¢JAGUAR GAMEOLOGY (continued)¢¢How Much?¢¢ Worse still is the fact that most games are overpriced. For example, Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer and Zool 2 on ST / Amiga formats cost around 25 pounds each, yet can reach as much as 55 pounds on the Jaguar! Even allowing for the extra costs of a cart as opposed to a few disks, this is still too expensive!¢¢ I hope that Jaguar CDs aren't over-priced. CDs are far cheaper to produce than carts, so a 30-40 pounds price tag (similar to PC releases) would be ideal.¢¢¢The House Brick¢¢ A major problem brought up by reviewers when reviewing some of the games is that the Atari Joypad (commonly called the 'House Brick') lacks control, making simple games too complicated. Games like Syndicate, Dragon and Sensible Soccer have suffered as a result.¢¢¢Things are looking up!¢¢ At the moment, with the exception of a few games, it looks as though the odds are stacked against the Jaguar becoming a success. Then again, maybe not! There are some really promising games in the pipeline. Even better news is that many are on CD!¢¢ Firstly, forthcoming cart games...¢¢Bang! Smack! Owwww!¢¢ Beat'em'ups on cart are rife. Fight for Life is the Jaguar's answer to Virtua Fighter and the like. Most likely a product of the Atari/Sega million dollar deal last year, Fight for Life was created by the original Virtua Fighter programmer. It moves realistically with top-notch animation and action, and that's only from the pre-production demo version. As with the other polygon beat'em'ups, the action is viewed from different camera-like perspectives, panning in and out at different angles, but with an additional action-replay monitor in the corner. Expected in now - good move Atari!¢¢ Ultra Vortex is the beat'em'up that Kasumi Ninja should have been and it's looking great. This is expected in September.¢¢ Rise of The Robots, sadly heavily slated in other formats, will be out in September.¢¢¢Cartoons Galore!¢¢ Rayman (also to be on the Playstation) looks and moves beautifully with loads of colours and great animation. Expected June.¢¢ Soccer Kid, a very successful Amiga title, is out soon.¢¢ Tiny Toons has been floating around for ages and is finally expected in October.¢¢¢At last!¢¢ The much acclaimed hit Magic Carpet is weaving it's way onto the Jaguar. I hope it keeps the speed, graphics, sound and sheer playability of the PC version intact. However, I am in doubts for this appears to be on cart format, whereas the PC version is so big and has so many rendered animation screens, a CD is needed. Perhaps a CD version will be made available rather than a cart?¢¢¢A Welcomed return¢¢ HoverStrike is based on the old coin-op Battlezone and looks surprisingly impressive. You control a 3D tank over massive rendered and texture mapped planets on which are roaming mechanical enemies. This is out now and will soon be out on CD ROM.¢¢¢G'Day Sport!¢¢ Of the sport sims (the few that are scheduled at present - some criticised earlier for having poor graphics) there are three exiting new developments.¢¢ Arena Football League has amazing 3D players for example, and Brett Hull Hockey is supposidly very fast. The latter is expected in September.¢¢ White Men Can't Jump, loosely based on the film from a couple of years back, is basically a one-on-one basketball simulator. The screen scales and pans in and out during play. This is expected in June.¢¢¢Microprose - Still Going Strong!¢¢ Award winning simulation creators Microprose have produced Gunship 2000 for the Jaguar. It's a challenging helicopter simulation with many missions.¢¢¢Sheep, Yaks & Cannons!¢¢ Defender 2000 is a Jeff 'T2K' Minter rehash of the classic coin-op Defender. Excellent music tracks, challenging gameplay and sheep (!) are sure to make an eagerly-awaited appearance.¢¢ Space Wars 2000 is a 3D first-person-perspective adventure shoot'em'up with fully texture mapped ships. Expected soon.¢¢¢CD Gaming - The Future!¢¢ On the CD gaming side, there are some great games. Atari are expecting over 180 titles for the Jaguar. A considerable amount are to be on CD. These include Demolition Man in June (which is also currently available on the 3DO) and Creature Shock in September. Both look excellent. Between these two games you will see digitised FMV footage and fully rendered graphics.¢¢ As fate would have it, although the PC version of Creature Shock had rave reviews for graphics, the gameplay was rated far less. Apparently there is no real rewarding factor to the gameplay for the game to have any lasting appeal.¢¢ Arcade beat'em'up smash Primal Rage is planned on CD to compete with Killer Instinct, and it looks great. The Jaguar version is said to be a direct conversion from the coin-op. It is also to appear on the 16-bit consoles, as well as the Saturn and 3DO. A release date is yet to be announced.¢¢ A motorcycle racing game called Burn Out will soon be available on CD and cart. Some say it is dated and uninspiring, others say it is fast and good looking. Burn Out is to contend with the popular Road Rash 1 & 2 on the 3DO. Guess we'll just have to wait and see! Expected soon. Incidently, Road Rash will be out on the Jag in September.¢¢ Hopefully much better than Checkered Flag, F1 will be faster and feature a more accurate arcade feel to it's gameplay. F1 should be a title worth waiting for.¢¢ A cartoon style Super Cart game akin with Mario Cart and the recent PC release Super Karts looks very promising, especially the "impressive" backdrops and the unnerving speed in which the carts zoom around the tracks. Expected in September.¢¢ Indiana is a cute platformer and will join the likes of Rayman (June), Zool 2 and Bubsy.¢¢ Many science-fiction games are scheduled including a multi-player Freelancer 2120 (September) and Soul Star. Robinson's Requiem and Redemption (June) are sci-fi adventure games.¢¢ Another adventure game continues the everlasting Zork series. Return to Zork looks fantastic, featuring FMV characters and sound.¢¢ Sport sims on CD include Jack Nicklaus Cyber Golf (September, hopefully with some astounding textured and rendered 3D courses and great animation) and League Bowling.¢¢ Football games, FIFA International and John Madden's (US) Football will join Sensible Soccer and the other sport simulators.¢¢ Movie tie-in Batman Forever is eagerly awaited by magazines, featuring FMV gameplay. Expected in September.¢¢ Highlander, based on the cartoon series, looks fantastic. It's coming on three CDs, one dedicated to telling the opening story in a full motion video cartoon which was directly captured and rendered from the cartoon itself! It features over 65,000 colours and a huge 3D world in the Alone in the Dark style of play, yet with more realism, "creating a great playing environment and giving the player immense freedom of movement". Highlander takes 3D gameplay into a new dimension. Games World said of it, "if all Jaguar CD titles are going to be this good, Atari are onto a real winner". I can't wait! Expected soon.¢¢continued...¢¢¢[Ed: Part 3 can be found on SIDE B. Just flip the disk before you select Jaguar Gameology 3 from the menu. Remember to flip the disk back to Side A before you select another article!]¢
