My Atari Jaguar review!

[Neo Geo strong | 68]

When I was a kid nothing else matched doom or wolfenstein 3d for fast paced fun. The problem was the pc was the only machine worth playing them on in those days.

However one system was powerful enough and it was the Atari Jaguar! This system not only ran the best ports of those two games at the time but wolf 3d is actually better on the jag with more weapons,  better hand/gun sprite, and my favorite part redone German phrases ( I speak German and I love to hear Achtung when they discover you)
 

As I first received the system with 5 games I was very impressed. The look of the system is fantastic and stylish. The controller is very comfortable and the keypads are neat and useful especially in doom and wolf 3d. ( the only issue with the controller is the d pad isn’t the best especially while playing raiden) 

if this system was more popular back in the day and had maybe 200 or so games released , I don’t think it would be on the worst console list that everyone puts it in... If your holding out on the jaguar because of bad stuff you have heard about it, I would say ignore that and give it a shot! 

 

[DorkOverlord | 688]

I think the Jag had potential. It was a case of bad timing. It was released when the Genesis and SNES were still popular and the Playstation was on the horizon. If it had better third party support, I really think it could have been a contender. I believe the problem was that third parties wanted to continue to support the 16-bit consoles and get ready for the next wave (Saturn and PS), so they were spread too thin to give the Jag any serious level of support. It's too bad, but Atari was in a weird spot of being both maybe slightly ahead of their time and too late at the same time (if that makes sense). 

[Neo Geo strong | 68]

1 minute ago, DorkOverlord said:

I think the Jag had potential. It was a case of bad timing. It was released when the Genesis and SNES were still popular and the Playstation was on the horizon. If it had better third party support, I really think it could have been a contender. I believe the problem was that third parties wanted to continue to support the 16-bit consoles and get ready for the next wave (Saturn and PS), so they were spread too thin to give the Jag any serious level of support. It's too bad, but Atari was in a weird spot of being both maybe slightly ahead of their time and too late at the same time (if that makes sense). 

That’s a good point about being ahead of their time and too late at the same time ( similar to the Dreamcast I would say)

it’s too bad really, the system has a lot going for it. If Raiden, doom, or wolfenstein 3d are some of your favorites like they are mine you can’t go wrong with this system. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,816]

You should expand your thoughts into a blog entry

[Gloves | 12,078]

3 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

You should expand your thoughts into a blog entry

People seem to forget about blogs and clubs because SOMEONE told everyone to filter them out of the Activity Feed. *cough*

[Neo Geo strong | 68]

13 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

You should expand your thoughts into a blog entry

My review was about double the length of my post at first but cut it in half so people wouldn’t see a wall of text and not read any of it. 

I also went into the red screen of death problem a lot of people have, the home brew community, the new old stock boxes/controllers/ high volume of sealed games out there and a few other more Intricate details. 
 
My main point is I couldn’t be happier with the console. Would I want it as my only console? No way but it fits in nicely in a established collection of systems/games.

 

 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,816]

1 hour ago, Gloves said:

People seem to forget about blogs and clubs because SOMEONE told everyone to filter them out of the Activity Feed. *cough*

Wasn't me!

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

My brother had a Jaguar and we thought it was cool when it came out, but never bought another game after we got it. We had Cybermorph and a giant robot game. As a kid with no money, it's just too hard to juggle multiple consoles, so we never gave it a fair shake. That being said, I'd love to get one again!

[AstralSoul | 521]

I will say despite all the negative press surrounding the console over the years, the system always intrigued me. As a kid I really wanted one but never actually saw one in person...ever, now that I think about it. I nearly bought one on eBay a few years ago (which I regret now since prices have skyrocketed since) but there's just not a lot on the system that interests me enough to buy it at the exorbitant price that they are these days. I do hope to actually play one one day though!

[mbd39 | 2,063]

On 1/5/2020 at 2:09 PM, DorkOverlord said:

I think the Jag had potential. It was a case of bad timing. It was released when the Genesis and SNES were still popular and the Playstation was on the horizon. If it had better third party support, I really think it could have been a contender. I believe the problem was that third parties wanted to continue to support the 16-bit consoles and get ready for the next wave (Saturn and PS), so they were spread too thin to give the Jag any serious level of support. It's too bad, but Atari was in a weird spot of being both maybe slightly ahead of their time and too late at the same time (if that makes sense). 

 

The Jag was the classic case of an "in between" console. Of course it was more powerful than the SNES and Genesis, but it couldn't compete with the true next gen consoles such as the PS1 and Saturn or even the 3DO. Plus I understand that the hardware is complex and difficult to program, much like the Saturn.

 

 

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,075]

I think the main problem was not so much timing but how hard it was to program for. Ive read alot of stuff over the years that it was a pretty exotic thing to program for and Atari didn't really give any support with development tools and such. Do no one really pushed its potential