Blue Lightning - Atari Jaguar

[MegaErrorist]

I love games from this era- it takes ages, from this, to actually get into the game as it's too busy showing all the pretty, plastic-y FMVs to make you think "Hell yeah, this looks awesome!". Then, when you've navigated every single one of them you get something excessively mediocre.

[AirFerno]

AfterBurner is much better than this!

[bpotts0401]

looks like Afterburner 32X....which isnt good

[TheRedCoke]

I skipped to 32seconds and thought this was the gameplay and was like wow... LOL

[prectec]

The jag was a good machine technically but when you have 16bit developers making softaware you get 16bit looking games. Nintendo and sega always release there own titles showing the developers the capabilities of the machine that sets a benchmark for developers. Atari developers where not good enough to showcase the machine

[nicholasthetaylor]

I had the demo of this. It was terrible!!!

[kinmanyuen]

AOR ingame music

[nicolunacba]

Excelent intro! Nice menu ... argh, wait ... another Burn Out clone with less graphics (except for scaling) and boring gameplay =S

[nicholasthetaylor]

@nicolunacba Afterburner clone you mean surely

[nicolunacba]

@nicholasthetaylor oh yeah! sorry!

[thuderclese]

Awesome riffage on the soundtrack though...noone can argue that haha...break your neck headbanging to that shit...

[deadline27]

GET READY FOR ACTION! ....um... ok.

[gav1230]

why does it look so great at the beginning but not in the game

[whiteechidna]

Because the intro was a video of a 3D animation (not powered by the Jaguar), and the gameplay is being rendered by the Jaguar, which couldn't produce the same level of graphics the intro showed.

[BoomenDrol]

at the intro the graphics where mindblowing in the game NOT!

[ephiany1]

Um. Wasn't this game developed and released in 1995, not 1993?

The FMV on this is quite stunning, even for 1995. Too bad about the in-game graphics... they're not _bad_, but they are mediocre, and mediocre graphics on a launch title is decidedly bad form. As you point out, though, the audio is nice. Gameplay doesn't look too bad, either.

[viMasterJag]

Yeah, it would have been more like '95.

But I agree -- and many fans of the original on the Lynx agree that it could have been much more.

[bigpoopie69]

Look at the graphics on that thing! It's 1993, holy crap.

Why did the Jaguar go bust again?

[viMasterJag]

I know that's sarcasm, but let's actually get to the bottom of it...

Why the Jaguar went bust -

1. Atari didn't pay when they were supposed to

2. Atari didn't give good dev tools

3. Programmers (not all) were therefore lazy

Notice how NONE of those have anything to do with the hardware being crap... that's because it's clearly not.

All 3 of those are the root of the Jaguar's demise.

[bigpoopie69]

Oh ok. Thanks for the info. No I wasn't being sarcastic. Those graphics are mindblowing for 1993. There wasn't anything else that compared to it at the time. Definitely not SNES or Genesis and PC gaming was in the embryonic CD ROM era. Remember all those shitty FMV "interactive" games? Yeesh. I wish I had a Jaguar back then. Thank God for masterbation.

[ojideagu]

I was around at the time and these graphics were not mind blowing in any way. The MEGA CD could do the same. The Jaguar was NEVER impressive graphically. PC games were a lot more impressive, and even the 3DO. The Playstation and saturn came out only a year later to finally kill it.

[nicholasthetaylor]

@viMasterJag The hardware wasn't great though was it. You look at Alien vs Predator, or doom. Doom didn't have music, AvP was jerky when there wasn't much going on. The control pad was terrible. Tempest was alright. The music was ace, but the visuals suffered, and had a very retro look (although atleast the game had style) I quite liked Rayman and Bubsy, but they weren't gonna save the system. I think the system would have survived if it concentrated on arcade conversions

[viMasterJag]

@nicholasthetaylor The hardware was fine, except for a couple bugs that could have made it easier on programmers to gain better performance.

Really, though, there were obviously some fantastic looking games on the console and then you look at the stinkers. That tells me there were some issues with the development of the software and not necessarily the hardware.

Most people who have played extensively with the pad prefer it over most others, actually.

[nicholasthetaylor]

@viMasterJag

"Most people who have played extensively with the pad prefer it over most others, actually. "

I have played extensively with the pad myself and although it sits well in the hands, the buttons are poor quality, which means you have to concentrate on compensating for this instead of enjoying the game. I like the telephone keypad, though it would have been smart to include shoulder buttons. There were some good ideas in the pad, but it wasn't well made. A poor man's Sega pad

[viMasterJag]

@nicholasthetaylor Shoulder buttons would have been nice from the get-go, but they did incorporate those into the 6-button pro controller, at least. That's usually what I play with now.

[nicholasthetaylor]

@viMasterJag Wow. I had no idea that this was released. Was still stupid of them not to release it on launch (let alone have it in the shops). When was it released? What games work with it? Would have been handy in AVP and Doom for strafing

[ojideagu]

The real graphics dont come in until 3 minutes and they are less impressive then a MEGA CD game.

[Tube2097]

That is fucking MANK!

[Glumglufs]

The jag needed a CD attachment to play this game? OMG Just look att the 64 bit graffix.

[viMasterJag]

1st generation 64-bit. It was 64-bit before any other console was 64-bit.

It only makes sense that 64-bit technology would be different then compared to 64-bit tech a few years later, right?

The CD attachment for the Jaguar adds NO additional processing power except the ability to store more raw information.

Other than that, it is using the stock Jaguar for processing.

In other words, your statment/question really makes no sense and doesn't apply.

[Glumglufs]

Oh, ok i see.

how embarrasing, you really got me there.

[viMasterJag]

I'm just saying, people have to think about the big picture and know a little bit about the Jaguar. The CD attachment is helpful for more levels, digitized video and other things, but it doesn't do anything for processing power.

The Jag was 64-bit before Playstation was even 32-bit, so technological advances obviously would have taken place, since they didn't come out at the same time.

After the Nintendo 64 (release 3 yrs after the Jag) no one even cared about bits.

[Glumglufs]

I really thought that the CD attachment had an extra processor since the Mega CD had one. Anyways i don't dislike the jaguar or anything, I just thought that this game looked really unimpressive for a 64-bit system with an addon. Well anyways, it's no surprise since the Jaguar suffered from a lack of good programmers, so there was really no games made that pushed the system. I do think that they should have made this game in 3D at least though, because the sprites look unimpressive.

[viMasterJag]

I completely agree with you, though. They should have done this in 3D.

A "sudo" 3D game doesn't help the Jag's image at all. They should have learned to program for it (and Atari should have paid them on time) and released something a little more impressive.

BTW, if you want to see something impressive, check out one of my vids on Battlesphere :)

[Glumglufs]

Battlesphere ey. I haven't heard of it. Sure ill check it out.

[royalguard56]

i thought he was kidding

[viMasterJag]

Who, me?

Nope, check out Battlesphere and you might just buy into the fact that the Jaguar was actually a powerful system, even if the programmers were lazy and didn't take advantage of it.

[royalguard56]

no, not you

[viMasterJag]

gotcha.

[vstman]

I agree. This is a 3rd degree insult.

[Pzkfw5]

This is an insult to the Atari Lynx version by Epyx.

[viMasterJag]

Maybe, I dunno. I've never played the Lynx version, but this isn't a bad game. It's pretty fun, even though the graphics should/could have been better.