The Jaguar side isn't going neglected either. A report from the ECTS, Tim Wilson with hands-on beta copies of new Jaguar games, Tal's Jaguar NewsPhrases, and the latest and greatest AEO Jaguar Development List. Plans are being made to attend the Summer CES in Chicago to provide the best in Atari coverage. I hope to have further details of Subspace Publishers' plans in the next issue of AEO. ||| Jaguar Tackboard ||| Confirmed information about Atari's Jaguar / | \ Compiled from online and official sources ----------------------------------------------------------------- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Independent Association of Jaguar Developers =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The IAJD (Independent Association of Jaguar Developers) has started accepting members on GEnie. The IAJD is a private group where confidential discussions can be freely held. (Category 64 of the ST RoundTable is the IAJD meeting place.) Consequently, membership in the IAJD is limited to Jaguar developers who are registered with Atari Corp. To apply for membership, send EMail to ENTRY$ on GEnie (or if you're not on GEnie). Regular EMail correspondence with the IAJD should be sent to IAJD$ (again, or if you're not on GEnie). =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Developer / Game List 1.8 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Editor: The following developers, licensees and game titles have been confirmed to the best of AEO's ability as of April 19, 1994. Entries in the "S"tatus column reflects any "e"rrors, "u"pdates, "n"ew titles, or new "d"evelopers since the last AEO list. Titles in brackets (e.g. [Cybermorph]) have been completed and are available in the US. 1-10 Titles S Developer/Licensee Rating under development " """""""""""""""""" """""" """"""""""""""""" 21st Century Software - Pinball Fantasies n 3D Games - Rainbow Warrior n - MORE n Accent Media Productions - Varuna's Forces CD-ROM Accolade - Al Michaels Announces Hardball - Brett Hull Hockey - Charles Barkley Basketball - Jack Nicholas Golf Activision - Return to Zork CD-ROM All Systems Go - Hosenose and Booger CD-ROM - Jukebox (cart multiplexer) n - Bios-fear CD-ROM e American Laser Games - Mad Dog McCree Anco Software Ltd. - Kick Off 3 - World Cup Anthill Industries Argonaut Software - Creature Shock CD-ROM (For Virgin) Atari Corp. - Battlezone 2000 - Chaos Agenda CD-ROM - Club Drive 5 [Crescent Galaxy] - MPEG 1 and 2 carts - Star Raiders 2000 - Tiny Toons Adventures - VR Helmet MORE u Atari Games Corp. - Arcade Games using Jaguar Attention to Detail - Battlemorph: Cybermorph 2 CD-ROM - Blue Lightning CD-ROM 7 [Cybermorph] (For Atari) Audio-Visual Magic Bethesda Softworks Beyond Games Inc. - Battlewheels - Ultra Vortex Black Scorpion Software Bjorn Joos/Kris Van Lier Borta & Associates Brainstorm - [x86 Jaguar Development System] Bullfrog Productions Ltd. - Syndicate - Theme Park (For Ocean) Clearwater Software Computer Music Consulting Cybervision CyberWare Delta Music Systems Inc. Dimension Technologies n Domark Group Ltd. - F1 Racer n DTMC - Lester the Unlikely n - Mountain Sports n - (Miniature Golf) Duncan Brown d Eclipse - Iron Soldier Elite E-On Eurosoft EZ Score Software Inc. GameTek Inc. Genus Microprogramming Inc. Gremlin Graphics Ltd. - Zool 2 - UNKNOWN TITLE (racing) - MORE? H2O Design Corp. Hand Made Software - Kasumi Ninja (For Atari) High Voltage Software Hisoft ICD Inc. - Cat Box (AV & comm expansion box) id Software - Doom: Evil Unleashed - Wolfenstein 3D Imagineer Company Ltd. Imagitec Design Inc. 6 [Evolution Dino-Dudes] 6 [Raiden] - Freelancer 2120 CD-ROM u - Busby in Clawed Encounters of the Furried Kind (For Accolade) Interplay - BattleChess CD-ROM - MORE? n Jaleco - Cisco Heat n - Bases Loaded n - MORE CD-ROM Krisalis Software Ltd. - Soccer Kid Limelight Media Inc. LlamaSoft 10 [Tempest 2000] (For Atari) - MORE MINTER! Loricel S.A. Manley & Associates Inc. Maxis Software Microids - Evidence - Commando Microprose - Gunship 2000 - MORE SIMULATIONS Midnite Software Inc. - Car Wars - Dungeon Depths n MORE Millenium Interactive Ltd. NMS Software Ltd. Ocean Software Ltd. - (Movie title "The Shadow") CD-ROM - Apes--- n - (Comic title "LOBO") CD-ROM Phalanx - Phong 2000 Photosurrealism - Galactic Gladiators PIXIS Interactive d Rage Software UK ReadySoft Incorporated - Dragon's Lair CD-ROM - Dragon's Lair II CD-ROM - Space Ace CD-ROM Rebellion Software Ltd. - Alien vs. Predator - Checkered Flag II (Redline Racing) - Legions of the Undead (For Atari) Rest Energy Sculptured Software Inc. u Silmarils - Robinson's Requiem CD-ROM Software Creations Team Infinity Team 17 Software Ltd. Tecnation Digital World Techtonics Telegames - Brutal Sports Football - Casino Royale - European Soccer Challenge - Ultimate Brain Games - MORE? u - Double Dragon 5 (For Tradewest) n - Super Off-Road (For Tradewest) Teque London Ltd. Thrustmaster u Tiertex Ltd. - Flashback (for U.S. Gold) Titus Tradewest - Troy Aikman Football n Trimark Interactive - White Men Can't Jump - MORE? U.S. Gold Ltd. UBI Soft International - Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis - MORE V-Reel Productions - Arena Football - Horrorscope Virgin Interactive n Entertainment Ltd. - Dragon n - Demolition Man Virtual Xperience - Indiana Jags - Zozziorx - MORE? Visual Concepts Williams Brothers WMS Industries d Zeppelin Games - Center Court Tennis Pts Stars AEO Ratings """ """"" """"""""""" 10 ***** GAMING NIRVANA!!! - You have left reality behind... for good. 9 ****+ Unbelieveable GAME!! - Your family notices you're often absent. 8 **** Fantastic Game!! - You can't get enough playtime in on this. 7 ***+ Great Game! - Something to show off to friends or 3DOers. 6 *** Good game - You find yourself playing this from time to time. 5 **+ Ho-hum - If there's nothing else to do, you play this. 4 ** Waste of time - Better to play this than play in traffic. 3 *+ Sucks - Playing in traffic sounds like more fun. 2 * Sucks Badly - You'd rather face an IRS audit than play this. 1 + Forget it - ... but you can't; it's so badly done, it haunts you. 0 - Burn it - Disallow programmer from ever writing games again. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jaguar Quotes =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jeff Minter entered into a discussion about the internals of Tempest 2000: [] ... JERRY is doing all the audio. TOM gets to draw all the calculated starfields by himself; he gets in league with the blitter to do polygon drawing, transforming and rendering game objects, and pixelshatter (where things break into a zillion pixels like the '2000' bonus). Melt-O-Vision is almost entirely a Blitter operation. The 68K runs all the game logic and orchestrates the other co-pros and builds the (very simple) Object List. The OLP isn't really doing much at all, it's sitting there twiddling its electronic thumbs and just displaying the main screen and an overlaid sprite for the score and ships info. Frame rate is variable, depending on how much drawing is to be done. Logically, the game engine never slows down, as it's slaved to a regular interrupt. The draw engine is decoupled from this, so when the going gets tough it drops frames where necessary, which results in a degradation in the frame rate but does not affect gameplay speed. It *is* possible to clog it up if you let a lot of stuff build up on the web, but the dynamics of normal gameplay mean that this happens sufficiently rarely to be a problem in gameplay. The alternative would have been to maintain a constant framerate by limiting the number of objects onscreen, or having them 'disappear' (arcade Defender used to do that!) when the load is high, but I don't like that as it spoils the consistancy of the game environment. Don't assume that the rendering of polygons in T2K is necessarily as fast as it can be done - T2K represents my first attempt at a polygon-based game, and the first cut of my polyrenderer is unlikely to be optimal. Everyone optimises over time, and as we get into the Jag we'll learn cheats, techniques and shortcuts to do more stuff faster and smoother than ever... //// In a discussion about portibility ("C" vs. assembler), Doug Engel had this to say: [] The Jaguar is too "unique" to write "portable" games for. If you try to write "portable" code, you've locked yourself into a mindset that limits most of what the Jaguar is good for. ... You _have_ to know how the Jaguar operates to write _anything_ on it, no matter when you write in. Much of the hardware features in the Jaguar are directly accessable in "C"... the problem is that the hardware will just be accessed more slowly than it would in assembly, or RISC assembly. //// id Software's constantly being asked about their Jaguar work. Here's their latest statement: [] We're doing Doom and Wolfenstein 3D for the Atari Jaguar. They're both coming right along. Wolf 3D is sporting several new features, including source artwork at twice the resolution (4x the data), a high, fluid refresh rate, 22 kHz sound effects, and MIDI device emulation. Doom pushes the hardware a lot harder and already looks trey cool. The anti-aliasing effects of composite screens coupled with the very hip 16-bit CRY pixel mode makes images look even more realistic than the DOS version. Both should be done this summer. Duncan Brown , self-confessed "Jaguar Programmer in a Garage", sums up how he views the Jaguar's power: [] -- It's kind of an awe-inspiring amount of powerful hardware at your disposal. What kind of graphics system theory are you used to? Sprites? Frame buffer? Character mapped? Graphics coprocessor? State machine to process display lists? Yeah, this can do all of that... simultaneously... and probably some other things that people haven't even thought of yet. -- There's so much power in so many different places, it's kind of hard to know where to start. To try to write a program from scratch (even after studying example code supplied by Atari) suffers from a steep "learning wall". You have to get at least passingly familiar with a lot of different pieces just to make that first tiny program fly. But once you've gotten familiar with all that, gotten the framework in place to make all the parts sing together, it gets a lot easier. -- I'm still getting my feet wet here. In fact, it's a bit depressing to play Tempest 2000. It's like I'm still painting a background on a canvas and then someone takes me to see the Sistene (sp?) Chapel... But from everything I can tell, this is a graphics hacker's ultimate playground here. There are no rules, there are almost no restrictions. Once you decide which direction you want to head in, it's pedal-to-the-metal time. -- The development hardware and software is pretty decent, but it does take some effort to get used to. The faint of heart need not apply. Atari's example programs *never* assemble and load without a hitch. But hey, what better way to learn the tools than by figuring out what the problem is? I wasted a lot of time creating a good work environment for myself on the TT030 because I had never even *heard* of the computer before, much less used one! I was convinced the development tools would work better on a 680x0 platform, but I advise anyone else to weigh that notion carefully against the ramp-up time for a new platform. If you're already familiar with Atari computers, then it's a no-brainer. The TT030 *is* a nice platform. ... But so far I am extremely impressed and extremely happy! --==--==--==--==-- ||| Jaguar Games Preview & Bay Area Devcon Report ||| By: Tim Wilson / | \ GEnie: AEO.8 Internet: wilsont@rahul.net ------------------------------------------------------------------ Through my various sources and by attending the Bay Area Jaguar Developer Conference, I've been able to see some of the following games: Doom Wolfenstein 3D Club Drive Alien Vs Predator Checkered Flag II (Redline Racing) Kasumi Ninja A Very Important Note: everything I saw was in an early stage, and at least a month old at the time I saw it. (Which makes them at least two months old to you.) I also have no way of knowing how far along each one was, or how far back the demo was. Oh well, just read this. :) //// Alien Vs Predator You want texturemapping? You got tons of it in this game. Walls, floors, ceilings, doors, are all covered with 16-bit textures. All nicely done. You could of course choose to be an Alien, a Marine or the Predator, I tried each out, but only the Marine had a lone working weapon. (Pulse rifle) Each character had a unique HUD that you can slowly fade in and out, making it opaque or transparent, depending on the situation. A map could also be displayed over the screen - the map would scroll around smoothly as you moved. The map was an overlay, not a separate screen, so it's possible to see the map and look through your "eyes" at the same time. The Marine had a shotgun, a pulse rifle, and a grenade launcher visible. I've seen a knife before, but that's being cut out I hear. It may be possible to pick up and drop weapons, it's not confirmed yet. The Marine had a motion tracker on the HUD, but it wasn't active then. (It's since been activated.) The Predator had the cloaking net, claws, plasma gun, killer frisbee, net gun, and a spear. The Predator also has Ultraviolet and Infrared vision. I couldn't find a dark area to try it out in, the map was huge. The Predator had a sound analyzer, but it too was inactive. The Alien only has a tail, second mouth, and claws as weapons. However, the Alien can move EXTREMELY fast. As the Marine I could engage the Predator or Alien if I happened to cross their path. The Predator would immediately cloak, then suddenly appear in front of me, quickly shooting, poking and stabbing with all of his weapons. Not that it mattered, I was invincible. He wasn't... a blast from the pulse rifle sent green blood spraying, A few more shots and he fell to the ground in a slowly expanding pool of glowing green blood. When I shot the Alien, it kinda made a little explosion on his chest, and then a bigger explosion when it died... it looked thrown in. Of course, this was an early release. I also accessed a computer terminal, but all that was there was mug shots of the programmers and some bitmaps of armor and stuff. I did find some Alien eggs, which open as you near them. No facehuggers popped out, but I did encounter a facehugger scampering around. It jumped at me and disappeared. I guess that subroutine wasn't quite done yet either. Some ambient noises where present, hissing steam noises, and ominous alarms. Watch the last 20 minutes of "Aliens", and you'll hear the same noises. //// Doom Doom was running in 16 bit color as well, and I only got to see episode one, mission one. There were beasties to kill, and they died just like in the PC version. The added colors (supposedly from the original 24-bit artwork) sure helped, and the dark areas and color gradients were -excellent-. id has said they'll acheive a faster frames per second in the end. What more can I say... it was Doom! //// Wolf 3D It's the same ol' PC Wolfenstein you know and love. Dogs, Nazis, blood, big weapons, and many fps. Someone said that delays had to be added because it was so fast. The textures were enhanced to double their original resolution. //// Club Drive Yeah, I saw it, but it's been redone since. The frame rate was great, and the toy car scenario was kinda neato. Lots of ramps and things to let you get on top of tables, etc.... I'm not gonna say much else in light that it's been worked over. //// Checkered Flag II (Redline Racing) Looked a lot like Virtua Racing or Hard Drivin'. Buildings and distant objects fade into view and get more detailed as they get closer in a realistic manner. There were four views to choose from, and the internal view had "arms" that moved the steering wheel. The tracks were flat, but I hear they may be changing that. The frame rate was pretty good. //// Kasumi Ninja I hope you like blood.... Blood splatters all over, and according to the product manager, can be turned on or off easily (no secret codes), and then saved to the cart, so you won't have to constantly enter a "blood code." Blood slowly "dried" up, but it may very well -stay- on the ground for the whole round if the manager gets his way. The finishing moves code be done at any time in the version I played. They were uh... unique. They may or may not be final versions of them... but here they are: [] Flip your opponent over backwards and then back flip onto his head, squishing it nicely. [] Pick up your opponent and then proceed to rip him/her in half, drop said opponent... er... oppenents? at your feet. Errr, there was one more, but I can't remember it. -grin- The characters also had the usual assortment of special powers: Fireballs, floating roundhouse kicks, and teleportation. (That's for one character...) BTW, those backgrounds you see in the pictures will be animated. For example, those dog/dragon thingies will have firey eyes and smokey nostrils, and various other details. I've heard of some CD games too, but I can't tell you much about them. ("Gee! THAT'S helpful!", you say grumbling.) Well, I've been sworn to secrecy, but I can say the CD will have -lots- of support. Use your imagination on this one. :) I've also heard of more never before heard of ComLynx games... but I can't say what. I know I'm gonna get hate mail, but just know this for now - Atari has bunches of titles and tricks up their collective sleeves. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jaguar Developer Conference Report =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= I attended the Jaguar Developer conference and was *very* pleased that I went. Normen went over the documentation and fielded questions. If he didn't know the answer, he found it out. Each chunk of the Jag was covered, the Object Processor, GPU, DSP, and blitter. I learned just how amazingly flexible the OP was, and learned some amazing tricks, visual and efficiency wise. I learned how much time various operations took in relation to the other parts of the Jag, which is a big help in regards to interupts, which were also covered in detail. Also covered was a bit of Jaguar history, the CD unit, some previews of upcoming games, and miscellaneous Atari plans. I personally think it'd be a good idea for any Jaguar programmer to attend the conference when it gets close to you. --==--==--==--==-- ||| Jaguar News Phrases ||| By Tal Funke-Bilu / | \ GEnie: EXPLORER.5 ---------------------------------------------------------------- O.K. Jaguar fans, here's the scoop. I had this great follow-up to my Jeff Minter interview. He was gonna talk long and hard about the making of T2K and give a full report from the ECTS (European Computer Trade Show). The only problem was that all of GEnie's EMail was backlogged for a day due to maintenance. Then Atari decided it wanted Jeff to spend a lot of time working on the VLM for the JagCD. What to do? Work on Jag CD stuff, or write for AEO?... Enough with the excuses. There's been a lot of talk about Tempest codes and a rotary controller. First off, let's get the codes straightened out. There are two of them, one allows you to pass the current level by obtaining an "outta here" while the other enables the current warp when you pass the level you are on. I've seen a ton of garbled posts on how you actually enable these, and most of them will work, but here's the bare bones: To enable either cheats, start a game of Tempest 2000 with the "a" button while holding down 1,4, and 7. Then, when you are playing, hit "6" to enable the warp, and "option" to catch an "outta here." Now for the good stuff. People seemed to have discovered that by another combination of button pushes, one can enable a "controller type" option on the options screen which can be set at "rotary" or "joypad." Again, I've seen various claims to "push this!" or "no, you do this!", and again, here is the bare bones (you need two controllers). To enable a "controller type" option on the options screen, go to the options screen, and push "pause" simulataneously on both controllers. That's it. I am only revealing this because others have already discovered it, and I am sick of reading "where can you get a paddle?" posts. The main reason behind the secrecy surrounding the rotary option is mainly becuase Atari did not want people hounding them with "When can I get one?" calls and other related correspondence. Here's the facts: [] Developers have the info. If they want to make a paddle control, it is up to them. [] Installing hooks into a game to accept rotary controls is minor. The Yak said it took him two days to do the extra code. It would be better to leave a hook in a game that would most likely be played with a paddle, than leave it out. For that reason, I suspect all games that have even the most remote possibilty of being played with a paddle, will have some sort of hook installed. [] Right now, Atari can not afford to spend resources on a paddle. If enough games are released that could use one, and people still talk about it, I suspect that late summer-early fall might see the release of such a controller. Keep in mind that the rotary option was not to be talked about by Atari employees/developers (in public). That's all the Tempest action for this week. (Anyone go double beastly or beat 3,112,083 yet? Without the cheats of course!) //// Other Jaguar tidbits: (sorry this is so brief, look for an expanded section next issue) [] Atari wants AvP to be a mega-hit, so the programmers (Rebellion) are cramming in all the whistles and bells that will fit! This is definitely going to be a major candidate for game of the year. Rumored to have been in beta-testing by now, word is AvP's hit some legal snags and has went back to the developers, so it could wind up on the shelves from early June to early August. [] Don't even think about DOOM until the end of summer. ID wants to get the job done right, and with the Alien running around at 30fps, ID is going to have their job cut out for them. [] In the meantime, Wolf-3D is being updated for the Jag. The addition of a flamethrower and rocket launcher are just a few of the enhancements, not to mention double the sprite size! Don't worry, all the Nazi decorations are intact, not to mention resampled sound along with improved music. [] A sizable number of new developers signed up at the ECTS a week or two ago. Look for a confirmed list in an upcoming issue. [] Jaguar television ads are all over cable. Even a new Tempest 2000 ad. [] Some people have reported hearing radio commercials for Tradewest's Troy Aikman Football, "Out this fall" for Jaguar. [] Ocean's Flashback should be one of the first 3rd party games available (along with Wolf-3D). [] Jeff Minter's Virtual Light Machine, supposedly named ColorSpace 2000, will most likely be built into the CD-ROM unit. [] Here's the specs on the JagCD: Double speed. 350Kb/s transfer rate. 160x120 @ 50 fps. 320x160 @ 24 fps. (3DO can do 160x120 @ 24 fps) [] A VR Helmet code-named the CyberMaxx is reportedly being made for several platforms, including the Jaguar. Rumored price range: $400-$500. Look for a nice developer report in an upcoming AEO, along with the missing Jeff Minter files. ||| ECTS - Traque du Jaguar a Londres (Stalking the Jaguar in London) ||| By Loic Duval / | \ CIS: 100015,3044 ----------------------------------------------------------------- The ECTS, one of the most important video games shows in Europe, took place in London this year from the 10th to 12th of April. The ECTS is a trade show that only professionals can access, so it is not a show for big announcements, and not a show with huge booths and large, colorful demonstrations. It is more the kind of show where booths are comfortable suites with sofas, and people simply talk to one another, etc. Atari Europe (which means Atari UK) had a suite on the lower ground level, which was just in front of the "Time Warner Interactive" suite. Sam Tramiel and Bill Rehbock made the trip to London with some other US personel like Normen Kowalevski, who responsible for Jaguar developer support. The booth contained five Jaguar displays and a big TV with all the Jaguar ads running in loop. In the back, a secret room was reserved for developers' presentations. There were no other Jaguars displayed at the show except at three booths from UK dealers. You would have to know that the Jaguar has not been officially introduced into Europe yet. The current date of introduction should be around September 1994. However many developers have confirmed that they were currently working hard on Jaguar games and some of them had early versions displayed in the Atari booth. //// One more award Before I describe the games I saw, I have to announce that the Jaguar won another award at the ECTS: "Best Hardware 1994". (The only hardware award given.) The ECTS awards are the only independent consumer awards for this industry. A panel of over 70 of the world's leading computer and video games magazines voted on the award. The other contenders for the "Best Hardware 1994" award included 3DO, CD32 and Reel Magic. //// New games Atari displayed prototypes (in various stages of development) of soon to arrive Jaguar games, but no announcements or demonstrations of any new hardware or Jaguar extensions were made. (However there were some new products which were demonstrated to developers during a developer conference on the 13th of April.) The game that attracted the most interest and about all the journalists present (at least the ones I spoke too) was Kasumi Ninja. It is the Jaguar's hottest title for the moment, even if the game is still far from completion. Only two characters (Ninja and Goth) were implemented in the version I saw, but it was still highly playable. It may look like Mortal Kombat because of the digitized fighters, however it is yet much more fun, more playable, and more... bloody! The characters are very well digitized (in true color) with smooth and detailed animations. They look even bigger than on MK (Mortal Kombat) or SF2 (Street Fighter 2). One very interesting detail is that the characters have a real shadow which follows the movement exactly and not the kind of simple dark circle you have on SF2 or MK. The background graphics are also digitized with tons of colors and multiple levels of parallax. It is not yet animated but it will be in the final release. The ground is done with texture mapped polygons also. I wasn't sure because you don't see any polygons (the ground looks so good), but the 3D perspective animation (when you move both fighters on the left or on the right) was so smooth that I can't believe they have enough space in the cartridge to store all the bitmap positions. It must be texture mapped 3D polygons! (Editor: It is.) Each character has its own moves and "fatality" moves. I was impressed by the number of moves currently implemented and how they succeeedd to install it on the Joypad. You don't have to use the numeric keypad at all. All moves are done using the joypad and the three fire buttons. Many combinations are possible, because to get at some, you have to find the right joypad position and press several buttons simultaneously. It may look strange but believe me Kasumi Ninja is highly playable and once you have discovered a move, it is very easy to reproduce it. As I said previously, the game is bloody. Very bloody indeed. When you hit your opponent some blood springs down to the floor and remains there. The "force" level is represented by a knife (one for each fighter) at the top of the screen. Each time a fighter is hit, more blood appears on his blade, dripping on the floor. So at the end of a fight, the least I can say is that you have a lot of blood on the screen. If you add a fatality move, the result.... The fatality moves can be executed at any times (if you are well positioned). No, I will not describe the 3 fatalities currently implemented. I prefer to let you discover them once the game will be available. Just say that the face of the visitors looking at those moves for the first time was the funniest thing at the show (something like the face of your father or mother when he/she discovers the "barf" Jaguar ads on the TV for the first time). With all of the action and gore (it even sports a 3D texture mapped maze!), Kasumi Ninja is so terrific and impressive that it overshadowed all the other Jaguar games on the show - even Alien Vs Predator! AvP is now very near completion. When you look at it for the first time, the 3D animation looks smooth but slower than Doom on a 486/66 PC. That is not because the Jaguar is slower, but because the soldier walks slower than the one in Doom. Just play the Alien and you will discover how fast the Jaguar can be when texture mapping. You just "fly" down the corridors of the space station at 30 fps. The concept, of the game (AvP) is very similar to Doom but AvP is much more an adventure game than a shoot'em up. Graphics are beautiful (with highly detailed textures) and the very realistic sounds add a lot of depth to the game. Wolfenstein 3D was also displayed. It runs at an incredible speed (60 fps for sure), too fast to be honest. The version displayed is in a very early stage and only uses the PC graphics (in 256 color mode) with no texture mapping on the floor or ceiling (just like the PC version). I know that the graphics are currently being redrawn for the Jaguar. Also displayed for the first time was Flashback from US Gold (programmed by Tiertex). The game looks exactly like the PC and the Genesis version. So we will hope that Tiertex will change the graphics to true colour before release. For the moment Flashback Jaguar looks like an immediate 68000 port from the Genesis. The game is good with an incredibly smooth animation, but Jaguar players want more than a simple port from a 16-bit platform. Tempest 2000 (T2K) was the only game at the show that is currently available. The successful game has attracted many visitors (and don't forget that it was T2K's first official presentation in Europe). I also very briefly saw some other games like Checkered Flag II, which is still very far from completion. The good news is that the version I have seen is much faster than the one displayed at the CES in January. The speed is now similar to Virtua Racing, and Rebellion's programmers are still optimizing their routines so the final version will be even faster. The most interesting feature is that you can change the view to be in the cockpit, just behind the F1 or behind and over the F1 (with a fully user selectable angle). Club Drive is a flat 3D polygon style racing game. The animation is smooth and fast but the graphics looked poor (no texture, no gouraud, just flat polygons). The game is very fun and you can play with two players (the screen is split in 2) simultaneously for even more excitement. //// News From Third Parties: [] Domark F1 Racer from Domark will be a dangerous competitor for Checkered Flag 2. The game is in early development stage but the 3D graphics are good and the animation is very fast. It looks similar to Microprose's Grand Prix or Papyrus' Indy Car on the PC. [] Ocean Ocean is currently working on two Jaguar projects: one cartridge and one CD ROM. The first game, code-named Apeshit, has some of the nicest graphics seen on Jaguar (which means some of the nicest graphics ever seen on any console). It is a True Colour platform game with multiple parallax scrolling and a cooperative "two players" mode. The CD-ROM project is based on the violent comic character LOBO. Ocean said this game is a very new concept and doesn't want to talk about it for the moment. The only thing we know, is that all the graphics and animations have been rendered on Silicon Graphics Unix workstations. [] Anco Kick Off 3 is a soccer game from Anco. Versions 1 & 2 (available on the ST) were the most playable soccer games ever made. Kick Off 3 is of course better and offers many new features. The game is now side-on view (watching from the stands) with much, much larger and better animated players. It is scheduled to be released in June/July time frame, Kick Off 3 on Jaguar sounds very exciting. [] Zeppelin Games A new company, Zeppelin Games, which was not on my list of Jaguar Licensees has announced "Center Court Tennis" to be available late 1994. //// The Developer Conference On the 13th of April, Atari organized a Jaguar developer conference attended by around 100 European developers. They showed a Jaguar CD-ROM prototype running an FMV demonstration of Spielberg's movie "Jaws". The CD-ROM is expected to be available in August at a retail price of $199. The FMV (full motion video) demo shown was done using Cinepak technology from SuperMac. Cinepak is also used by Apple (in Quicktime), Sega (in the Mega CD), 3DO (most of the CD animations you have on 3DO games are coded with Cinepak). Cinepak is similar to MPEG as it uses a "lossy" compression scheme (which means visual information not seen by human eyes is not encoded) to get a very high compression rate which allows you to store more than one hour of VIDEO + AUDIO on a single compact disc. The Jaguar Cinepak implementation is done completely in software (no extra hardware is needed to decode the frames) and is, in term of quality, one of the best implementations of Cinepak so far. Some programmers who used to work with Cinepak compression on the Mac or 3DO, said they never thought Cinepak images could be as good as what they have seen on the Jaguar. The quality is outstanding (no pixelisation effect; no visible loss most of the time; excellent synchronization between the sound and the video image; and it runs in 320x240 pixels at 30 frames per second. The best point of the Jaguar's implementation is that the decoder only uses about half the power of the machine, so programmers have enough bus bandwith and processor power to move objects on the screen and add game play over the video playback. During this conference, Jeff Minter demonstrated a "currently under development" version of VLM (Virtual Light Machine), an impressive light synthesizer which reacts to music and the user's input, and it will be a pack-in with the CD-ROM unit. It is totally crazy and absolutely indescribable. It is a kind of Colourspace/ Trip-A-Tron (Jeff Minter's light synthesizer on Atari STs) using the 64-bit and Tempest 2000 technologies. Many games are currently under development for the Jaguar CD-ROM. The most advanced projects seems to be "Return To Zork" from Activision, "Space Ace" from ReadySoft, "Robinson's Requiem" from Silmarils, and "Freelancer 2120" from Imagitec. Several new developers signed up as Jaguar developers during the ECTS show as well. In final, this ECTS confirmed that most of the Jaguar titles are late. Due to a production delay, don't expect new games before beginning of June. However the new titles look very, very hot and most of them will probably be displayed in final stages during the Summer CES (Consumer Electronics Show). So stay tuned.... |---- /\ ------- /\ --- This file passed through SECOM -- +46-(0)451-91002 --| | // \ // \ | | // \ // \ InterNet: @secom.ct.se Support System for | | // \ // \ NeST: 90:1102/112 Falcon Owner's Group | | /\\ \\ / // \\ / FujiNet: 7:102/102 and | |// \ \/ // /\/ FidoNet: 2:200/612 Synchron Assembly | |\\ / \\ \/ | | \\ / \\ \ SysOps: Rickard "Troed" Troedsson & Magnus Thylander | | \\ / \\ / | |-- \/arcastic \/xistence COMputer/COMmunications ---- +46-(0)451-91002 -----| < Advertisment added using -=Bad Ad=- 1.92 by Troed/Sync. BBS: +46-451-91002 >