Atari Jaguar (and CD) - Fifth VideoGame Generation Recap - Adam Koralik 

The Jaguar always intrigued me because it was the highest profile example of that ‘Lost Generation’ that came and went in the early 90’s. The fact it was made by Atari and was (allegedly) 64 bit in an era when most consoles were still 16 bit only added to the mythos, because we never really got to see its potential. One of those interesting historical what-ifs, I guess. What if it didn’t have that weird dual processor architecture? What if it was a little easier to program for? What if third party developers had really gotten behind it? Would Atari still be a dominant force in gaming today? Probably not, to be fair. They’d had their day by that point.

where did you learn to fly?

+Shrek is Love Shrek is Life Thanks for watching. I may do a 4th gen recap, not totally sure to be honest.

Doom on the Jaguar was a Fantastic port; There was no music but it was the controller that really made it. You could select your weapon of choice simply by pressing one button on your pad (which was covered with a pictured template). No controller has been better suited to Doom IMO

I return back to this video for the space toilet.

Tomorrow I get mine in the mail and I'm looking forward to playing their great exclusives like Alien vs Predator, Tempest and ... Alien vs Predator and Tempest.

Add a gun barrel to the front and that's a hover tank...

Out of all the infamous consoles ever made, the Jaguar is by far my favorite one. I don't know why, but I really think it had a lot of charm.

Not gonna lie, the shape and the fins make it pretty appealing to me without the cd attachment. If it was flat black it would look amazing.

The weird concept with the overlays on the controller's key pad, was actually based on something Atari had done back in the day with the Atari 2600. They had a series of educational games using the Sesame Street IP that used a special blue controller that was just a big number pad and each of the games came with an overlay. It was called the "Atari Kids Controller" I believe. My parent's tried to make me play educational games on my 2600, like that was going to happen when we had a perfectly good copy of Demon Attack. ;)

+GameCenter Baker Thanks for watching!

I've wanted a Jaguar forever, but this makes me want one even more. I'm finally catching up on these videos, and they're fantastic. Loved the 3DO video, bro!

I've always thought that the Jaguar has this badass charm to it. It's so darn interesting and has quite a few great games. It's definitely underrated. It also has a great community. There are lots of homebrews on the system. And of you want to know about the Jaguar's graphical capabilities, you can go to AtariAge and look up discussions about the Jaguar vs other systems. They talk about different systems with their strengths and weaknesses.

Thanks for not hating the Jag! This was my favorite system as a kid, and have fond memories of it. It was the first system I purchased with my own money, and although much of the library doesn't hold up, there really is, as you know a pretty decent selection of solid games that are still pretty damn good. One thing you didn't mention also was the long running and still continuing community of homebrew games, which is pretty amazing.

Adam man I wish your videos were on DVD. I love your storytelling, it's like vh1 true Hollywood stories for games

I know I am late to this video, but Svideo cables were officially released for the Atari Jaguar. I have a boxed jaguar, and the manual talks about Svideo cables. ( Thanks for noticing my comment Adam!)

The console reminds me of the ship from Spartacus and the Sun Beneath the Sea cartoon. :)

I had an official Scart RGB cable for the Jaguar. It's interesting to note, that it somewhy had problems with upscalers, but I figured a some workaround by hooking another RGB source and somehow mix them together in a scart switchbox.

I recently played the complete library on an emulator. What happened to all the processing power. Most of the games look like they can be done on a 16 bit system.

Apparently a version of Quake was being made for the Jag. It got cancelled something like 20% through its development before being cancelled due to the system being discontinued. Makes me wonder what the full potential of the Jaguar hardware was and makes me wish the console had held on a bit longer.

The Jaguar became available in my part of the U.S during the summer of 1994. I was tired of the SNES and Genesis, so of course, I bought a Jaguar. Some of the games were glorified demos (Cybermorph, which I liked, and Trevor McFur, which I didn't). It's kind of hard to visualize now, but some of the games were actually impressive. The first time I saw a helicopter fly toward me on Iron Soldier..... the animation was so smooth and fluid (remember, the SNES and Genesis had been the top systems until then), I was impressed. AvP looks very dated now, but back then, the atmosphere while playing as a Colonial Marine.... before I found the Motion Tracker, I would get startled whenever an alien showed up when I opened a door where an Alien had been hiding. Tempest 2000 was a great update to a classic (that I already liked). The controller might have looked weird, but it felt comfortable to my hands.

Great vid! Love your level-headed style and the way you seem to *kinda* always root for the underdog, or at least give it it's fair shake

I believe u said 3 processors, it's 5 processors across 3 chips :) small correction on a great video. I own about 1/2 the Jaguar library & there's plenty of fun! Just added your entire 5th Gen Playlist to my watch later queue :)

Seriously enjoying this Fifth Gen Recap! Some solid work Adam. Already cannot wait to see the next one. I actually have been out of the whole "Hating on the Atari Jaguar" loop. Interesting how many people bashed the controller. I think the skins that go over the buttons on the controller was an amazing idea.

Great video. I never played a Jaguar and at the time thought that the keypad on the controller was a dumb idea. The current and past generations of consoles would benefit greatly from a keypad. I hate holding down a button to cycle through weapons. I lost count of how many times I've starred down at the chat pad of my 360 controller and wished it worked like a pc keyboard, allowing me to change weapons and bind keys to my liking. When used properly, the Wii U gamepad is as close as we'll get to that on consoles.

As much as I want, I can't take the picture of AVGN shitting on the Jaguar CD like an actual toilet.

The 90s was an interesting time, watching everyone throw their hat in the ring and make such a mess of things. Exciting at the time, and I'm very glad that I stuck with Sega and PCs until 2001. Rayman was Jaguar & 32X, but the 32X version was cancelled.

Marathoning all your videos right now

I gotta say, Adam, I've been subscribed to your channel for a while and I occasionally watch your videos. You have now been put in normal rotation because of that Jaguar dental white case fact. I NEVER knew about that. This dude REALLY knows his stuff!

The GC Controller is another example of a controller that was super-off-putting to look at but was really great. Still, to this day, my favorite controller; the layout just makes SO much tactile sense while, with the Dual Shock, I still have to stop and think for a second which button I'm going to press, just because it's not physically intuitive. I mean, you think about it and, in just about any game, you've got the one button you're pressing basically all the time then a secondary button that you probably need quick access to. Then a couple buttons for functionality right above your big-fat button. The only real glaring flaw was the Z-Button, which was just in such a phenomenally stupid place that, I think, a lot of people just can't forgive. But, realistically, you weren't using it much and when you did it probably wasn't in a desperate hurry. I was playing a lot of Need for Speed during this generation and played some versions on both PS2 and GC and, I swear to God, it's the most natural thing in the universe to play on the GC. I think what it comes down to is that it just smooths out the muscle memory learning curve. PS2 games, I'll get used to the controls and my thumbs will go to the right button naturally, eventually but with the GC controller, it's very natural and my thumbs just figure it out almost immediately. Sorry, for the completely irrelevant tangent. Just really a huge fan of what an interesting design it is.

I like your mix of practicality and frivolity. "Hey this console is nearly useless and expensive to buy... so I went and found the whole set." Cracks me up every time :)

The Jaguar really was a true 64-bit console with a 64-bit system bus and memory interface. And it didn't have just two processors. Even though it was split into the Tom and Jerry chips, it actually had 5 processors. The Tom chip contained the 64-bit Object processor, GPU, and Blitter. The Jerry chip contained a 32-bit DSP. The final processor was a separate 16-bit Motorola 68000.

I like how you always wear a shirt that relates to the video

I have watched this video (as well as all the other retrospective videos) so many times, but I've never had a Jaguar until a few days ago, where I finally got one, fully boxed and complete with Manuals and cables as well as a copy of Cybermorph with the overlay. It's in great condition, but the store also had a Jaguar CD, which I passed on as it was too much money for me to justify at the moment, especially with a library of only 13 games

I'm actually quite enjoying this series. I was never aware that all these consoles were part of the 5th generation, I assumed they were 4th but never looked it up. I loved the part where you went to buy the Jaguar finally, and someone had gotten it. Solid gold right there.

"Yes, there's a Highlander game and it sucks." I just had this picture in my head of that quote on the back of the case.

The Jaguar was my 2nd game console. I had a NES forever while everyone else had a Sega pr SNES. My dad bought the Jaguar brand new in 93. I was the only person I've ever known to have owned one. Nobody then had one or knew what they were, few people today do. I loved that thing. I miss it. I was the coolest kid on the block. I had a 64 bit console before they were cool. Then one day my dad got rid of it and said people at the game store told him it was outdated. He traded it in for a model 2 Genesis. Though I love my Genesis I will forever miss my Jaguar. I played the fuck out of it.

Sorry if I sound like an excited kid right now (I mean, I am 16), but my friend's dad used to live in the legendary Sunnyvale California, and he worked at Atari. Oh it gets better - he just told me his dad tested games and hardware from the 2600 days all the way through the Jaguar, and he said he has a prototype Jaguar, and he's going to ask him about it today. I'm pretty hyped about this, stuff like this never happens to me, I hope I'll get to see a bit of videogame history if he still has it.

This thing CPU is surprisingly similar to the AMD FX series and the PS3 CPU, good but not used to full advantage

Love hearing about consoles I don't have. Would love to own one but never see it anywhere. Plus never knew that there was a jaguar cd. Great video like always. Love how detailed your videos are.

Adam, I love you especially, I fucking love those voices you make like on the CDI video where you said; guys there's so many good games on it you don't understand and on the PS2 video you said; it's just a name fuck you I hate you. I love you, your channel, and those voices....

I was born in '85 and I remember the Jaguar getting quite a bit of coverage when it was around. It was one of those mystery consoles to me, along with the 3DO, CDi, etc. that I knew of but could never afford or get my parents to buy. regardless it was quite well know even to young kids who were in to games at the time.

Man i love these generation recap videos man, very informative and entertaining. It feels great to know about this kinda stuff.

I really enjoy your videos on old consoles, oh the memories! Do you own all of those old systems and games? If you do, Dam! you should open up a video game museum!

I really enjoy your channel; you're like someone I'd have gone to high school with. Thanks

To loosely quote Marty McFly... "What are you talking about?, all the best stuff is made in Japan."

Great video but its just hard to believe someone thats supposedly an avid gamer in the 90s never heard of the atari jaguar? I mean i was always reading all the game mags of the day like gamepro, egm, next gen, gamefan and knew about whatever systems/games were coming down the pike.

I briefly had the Jaguar. Iron Soldier was another enjoyable game for it. Cybermorph, if one can look past its spartan visuals, had some varied objectives and level design. For its time, it was an interesting experience in an elementary 3-D space, before such gaming environments becomes more common on consoles.

I still have my Jag+CD and quite a few games. Just wanted to say that I never had that problem with the power switching off. I guess it was designed to protect the console in case a cart wasn't inserted properly - we all know of machines that got killed by people plugging/unplugging carts and peripherals while they were powered on, and most system's cart interfaces were directly connected to the main data/address/control buses, hence much damage could be done there. Anyway, great video, subscribed.

I really like its design.

Awesome, learnt some stuff I did not know about the Jaguar. back in the mid 90's I used to rent a Jaguar and Doom every other weekend and play it at work. I had a PT Weekend job as a pin chaser at a bowling alley. Good Times.

Atari was actually about to release a predecessor to the Jaguar, which was coded as project Panther. It never saw the light except some prototype boards though.

"The ones everyone really cares about" Non-sense, I'm here eagerly anticipating the Saturn one more than the PS1/N64, mostly cause I'm curious as to how far the NTSC Saturn collection is going. Still, great video as usual Adam. Always enjoy these retrospective series vids, it's nice to have someone just explain details about a console that up until watching this, I knew nothing about. I thought the Jaguar was a 4th-gen and I didn't even know it had a CD attachment.

I don't know if anyone as brought this up yet (YT comments take more time to navigate then I care to put in) but there was another controller for the Jaguar. It had 6 face buttons and triggers, to bad they never made one with an analog stick. Regardless it's internet rep, the Jaguar was always a system I wanted to own, mostly due to curiosity, (well, that and anything named after cats is ok by me). It's funny to think how most early gens of gaming weren't as clear cut with the numbers of consoles and companies competing as we thought, not like the 3 clear contenders of today.

i'm for sure telling my wife later i watched some guy on youtube show an entire Jaguar CD collection. I'll keep you posted.

If the Jaguar had come out just a few years early I truly feel like it could’ve been the place where more “hard core” gamers could go to get the best version multiplats, all be it at a higher price

This is offtopic kind of, but it's about the Jaguar CD, but anyway; if there's one thing that bothers me personally about the Jaguar CD, is the fact that Phillips/ Atari were too damn cheap to design the thing to be Spring-Loaded. You know, the thing that makes the lid open when you hit the eject button. The Turbo Grafx CD, Turbo Duo, Sega CD 2, GENESIS CDX, 3DO FZ-10, Saturn, PlayStation, PSone, Dreamcast, PS2 (slim) and GameCube ALL have spring-loaded, top-loading disc drives. The ONLY two CD-rom consoles that I know of that don't have spring-loaded doors are the CD-i and the Jaguar CD, and it bothers me. ALSO: The Jaguar DID in fact get BOTH S-VIDEO AND RGB SCART Cables from ATARI themselves; but good luck finding them xD

Oh and by the way, here in the Netherlands I remember the consoles being on sale for years at a toy chain called Intertoys. I always thought the boxes looked awesome and they were so cheap. But I never bought one and just went home with a new Mega Drive game. This must have been around 1995 I guess. I ended up buying the console much later, maybe in 2007 or something.

The Atari Jaguar dental equipment part literally had me in tears lol...I'm going through something similar ATM.I honestly thought it was a joke for the longest time..The memory that sticks out the most was me and my brother laughing our asses off at the screenshots we saw for Fight For Life back in the day, their answer to the newer 3D Fighters like Tekken...but lately I've became a little interested in getting one someday if I can find one for cheap..Can't ever see myself getting the Toilet CD-Rom add on tho considering what they go for

I LOVE my Jaguar too death after buying it in April 2008, and now own roughly 40 of the 50 retail releases. I love my 3DO as well, but I personally view the Jag and 3DO as "Gen 4.5" consoles as they really competed with the Super Famicom and MegaDrive primarily during their lifespans. Same with the Dreamcast (despite being the biggest Sega fanboy all my life), as I consider it more of a 5th gen console ("5.5" in this case) as during it's life (especially in Japan) it mainly competed with the PSX and N64.

Your vids are awesome Adam, keep em coming. I was walking past a K•B Toys and they had a pyramid stack of Jags on display for 20 bucks. I thought about it for one second, and decided to keep my money. Kind of regret that decision.

Alien Vs Predator was awesome, but you have to understand what it’s trying to be. It’s a moody, atmospheric, and claustrophobic game. It’s not for everyone, but it’s very good for the kind of game it’s trying to be.

Sweet review mate, I love my Jaguar, mine is the UK Jag.

I left a comment...but I'm gonna say it again. THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST FUCKING CHANNELS ON RU-vid.

so the jag's structure is kinda similar to the sega Saturn; the Saturn also had 2 processors, one for the background and one for the foreground. the Saturn also suffered from being hard to program and it not being used at its full potential and b

I LIKE SEEING THE MANY RARE SHORT LIVED VIDEO GAME SYSTEM FROM THE LATE 80'S AND EARLY 90'S. WOULD LIKE TO SEE A RECAP OF 4TH GENERATION AS WELL.

From a fellow jaguar owner you gotta get "Trevor Mcfur in the Cresent Galaxy" it's absolutely hilarious. If you get one though your really gonna want the button overlay.

Hard to believe that in USA you haven't heard about Atari Jaguar. In Poland around 1994-1995 in each computer magazine were reviews and commercials of this console. Of course it was astronomical expensive and super hard to get.

Hey. Love all your videos, I've seen them all. Anyways, I'm a little older than you and I did notice how you said the Jaguar was obscure and no one knew about it. I was a Gampro reader back then and there was actually quite a bit of advertising for the Jaguar. I live in Montana and the nearest Electronic Boutique(or something like that)had a demo of the system running. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant. Just wanted to say I do remember ads for it. Was born in '80.

I think a lot of people hate on the Jaguar because the Angry Video Game Nerd made a video about it. Most people probably never heard about it before.

Damn it man, put these out faster! I kid, I kid, big fan. Keep it up. I enjoy all your videos.

Adam, nice video. By the way I have the official Atari Jaguar RGB scart cables. We got them here in Europe.

Great video from a new subscriber to your channel! One question though? Does your audio always sound as bad as it is in this video? It sounds like you put your microphone in a completely different room for some reason. Maybe its on my end i dunno.

I really dig the look and feel of the Jaguar, it's controller, and the first person shooters Doom, Wolfenstein, Iron Soldier and Alien vs Predator.

Incredibly informative and fair discussion. Good on ya.

That's an interesting way to look at the Jaguar. It was sort of like 3d games' martyr.

The Jaguar really didn't need to deserve all the hate; what really matters the most is the fact that all consoles, especially the Jaguar, made history because it's meant to be. They now became more popular than how they used to be just like the Sega Saturn, even the Panasonic 3DO.

Just an added note...If it wasn't for Atari Jaguar making "Wolfenstein", there would be no Doom "videogame". Atari is still in business, they don't make consoles anymore; but they still make games for this generations consoles and computers.

Hey Adam...these videos are SUPERB. But you forgot CD-I brother.

I remeber going into a flea market in like '98 or somethin and seeing one of these with a few games for like $30 I actually almost got my mom to buy it for me but I think it quickly sold before we came back. But I do remember seeing it in some video game magazine porlly a year or two before that so I actually knew what it was.

I was lucky enough to find a working Jaguar/CD unit yesterday for $20, although it was missing the AV cable. The CD unit is incredibly fragile, and I had to raise the spindle up so that the laser could focus properly and detect the CD. The whole console is poorly made overall. The fact that mine was sold "as is" and works surprised the crap out of me.

17:35 the face plate idea was first done on the keyboard with the Mattel Aquarius

the keypad on the controller with all of the buttons is probably the best part of this system. having one button to select each individual weapon has been a mechanic in PC games for a long time. compared to PC gaming console controllers simply don't have enough buttons. this is one reason why I really like the Wii U gamepad, the touch screen can be used for just about anything, inventory selection, map screen, second screen for multiplayer. it just makes console games much more comparable to PC games given that you can have one button for each weapon on the screen not unlike how the keypad on the Jaguar has overlays for the buttons. this is something I've been saying for a while, console controllers need a built-in second screen to be more comparable to playing games on PC with a mouse and keyboard. it's a shame Sony went with a touch pad rather than a touch screen.

These are really interesting vids nice job. The only thing I don't like is that you repeat the intro about what everyone thinks the 4th gen consoles are and what every business was doing. Not a big deal, I still like the series. Keep em coming

I had a friend who was all about Atari back then, he got the Lynx, Jaguar and Jaguar CD. Loved Rayman and especially Tempest 2000! Thought the Virtual Light Machine function when playing music CDs was awesome too. When I went to buy my Saturn I was tempted to get the Jaguar instead. I remember going back and forth for awhile in Software etc. and in my head debating Panzer Dragoon or Tempest 2000. Made the right choice and grabbed the Sega Saturn. A year later Atari went bust and soon after that I got to play Tempest 2000 and Rayman on my Saturn:) I loved Tempest 2000 so much that I was one of the eight people to buy the Nuon just to play Tempest 3000!!!

Excellent vid. Really interesting stuff. Thanks for posting this. I knew some of this stuff but there were some real unknown facts in there. Great job! :)

love these recaps!! favorite youtuber 👍

What if the Jaguar from KB Toys circulated back to you? :D

Through time we respect these consoles more and more for what they were. Video Games Consoles

I can't believe this was almost 6 years ago.

Oh my god, I got a Jaguar when I was living in Spain from a guy who always used to have games, I paid 20 euros in around 2009, but I gave it back because it wouldn't turn on. That was incredibly hard to hear what you said in the video about it not working without a perfect connection. I guarantee it was that. Damn. Haha.

KB Toys was bad or good depending on how you look at it at keeping older toys/games/systems on shelves. I remember buying discontinued x-men figures at our nearest kb toys that were discontinued like 5-10 years prior...

Gex's started on the Panasonic 3do.

R.I.P atari jaguar sadly they don't make consoles anymore but the jaguar was there last strike on the gaming market they done there best im thinking of getting a atari jaguar

I also love the Jaguar version of Syndicate and Wolfenstein 3D. Only version I know that has a rocket launcher.

Great video Adam. Very interesting. I never knew that there was so much story behind the Jaguar.. Can't wait to see the next part. Any chance we'll get 4th gen recap? (Haven't even finished the 5th gen recap and i'm asking for a 4th gen one) Wow, i'm greedy haha

I actually like the look of the Jaguar, and the CD add-on. Maybe I just think space toilets look cool, I dunno. The keypad on the controller isn't a bad idea either, it's basically like putting PC hotkeys on your control pad. And hell, nowadays we have keypad addons that plug into controllers. If anything, Atari's controller was way ahead of its time.

I think I got it as a gift for about $20 in 1998 at KB Toys. Took it home, heard "WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO FLY?" about 26 times in less than two minutes and promptly was back to playing my N64. I have since played Tempest and it's a good game but that initial experience kind of ruined any luster it could of had for me.

First video of yours I ever watched. Great. Liked 'n' subbed.

You're story makes me want a jaguar!