Even the more "advanced" systems at the time like 3d0 and CD-I paled in comparison.
Well, 3DO game had a habit of trying to exploit 3D to look better, but this was the dark ages of 3D graphics, so most of the games looked awful, and were very shallow. It's hard to really say whether or not the Jaguar is "better" than the 3DO, since they really took different directions. The 3DO did get Star Control II though, which I still consider one of the best games ever made.
As for the CD-i, it's not even a video game system. It was designed to replace VCR's, and just happened to have enough interactive features that people were able to make games on it... when the whole idea of VCD movies basically tanked in North America, all Philips was left with was the video game and "interactive multimedia" side of things, which is all most people remember. But basically, the CD-i is closer to a DVD player than it is to the Jaguar. One huge advantage that the CD-i had was hardware MPEG decoding (assuming you had the digital video cartridge)... it made all the Laserdisc arcade games like Dragon's Lair a real treat to play on the system (for those of you who are into that kind of game). Other than video though, the hardware is so limited that I'm amazed they managed to make some of the games that they did.
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Another thing, the industry had largely settled on a general controller shape and Atari comes out with a controller that is difficult to hold.
I really don't understand the complaints about the controller. It's basically a Genesis controller with a keypad on it. Most games don't even use the keypad, so you can completely ignore it. Those that do use it generally use it for tasks like switching weapons or camera views... which lets you avoid menus or tedious weapon cycling. Any game that made any real use of the keypad included an overlay, so you always knew what button was what (I can't say the same about playing PS2 games, where I'm never sure what all the shoulder buttons are for). Personally, I think it's a great idea, and I've always found that it fits my hands perfectly.
Why is more buttons inherently bad?
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They took the "do the math" thing far. It was like "do the math, look at all our buttons.. Count em up!" We got like 49 buttons, they only got 6
The "Do The Math" slogan was about the Jaguar being 64-bit. This was a big mistake though. People who didn't understand what "bits" were just thought it was a giant lie, while those who DID understand what Atari was talking about quickly realized that "bits" means absolutely nothing. Both groups quickly found the whole thing stupid. Thankfully, this whole marketing nonsense has mostly disappeared.
One of the biggest problems the Jaguar had was that a lot of it's games were quick and dirty ports of existing Genesis or SNES games, which didn't take any advantage of the extra features the Jaguar had to offer. Even when games used higher colour depth, people either didn't notice or didn't care. People quickly decided that the Jaguar wasn't any more powerful, and passed on it.
'christo930' said:
Anyway the Jag was good at 2D but no better than the Neo-Geo that had been out since 1990 or the Neo-Geo CD that came out at the same time
The Jaguar was capable of higher resolutions, and FAR greater colour depth. The only reason the NeoGeo is any good at 2D is the enormous size of the cartridges. In general, the games don't compress their graphics at all, and every frame of animation is just streamed straight from the cartridge.
The Jaguar really was one of the best 2D consoles at the time, even outdoing the PlayStation in many respects. Of course, when the PSX came out, people stopped caring about 2D, so it didn't really matter much.
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Don't get me wrong I'm not an Atari hater, i even bought a Jaguar joypad for £10 shortly after launch with intent to buy one, but got offered a CD32 with Pinball Fantasies for £150 so i took that.
Well, that worked out really well... the CD32 didn't do much better than the Jaguar! Don't get me wrong, I'm a CD32 fan myself, with about 100 games for it (not an easy task, being that I live in North America), but many of them are straight Amiga 500 ports that don't take advantage of the system... in fact, quite an interesting parallel to the Jaguar and it's cheap Genesis/SNES ports.
In any case, I'd recommend people try playing Battlemorph before deciding that the Jaguar is a piece of garbage. Battlemorph really shows off what the Jaguar is capable of doing, and is the best game on the system in my opinion. Hopefully we'll see an emulator with good compatibility and JagCD support so people can actually do this. In any case, some of the games I recommend are:
* Battlemorph (CD) - Great 3D graphics, excellent music, varied objects, and all around fun to play
* Attack of the Mutant Penguins - Good graphics, and very interesting concept. Almost like an early Tower Defence game, but not quite. Only problem is that it lacks any music.
* Tempest 2000 - Most people consider this the best game on the system, and I can't really argue with that... though there are versions of this available for other systems.
* Iron Soldier - The 3D in this game may seen primitive these days, but it was pretty impressive seeing those buildings collapse in a pile of cubes at the time.
* Raiden - Maybe not the best showcase for the system's capabilities, but I still consider this the best home version of Raiden.
* Wolfenstein 3D - I also consider this the best version of Wolf3D for any home system. It has less levels than the 3DO and PC versions, but the graphics are way better, and these days you probably wouldn't have the patience to go through all 60 levels of the original anyways.
* Power Drive Rally - Excellent overhead view rally racing game. Great graphics, and fun physics.
* Syhammer - Interesting game where you fly around in a Blade Runner-esque city. This was an aftermarket release, after the system was dead.
* Evolution: Dino Dudes - I always thought this game was underappreciated. It's a fun Lemmings style puzzle game with excellent, colourful graphics, and catchy music.
* Atari Karts - Unfortunately, this game was rushed to market. If they had held it back a while, it could have been so much more. However, even still it's a fun Mario Kart style game with great graphics. It could really have benefited from more power ups and a battle mode though.
* Pinball Fantasies - This was probably the best pinball game until Fantastic Journey and Timeshock came out, and it's still fun today. I'm not entirely sure, but I think this was given a graphical update over the Amiga version (more colours).
* Missile Command 3D - Three different versions of Missile Command, two of which are in 3D. Very well done, though the main game only has three levels, which is somewhat disappointing.
* Defender 2000 - A great update to Defender. Gameplay stays more or less intact, with all kinds of added features and the usual Jeff Minter flair and craziness.
Two games I really don't recommend are Doom and Alien vs. Predator. The Jaguar version of Doom was probably the best home version at the time (Far better than the SNES, 32X and 3DO versions anyways), but it's missing a lot of features of the PC version, and really seems dated by todays standards. The same thing goes for AVP.... most people will point at it as one of the best games on the system, and while I'd agree, I frankly don't think that newcomers will be at all impressed. The engine is Wolf3D quality, and there are only 4 or 5 different types of enemies. The atmosphere and storyline was really what made this game great, but unless you played it back in the mid-90's, you won't think it's anything special, since everything special about this game is taken for granted in modern games.
--Zero
