The Really Must Have Jag Games?

[thevulture]

Looks lovely, but is it not just pulling of prerendered/stored pictures from cart?.So i'd assume it's using the Jaguar hardware in terms of colours avaiable and cart decompression stuff, but what else?.

Not trying to put a downer on the game, but is it not just an interactive slideshow type affair? (never been a fan of Myst myself).

[The Laird]

Looks lovely, but is it not just pulling of prerendered/stored pictures from cart?.So i'd assume it's using the Jaguar hardware in terms of colours avaiable and cart decompression stuff, but what else?.

Not trying to put a downer on the game, but is it not just an interactive slideshow type affair? (never been a fan of Myst myself).

Pretty much. Its still more exciting than much of the other homebrew we have been getting on the Jag of late.

[The Laird]

The Jag version is the original version, the PS1 and Saturn versions came after. It has a number of things that are not in the other versions like the Mosquito stage and Breakout bonus game. As I already said the graphics are better too (although the sound is a little weaker) it has 65,000 colours on screen compared to the 32,000 of the PS1 and Saturn versions, although this isn't imediately noticable if you are just looking at screenshots.

Thats quite interesting regarding colours - do you feel that the Jaguar held up well in some regards to the competition? I know it had a convoluted chip set-up inside, no doubt making it hard to programme for. Are there any games you feel that truly pushed the machine beyond what was capable on the 32-bit systems, seeing as it was 64-bit (in total anyway)?

The Jag is an absolute beast when it comes to 2D, yes better than the Saturn even. The GPU assisted by the 64-bit blitter and 64-bit object processor means it can display near enough infinate sprites of any size as well as scale, rotate and flip them. Using the various graphics modes it can also display its whole palette of 16.7 million colours and also do high res modes such as 720x480 and even 1280x480 in interlace mode. You can also use the machine inbuilt Jagpeg compression to get up to 10:1 ratio. The graphics chips in the Jaguar are incredibly flexible and can do amazing things in the right hands, just not a lot of people used them. The only weaknesses (in 2D) are that it doesn't have a massive amount of RAM to play with, only 2mb.

[Evermore]

You learn something new every day

Its interesting that it can out-muscle the Saturn for 2D. I'll have great fun reading up more on it some time in the future. I have seen Jag games on clearance in some branches of GAME in Ireland a few years back. Why I didn't buy them I don't know They were sealed and only about five notes.

[The Laird]

:shock: You learn something new every day

Its interesting that it can out-muscle the Saturn for 2D. I'll have great fun reading up more on it some time in the future. I have seen Jag games on clearance in some branches of GAME in Ireland a few years back. Why I didn't buy them I don't know They were sealed and only about five notes.

Apart from Rayman here is a good example of what it can do in 2D if used right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C75isKIgfUQ

That is the demo version of Native, the game that recently became Sturmwind on the Dreamcast.

[Megamixer]

:shock: You learn something new every day

Its interesting that it can out-muscle the Saturn for 2D. I'll have great fun reading up more on it some time in the future. I have seen Jag games on clearance in some branches of GAME in Ireland a few years back. Why I didn't buy them I don't know They were sealed and only about five notes.

Apart from Rayman here is a good example of what it can do in 2D if used right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C75isKIgfUQ

That is the demo version of Native, the game that recently became Sturmwind on the Dreamcast.

Is that running on a Jag or the Jag CD? Either way it looks very impressive for the time.

[The Laird]

Is that running on a Jag or the Jag CD? Either way it looks very impressive for the time.

Jag CD but dosn't really make any difference as the Jag CD adds no extra hardware except Cinepak (FMV) and of course extra storage.

[will2097]

Agreed the Jags version of Rayman is very pretty. The other game that always looked good in 2D was Pitfall on the Jaguar.

[Evermore]

:shock: You learn something new every day

Its interesting that it can out-muscle the Saturn for 2D. I'll have great fun reading up more on it some time in the future. I have seen Jag games on clearance in some branches of GAME in Ireland a few years back. Why I didn't buy them I don't know They were sealed and only about five notes.

Apart from Rayman here is a good example of what it can do in 2D if used right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C75isKIgfUQ

That is the demo version of Native, the game that recently became Sturmwind on the Dreamcast.

Thats pretty impressive alright mate - the parallax and sprites are superb. I love the way the latter warps in particular, and how good the cogs look in the second part of the stage. All very smooth as well.

Pretty handy syste mof the evidence of that. Its a pity that some many machines like the CD32, 32Xand 3DO didn't get the time to truly really take off, and the Jag clearly as well.

I find the early to mid 1990s to be the most exciting time in video gaming history. There were so many competitors vying for victory, with only the PlayStation coming out of it with true success

[The Laird]

Agreed the Jags version of Rayman is very pretty. The other game that always looked good in 2D was Pitfall on the Jaguar.

Agree with that Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a really nice looking game. Great animation and some wonderful background detail.

Power Drive Rally and Super Burnout are great looking 2D games too for different reasons.