5 Bad Atari Jaguar Games You Must See to Believe 

I played Motocross Championship on 32X a week before playing Supercross 3D on Atari Jaguar. I enjoyed Motocross Championship on 32X. Not saying it's the greatest game ever, but I really enjoyed it and played it for a very long time just having a fun time. But Supercross 3D on Jaguar? The first time I saw it's 10 frames per second I seriously said aloud "What the "BLEEP" is this?!?" and this is coming from someone who is very, VERY lenient on graphics and frame rate. The gameplay was horrible as well (go off the track just a tiny bit, you plummet to the floor). The worst part is that Supercross 3D for Jaguar was released some months AFTER Motocross Championship on 32X (which is a MUCH better Motorcross game running on the inferior 32X hardware, yet it plays and looks so much better) and Supercross 3D was released during very late holiday season of 1995... up against the Playstation and Saturn's first holiday season in the U.S. and was up against Playstation launch titles like Ridge Racer. From what I read about Atari behind the scenes (and it was absolute CHAOS during the Atari Jaguar years. To give one example: Allegedly, some Jaguar game testers were doing drugs on the job in the offices. If true, that might explain a lot of things), they knew they were going under by early 1996, so a lot of games were rushed out and they didn't care if they weren't fully functional / polished / finished. Supercross 3D definitely fits that since that game needs at least several months more of development.

Let land on Jaguar, @JamesRalph @AVGN #AVGN

Love your bad game review vids. Awesome dude 👌👌👍 BTW I reckon a jaguar cart for the evercade would be AMAZING!!! With the ones from your good game reviews rather than these.... Okay, maybe one of these for comedic reasoning 👍👍

The first game looks like some badly designed Roomba Simulator

I don't think there *are* 5 good Jaguar games lol

The same can be said of any console really, a lot of homebrew developers have the benefit of time and better understanding of hardware plus programing techniques that programers couldn't even dream of back then. Plus with cart based systems larger ROM chips being cheaper to get than back then.

@@The_Real_DCT very true

It can also be said for the development of the 32X and 3DO versions of Doom, since both ports of that game were rushed pretty badly too. But that one is a whole different story.

While Fight for Life was indeed broken, I enjoyed it haha.

@@johnhancockretro Oh yeah, Atari released an unfinished build as the creator refused to give Atari the finished game until they paid him! So they thought "screw it" and released it anyway! He released the final build a few years ago, it is a much better game!

@@Larry I do wish you'd post both sides of a story when you give accounts like this Larry, you did it with Zero 5,going off a quote from Matthew Gosling, rather than getting Caspain Software bosses account and that of Darryl Still, Atari UK. Here's Atari Corps side of things: Statement from Don Thomas : FIGHT for LIFE To me, it seems like a decade since the Fight for Life project began. For a long time, Mr. Francois Yves Bertrand, it’s creator, worked in a cubicle next to mine at 1196 on Borregas Avenue. Every once in a while, Francois would invite to peer over the wall at his latest revisions and little by little I saw Fight for Life come together as if I were watching time lapse photography. Francois is an extremely talented individual. He initiated the project virtually on a single handed basis. As he developed the project, he solicited the talents of other wizards to help with some of the bit maps, texture maps and sound effects used in the game. By the time Francois was finished and submitted the final copy, the Fight for Life team was numerous, exhausted and proud… and they should be proud. Atari Corporation has always prioritized the famous “fun factor” over almost any other element in a game. The reason for this is because eye candy is only appealing in the store or when you show off a game to a friend for the first time. If the game isn’t fun, then consumers look for ways to return or sell it as soon as they decided it is boring to play. Bill Rehbock, the executive producer, and J Patton, the producer of Fight for Life believed very much in the “fun factor” formula and asked Francois to work on those parts of the game engine first. As he did, news began to leak out that Atari was working on a polygonal fighter and before long, Atari was pressed into providing work-in-progress demos to the gaming press. Unfortunately, the gaming magazines decided to evaluate the game by terms other than how it was being developed. While Francois was spending relatively little time making it look good and a lot of time at making it play well, the magazines insisted on evaluations based on how well the screen shots appeared in their glossy magazine pages. By the end of the third quarter of 1995, Atari felt compelled to announce that Fight for Life was “indefinitely postponed” while, behind the scenes, Francois and his team accelerated final development with a focus on the graphic elements of the game. On Friday, April 19, 1996, Atari released Fight for Life to the Jaguar community. As you will see below by unsolicited Internet feedback, the game is being touted as an excellent new addition to the Jaguar library. I finally got a chance to look at it this morning. Please let me say first, that I am not pretending to be a polygonal fighter expert. I’ve seen the Virtual Fighter clones, but I have not played them any more than maybe a quarter’s worth each. That being established, Fight for Life definitely has the fun factor elements I’d expect from an Atari product. Not only does the game look GREAT!, but the mechanism to “earn” new moves as I win bouts is a challenging motivation. I also like the fact that each bout feels like a real time fight. Even in instances where I found a particular one move that seems to defeat my opponent, I have to work hard using it to win. I’ll let the comments that follow speak for themselves, but overall, I’d say Fight for Life kicks BUTTered buns! And another: Ted Hoff: I would like to also share with you that Francois Bertrand has been asked back to complete work on Fight for Life. It’s important that I also tell you that our official position is the same as it has been for months…. that FFL will be released IF and WHEN it meets Atari standards. As you may have heard, the latest test reports have been favorable and I’m delighted to review it, but if Atari personnel answer your inquiries that the title remains on hold, then they are answering your question accurately. Atari remains faithful to publishing software under strict guidelines so that the product Atari customers buy meets or exceeds their expectations. You've also got: Bill Rehbock in his interview with Arcade Attack,talks of Atari playing with the big boys with regard F.F.L… Since Sega’s Virtual Fighter was not fully texture mapped,Atari wanted to do a fully texture mapped game on the Jaguar and Bill himself admits the system wasn’t geared up to do this. He also talked of Sam Tramiel focus group testing the game,knew it would review badly,ecen though some in the group thought the game was pretty cool,but Jaguar badly needed a game in this genre so it was green lit to be shipped,where as other companies would of simply pulled the plug on it. Bill went onto say the game needed another 3 artists for art and animation and entire thing needed a bigger budget. And further still from the Arcade Attack interview : Silvio Porretta There are strong rumors that the released Fight for Life was not fully completed and rushed to meet the release deadline. Is this true, and if, so how much pressure did you feel while working on this title? Not so much. All I had to do is learn the new tools and adapt quickly. I always delivered and the president of Atari was very satisfied with my work. I think the pressure was mostly on FYB. It is also rumored that a fabled more complete version of the game was completed by FYB but never released. Do you know if he or anyone else has the complete version of the game anywhere, and if so, how different was this version to the released game? It’s possible that FYB has a more complete, unreleased version of the game. He would be the only person to have such version. I would think that the difference would only be in the performance and maybe a few improved animations. You can't go off single source quotes, they never present the full story and it's straightforward to find others talking about the games development.

Hello you

​@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 If a story makes a big company look bad then they'll stick with that version without even second guessing anything.

I sort of regret selling my Jaguar. Tempest 2K was an all time classic for ANY system (as evidenced by the fact it got ported to everything) and it had a lot of other underrated games (Power Drive Rally and Iron Soldier among them).

KB Toys... Jeez that takes me back

Overall, I'd say that was probably the right choice. I did by one as soon as they were out. It's unfortunate that there were so few games being release because for the first year and a half, it was kind of mind blowing. People scoff at it now, but Cybermorph, a free flying open world game in 1993 was a pretty big deal. And until the Saturn and Playstation came out, I couldn't keep people out of my dorm room because of Doom, Tempest 2000 and AvP. Heck, some of my friends even liked Trevor McFur.

I enjoyed my Atari jaguar. Wish I never sold it all those years ago.

Atariage is slowly building up the jaguar library. The jag can push pixels better than most any console. That should be focused on, imo. The polygon pushing is lacking.

You had both Genesis and SNES? Congratulations, it was one of the best console combinations ever, you probably spent the Console Wars laughing at the fans of each system while you played great games.

@@Hektols I wouldn't say that I laughed at them. I was a big Nintendo fanboy in the early 90s and bought a SNES as soon as it came out. But the Genesis had so many great games, and I really wanted to play a lot of them, so I caved in and bought one. I definitely supported both companies and got away from the "which system is better" nonsense that the fans got carried away with back then.

😂

Me too. I also vividly recall around that exact same time KB Toys was also liquidating the last of their NES stock, which seemed to take quite a few years for them to fully drain. In particular I can remember them having Punch-Out!! w/Mr. Dream, Final Fantasy, Mega Man 6, Metroid (yellow rerelease), Kirby's Adventure, Wario's Woods, Yoshi, and Yoshi's Cookie, all for $4.99!!!! Could you imagine nowadays?! A SEALED Mega Man game for $4.99?!!

I get that. I feel the same about Checkered Flag.

@@dad7275 I think, if they used Club Drive engine on Checkered Flag, then the CF game would be better. Frame rate on Club Drive is smooth compared to CF.

@@dvuemedia true. With a much better frame rate cf would have been great in my opinion.

I am absolutely love Club Drive! Every time I hear that corny music, it puts a hugh smile on my face! Club Drive falls in the category of "so bad, it's good"!

Yeah it actually looks like it could've been fun: too bad Checkered Flag has a lower framerate than 3D games on the original 1989 Gameboy.

Oh my god that game Trever Mcfur In The ? 😂

Yes. That Trevor McFur... 😔

You didn't miss out. Terrible console, a regrettable purchase wish I never bothered, sold it when it still had some value.

Me too!

Honestly, that's how I felt about the whole 5th generation. And not just looking back in horror, even at the time I wasn't a big fan. I had an Atari Jaguar, so that system is where the novelty of 3D graphics wore off. When I realize I bet on the wrong horse, I considered buying a Saturn just because that was really the only system getting many 2D games at the time. But in the end, I didn't buy any of those consoles and just made due with my Jag and SNES while I waited for 3D mature in the next generation. I hear people crying about how they want an N64 mini, and I feel ill just thinking about it.

I loved my Saturn. But other than Clockwork Knight, it’s best games were 3D, but stylized 3D (Nights into Dreams, Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon Series)

Well I got two of them right. The Jaguar had several bad games on it, but it has excellent games like Doom, Tempest 2000, Rayman, AvP, Missile Command 3D, NBA Jam TE, Worms, Ultra Vortek, etc.

@@cooladee Man... Ultra Vortek is such an overlooked sleeper and is truly a beautiful game. The developers at Beyond Games really poured their hearts and soul into and it shows. It's not Mortal Kombat and that's perfectly fine but the game is awesome, even if a tad slower on the action side than MK. However, Atari should have dropped every single Time Warner license they were bothering with for MK3 in the end, period. Keep the FMV CDs and give everyone MK3 instead. That's what should have happened.

Aircars is horrendous, but I'm guessing it wouldn't make this list because it was released after Atari shut down. Apart from Double Dragon 5, which I never played, I can honestly say Aircars is much worse than anything on this list.

I enjoyed it a lot. Drive Club was the best driving game at that time. It had real physics contrary to ridge racer and Daytona usa

Well... its worth way more than most consoles. So there is a plus side. Atari collectors will pay 400 dollars to set it on the shelf.

I really enjoyed Trevor as well. I would never admit it in public of course.

One day, me and a couple friends got together to get drunk and browse through my game collection. It quickly went to finding and playing the bad ones. This one was that one game we all got the most enjoyment out of. The bad gameplay, the bad audio, the windows 95 1000-in-1 CDs full of klik-n-play games kind of feel.... A lasting memory, for sure.

is he a Jaguar, perhaps?

I like it too. Its not all that bad. Ive played worse.

I enjoyed it too. I still own it 😎

I don't know, the title music was so bad on Trevor McFur, I think they did us a favor by not having any in game. I'd agree with your comment that most Jag games weren't awful. But too many of them felt like they were just trying to be average Genesis games with fancier graphics.

The Atari Jaguar definitely had 64bit power but it was not a truly fully 64bit machine.Rather a hybrid that had 16bit, 32bit and 64bit features to it which complicated things for Atari Jaguar games developers at the time.At a time when most games developers were more familiar with the 16bit machines of the same era.

Wow, what a story! I saw a mouse a few days ago!

Cybermorph

Never had one, they are quite rare.

@@johnhancockretro shame someone cant make a repro one for production, it's very 'my life in gaming' for the RGB fans out there.

Where did you learn to fly ?

The gameplay looks awful but the houses in the background was definitely a nice touch and the 3d effects were probably pretty cool for the time.

Agreed dragon and checkered flag are the worst games on the system 😃

Kasumi Ninja was so bad. 3 seconds of input lag in a fighting game...

@@Psaurus81 yeah but it came with a sweet head band 😃

Lynx had an 8 bit processor and lower resolution than even the Gameboy but the hardware otherwise was amazing. The graphics chips was World class

I love that game and never understood the hate. It runs so fast and smooth! I was a little disappointed, given my still high expectations for what 64-bit games would be, that the gameplay was a bit shallow, but what it did, it did well.

Agree and in theory the Jaguar could have had more potent 2D fighting games than what we saw in Neo Geo but it never had one.

Balls of Fire!!!!