Issue 12
Contents
Features
- | Foreword
- | Tip of the day
- | Mailbox
- | Up for it?
- | Ludwig: Bones for an Obscure Dog
- | Spot the hard drive competition
- | The Notator SL user-group
- | Black Box
- | Atari games on the move
Reviews
- | Jag-Wired
- | Mirage A/D convertor cartridge
News
Jag-Wired Carl Rowlands looks at Jaguar web sites and finds an old beast that won't lie down The fact that Atari's last console was a miserable commercial failure has not prevented recognition of some of its games as classics. Wolfenstein 3D, Tempest 2000, Ultra Vortek and Alien vs Predator spring to mind as games which are a lot of fun on the Jaguar, so it's only fitting that web sites should tap into the sense of oddball humour which marks so many Jaguar games. The essential starting point is the "Jagu-Dome" (http://www.jaguar.holyoak.com) with its distinctive psychedelic backdrops. Featuring a bizarre assortment of "Cybermorph"-style gouraud-shaded landscapes and spooky techno tracks, the scene is set from the start and you know that this is something a bit special. To be honest, the Jagu-Dome beats anything that the old Atari Corp would ever have been capable of. There's a totally comprehensive reviews section, with screenshots, previews, posters and interviews with some of the Jag-faces from down the years. There are also many links to other sites, some of which still work! The huge amount of research that has been conducted here is fantastic. There are pictures of various prototypes and semi-developed games, some of the debris scooped out of the ashes of the old JTS/Atari. The Jagu-Dome is the place to start for all things Jaguar - in fact, it might persuade you to go out and buy one... With the Jagu-Dome being such a strong focus for what remains of the Jaguar scene, other sites may look pale by comparison, but for a totally comprehensive overview of the Jaguar the best, if plainest choice would be to go to the Atari Games HQ (http://atarihq.com/jeo/) and look through some of the old archives of the e-zine Jaguar Explorer Online. Naturally, the line taken is extremely pro-Atari, but the reviews are, on the whole, fair, and some of the early awful releases are duly given a thorough kicking (although the despicable Hoverstrike is still rated too highly). All of the game ratings are posted in every issue. Browsing through back-issues, it's all comprehensively documented here... the Virtuality headset that never happened, the hopelessly expensive CD-ROM and the many games that never actually saw the light of day. JEO issues seem to have slowed down though, to around one annually, so atarihq and JEO may not the best place for news, and JEO is plain text only... However, it is extremely comprehensive and also provides a fair bit of Falcon/Lynx info in the early part of the archive. So there's something here for everyone. For the latest news on the Jaguar, apart from the Jagu-Dome, it's worth visiting Jaguar Front Page news which still seems to be updated on a regular basis at http://www.classicgaming.com/jfpn/frames.html. Also worth a look for any new developments is http://home.sprynet.com/~thunderbird/. To be positive, it is the people who are behind JEO and Jagu-Dome who can claim credit for the continued release of previously lost Jaguar games up to this time. There are a couple of companies still manufacturing cartridges. One of these is Songbird Productions (http://songbird.atari.org) who have managed to release Skyhammer, a Rebellion game which Atari mysteriously dropped, and by all accounts is pretty good. The Songbird web site is easy enough to browse around and shows how much Songbird contribute to the Jag scene. Whilst not wishing to offend anyone, I could personally have done without the evangelical Christianity. Meanwhile, small outfit 4-Play (http://www.battlesphere.com) have concentrated on completing Battlesphere, another game rejected at a late stage by Atari. This looks like an amazing effort. There is sometimes a price paid for looking at North American web sites; there can be a lot of content, everything looks nice, and then you get a link to the National Rifle Association and the local Klan HQ. The Jaguar crowd on the whole seem to be quite a well-balanced bunch, so many of the Jaguar web sites are basically homepages with other bits and pieces on them about other, non-militia interests. Check out http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/sturgeon/22/ and the amusing http://cmsu2.cmsu.edu/~mrs27230/IronFist.htm. To ask techie questions about the Jaguar it may be best to steer clear of usenet, as the Jag groups are... quiet, and try the Jaguar forums at http://www.atari.org or www.ataricentral.com. To buy a used but unbruised Jaguar, you may find one on usenet or the forums I mentioned. Alternatively, in the UK, Retro Computer Exchange (http://www.cex.co.uk) can usually post one fairly cheaply if you've got itchy trigger fingers (or in the Jag's case, thumbs). For those in the USA, Video Games Liquidators (http://www.vglq.com) have established themselves as one of the primary suppliers of Jag bits and pieces. It seems fair to mention Jaguar descendant, the Nuon (http://www.nuon-tech.com), which is basically a graphics board-in-a-chip for DVD players. Familiar names crop up in connection with this - Eclipse Development, responsible for Iron Soldier (http://www.eclipse.at), Jeff "Tempest" Minter and Richard Miller, technical director of the Jaguar project. When the Jaguar was finally dropped by Atari, stores went on a massive stock clearance exercise. The low prices encouraged DIY enthusiasts to move in, so it comes as no surprise to see web sites dedicated to hardware hacking the Jaguar including http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1460/index.html. It would have interesting to see what the Jaguar 2 could have done and I still hope somebody will one day be able to engineer a superJaguar! Failing this, you can find instructions for building a rotary controller for Tempest 2000 at http://www.jaguar.holyoak.com/rotary.htm. Gaming perfection could be a click away.
MyAtari magazine - Review #1, October 2001
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