (making it pretty out of date even at the best of times), appearing on a machine far more advanced than Amiga 500, and was, according to this, being sold for $60, which was more expensive than the Amiga version was when it was new in 1992.

I think this release probably deserved to be ripped to pieces personally.

[Benjamin]

Yeah, I'm fine with that Pinball Fantasies score. I got it during the brief time I had a Jaguar (mainly for Tempest 2000), and it's an average game with somewhat bouncy physics and fairly bland boards. In a world where an average score denotes an average game, which I'd say existed back when this game was received, I don't find its score inappropriate.

[TheSonicRetard]

Pinball Fantasies on Jaguar was 3 years late (making it pretty out of date even at the best of times), appearing on a machine far more advanced than Amiga 500, and was, according to this, being sold for $60, which was more expensive than the Amiga version was when it was new in 1992.

I think this release probably deserved to be ripped to pieces personally.

I don't. A good game is a good game. It's fucking pinball, how advanced does it need to be?

[j_factor]

Regardless of price and timing, Pinball Fantasies is no Devil's Crush. I think they were a bit harsh with the "fun factor" score but it's a pretty middling game.

[StarMist]

Well, it looks like they gave Pinball Fantasy significantly higher graphics and sound scores than Double Dragon V, which also surprises me as Double Dragon V on Jaguar is definitely not a bad looking game (sounding maybe). If Pinball Fantasies plays at all like Pinball, I'd guess the reviewer just didn't like Pinball, giving it a 1.0 in funfactor definitely doesn't seem very legit.

I actually don't see the graphics score's sense, the graphics are dismal for even a 16 bit console, and considering all a pinball game demands is pretty much a static board* I think it should've got a 1 in that dept.
I also disagree it need only play like pinball, pinball on a vg system is innately inferior to pinball on a real table and therefore needs to be trumped with all manner of vg style graphics, effects, play mechanisms, camera angles even (follow the ball when it disappears under the board; 1stP perspective when it's in the chutes; 3D popup art when a special score is achieved, &c); but the base of these appointments is a set of boards that looks somewhere near as good as a real table made of chrome and perspex and glass and neon.
Still, since the graphics got a higher score giving the Fun Factor a 1 is fishy.
* yes I'm aware it takes fifties and hundreds of screens to compose these apparently static boards.

[GohanX]

I like how this jaguar thread really isnt about the jaguar at all. i learned a lot about the amiga!

[Thenewguy]

No way are the graphics for the AGA version of Pinball Dreams "dismal" for a 16-bit console, that's just being silly, the original 500 version looked fairly respectable for 16-bit and the AGA game the Jaguar version was based on had extra colour added on top of it.