Phase Zero - Atari Jaguar

[Nettikturbo]

Best looking game for the Jag thus far...

[3gdosrsfs]

Also: Neither compares to Phase Zero On the Jag.

Others can do voxels and I never said they could'nt: just not 60 FPS/full screen like Jag. PC's after the Jag had a hard time dealing with voxel landscapes as most GFX cards were polygon base.

[3gdosrsfs]

No limit draw distance of the Jag vs the half screen limit of Amok on the Saturn with mostly fogged out draw distances. Demo: is 5 FPS and no other AI going on. Comanche: choppy and blocky and requires an add on processor and even still fails miserably.

[tonmasboy]

good video this show a strength rival for N64

[nooblet911]

lol no. jaguar was, at best, comparable to the 3do.

[tonmasboy]

@nooblet911 Maybe you're right! I sad that just because it was 64bits, and was not hard explored!!!

[nooblet911]

bits mean little. xbox was "32-bits" and it was much stronger than n64.

[tonmasboy]

@nooblet911 well, the xbox pentium processer was 128bits internal and could comunicates with bandwidth to achive more fps! And you're right it was 733mhz against 100mhz of N64! Not to mention its video card!!

[meowmmmmm]

That would have been a great rendering engine for a Starwars Racing game.

[llllbserkllll]

Is that voxel graphics?

[ShidoGu]

The problem with the Jaguar were that it wasn't fully explored by third party developers. From what I saw in this game, it looks really amazing and fun,

[TheDemoniusX]

music is pretty sweet! Then it falls flat. Yay Burning trees is teh funz >:(

[3gdosrsfs]

The Saturn or the PS1 can not do a voxel based landscape like the JAguar.

They can 'fake' it with polygons but it would choke and run at half the speed.

The Sturn and the PS1 were plygon only and could never do Tempest 2k or

Phase Zero. They do not have the pixel pushing ability of the Jaguar. Those two systems will always out draw the JAguar in polygons but they will choke trying to pull of a voxel engine like Phase zero's. It's just not possible.

[BudzMcgr33n]

@3gdosrsfs The Saturn had a voxel based game called "Amok". And even the 16-bit systems were capable of voxels. Just type in "Comanche SNES" or watch this:

SNES Voxel Landscape Demo (Super FX)

[AlephNeil]

For better and for worse, you can compare this directly with Cybermorph, Hoverstrike and Aircars.

On the plus side, this looks considerably better than any of those games.

But then again, it is ultimately just another pitifully shallow, brainless 'fly around and shoot stuff' game. Who cares if it looks relatively good - I'd still much rather be playing, say, Midwinter on the Amiga.

[viMasterJag]

@AlephNeil One thing that should be remembered, though, is this is an unfinished game and was never released commercially to the mainstream.

Even in its unfinished state, though, I really believe it's quite fun to go around and shoot stuff.

While you're able to move to the next level, the storyline itself is not really complete, so that's where the shallowness comes in. Had the game been finished, then who knows!

[AlephNeil]

@viMasterJag : Yeah, and sometimes I think maybe I judge the Jag too harshly for being a games console rather than a computer - perhaps it's 'traditional' for console games to be simpler, aimed at younger gamers etc.

But still, was so disappointing for me to move from the Amiga, with all of its daring attempts to do something amazing on inadequate hardware (e.g. Midwinter, Carrier Command, Infestation etc.) to a system that had the requisite power but never used it... why I complain on youtube:)

[AlephNeil]

@viMasterJag : (And I note that the reason AvP stands head and shoulders above other Jag games is *precisely because* it alone doesn't scale back its ambitions, but has a complex plot, a large game world, atmosphere, suspense etc.

I wonder why Rebellion could manage it where no-one else did? Perhaps because they were just starting out, idealistic youngsters writing their first proper game etc.)

[alanbarnes2]

this looks impressive for a 15 year old console, are they still producing games for it

[viMasterJag]

@alanbarnes2 Yeah, people are still producing homebrew games for it.

[Abasuto]

This is a great game.

It's really sad that Atari threw out the Jaguar with a launch of games that were mostly horrible. That launch all but doomed the console in the public's eyes.

Had they launched the Jag while excluding the awful games and games like this, AvP, Protector..etc then they'd of atleast make a strong first impression.

Just seems like the Jag was heavily rushed and it's designers were still living the past (ie..the controller seemed 10 years out of date).

[awesomecdiperson]

I just recently got this game! its really fun!

[ViciousAlienKlown]

Obviously games like this were not possible on a 16 bit console, the biggest probelm is a lot of these games were flay out boring and in-between technology. Few games took advantage of the Jag's hardware. Its a shame, if the VR headset took off then maybe we would be playing the 128 bit version of the Jag.

[Nakian]

every game looks like it has been made on a 3d compatible,beefed up SNES

[viMasterJag]

In other words, they look way too good to be on a standard SNES. Thanks! The Jaguar is WAY better than the SNES. You just made my point!

[NeilsShoe]

jag had two really dumb 32 bit main processors and a 16bit processor and a 64bit tiny blitter processor. The playstation 1 had really well designed 32bit processors. Bits mean nothing bits dont tell you how many transistors or how many Mhz a processor has.

[viMasterJag]

You're right about bits meaning nothing.

The processors in the Jag (except for the 68000) were actually quite the opposite of "dumb" as you put it.

They are fantastic processors and way ahead of their time. The problem was Atari didn't have any custom tools to use them properly, so the programmers generally used the 68K.

The Jaguar IS a 64-bit architecture -- just to clear the air.

[RRDVRfan]

This makes Sonic music look like a beginner.

[LeatherWolf1984]

This game isn't that amazing for a "64 bit" system, I mean the Sega Saturn or PS could handle graphics like this with and they were 32 bit.

[viMasterJag]

I'm not sure why people get hung up no the 64-bit thing. Systems today aren't even advertised with their "bitness," because people realized a while ago that it doesn't matter.

If you remember, those 3 systems were basically in the same generation, so it makes sense that they would be able to pull it off, too.

Why does "bits" count back then, but not today?

[saturndual32]

Instead of focusing on the bitness of the systems, people should put more attention to when they were released. Jaguar came out late 93, Saturn and PS1 late 94 (in Japan), and N64 in mid 1996 (Japan), so those consoles "better be" more powerful overall than the Jag, wich is no slouch, mind you. We just saw a small glimpse of what it could do.

[LeatherWolf1984]

Yes the Jaguar did come out in 1993 and most of its games were horrible excuses for games that looked worse than the competition on both Genesis and Super Nintendo, I mean compare Cybermorph to Star Fox. Star Fox wins hands down. Now why do people keep harping on the 64 bit issue well because Atari used it in their marketing campaign over and over again and it proved to be shit and I have a felling that may have contributed to the end of bit branding systems.

[saturndual32]

Well, technically, the Cybermorph engine is doing way more than the Star Fox engine, with its fully polyonal, gouraud shadded, go anyware 3d worlds. But i guess to the naked eye Star Fox looks better, because of better artwork, brighter colors, and a foreground picture in the distance. But i get your point and, most of the Jag games dont show what it could do, and all the 16 bit ports didnt help. And i agree, Atari brought it up on themselves with its 64 bit marketing campaign.

[LeatherWolf1984]

I will agreet hat the Jag has some good games (Alien V Predator, Tempest 2000....) but over all it was a lackluster system that should have waited 2 years before it was released or Atari should have just continued with their Panther project, but I guess fucking up is what made Atari, Atari. It's just sad to see a world were the company who basically created the home video game market become a developed of 2rd party games for the former rivals.

[CLeRKSfan4life]

Even though after the Jaguar came out, SAT and PS1 were still referred to as "32 bit", the N64 as "64 bit". Even the Dreamcast, PS2 and Gamecube are classed as "128 bit". They stopped with the "bit" branding because it just wasn't relevant anymore.

[viMasterJag]

@CLeRKSfan4life Very true. As you said, it just didn't matter any more.

It's funny how people, even in this day, whine about the Jaguar not being 64-bit, when in the end, it doesn't really matter.

I'll argue the matter a little to call BS on someone, but other than that it's clear most games did not make use of the hardware as they could have.

[A31Chris]

Impressive draw distance and movement.

[saturndual32]

If someone sends me this games source code, i can port Outcast to the Jaguar..., haha, just kidding, i know the source code was lost and that the Jaggy cant handle Outcast, oh and i also know that i cant code at all, hehe.

[viMasterJag]

Haha, strike 3!

:D

[theatarian]

What's a shame is that they didn't finish it to the point where you could network it together. That would have been even better as this game seems like it would fare better as a deathmatch game than a single player venture.

You'll have to bring this by next time vi, I'd love to play this.

[viMasterJag]

Yeah, I'll definitely bring it next time.

I just received it and couldn't wait to do a vid of it!

[theatarian]

I just realized that this game reminds me a lot of the arcade game T-Mek. This has more depth to it than T-Mek does and better graphics but they are similar from all I have seen of PZ.

[KevinCali24]

Dude, this game has some kickass music! The graphics are great too. Really fast and smooth. Cool burning trees.

[saturndual32]

Finally, i have waited like forever to see this game in action. Thanks viMasterJag!.

Looks very impresive, its a shame it wasnt finished. Seems like the Jag is capable of handling this type of engine much better than fully polygonal graphics, it would have been nice if more Jag titles used this method.

[viMasterJag]

Lucky for you I just received it in the mail yesterday :-D

I was pretty excited to finally play it.

It's definitely a cool game and I'd like to play it more to see how far you can get in it.

... after all the jag vids, of course :D