Dactyl Joust for the Atari Jaguar

[060falcon]

This game looks pretty cool! Nice and fluid 3D animation... also Joust is one of my favorite multiplayer games, so maybe this 3D version would have kicked ass...

[CLS2086]

Good, reminded me PanzerDragoon

[leechapman76]

Wow. Great video. Where did you find it? This would have beena great game had it hit the shelfs. Is the code still out there for some talented programmer to pick back up and finish?

The charm of the Jaguar for me is that it didn't do so well. I like systems most others hate. Keeps things original.

[ViciousAlienKlown]

That game had some serious potential but so did Black Ice White Noise. Both of these games were being worked on late in the Jag's lifecycle and were axed when Atari went into thin air. The console was difficult to program on and only a few developers actually took advantage of the system. The Saturn had the same problem.

[v65animal]

It looks a lot like Panzer Dragoon for the Saturn to me.

[xnonsuchx]

@v65animal - Panzer Dragoon was a shooter on rails...though it looked kinda nice. Dactyl Joust was supposed to be a 3D version of JOUST.

[DevilMaster]

Is the ROM available to download somewhere?

[Neon360]

Sadly not that I'm aware of..... would be nice to have!

[UncleFeedle]

I lusted after the Jag as soon as its tech specs were announced in 1992. When I finally saw pics of the machine and its software, all my enthusiasm died instantly. Also, Atari's marketing was absolutely appalling. They tried all kinds of ridiculous promotional stunts, most of which blew up in their faces. Then they tried to sell the machine on its tech specs alone (and even those were inaccurate).

[MrVengeance83]

Pretty much all I can say was wrong with the Jaguar's visuals there was the art direction was a bit crap. Its a pity the machine failed, it could have been great.

[MrVengeance83]

The Jaguar just came out at a bad time, just before the gaming world was ready for 3D. Certainly, those visuals I have mentioned are on a par with early Playstation and Saturn graphics. This section of video game history, just before the advent of 3D is quite interesting but full of hardware failure like the Phillips CD-i, 3DO, 32X, Mega CD and the Jag. Some might argue that the Saturn should feature in that line up also...

[MrVengeance83]

I've been reading up on the history of the Jaguar over the las few days and came on here to have a look at some of the games, and must say I'm impressed with what I've seen. Alien vs Predator is super smooth and has fantastic (for the day) textures. Doom looks like every other versoin of Doom, and that bit of video there again is super smooth and looks decent.

[BI30]

A "first-person" version of Joust? I never saw that one.

[stodle]

The Jag should have won. It's all about the liscensing I guess.

[videogameknowitall]

That's ture that there was a huge lack of interest in third party publishers, mainly becouse most did not want to make 3D games. Also the Juaguar had a lack of game titles, market share, and a high price. But yes even with that the Juaguar should have been the leading system in the video game market.

[wvoutlaw2002]

Well, you also have to consider the fact that most 3rd party developers/publishers still thought "Atari" was bad news. The bottom line is Atari had piss-poor management. Need proof? Check out the Sam Tramiel interview in that 1995/6 issue of Next Generation Magazine.

[DevilMaster]

No, the Jaguar was terribly difficult to program, with all its processors that had to be programmed separately.

On the other hand, the PSX was ridiculously easy to program: if you knew C++, you were pretty much able to code for the PSX. This caused most game developers to make games for the PSX and ignore the other consoles.

[neogeon]

that's usually what it came down to in any console war: initial price and ease of programming, that's why Sony has come out on top with the PSX and PS2, and hopefully they will get their act together so PS3 doesn't end up like the Jaguar.

[thorgallpl]

ps2 and ease of programming? LOL

[neogeon]

well allegedly the PS2 is hard to program for, but IMO the software library says different. There are only a handful of people that know enough about the inner workings of the PS2 to comment on how hard it is to program for.

[A31Chris]

The crazy thing is, according to developers, this title was programmed in C/C++ for the jag with custom tools to achieve this. Unfortunately those tools are gone with the wind now.

[rich1980]

the Jag was a v.poor system which had no hope to compete with Nintendo and SEGA

[videogameknowitall]

The Atari juaguar was an exillent system for its time...

[wvoutlaw2002]

Dactyl Joust should have been finished and released. That was quality. Too bad the Tramazzles didn't give a damn.

[videogameknowitall]

The Atari company has had tons of projects that have been cancilled, alot of the time for little or no reason. Atari had a habit of spending millions apon millions on a game project and then at the last minute cancile it. But yes the Atari juaguar should have been ahead of the "pack" technicaly specaking.

[videogameknowitall]

Sorry I meant marketly speacking.

[DevilMaster]

Sure you didn't mean "speaking"? :-P

[videogameknowitall]

Yes!