:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :: Volume 4, Issue 1 JAGUAR EXPLORER ONLINE December 31, 2000 :: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :: :: :: JAGUAR ............. News, Reviews, & Solutions ............. JAGUAR :: :: EXPLORER ........... For the Online Jaguar .......... EXPLORER :: :: ONLINE ................ Community ............... ONLINE :: :: :: :: Published and Copyright (c) 2000 by White Space Publishers :: :: All Rights Reserved :: :: """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" :: :: Publisher Emeritus Plus .................... Michael Lindsay :: :: Publisher Emeritus .............................. Travis Guy :: :: Editor/Publisher ............................ Clay Halliwell :: :: Lynx Editor .................................... Carl Forhan :: :: JEO Mailing List Maintainer .................. Joachim Vance :: :: CompuServe Uploader ......................... Richard Turner :: :: America Online Uploader ....................... Lonnie Smith :: :: FidoNet Uploader ................................ Troy Cheek :: :: :: :: Contributors: :: :: (voluntary and otherwise) :: :: """"""""""""""""""""""""" :: :: Scott Le Grand, Jeff Minter, Lee Krueger :: :: :: :: Telecommunicated to you via: :: :: """""""""""""""""""""""""""" :: :: AOL: VIDEO GAMES FORUM Hints, Tips and Tricks II Library :: :: CompuServe: ATARIGAMING and VIDGAME Forums :: :: FidoNet: ATARI_ST and VID_GAME Echoes :: :: :: :: World Wide Web: http://www.atarihq.com/jeo/ :: :: :: :: E-Mail Request address: JEO-request@maximized.com :: :: :: :: To subscribe to JEO, send e-mail to the request address, :: :: with the following line (no subject): :: :: :: :: subscribe JEO :: :: :: :: Your request will be automatically processed and your e-mail :: :: address will be subscribed to the list. To unsubscribe from :: :: the JEO list, send the following: :: :: :: :: unsubscribe JEO :: :: :: :: to the same request address, making sure you send it from :: :: the same address you subscribed from. :: :: :: :: Subscription problems requiring human assistance can be sent :: :: to JEO-help@maximized.com. Thanks to Maximized Software for :: :: hosting the JEO list. :: :: :: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Table of Contents * From the Editor ............................ Atari through the Millennia. * Jaguar Tackboard .................. Newsletters, Message Boards, Mailing Lists, FAQs, Codes, Development List, Mail Order Directory. * CyberChatter .......................................... Overheard Online. * BattleSphere News ..................................... The Final Update. * Llatest from Llamaland ........................................ Yak yaks. * JagFest 2000: The Aftermath ...................... Let's Mess with Texas! * CGE 2000: A Classic Games Enthusiast's View ............ Classic Nirvana. * Shutdown ............................ Around the world and up your block. --==--==--==--==-- || From the Editor || By: Clay Halliwell \__// clay.h@att.net ------------------------------------------------------------------ Here lies before you a testament to the wicked power of procrastination. 2000 had the distinction of being a year in which there was a remarkable spike in activity in the Jaguar world and in my own life. While BattleSphere and Brett Hull were going on eBay, I was winding up my Air Force career and transitioning back to the real world. Songbird released game after game, JagFest 2K came and went, and I was moving and getting started at a new job. JEO just kept getting put off and put off and all the while more and more news kept piling up (Hasbro sold Atari to Infogrames?!), making the task of a new issue even more daunting. Getting hooked on System Shock 2 (www.sshock2.com) didn't help either. So here we are, at the dawn of the new millennium (for real this time), and I've done the only thing I can... gather up all the "shovelware" JEO content and do a massive catch-up issue. New articles, cheat codes, reviews, and interviews will have to wait for next year. My deepest apologies to all the Jag fans out there whom I've kept waiting so very, very long. At least you've all had nice new games to play! Before I launch into a hurried listing of the interesting Atarian events this year, a question: Does anyone actually still rely on the mailing list, FidoNet, CIS, or AOL for their issues of JEO? A moment of silence for two grave losses to our cultural electronic memory. First, the dearly departed GEnie. Apparently when 2000 rolled around they just shut things down, taking with them the birthplace of IAJD (Independent Atari Jaguar Developers), and many a meg of spirited Jaguar discussion. Second, the horribly-mutated deja.com (formerly the much cooler dejanews.com) took the bulk of their Usenet archive offline early this year. Currently the archives only go back to May 15, 1999, meaning that all those old Jag discussions are now inaccessible, save for what little has been preserved in JEO's CyberChatter section. In the Really Old News department, the United States Post Office selected an image of some kids playing Defender on an Atari 2600 to represent videogames in the 80's. Here's a link: On June 18 of this year, longtime Atari-stuff dealer HardySoft shut down. Best of luck to you in your future endeavors, Charlie! Hans Reutter of the CyberRoach site has a very nice interview with Atari tester Faran Thomason up: Gorf 2000 for the Jag is, sadly, dead. I received this email from Gorf 2K lead programmer Steve Scavone: "Look for G2K on PC or Dreamcast. Jag is dead, impossible to program and just plain futile to bother with anymore. The machine was too little too late even though it was the first NG machine out. Atari blew it and I am not going to waste any more time trying to get a reasonably fast 3D engine to work. Too many bugs in hardware to work around and the Jag could never pull of what the PC and Dreamcast can do for Gorf 2000. Sorry for the disappointment but that is how it stands at this point. If 4Play licenses its BattleSphere engine to us then we may reconsider but I refuse to battle the beast known as the Atari Jaguar anymore. Gorf classic will be the only title to make it to the Jaguar and that will not be any time soon." Did you know the BCD CatBox wasn't the *original* CatBox? Back in the 80's Atari made an arcade game test fixture called... the CAT BOX! The "CAT" was an acronym for Computer Aided Troubleshooter. This info is thanks to a recent eBay auction of said item. I've included one of the pictures in this issue's archive. You can see the rest of the images here: On March 6th of this year, BattleSphere #1 became the most expensive Jaguar cartridge ever, going for $1,575 dollars on eBay. Also in March, The Atari Times editor/publisher Greg George got married. And in true fanatic Atarian fashion, there was an Atari Fuji cake on hand for devouring. I've included a pic in this issue's archive, and the full set is available here: In August, the Dallas Morning News printed an article on collecting classic game and computer systems, titled, "Megabytes of Memories". The Atari Jaguar was prominently featured in this article, and clearly declared to be 64-bit! Jag fan Jack Woolfe scanned parts of this article and posted them to his web page: Want to show the world you're a true Atari fan? Head on over to and get yourself an @atari.net email address! And be sure to click on a banner ad or two while you're there. From out of the blue, 2600 fan (and genius engineer) Benjamin J. Heckendorn wowed the world with his VCSp, a truly portable 2600. And now he's working on a second version, dubbed the Vagabond, which aims to be scarcely larger than a GameBoy Color! These devices are amazing pieces of work, both functionally and aesthetically. Check out his page here: Thanks to Curt Vendel for pointing out that the Atari building on the Microsoft TerraServer site linked to from the JEO site is actually a bit off. This is the correct link: Curt had this to say: "The building on the right-hand side of Borregas at the bottom is 1196, across the street is 1195 and to the left of 1195 is 1172, above 1195 and 1173 is 1265 (Warner days Atari HQ) and the building above 1196 is nothing, non-Atari, the next building up which you can't see was Engineering at 1272, one of the coolest buildings as far as history is concerned. Over to the upper-right side of the image was one of Apple's first buildings. Atari employees at 1272 used to go to the receptionist desk at the old Apple building, pick up the Apple stickers, and put them into the urinals in the bathrooms so that employees could "pee on Apple computer'." Speaking of Curt, the Atari Historical Society has managed to track down a Jaguar II prototype, and has lots of nice pictures online at: Ever wanted to use a Jaguar controller on your PC? You might want to try the DirectPad Pro, a hardware/software combo that lets you interface a huge variety of console controllers to your PC, including the Jag pad. Anybody know what the heck is up with this site? Back when Elian Gonzalez was big news, someone came up with this amusing AvP parody: Finally, much, much thanks to Michael Shaver for sending me a proper ZIP of AEO 2.2. This issue had been trapped in some weird old compression format. --==--==--==--==-- || Jaguar Tackboard || Confirmed information about Atari's Jaguar \__// Compiled from online and official sources ----------------------------------------------------------------- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jaguar Message Boards =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Anyone with web browsing capability can join in on the discussions on several web-based Jaguar message boards out there on the net. Note that, due to the rapid message turnover and instant-update nature of these boards, they have a tendency to burn through topics in a matter of days instead of weeks (or hours instead of days). Just point your browser to: Jaguar Interactive II (hosted by Atari Gaming Headquarters) Atari Times Boardroom (hosted by The Atari Times) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jaguar Chat =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Anyone with web browsing capability who wants to chat in real-time with their fellow Jaguar enthusiasts, but has no access to IRC, should take advantage of this Jag chat page: JFPN's Jaguar Chat =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Atari News Mailing List =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subscribe to the Atari News eGroups list. Be sure to visit and get on this list to stay up-to- date on all the latest Atari-related announcements. The list covers news items relevant to Atari fans, from unearthed 2600 prototypes to new Jaguar games to Infogrames updates of timeless classics for modern systems. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jaguar FAQ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Robert Jung maintains the Jaguar FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file, a continually updated list of Jaguar specs and facts. The Jaguar FAQ is posted to rec.games.video.atari on Usenet around the first of every month, and can also be found at . =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jaguar Cheats and Codes =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Clay "No Handle" Halliwell maintains the Atari Jaguar Game Cheats and Codes FAQ. It's available by e-mail request or from Atari Gaming Headquarters . Lonnie "The Mage" Smith maintains the Concise Compendium of Frequently Asked Codes, Moves, and Cheats (FACMAC). It's available via FTP from , or from . =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// JEO Development List =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The following list of game titles has been confirmed to the best of JEO's ability as of publication. Entries in the "S"tatus column reflect any "u"pdates, "n"ew titles, or "?"uestionable listings since the last JEO list. Entries in the "M"edia column reflect whether the title is "C"D-ROM or "J"aguar Server/BJL (blank entries indicate cartridge software). "NEW" indicates titles released since the last issue of JEO. ETA dates are dates that have been provided by the developer or publisher. //// Titles in Development or Limbo S M Title ETA Developer Publisher " " """"" """ """"""""" """"""""" n Arkanna ? Storm Works u C Age of Darkness ? OMC Games u C Assassin, The ? OMC Games J Bong+ 1999 ? Just Claws Software ? Deathwatch ? Data Design J Jagmania (PacMania clone) ? Matthias Domin J Jagmarble (Marble Madness clone) ? Matthias Domin J JagTris (Tetris clone) ? Bastian Schick J *NEXT* ? Force Design J Painter ? Sinister ? C Soulstar ? Core Design Ltd. ? Space War 2000 ? Atari Total Carnage ? Handmade Software n Virtual VCS ? Temp. Sanity Designs //// Current Software Releases M Title Rated Developer Publisher " """"" """"" """"""""" """"""""" AirCars 5 MidNite ICD Alien vs. Predator 9 Rebellion Atari Atari Karts 6 Miracle Design Atari Attack of the Mutant Penguins 6 Sunrise Games Ltd. Atari C Baldies 6 Creative Edge Atari C Battlemorph 10 Attention to Detail Atari BattleSphere NEW 4Play ScatoLOGIC C Blue Lightning 6 Attention to Detail Atari C BrainDead 13 5 ReadySoft ReadySoft Breakout 2000 7 MP Games Telegames Brutal Sports Football 6 Millennium/Teque Telegames Bubsy 5 Imagitec Design Atari Cannon Fodder 8 Virgin Interactive C-West Checkered Flag 4 Rebellion Atari Club Drive 5 Atari Atari Crescent Galaxy 3 Atari Atari Cybermorph 7 Attention to Detail Atari Defender 2000 8 Llamasoft Atari Doom 8 id Software Atari Double Dragon V 4 Williams Enter. Williams C Dragon's Lair 5 ReadySoft ReadySoft Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story 6 Virgin Interactive Atari Evolution: Dino Dudes 6 Imagitec Design Atari Fever Pitch Soccer 6 U.S. Gold Atari Fight For Life 6 Atari Atari Flashback 7 Tiertex Ltd. U.S. Gold Flip Out! 6 Gorilla Systems Atari C Highlander I 8 Lore Design Ltd. Atari Hover Strike 5 Atari Atari C Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands 7 Atari Atari Hyper Force NEW Visual Impact Songbird Iron Soldier 9 Eclipse Atari C Iron Soldier 2 CD 10 Eclipse Telegames Iron Soldier 2 10 Eclipse Telegames I-War 4 Imagitec Design Atari Kasumi Ninja 5 Hand Made Software Atari Missile Command 3D 8 Virtuality Atari C Myst 9 Atari Atari C Myst Demo 5 Atari Atari NBA Jam: Tournament Edition 9 High Voltage Atari Pinball Fantasies 6 Spider Soft C-West Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure 8 Imagitec Design Atari Power Drive Rally 7 Rage Software TWI C Primal Rage 7 Probe TWI Protector NEW Bethesda/Songbird Songbird Raiden 6 Imagitec Design Atari Rayman 10 UBI Soft UBI Soft Ruiner 6 High Voltage Atari Sensible Soccer 6 Williams Brothers Telegames Skyhammer NEW Rebellion Songbird Soccer Kid NEW Krisalis Songbird C Space Ace 3 ReadySoft ReadySoft Super Burnout 7 Shen Atari Supercross 3D 5 Tiertex Ltd. Atari Syndicate 7 Bullfrog Ocean System Test Cartridge 6 Atari Atari Tempest 2000 10 Llamasoft Atari Theme Park 6 Bullfrog Ocean Towers II 7 JV Enterprises Telegames Troy Aikman NFL Football 6 Telegames Williams Ultra Vortek 8 Beyond Games Atari Val d'Isere Skiing & Snowboarding 7 Virtual Studio Atari C Vid Grid 6 High Voltage Atari C Virtual Light Machine 9 Llamasoft Atari White Men Can't Jump 6 High Voltage Atari Wolfenstein 3D 7 id Software Atari C World Tour Racing 6 Teque London Ltd. Telegames Worms 9 Team 17 Telegames Zero 5 7 Caspian Software Telegames Zool 2 7 Gremlin Graphics Atari Zoop 6 Viacom Atari Total Carts 56 Total CDs 15 (counting VLM) Total Combined 71 Pts Stars JEO Ratings """ """"" """"""""""" 10 ***** THE ULTIMATE - Flawless, beautiful, deviously addictive. 9 ****+ EXCELLENT - Something to throw in the face of N64-heads. 8 **** SMEGGIN' GREAT - Something to kick on the shoes of N64-heads. 7 ***+ DARN GOOD - Plays as good as it looks. 6 *** DECENT - Plays better than it looks (or vice versa). 5 **+ TIME KILLER - If there's nothing else to do, you play this. 4 ** INEPT - The programmer's first Jag game? 3 *+ INCOMPETENT - The programmer's first game ever? 2 * UNPUBLISHABLE - Heaven help us! 1 + INCONCEIVABLE BAD - ...but someone conceived it. Too bad. 0 - EXECRABLE - This is an April Fool's joke, right? //// Current Hardware/Firmware Releases Item Manufacturer """"" """""""""""" Jaguar 64 Atari Jaguar 64 CD-ROM Drive Atari 3-button PowerPad Atari 6-button ProController Atari Team Tap Atari Jag-Link Atari Memory Track Atari Jaguar System Test Cartridge Atari Composite Cable Atari S-Video Cable Atari Stereo Audio Interface (proto) Atari VoiceModem (proto) Atari/Phylon Controller Extension Cable Best Electronics CatBox ICD/Black Cat Design Boomerang controller Matt (Poland) Lap Cat/Lap Cat Pro joystick Ben Aein Jaguar Extreme Joystick Dark Knight Games (modded Gravis Blackhawk) Jaguar Server devkit Roine Stenberg (Istari Software) Behind Jaggy Lines devkit Bastian Schick Jaguar Unmodified Game Server ScatoLOGIC Rapid Fire Controller Songbird Rotary Controller JediJeff(?) Jaguar JAMMA Joystick GOAT(?) //// The Short Term Schedule No projected releases. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// JEO Mail Order Directory =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The following list of vendors carrying Jaguar software/hardware has been confirmed to the best of JEO's ability. Please e-mail JEO for additions/ corrections. //// B&C ComputerVisions Mail 1725 De La Cruz Blvd #7 Santa Clara, CA 95050-3011 Voice 408-986-9960 (Tue-Fri, 10am-6pm) Fax 408-986-9968 Email Web //// Best Electronics Mail 2021 The Alameda, Suite 290 San Jose, CA 95126-1127 Voice 408-243-6950 Email Web //// Dentec Distribution Mail 465 Milner Ave #3 Scarborough, Ontario M1B 2K4 Canada Voice 416-292-2996 Fax 416-292-4075 416-292-248 Email Web //// GameMasters Mail 14393 E. 14th Street, Suite 208 San Leandro, CA 94577 Voice 510-483-4263 Email Web //// GOAT Store - NEW Email Web //// Multimedia 1.0 Mail 18 Saint Mark's Place New York City, NY 10003 Voice 212-539-1039 Fax 212-539-1645 Email Web //// O'Shea, Ltd. Mail 330 West 47th Street #203 Kansas City, MO 64112 Voice 816-531-1177 Fax 816-531-6569 Email Web //// Songbird Productions - NEW Mail 1736 Chippewa Drive NW Rochester, MN 55901 Email Web //// Telegames Mail P.O. Box 901 Lancaster, Texas 75146 Voice 972-228-0690 Orders 972-224-7200 Fax 972-228-0693 Email Web //// United Game Source Mail 232 East Eau Gallie Blvd Indian Harbour Beach, FL 32937 Orders 800-564-1458 Fax 407-777-3940 Email Web //// Video 61 & Atari Sales - NEW Mail 22735 Congo St NE Stacy, MN 55079 Voice 651-462-2500 Email Web //// Video Game Liquidators Mail 4058 Tujunga Ave, #B Studio City, CA 91604 Orders 818-505-1666 (9am-5pm PST) 888-944-4263 (toll free) Fax 818-505-1686 Email Web //// Video Game Source Mail Salzbruecker Str. 36 21335 Lueneburg - Germany Orders +(49) 4131-406278 Fax +(49) 4131-406278 Email Web //// Zentanyx Multimedia - NEW Mail 2910 Illinois Avenue Dubuque, Iowa 52001 Email Web =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Announcements and Press Releases =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Index 10 Jan 00 - Songbird Acquires Unreleased Lynx Properties 18 Jan 00 - Othello is Coming for the Lynx 23 Feb 00 - Songbird Now Accepts Online Payments with PayPal 29 Feb 00 - ScatoLOGIC Releases the Long-Awaited BattleSphere 18 Mar 00 - Requests for BattleSphere Are Now Being Taken 13 Apr 00 - Songbird Announces Future Atari Lineup 21 May 00 - Minor Skyhammer Delay 09 Jun 00 - Songbird Announces CGE2K Lineup 17 Jul 00 - Songbird CGE2K Update 31 Jul 00 - Songbird CGE2K Report 10 Aug 00 - Songbird is Moving 14 Aug 00 - Songbird Update 16 Aug 00 - JUGS is Here 18 Aug 00 - Jaguar JAMMA Joystick LX Released 09 Sep 00 - New Games from Songbird 17 Sep 00 - You Can Now Order JUGS with Your Credit Card 28 Sep 00 - New Lynx and Jaguar Items 15 Nov 00 - New Book on History of Video Games 21 Nov 00 - Christmas Goodies from Songbird 02 Dec 00 - JagFest 2K1 News 06 Dec 00 - Infogrames Buys Atari Championship Rally for the Atari Lynx //// SONGBIRD ACQUIRES UNRELEASED LYNX PROPERTIES FROM BEYOND GAMES January 10, 2000 For immediate release: ROCHESTER, MN -- Continuing the trend of supporting orphaned Atari platforms, Songbird Productions recently acquired full rights and source code to three unreleased Lynx properties from former Lynx and Jaguar developer Beyond Games. The three properties are: Cybervirus, Ultra Vortex, and Mechtiles. Cybervirus is an incredible first-person perspective, mission-based action game based on the Lynx BattleWheels engine set in an apocalyptic future where rogue computers and virus-infected robotic warriors threaten the very survival of humanity. Ultra Vortex, the original Lynx version of what became Ultra Vortek on the Atari Jaguar, is an awesome two-player fighting game. Mechtiles is a multiplayer game of giant robot combat, also based on the award-winning BattleWheels engine. Carl Forhan, owner of Songbird Productions, said, "Beyond Games has been enthusiastic about getting these properties transferred so that Songbird may pick up where they left off. I'm excited to have the opportunity to finish up these games and publish them for the benefit of Lynx fans everywhere." At press time, Songbird anticipated that Cybervirus would be the first game completed and published later in 2000. The other games will be evaluated for their relative completeness before being put on schedule. All the acquired games are the sole property of Songbird Productions. To keep up to date with the latest news at Songbird Productions, be sure to visit the company web site at http://songbird.uni.cc, or send an email to forhan@millcomm.com. Copyright 2000 Songbird Productions. All rights reserved. This article may be reprinted in its entirety. //// OTHELLO IS COMING FOR THE LYNX January 18, 2000 Long-time Lynx hobbyist Harry Dodgson is releasing Othello for the Atari Lynx in February 2000 through Video 61. This excellent port of the classic board game includes multiple play modes (single player, head-to-head, and more), attractive graphics, and crisp audio. You may contact Video 61 by visiting their web page, located at: http://www.atarisales.com Ask about Othello for the Lynx, and tell them you heard about it from Songbird Productions! Carl Forhan Songbird Productions //// SONGBIRD NOW ACCEPTS ONLINE PAYMENTS WITH PAYPAL February 23, 2000 Songbird Productions now accepts online payments with PayPal. Simply visit the link below, sign up for a FREE PayPal account, and PayPal will even deposit $10 into your new account (no strings attached). https://secure.paypal.com/refer/pal=forhan%40yahoo.com Show your support for Songbird, and create a new PayPal account today. Also, don't forget, if you have the $10 Songbird coupons, you need to place an order by 3/1/00 to use them. Check out the Songbird catalog at http://songbird.atari.net. Finally, Hyper Force balance payments and new orders are now being taken. Please send in your balance or new order ASAP. Email forhan@millcomm.com with any questions about the new Jaguar games. Sincerely, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// SCATOLOGIC RELEASES THE LONG AWAITED BATTLESPHERE(tm) FOR JAGUAR AND DONATES ALL PROFITS TO DIABETES RESEARCH February 29, 2000 For immediate release: CAPITOLA, CA -- Scatologic Inc. is pleased to announce that the long awaited BattleSphere(tm) for the Atari Jaguar platform will soon ship, and that all profits from the game will be donated to diabetes research. BattleSphere(tm) is the awesome full 3D networked action shooter for the Atari Jaguar. The game was developed by renowned Jaguar, NUON, PSX2 and PC developer 4Play, which recently merged with Scatologic Inc. to form the newest industry powerhouse development team. The highly anticipated BattleSphere(tm) combines the fast-action gameplay of a first person shooter with the nonlinear aspects of a strategic campaign simulator. Also included on the same cartridge are several additional play variations which range from a pure classic arcade action game to a multi- player networked deathmatch mode, where up to 32 players can dogfight for control of the Universe. The game garnered acclaim from players when it was demonstrated at the World Of Atari show in 1998, and it has received glowing praise from industry leading publications like Next Generation Magazine and Diehard GameFan magazine. BattleSphere(tm) was completed several years ago, but the release has been pending for some time due to the fact that the Jaguar ceased to be a mainstream platform, and the software, tooling, and procedures required to produce cartridges were lost and had to be recreated. //// REQUESTS FOR BATTLESPHERE(tm) ARE NOW BEING TAKEN BY SCATOLOGIC INC. WITH NO PRICE INCREASE. March 15, 2000 For immediate release: CAPITOLA, CA -- ScatoLOGIC Inc. has begun taking requests for the eagerly awaited BattleSphere(tm), the infamous game which recently rekindled interest in older videogame systems. In spite of the high costs of producing cartridges in small quantities, ScatoLOGIC has announced that the price of the game will be the same $69.99 that mass produced games for the Jaguar originally listed for, and all profits from sales are to be donated to diabetes research. "By taking our time and carefully working out the details of purchasing materials and manufacturing with companies who aren't out to gouge the classic gaming community, we were able to keep our costs down to a level which is the same as these cartridges were at when they were made in large-scale runs." said Stephanie Wukovitz, ScatoLOGIC CTO. "We feel that our new price point is the maximum reasonable price which people would be willing to pay for a 32-Megabit cartridge game. Of course, even at this price there will be a very nice profit left over for diabetes research." added Douglas Engel, ScatoLOGIC COO. Scott Le Grand, ScatoLOGIC CEO also added "We've had such great support from the gaming community that we put extra effort into meeting this price goal." Requests for the first batch of BattleSphere cartridges are now being taken on the ScatoLOGIC/BattleSphere website. Go to http://www.scatologic.com or http://www.battlesphere.com to place a request. BattleSphere(tm) is the awesome full 3D networked action shooter for the Jaguar. The game was developed by renowned Jaguar, NUON, PSX2 and PC developer 4Play, which recently merged with ScatoLOGIC Inc. to form the newest industry powerhouse development team. Copyright 2000 ScatoLOGIC Inc. All rights reserved. This article may be reprinted in its entirety. BattleSphere(tm) is copyright and trademark 4Play/ScatoLOGIC. All rights reserved. //// SONGBIRD ANNOUNCES FUTURE ATARI LINEUP April 14, 2000 For immediate release: ROCHESTER, MN -- Songbird's fourth new Jaguar title in six months isn't even out the door yet as word of more Atari Lynx and Jaguar projects has surfaced. Carl Forhan, owner of Songbird Productions, remarked, "The response of fans thus far to new Lynx titles and particularly in recent the months to the new Jaguar titles has been substantial. I'm thrilled to have been a part in bringing out some great games that might have otherwise been lost forever, and equally exciting is the opportunity to discuss some future projects for the Atari world." Heading up the list is Cybervirus (TM) for the Atari Lynx. This incredible 3D mission-based action game will be a hit with every Lynx fan, since it's based on the same game engine that gave Lynx fans BattleWheels. Next on the list is Championship Racing (TM), a cool super-smooth overhead racing game featuring multiple tracks, tight control, and multiplayer options! Finally, Planar Wars 3D (working title) -- a game that puts you in the cockpit of the last surviving defense starship -- and Ultravore (TM) -- an explosive comlynxable fighting game -- will give Lynx fans even more to look forward to down the road. At press time, Songbird hopes to have at least one new Lynx game completed in time for CGE2K but further details were unavailable. Lest Jaguar fans lose hope, several future Jaguar projects are also under consideration. One potential bright spot appeared recently as Songbird acquired complete rights and source to the Virtual VCS, which emulates the classic Atari VCS (or 2600) games on the Jaguar platform. Additionally, Songbird has prototyped and will be producing a Rapid Fire Controller for the Jaguar. This controller has been a hit with early testers, and greatly enhances the gameplay in button-mashing games like Raiden and Zero 5. New pages have been added for several upcoming releases on the Songbird web pages. Be sure to check out: http://songbird.atari.net for the latest information! And be sure to stop by the Songbird booth in CGE2K (http://www.cgexpo.com). Copyright 2000 Songbird Productions. All rights reserved. This article may be reprinted in its entirety. //// MINOR SKYHAMMER DELAY May 21, 2000 I'm sorry to report that due to unexpected manufacturing and real-life complications, the release of Skyhammer will be delayed approximately one week. Because of the late change of plans, no pre-orders can be shipped early as I have tried to do in the past. I will attempt to ship as many "Nov 1st, 1999" pre-orders as soon as the carts arrive, with most of the international and remaining orders shipping within two weeks after that. Also, Songbird is phasing out credit card processing via Multimedia 1.0, as it was a temporary arrangement to help me handle a large volume of orders. It would greatly reduce my expenses and also simply order tracking if customers who wish to use credit cards could pay online via PayPal. It's always free and very reliable. Check it out at: https://secure.paypal.com/auction/pal=forhan%40yahoo.com If you're already a PayPal member, simply send your payment to songbird(at)atari(dot)net. International customers will need to send a check or money order drawn on a USA bank (it should read "Bank of New York" or "Bank of Delaware" or something similar on the front), or an International Postal Money Order. Money Orders drawn on foreign banks can _not_ be accepted and will be returned uncashed. Thanks in advance for your understanding, and for the tremendous support displayed by Atari fans over the last year. I've been very happy (though often exhausted!) to be a part of releasing these "lost" games for the Jaguar, and look forward to finding more products, both old and new, for release on the Jaguar platform in the coming months. Sincerely, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// SONGBIRD ANNOUNCES CGE2K LINEUP June 9, 2000 For immediate release: ROCHESTER, MN -- Songbird Productions recently unveiled its plans for new products to be available at Classic Gaming Expo 2000, which will be held in Las Vegas at the Jackie Gaughan Plaza Hotel during July 29-30. Topping off the list is the long-awaited release of Crystal Mines II: Buried Treasure. This Win-95/98/00 software allows consumers to build, swap, and download new levels on their existing Crystal Mines II Lynx game cartridge. Over 50 brand new levels are included, as well as the original 150+ CM2 levels. Plus, it includes all the tools and documentation needed to help anyone get started designing their own levels. MSRP for CM2:BT is $29.95 for the CD, and $49.95 for the CD and Lynx-to-PC cable. In an unexpected move, Songbird also announced the availability of a "CGE2K special edition" version of Remnant, the highly-anticipated 3D space combat game for the Lynx. "This is a game no Lynx fan should be without," commented Carl Forhan, owner of Songbird and the developer of Remnant. "It puts the Lynx into high gear -- from the explosions to the 3D scaling to the audio, Remnant sets a new standard for 'next generation' Lynx games." This special edition of Remnant is a complete game, and features more than a dozen sectors to clear in the Arcade play mode. A future version of Remnant is anticipated to include a Strategic play mode as well, where the player must repel enemy squadrons and protect friendly outposts. MSRP for Remnant is $39.95. Not to leave Jaguar fans out, Songbird also has plans to offer for sale a new Rapid Fire Controller for the Atari Jaguar. Carl explained the benefits of the new controller: "Titles such as Zero 5 and Raiden are great games on the Jaguar, but can suffer from slow fire rates which force the player to mash buttons repeatedly. The RFC is simply a modified 18-button controller with a special circuit that allows the player to enable or disable multiple fire rates on the A and B buttons." The RFC has been tested by several individuals and received very favorable feedback so far. MSRP for the RFC is $39.95. Only limited quantities will be available for sale at CGE2K. Songbird Productions is the premier developer and publisher for the Atari Lynx and Jaguar. To keep up to date with the latest news at Songbird Productions, be sure to visit the company web site at: http://songbird.atari.net. This message may be reprinted in its entirety. //// SONGBIRD CGE2K UPDATE July 13, 2000 For immediate release: ROCHESTER, MN -- In a further demonstration of Songbird's support of CGE2K, owner Carl Forhan is pleased to announce some game competitions and special pricing for CGE2K attendees. Songbird plans to hold high score competitions for the following games: Jaguar Protector and Lynx Remnant. Winners will receive selected Songbird prizes and discount coupons. Only a limited number of entries will be allowed, on a first-come basis. Employees and relatives of Songbird and CGE Services are not eligible to enter the contests. See the Songbird table for the complete rules and entry forms. And of course, all the new Songbird Jaguar and Lynx games will be available for play and purchase, along with a ton of other Atari merchandise. Jaguar Skyhammer was just recently released to a horde of grateful Atari fans, and other games such as Protector have also been surprise hits with customers. Some Songbird items will be offered at special discounted rates, only available to CGE2K attendees. "I know many Atari fans make a big sacrifice to attend a show like CGE2K," acknowledged Carl. "I want to give something back to the fans, by giving attendees-only a chance to buy Songbird merchandise at great prices." Finally, CGE2K attendees will also get the first glimpse at future Songbird titles, such as Championship Racing and Cybervirus, as well as some long- awaited cheats for games like Ponx, Lexis, Protector, and Hyper Force. Songbird Productions is the premier developer and publisher for the Atari Lynx and Jaguar. To keep up to date with the latest news at Songbird Productions, be sure to visit the company web site at: http://songbird.atari.net. This message may be reprinted in its entirety. Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// SONGBIRD CGE2K REPORT July 31, 2000 Wow, just got back to MN early this morning after a fun but exhausting expo. Not sure what attendance was like this year vs. last year, but I do know that Sunday attendance was a big improvement over last year. And I stayed VERY busy at the Songbird booth the entire time! It was rare that I had more than 5 minutes go by without someone wanting to try a Jag or Lynx game, see some unreleased stuff, etc. People got to play Lynx Cybervirus, Eye of the Beholder, and Relief Pitcher, while on the Jag side we did have Phase Zero and a prototype 'shareware' cart for demo. Songbird customers got to pick up the new Songbird Jaguar games at great prices, and I went through almost all the assorted Jaguar stock I brought with me. Lynx sales were a little slower than I hoped, but the new games were still well received and I even found some new customers for Ponx and Lexis! Not to mention equipping a few former INTV and 5200 developers with low-cost Lynx developer kits which was great fun... =^) I didn't get much time to stop by other booths, but it is always great to chat with Hasbro, Telegames, B&C, CGE staff, and the rest. Thanks to everyone who made this another incredible event! I hope to see even more people attend next year. Considering the exclusive game releases, great deals on new and old merchandise, the chance to meet former and current game developers, the swap meet, and the one-of-a-kind museum, I think there are plenty of reasons to make CGE a 'must-go' event for classic/Atari gamers. Sincerely, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// SONGBIRD IS MOVING August 10, 2000 Songbird Productions is moving to a new location effective immediately. The new address is: Songbird Productions 1736 Chippewa Drive NW Rochester, MN 55901 Please update your records appropriately. Any orders already in transit to the old address should be forwarded correctly by the US Post Office, but as always feel free to inquire via email with any questions on a current order. Sincerely, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// SONGBIRD UPDATE August 14, 2000 Due to the recent move, the Songbird Productions mail order business will be closed for most of August while we relocate our merchandise. Any orders received will be temporarily held until then. Also, Songbird has almost exhausted its supply of new Jaguar products. Soccer Kid is out of stock, Hyper Force has only one copy left, and Protector and Skyhammer have a few copies each. When Skyhammer is gone, it is gone and will likely never be reproduced again. The other games will have a second run made in the next 2-3 months. Likewise, supplies of Ponx, SFX, and Lexis are running low, and there are no plans to reproduce these games once they have sold out. Once Songbird re-opens, we will offer a bunch of new products for sale, including Jaguar Rapid Fire Controllers, Lynx Remnant, and Lynx Crystal Mines II: Buried Treasure. All are limited edition items that may not be offered beyond their initial run. Thanks for your continued support, and for your patience during this transition. Sincerely, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// JUGS IS HERE August 16, 2000 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New Underground Software Loader comes to Jaguar Platform The fabled JUGS (Jaguar Unmodified Game Server) proves to be more than just a rumor August 14 , 2000 -- In a moved that shocked the Underground Jaguar Development Community to it's very core, the JUGS Team officially announced the availability of it's JUGS system today. The JUGS System has been rumored to exist for many months, but until now it was largely dismissed as an elaborate hoax. With the addition of this system to the available Underground Jaguar Development Tools, the ability to load and run Underground Jaguar Software is now within reach of the masses. The loss of the key to the Jaguar internal encryption routines has prohibited many people from being able to load and run software created since the Jaguar console was declared an open system. Until recently the only way to use this new software was to own an Official Jaguar Development System / FLASH Cartridge, or to modify a Jaguar console to circumvent the operating system encryption routines. [Note - Songbird Productions has also published new software available in cartridge format since the Jaguar was declared an open system.] The JUGS System was revealed via the Official JUGS Website at www.buyjugs.com to consist of a special cable to connect to your PC Compatible, a proprietary PC based loading utility program, and sophisticated server firmware piggybacked within the BattleSphere(tm) Jaguar Game Cartridge. Using a special code embedded within BattleSphere(tm), software can be loaded into the RAM memory in any Jaguar console and then executed. JUGS bypasses the Jaguar's internal encryption routines by running software after the BattleSphere(tm) game has passed encryption tests on power-up. The fact that the server code is executed from an existing cartridge enables the product to be the only one of its kind which does not require any soldering or cutting of the Jaguar circuitry. For more information, visit www.buyjugs.com, or www.battlesphere.com, or contact: sales@buyjugs.com //// JAGUAR JAMMA JOYSTICK LX RELEASED August 18, 2000 The GOAT Store's official modification to the popular Jaguar JAMMA Joystick is officially ready for sale through the GOAT Stores website (www.goatstore.com). The Jaguar JAMMA Joystick LX is the second version of the original Jaguar JAMMA Joystick that sports a larger base, as well as a modified button configuration. Unfortunately, the GOAT Stores website does not currently have any pictures of the Jaguar JAMMA Joystick LX, but they are hoping to get some by the end of the month. The Jaguar JAMMA Joystick LX's price has been set at $74.90 and comes in a variety of colors. Please direct any questions to The GOAT (thegoat@goatstore.com). //// NEW GAMES FROM SONGBIRD September 9, 2000 Songbird is back, and ready to blow you away with incredible new games and hardware for the Atari Lynx and Jaguar! Looking for some cool space combat action on your Lynx? Try Remnant for the Lynx, brought to you by Songbird! This awesome 3D game features 20 spectacular waves of alien invaders and meteors for you to eliminate. Only 70 copies of this special CGE2K edition were made, and no more will be produced, so get yours while they last! The long-awaited Crystal Mines 2: Buried Treasure for your Win95/98/00 PC is here! This fantastic add-on allows you to design and download NEW LEVELS to your CM2 cartridge on a real Atari Lynx. Plus, over 50 brand new levels are included on the CD, along with all the original levels so you can check out that one puzzle that's frustrated you for years. [CM2 cartridge and Lynx/PC serial cable not included.] For Jag fans, the Rapid Fire Controller is exactly what you need to blow away those high-energy shooter games like Raiden and Zero 5. It features independent A and B rapid fire support, plus a speed selector for 5, 10, 15, or 20 pulses per second. Don't pass this one up! New merchandise has also been added, such as the JagLink and Ruiner Pinball for the Jaguar and Hockey and Robotron for the Lynx. *** SPECIAL *** Lexis only $29.95 with ANY order! Just mention "Lexis Blowout" and place your order by October 1st, 2000. Quantities are limited on all Songbird merchandise, so please confirm your order via email to songbird@atari.net before ordering. Check out the web site below for information and prices on all Songbird merchandise. Sincerely, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// YOU CAN NOW ORDER JUGS WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD September 17, 2000 BUYJUGS.COM is now accepting credit card payments. The Smash-Hit Underground Software Loader JUGS is now available for purchase with your credit card via PayPal! No more messy money-orders or currency exchange woes. Pay with credit card and get games like NATIVE, ASTEROIDS, and PAINTER running in less time!!! What is JUGS? You ask... Simply run on over to http://www.buyjugs.com and see what JUGS is all about!!! How can I pay with my credit card??? Just browse over to: http://www.buyjugs.com/HowCanIGetJUGS.htm and see! Need a second opinion??? Check out the JUGS review at: http://addie.voicegateway.com/reviewjag/jugs.html JUGS: Breathing NEW life into your Jaguar!!!! //// NEW LYNX AND JAGUAR ITEMS September 28, 2000 CHAMPIONSHIP RALLY COMING SOON FOR THE LYNX If you're hungry for a multiplayer overhead racer for the Lynx, with tons of tracks and player options, check out Championship Rally coming this Christmas from Songbird! The web site was recently updated with the latest screen shots, and the game is currently in final beta test. EXPERIENCE RAPID FIRE ON THE JAGUAR Songbird has a limited supply of Rapid Fire Controllers for the Jaguar available for $39.95 each. These awesome modified controllers breathe new life into games like Raiden and Zero 5! YOU MUST PROTECT THE REMNANT Take on the role of the last fighter pilot fending off waves of alien invaders in this instant classic for the Lynx! Incredible 3D scaling and big explosions make this game a must-have for Lynx fans. Available now, $39.95. DIGGING FOR GOLD Crystal Mines II will never be the same! Get CM2: Buried Treasure today, and start designing and downloading new levels to your Lynx. Features over 50 brand new levels, plus all the original levels viewable in the included editor. (Lynx/PC serial cable also required, not included). Available now, $29.95. WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS... Songbird is always pursuing more Lynx and Jaguar titles. Expect more releases well into 2001, and as always, stay tuned to http://songbird.atari.net for all the latest on Songbird Productions and the Jaguar and Lynx! And be sure to pick up the October issues of GameFan and Next Generation, for great coverage of new Jaguar products and CGE2K, respectively. Sincerely, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// NEW BOOK ON HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES November 14, 2000 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (cover and author images upon request) NEW BOOK REVEALS INSIDERS LOOK INTO THE HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES NOVEMBER 14-MSNBC and Access Magazine video game columnist Steven L. Kent announced today the release of "The First Quarter: A 25-year History of Video Games", his long-awaited book featuring stories about the birth, near death, and metamorphosis of the video game industry. Kent, who is has written about video games for such divers publications as American Heritage and The Japan Times, invested over seven years to interview industry executives and game designers for this 476-page book. "The way I have constructed this book, it is almost half quotes and half narrative," says Kent. "Anybody can write a history of video games, and it may be accurate or it may be full of holes. My goal was to let readers learn this history through the eyes of the people who lived it." Kent conducted over 500 interviews with such people as Steven "Slug" Russell, designer of the first interactive computer game; Ralph Baer, designer of the Magnavox Odyssey; Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese; Al Alcorn, Atari's first engineer and builder of Pong; Ed Logg, creator of Asteroids, Centipede, and Gauntlet; Tom Kalinske, former chairman of Sega of America; and Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts and 3DO. Granted unprecedented access throughout the industry, Kent logged more than 20 hours of interviews with Howard Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa, chairman and president of Nintendo of America. Ray Kassar, the chairman of Atari during its 1982 collapse, granted Kent his first interview since leaving Atari in 1983, and Namco chairman Masaya Nakamura met with Kent twice. Having worked as a mediating voice with Senator Joseph Lieberman on his annual Video Game Report Card, Kent was able to conduct candid interviews with both Lieberman and Senator Sam Brownback about their hearings on video game violence. The result of all of these interviews is a high-speed, sprawling study of how video games emerged from unimportant novelty entertainment status to become one of the driving forces shaping the information age. With so many first-hand perspectives, "The First Quarter" sometimes becomes a forum for multiple designers and executives giving conflicting memories of how events occurred. Nolan Bushnell, Al Alcorn, Steve Wozniac, and Masaya Nakamura, for instance, all had different stories about the history of Breakout, and all four versions are included in the book. "The First Quarter" also includes in-depth studies of the five most influential court cases in the history of video games, complete with excerpts from court documents and interviews with lawyers. "Toward the end of the project, my biggest problem was trying to decide what stories to leave out. I had great stories about games like Aladdin, Crash Bandicoot, and Yoshi's Island; but I needed to draw the line. The book was getting too big. Two days after I handed the book in for layout, Nintendo announced that its new console would be named Gamecube, not Dolphin, and drawing that line became a really painful task." Kent's book, which will be available exclusively through Amazon.com and Select gaming outlets, retails for $21.95. For more information, contact Steven Kent at stevenkent@aol.com. The address for links to the Amazon.com page featuring the book is: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970475500/qid=977875158 //// CHRISTMAS GOODIES FROM SONGBIRD November 21, 2000 For immediate release: ROCHESTER, MN -- Songbird Productions is pleased to announce some Christmas goodies for Atari Lynx and Jaguar fans. Topping off the list is Championship Rally for the Atari Lynx. This incredible overhead racer features 7 unique tracks, powerups and pitfalls, tons of options, and highly detailed graphics accompanied by rumbling audio. Try your hand at solo gaming with Tournament, Single Race, and Time Trial, or use your ComLynx cable and second copy of Championship Rally on another Lynx to race head-to-head against a buddy in Versus. Plus, look for cheat codes, shortcuts, and more! This game is a must-have for any Lynx fan. Championship Rally is scheduled for a December 2000 release, and is currently in production. Look for the official release announcement, including ordering information, in the next few weeks. Jaguar fans won't be left in the cold, either. Several Rapid Fire Controllers are still in stock, but hurry, there aren't many left and at press time it was unknown if more of these devices will be built in the future. Plus, pick up the Songbird C2K (Christmas 2000) Kit, available today! This kit includes: * Full-color glossy Skyhammer overlay * Full-color glossy Worms overlay * B&W glossy Songbird ad / price list from CGE2K -- great collector's item! Pricing on the Songbird C2K Kit is as follows: * $5 for USA customers * $6 for International customers * $3 (WOW!) for any customer when you order any other item(s) from the Songbird catalog No additional shipping fee applies for the Songbird C2K kit when purchased separately. Normal shipping charges apply for any other items ordered. Songbird Productions is the premier developer and publisher for the Atari Lynx and Jaguar. To keep up to date with the latest news at Songbird Productions, be sure to visit the company web site at http://songbird.atari.net. This message may be reprinted in its entirety. Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net //// JAGFEST 2K1 NEWS December 2, 2000 - Go Beyond Tempest at JagFest 2K1 The GOAT Store, an online store specializing in the support of classic video games, has agreed to host JagFest 2K1 in Milwaukee, WI on June 30, 2001. The fifth annual event that centers around the Atari Jaguar system, but will be expanding as it has in the past to include all classic video game systems and even classic computers. "The event is going to be subtitled, 'Beyond Tempest'," said Dan Loosen of the GOAT Store, "because with all of the great products that have come out for the Jaguar in the past year, it is definitely true that we have moved beyond the storm of doubt and disbelief and can now look at a very bright future for the Jaguar and all of Atari." This years event will include an exhibit of every Jaguar game ever made, rare Atari games, systems, prototypes and many more surprises! There will also be a vast array of tournaments, with the GOAT Store supplying prizes to the winners. Admission for this years event will be $8.00 for pre-registers and $10.00 for tickets at the door. Tickets will go on sale January 1, 2001. "JagFest is a great opportunity for anyone with an interest in Atari to explore many rare and one-of-a-kind items and meet some new friends while doing it!" said Gary Heil. "I think that Milwaukee is a great location, and we will build on the success of past JagFests to make Beyond Tempest into the best JagFest yet." Please make sure to visit the Official JagFest 2K1: Beyond Tempest Web site at the GOAT Store (http://www.goatstore.com). Dan Loosen can be reached at loosen@goatstore.com and Gary Heil can be reached at heil@goatstore.com for more information. //// INFOGRAMES BUYS ATARI December 6, 2000 Excerpts from press releases floating on the net: Infogrames Entertainment to Acquire Hasbro Interactive and Games.com LYON, France & PAWTUCKET, R.I. (BUSINESS WIRE) Dec. 6, 2000: Infogrames Entertainment SA (Euronext 5257) and Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS) jointly announced today that they have entered into a strategic agreement, creating one of the foremost powerhouses in the mass market digital interactive entertainment world. The agreement is comprised of three main elements, including the Infogrames acquisition of Hasbro Interactive; a long-term licensing agreement giving Infogrames exclusive rights to develop and publish digital interactive games based on current and future Hasbro properties on all existing and future digital interactive formats; and the acquisition of Games.com. Infogrames will purchase 100% of the common stock of Hasbro Interactive and Games.com for $100 million - comprised of $95 million in Infogrames Entertainment SA securities (approximately 4.5 million common shares) and $5 million in cash. In addition, Hasbro will receive an annual guarantee from Infogrames based on sales generated from the licensing agreement. The agreements are subject to the approval of the shareholders of Infogrames, regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. The companies expect the deal to close early in the first calendar quarter of 2001. The acquisition gives Infogrames a catalog of titles based on well-known properties, including: --The legendary ATARI name and properties, such as CENTIPEDE, MISSILE COMMAND, and the historic PONG, which pioneered the video game revolution. //// CHAMPIONSHIP RALLY FOR THE ATARI LYNX LYNX FANS, IT'S RALLY TIME! December 6, 2000 For immediate release: ROCHESTER, MN -- Songbird is pleased to announce December 15, 2000, as the official limited-release date for Championship Rally on the Atari Lynx. Championship Rally is an incredible overhead racer featuring 7 unique tracks, powerups and pitfalls, and highly detailed graphics accompanied by rumbling audio. Try your hand at solo gaming with Tournament, Single Race, and Time Trial, or use your ComLynx cable and second copy of Championship Rally on another Lynx to race head-to-head against a buddy in Versus. Plus, look for cheat codes, shortcuts, and more! This is the biggest, most ambitious, options-loaded Lynx game ever released by Songbird, and is a must-have for any Atari fan. Orders are being accepted immediately for this exciting new game. Songbird will make every attempt to fill early orders by Christmas, but based on availability and the timeliness of orders, it is possible some orders will only be filled in January 2001. MSRP for Championship Rally is $42.95. Songbird Productions is the premier developer and publisher for the Atari Lynx and Jaguar. To keep up to date with the latest news at Songbird Productions, be sure to visit the company web site at http://songbird.atari.net. This message may be reprinted in its entirety. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// New Cheats and Codes =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lots of new cheats and codes discovered this year, but no time to include them in this issue. Tune in next year! --==--==--==--==-- || CyberChatter || Random topics about the Jaguar \__// Compiled from online public discussion areas ----------------------------------------------------------------- //// Index of Topics BattleSphere Jag Encryption Hyper Force Protector Phase Zero Black Ice\White Noise VR Headsets Discovered Jag II Prototype Discovered Alien vs Predator Prototype Jag Chatter on Slashdot Kev's Kiosk Miscellaneous =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// BattleSphere =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BattleSphere Soundtrack Author: Stephanie (dynamic21.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: November 25, 1999 at 20:03:46 Forum: rec.games.video.atari There is the possibility. There are actually two separate possibilities, one being a CD containing the audio directly from the game -- i.e. sounding exactly the same. I have all of these in WAV format and could put them in MP3 format, upload them to my mp3.com site (shameless plug: www.mp3.com/sebab) and make them available for people to buy on CD *tonight* if people wanted (actually probably tomorrow, as mp3.com has to approve the files first) This is not the soundtrack people are mostly talking about, though. I've messed around with remixing kinds of stuff, but I haven't had enough time free at any point to make a serious effort out of the project. Typically what happens is that I sit down to work on it and something else happens, like my computer crashes (that was pretty frequent this summer and fall) or I'm overwhelmed with work for a bit, or another project takes precedence. Musically, there are two film producers interested in offering me projects this spring (don't get excited yet though). If either one becomes a more solid possibility, I'd start scoring in late February or so, which means that after I turn in my project for a songwriting class I'm taking in say 2 weeks, I won't have any other specific music deadlines for at least 2 months. Of course, if we decide the remix CD's profits go to JDF just like the game's profits, any paying projects that I get will take precedence. By the way, if I fade out the MOD file audio and upload them to mp3.com, is there anyone who would buy the resulting CD, or would I be wasting my time? (any profits from THIS CD will go to JDF... I would probably charge $6 for the CD, the minimum mp3.com allows, half of which amount they will send to me and I will send to JDF) It also seemed weird to release the soundtrack before the game. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Re: Happy Thanksgiving Wishes Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-192-7.nwrk.grid.net) Date: November 25, 1999 at 19:23:49 Forum: rec.games.video.atari >That's a good question - will you make another Jag game, or >just retire from Jag development secure in the knowledge that >you have just put out the best ever game for the Jag? If encryption becomes easier, I can foresee making some 2MB games just for fun, or perhaps finishing some existing game or taking an unreleasable licensed title and changing the art so it can come out. But I DO NOT have anything lined up. It would take someone approaching me with a project like that, I don't have the contacts to find these things on my own. Of course, if we actually lose money on BattleSphere (i.e. people who said they were going to buy it don't buy it and we have hundreds of leftover carts) then I would probably feel different. Thunderbird 4Play =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Woo! Battle Sphere track featured at mp3.com Author: stef of the clef (dynamic41.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: November 30, 1999 at 16:02:05 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II The MP3s are up! Either go to my site at: www.mp3.com/sebab Or else follow the link at the bottom... maybe we'll get some publicity out of it :) Doug says he'll have graphics to me tonight for the CD, and hopefully mp3.com will approve them quickly. (again, remember this is a CD of the sounds right from the game, not a remix CD... which is still in the works but gets worked on sporadically) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: The Original BS - Now Available on MP3.com!!! Author: Clay (woody.dyess.af.mil) Date: December 07, 1999 at 06:58:05 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >>As the subject says, you can now purchase 'The Original BS' >>by Sebab on www.mp3.com (see link below). >Thanks for notifying everyone! This posting is how I found >out that mp3.com finally approved the CD! :) Steph, I noticed the cover artwork prominently stresses the music's MOD origins. Does this mean the CD includes MOD files instead of MP3s? Also, I thought the actual BS music was composed using a proprietary, MOD-like format. What gives? (already ordered my copy...) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BattleSphere? Author: unused@my-deja.com Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 22:37:19 GMT Forum: rec.games.video.atari >Can someone let me know what happened with this title? We finished it, Steph made a CD, now we're doing all sorts of behind the scenes work trying to get carts made and the encryption thwarted. >Are we going to get zoned? I've been really looking forward to it. Well I suppose if Y2K causes a massive nuclear strike which wipes out all of civilization except for several ragtag tribes of humanity which eke out a hunter-gatherer lifestyle for several generations until the arrival of a mysterious stranger brings the promise and threat of the return of technology, then yes, you will get "zoned". Otherwise, no, it just takes a horrendous amount of tap dancing to get this thing made. >Thanks. You're welcome and don't forget to listen to the old man in the cave! Scott Le Grand Lead Coder BattleSphere ObPlug: BattleSphere, linux, e-commerce: what a combo! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BattleSphere Encryption Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-193-126.nwrk.grid.net) Date: December 30, 1999 at 13:48:24 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >No jaguar breakdowns??? No software locks???? >Thats some robust code and some sturdy hardware. Actually, I didn't want to admit it, but I ruined a couple of days work when I moved the setup out of the way for Thanksgiving and I restarted the system with the data from the previous weekend. I didn't catch it until it didn't make sense to restart. With chip prices the way they are, I'm certainly not in any hurry to get the solution. :-( Thunderbird 4Play =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: battlesphere.com? Author: BattleSphere Bob (dynamic58.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: February 17, 2000 at 10:28:08 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >I never got the CD, but I did try battlesphere.com a >couple of times to see if was registered... when I saw >the "under construction" page, I just went on to other >sites thinking that somebody else beat 4Play to it... Actually, someone else DID beat 4Play to it in 1996. Fortunately, since they appear to have been a bunch of lamers that saw one of our BattleSphere pitches and then decided to do the game without us, they didn't get very far. The company folded in 1998. The domain freed up last September and I grabbed it. It will be the place from which to order your BattleSphere carts. But I didn't plan to activate it until we could place those orders. Scott =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: battlesphere.com? Author: stefoclef Date: February 16, 2000 at 22:46:03 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II When battlesphere.com came up for grabs, the company which had started out designing a BattleSphere-looking clone (coincidentally named "Battle Sphere" but changed to "Sphere Warriors" when we mailed them indicating we'd caught them red-handed) did not re-register it, I think mostly because they'd gone under. Scott grabbed it but has not as yet attached any webspace to it. I'd love to see some webspace attached since then I could upload some junk there. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: 4Play Acquired By Scatologic Author: BattleSphere Bob (dynamic1.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: February 20, 2000 at 12:51:09 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Somewhere in the Known Universe - 4Play, developer of the upcoming Jaguar game Battle Sphere, is pleased to announce its recent acquisition by Scatologic, a Delaware corporation. Scatologic CEO Scott Le Grand happily looked into a mirror and told 4Play CEO Scott Le Grand that this merger promised improved service and reliability to existing 4Play customers. Mr. Le Grand was then wheeled off to Groom Lake AFB for his daily shots. Meanwhile, COO Douglas Engel found enough time in his busy schedule to duplicate himself in a transporter accident and take over the COO roles of Scatologic. No word is available at this time as to whether the new Scatologic COO is the "evil" or "good" Doug. Please stay tuned for further details. Finally, 4Play CTO Stephanie Wukovitz quit her job for a new higher-paying position at Scatologic. "Those losers at 4Play couldn't ship a game if you set their butts on fire" she was reported to say as she cleaned out her desk. The 4Play logo and name will remain on all 4Play products. However, they will now be published by the Scatologic corporation. Check out the DNS entry for scatologic.com for future news until the new web site is complete. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Atari Forever Author: Leo (tc02-100.imcnet.net) Date: March 13, 2000 at 13:42:10 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Hi all, In case you were wondering... The limited edition signature appears in this manner. When you start the game and don't do anything, it goes into attract mode. When that happens, a screen with burning fire appears, centered is the message: Battlesphere Limited Edition personally created for: Atari Forever or something to that effect. looks cool, and its a signature I can share with all of you :) (After winning, the thought occurred to me I should choose something shareable so we all can enjoy it) Leo Time to BS =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BS impressions Author: Leo (tc02-073.imcnet.net) Date: March 18, 2000 at 03:58:48 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Hi, I played BS some and wanted to rave a little. First, some differences from standard Jag games: No volume control on pause screen for music, SFX, etc. You can turn music on/off and engine noise on/off in setup. I find that the volume mix is perfect, and I have no desire to change anything anyways. I love Steph's music, and engine noise don't bother me. Also, Star+Pound brings you back one screen, i.e. from game to ship select, in stead of restarting from the beginning. Also nice. I tried, most recently, single player free for all, fighters only, against 1 computer opponent, set at the easiest (I believe), 10 kills. I tried the O'catanut arrow first. Not too hard, but I could only maintain three kills above the computer. (sometimes, I would kill him, but didn't swerve around the explosion and got minced myself.) I then tried S'mgheed annihilator as it has awesome Lasers, but little else. Linked the two lasers. I think I was against a cobra slith, but not too sure. Cool lasers, killed with one volley. However, with not great shielding, I died quickly. So I adapted and learned to shoot and bank away real quick, fly around slowly to regain shields, and try again. I actually made it to 10 kills and got on the high score list. (I actually got killed when I made kill number ten but the victory took precedence, whew.) I love the manner in which you get to choose 6 letters for the high score tables. It is a circle of letters,!,*,-,.,backspace, and end. The selector is one of them glass globes. The magnification effect is cool to watch. Good work 4Play and that little detail. (In general, the selector are glass balls. Nice job guys.) I then tried Se'babs Mark I, as it had high speed and acceleration, and almost the highest turn ratio among the fighters. My luck, I was pitted against the oppresor's acrosome (I laughed when I first saw that name. Having a Bio degree in Molecular Genetics, I took development and learned all about the acrosome :) for the rest of you, it's a actin filled vessicle at the tip of the sperm) That little bugger moves (higher turn ratio then Mark I for example). I couldn't keep it in my sights. It killed me plenty of times. So I tried flying the acrosome a bit, nice. (Also, I payed attention to the terminated screen when I died. I could see the acrosome fly about my wreckage... cool) Finally I tried ejected pilot with jetpack. WOW, you need to be a master. The view is the same as any ship except no radar. Ever tried to hunt down an enemy ship without radar? Anyone who plays with this on Minter is a true BS legend. (Hmmm Doug, Scott, and Steph? Anyone at Scatologic master ejected pilot on Minter?) I truely like the game and want to play more to continue to work out how each ship handles and flies. I am happy I figured out the S'mgheed annihilator, but the more agile ships are seductive. That Acrosome is one tough bugger. Next time I hit it with a stasis bolt, I need to remember to stop dead immediately to make it easier to pepper him with torpedoes. That was the only high note on that battle, I froze him with a stasis bolt (kind a cute the way he hangs there with tail wiggling.) But I didn't think to stop and had trouble shooting him on the fast flybys...) I would like to try pilot/gunner configuration with a friend. I would love to network, even just two jags. The colors are awesome, framerate smooth, and the lens flare is a nice touch. (here's an idea if Nuon BS occurs (as many suspects). Lens flare for the ship's engine/rocket glow as well as the star, if nuon has the power to handle it (which it probably does).) or would that be too distracting?... I am starting to tell the difference in how the slower turn and faster turn ships differ in turning speed. Hopefully, I can master handling of each one. The ships look good. Decal mapped, gouraud shaded polygons look GREAT. at least these ones do. Truthfully, they fly by too fast to truely appreciate ;) OK, that wraps it up. I see it is less about BS and more about how dismal I play it ;) Don't worry, I'll get it soon enough. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Re: BS impressions Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-19-55.cmbr.grid.net) Date: March 18, 2000 at 07:59:19 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >I played BS some and wanted to rave a little. >First, some differences from standard Jag games: >No volume control on pause screen for music, SFX, etc. Try pressing while paused. That's the way the official developer's specifications say it should work... >You can turn music on/off and engine noise on/off in setup. >Amongst other things... >I find that the volume mix is perfect, and I have no desire to change >anything anyways. Cool! Thanx. >I love Steph's music, and engine noise don't bother me. Sometimes I like to CRANK the music, just for the fun of it! >Also, Star+Pound brings you back one screen, i.e. from game to ship >select, instead of restarting from the beginning. >Also nice. That was something we added at the end of development, when Atari was out of the loop. Their official developers spec. says that #* should reset the game. However, we figured that this was dumb and reworked the idea. >I tried the O'catanut arrow first. Not too hard, but I could only >maintain three kills above the computer. (sometimes, I would kill him, >but didn't swerve around the explosion and got minced myself.) Why don't more other games work like this? >I then tried S'mgheed annhilator as it has awesome Lasers, but little >else. Linked the two lasers. I think I was against a cobra slith, but >not too sure. >Cool lasers, killed with one volley. However, with not great >shielding, I died quickly. So I adapted and learned to shoot and bank >away real quick, fly around slowly to regain shields, and try again. Gee... and people said that ship was too slow and worthless? HAH! >I actually made it to 10 kills and got on the high score list. (I >actually got killed when I made kill number ten but the victory took >precedence, whew.) "Victory Terminated?" HAHAHA! I believe this was an oversight in the programming that we didn't plan on but when it happened we decided that this was the right thing to do! >I love the manner in which you get to choose 6 letters for the high >score tables. It is a circle of letters,!,*,-,.,backspace, and end. >The selector is one of them glass globes. The magnification effect is >cool to watch. >Good work 4Play and that little detail. (In general, the selector are >glass balls. Nice job guys.) Don't you mean "Nice job, Doug"? (Those screens are all my work.) >I then tried Se'babs MarkI, as it had high speed and acceleration, and >almost the highest turn ratio among the fighters. My luck, I was >pitted against the oppresor's acrosome (I laughed when I first saw >that name. Having a Bio degree in Molecular Genetics, I took >development and learned all about the acrosome :) for the rest of you, >it's a actin filled vessicle at the tip of the sperm) That's probably a lot funnier when you see what the ship looks like and how it flies ;-) >That little bigger moves (higher turn ratio than Mark I for example). >I couldn't keep it in my sights. It killed me plenty of times. So I >tried flying the acrosome a bit, nice. The variety of ships and their different abilities makes for a really varied gameplay. Replay value is really high, considering you have to develop different strategies for each type of ship! >(Also, I payed attention to the terminated screen when I died. I >could see the acrosome fly about my wreckage... cool) Sometimes you can see them fly through the debris and kill themselves by hitting it! Wait until you play on a skill level when you can get taken out by a missile volley... missiles continue to fly into the wreckage and blow up! >Finally I tried ejected pilot with jetpack. WOW, you need to be >a master. The view is the same as any ship except no radar. Ever >tried to hunt down an enemy ship without radar? Anyone who plays >with this on Minter is a true BS legend. (Hmmm Doug, Scott, and >Steph? Anyone at Scatologic master ejected pilot on Minter?) I don't think I ever even tried. I'm sure it's possible, but too time consuming for me! >I truely like the game and want to play more to continue to work >out how each ship handles and flies. I am happy I figured out the >Smg'heed Annihilator, but the more agile ships are seductive. Glad you like them! >That Acrosome is one tough bugger. Next time I hit it with a >stasis bolt, I need to remember to stop dead immediately to make >it easier to pepper him with torpedoes. That was the only high >note on that battle, I froze him with a stasis bolt (kind a cute >the way he hangs there with tail wiggling.) But I didn't think to >stop and had trouble shooting him on the fast flybys...) Ever been hit with a stasis bolt??? Heh heh heh >I would like to try pilot/gunner configuration with a friend. I >would love to network, even just two Jags. Trust me, it's FUN! >The colors are awesome, framerate smooth, and the lens flare is >a nice touch. (here's an idea if Nuon BS occurs (as many suspects). >Lens flare for the ship's engine/rocket glow as well as the star, >if Nuon has the power to handle it (which it probably does).) or >would that be too distracting?... Believe me... the next one will have lens flares all over the place! >The ships look good. Decal-mapped, gouraud shaded polygons look >GREAT. at least these ones do. Truthfully, they flyby too fast to >truely appreciate ;) I know.... it's a shame too! >OK, that wraps it up. I see it is less about BS and more about >how dismal I play it ;) Don't worry, I'll get it soon enough. It takes a certain knack, but you will improve. Thanks for taking the time to comment! I'm so pleased that you like it, and we appreciate everything you've done for us! Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Rejected! Author: Grumpy Bob (dynamic27.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: March 19, 2000 at 01:40:41 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >>Why did you make the run of cartridges BEFORE the pre- >>orders arrived???? >Because we've gotten quite a bit of feedback indicating >that because of a former 4Play member's handling of >preorder money for a non-4Play item, they wouldn't >preorder from us. And on top of that, just imagine the threats to take us to court, register complaints with the attorney general, and otherwise make our lives miserable if we hit the tiniest snag between taking pre-order money and delivering the goods. It was not an option, period. Enough BattleSpheres will be produced for all that want it. If that's not good enough for you, then I suspect it is time for you to move on in life. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: NOT DENIED! Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-175-187-nwrk.grid.net) Date: March 19, 2000 at 06:16:49 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >And to be honest, the possibility of a second run does little >to mitigate my frustration at this point. Give me a break...I >have to feel *some* letdown after all this time, no? Believe me, I know how you must feel. I think WE probably feel worse than you do because it was our screwup that put you in this situation, and we have ALWAYS put our customers feelings high on our list of priorities. We feel very badly about this. >>We're really sorry that you feel this way. I hope you take >>into consideration that fact that were are not taking any >>pleasure from having to turn people away temporarily. >Of course, I can't imagine that you would. Certainly it must >seem like, after all these years, you've got more fans and >supporters than perhaps you had originally supposed. And now >you'll have to disappoint some of them (but possibly temporarily, >but possibly forever) by turning away their orders for a Battle- >Sphere cart. Exactly. And be assured that we are trying very hard to make the second run happen. We have a couple of obstacles to overcome (like running out of printed boxes, etc.), and the chips we need are on "allocation" (meaning that the "important" customers can get them). >>There are no guarantees for anything in life, really. But give >>us a little credit here... don't you think that we will be trying >>really hard to make sure that you a copy as well? >Sure, I imagine that you'll be trying hard. But, as you said, >there are no guarantees. We're just being on the safe side. We don't want to PROMISE anything that we're not 100% sure we can deliver. We have been bitten before by the 1% chance something could turn out wrong and we said otherwise. It's made us very cautious in what we promise. >Well, it's good to hear. The higher price will still, no doubt, >be justified once we all have our copy of Battlesphere. I'm pretty sure that we're only talking about a few dollars more. It's not a huge amount I'm very sure. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Rejected! Author: stef Date: March 18, 2000 at 23:25:11 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Frustrated, Me too. Aside from the actual pain of the clerical work (I did everything by hand... and by the way, whoever it is who spammed us with the profanities, uh thanks) 'twas pretty awful seeing all the familiar names go by and knowing we couldn't provide for all of them. We had to put up the capital among the three of us -- that was actually supposed to be the job of a particular team member when we were 4Play, but we all know what happened there. We really do want a second run, and Doug's made some progress inquiring about it. I wanted to have more to say about that when I sent out the confirmations, but I couldn't really delay much longer :( =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: battlesphere price Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-19-42.cmbr.grid.net) Date: March 19, 2000 at 14:58:35 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >well you can get the goddamn shells for jaguar games at >best electronics for like 4 or 5 bucks a piece with screws >and the pcbs for 1.25 i think. i must say i think everyone >is a bit pissed at the price change. If YOU can arrange to get the components for that price and sell them to us at your cost, then by all means PLEASE DO. Our dealings with BEST have been the "Worst" we've encountered. They quoted us one price and then raised that price 3.00 when we went to order (thinking they had a corner on the market or something) and THEN when I tried to negotiate back to what we had they came up with some lunatic counter offer where they would get a TON of BattleSphere carts for LESS THAN OUR MFG COST and they'd sell us the materials at the price $1.00 higher than the original quote. (which was WAY higher than the prices you list)... (sigh) Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: battlesphere price Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-19-42.cmbr.grid.net) Date: March 19, 2000 at 15:32:00 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Gives us a good look inside your daily problems, eh? I >understand how you feel..... You don't know the half of it. This has been hugely frustrating. I personally did ALL of the purchasing and production that our abandoned member was SUPPOSED to do. And NOBODY out there seems to give a crap that this is for CHARITY. These guys see us coming and see big $$$$$ profits. It's not like many more people are going to be asking them for cart pieces. One day they are going to wind up taking palettes of these things to the dump and WISH they has sold some at a reasonable cost. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Perspective, it's a funny thing. Author: Big Al Date: March 19, 2000 at 11:45:00 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II So you're angry because you couldn't get a BS cart this time? Look at it from Scatologic's perspective: 1. When they first started the game, they probably expected Atari to release it. Lucky for them, Atari walks out on everyone and leaves fans totally strung out to dry. 2. Tom Harker (the 4th person in 4Play), who I bet they expected to release BS and handle all the distribution/logistics, etc. decides he'll do like the Steve Miller song and "take the money and run". So not only do they have no distributor, they now have to try and shed the reputation of a former partner- thus, no pre-orders for BS. 3. So Doug, Scott, and Stef are left holding the bag. Now they're not marketing/distribution types, they're just fans who made a game. They promised it to us, so they have to go it on their own (not to mention, I bet they _want_ to share their game w/us). 4. By the time they can release the game, the Jag has been abandoned for 4 years. Honestly, how many would you realistically expect to sell if you were them? Yeah, so some people filled out their form on the internet- that really holds about as much weight as, oh, a form you can fill out on the internet. (I wonder how many people on the Jaguar petition, who _swore_ they'd support the Jaguar, have ordered BS- or any of Carl's games, for that matter.) 5. Much to their horror/wonder, they are featured on /. and demand goes through the roof. 6. Much to their horror/wonder, demand far outstrips supply. Really, it doesn't surprise me, this is ScatoLogic's first release and noone exactly has an MBA from Harvard. How do you select who gets it? That's not a question I'd want to have to answer. I think the most telling thing about the whole situation is how T-bird has handled himself. I've accused him of being too quick to jump on the flame- wagon, but he has done nothing of the sort. Rather, he's been nothing but apologetic and tried to sympathize with the people who lost out. ScatoLogic understands and sees it from your perspective, do you see it from theirs? (I should note that I'm not getting BattleSphere. Not that I don't want it, but I flat-out can't afford it. My best hope for getting a copy is buying it off eBay a couple years from now.) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: A small Battlesphere question Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-172-168-nwrk.grid.net) Date: March 22, 2000 at 03:33:30 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Are you not still making profits when selling it to Go Atari? Nobody from that particular dealer has contacted us regarding the purchase of BattleSphere. However, I have trouble justifying the act of selling to a dealer at some reduced "dealer price" so they can turn around and make money off of something that would otherwise go to charity and none of which goes to myself. There are some dealers who have assisted us in the past, and have been helpful in getting BattleSphere produced, and they will be the ones who would have a chance of getting some carts at a special price. Other dealers have tried to gouge us and will definitely not get any. All of this is pure conjecture because we are too busy trying to organize a 2nd run to worry about these matters. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Battle Sphere shipping update Author: stef (dynamic2.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: March 23, 2000 at 16:37:06 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II My arms are still a little unhappy, so after resting them a tiny bit longer today I will start packing some of the 45 orders (not sure how many carts yet) we received today. 5 orders went out today. Still need to try and do a few hours of work (the kind that keeps up housed and clothed and fed :P ) from home tonight, then if things feel ok, back to doing some Battle Sphere site stuff incl the order checking script. Cheers... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Battle Sphere shipping update Author: stef (dynamic35.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: March 23, 2000 at 21:56:34 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Sean, Appreciated! Some rest did me good -- I am up here working on the mailing list, trying to get it into a format Excel will read (which I should have done initially) -- this will make the script's job easier too. Scott is downstairs packing carts and yelling at the cat to stay away (he enjoys perching on the big boxes o'sphere in the kitchen but now that we're unpacking them he seems distressed... er I mean the cat, not Scott) Back to typing commas and hitting the delete key, which really isn't all that taxing, thankfully. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: 30 BattleSpheres Shipped Today... Author: BSB (143.186.161.53) Date: March 24, 2000 at 17:55:19 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II 75 payment envelopes received... Ran out of packing supplies last night but since it was about 1:30 AM by that time, things were winding down anyway... More to go out tomorrow... So where is that Kendler guy anyway??? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: JDF Contribution... wow, that was easy! Author: stef of the clef (143.186.161.46) Date: March 24, 2000 at 17:56:37 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II FYI, I'd been busy and hadn't gotten around to sending the money from the mp3.com Battle SPhere soundtrack to JDF. I sold 31 so far, BTW, meaning I earned $93 - - I rounded it up to a contribution of $100. Anyhow, I hit the site (link below) intending to get the correct address to send the check, and found, to my delight, that they take credit cards. So I sent the contribution... here's the results page text: -------------------------------- Thank You Thank You for your contribution to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Through your contribution you are helping us find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research. You will shortly receive an acknowledgement via e-mail. If your contribution was for $250 or more, you will also receive a written acknowledgement. Your reference number is: 20000324203213. If you need to contact us for any reason about this transaction, please send an e-mail to info@jdfcure.org and include the above reference number. Again, thank you for your contribution. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: 30 BattleSpheres Shipped Today... Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-171-226-nwrk.grid.net) Date: March 24, 2000 at 18:05:34 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >So where is that Kendler guy anyway??? I think he's in the hospital with Crow Poisoning. Kendler be gettin' his stomach pumped! Betcha he don't like that charcoal they put in him! Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Kendler Sucks Cheese Orbs!!!! Author: T. H. Undirberdt (pool-209-138-194-90.nwrk.grid.net) Date: March 25, 2000 at 05:50:43 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >"Doesn't he owe you $100 or something? That's probably where >he's been, trying to find a job to pay it off >:->" >What? I thought he was an accomplished Jaguar programmer! >He should make that $100 in a second! Riiiiight..... Kendler is a loser. He always was a loser. He will always be a loser. Losers don't like to be reminded that they are losers because it makes them feel like losers compared to the losers that are ignorant of the fact they are losers. So, loser is not a browser of JI2 currently, since it make him realize that he's the loser's loser. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BattleSphere Friends and Family Author: BSB (dynamic11.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: March 28, 2000 at 08:34:35 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II OK, I think we can thank the Slashdot Effect for the other BattleSphere auction and I've already covered the first one. With that in mind, here's a modest proposal. I'm expecting a good 1/4 to 1/3 of the BattleSphere carts of the first run to go unclaimed. Doesn't mean that's how it will go, but that's just a prediction based on the ever-decreasing number of envelopes in our mail box each day. So, here's a task for all of the people we know by name. Could you guys vouch for anyone you know who didn't get a cart? There are a lot of unfamiliar names on our list along with some familiar ones. We'd like to sell the remainder of the first run to people who will at least play our game for a while before offering it up on eBay. And yes, consider this round to be a giant conspiracy since most of you guys get to be in on it. You know where to reach me. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: I drank my urine today Author: Stephen Anderson Date: March 28, 2000 at 10:07:21 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Well, I got home from a particularly crappy day at school, only to find my two BS boxes waiting on my kitchen table!!! I drank a cup of urine for each game, and (after puking them back up) went off to play. I was fortunate to play the game WAY back in Oct.96 at the Toad Atari Fest in Maryland (I met Tom Harker there BTW - before the CatBox fiasco). Anybody that says the Jag is only as powerful as an SNES has obviously never seen this game in action. It could easily be a 2nd generation PSX title. I don't really know where to begin. The music is excellent, the box, artwork, and in game menus are top notch, and of course the game itself is truly awesome. Oh, I also immediately recognized the sound of a starbase being destroyed! Haven't heard that in quite some time. Only problem is that I suck. I have always been good at driving games, but the 3D flight sims have never been a strong point for me. I'll be spending a LOT of time in the training mode. Stephen Anderson Got his BS after nearly 5 years of waiting!!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BS Superships Author: Thunderbird (209.138.243.192) Date: March 28, 2000 at 15:05:19 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Is it me, or are the superships in Battle Sphere nearly invincible? That depends on what play mode you're in. Some of the modes enhance the player's shields in the beginning levels and gradually reduce them to the standard level. It makes the game fun for people just starting out. Once you are a master, those levels are laughably easy (almost boring, in fact). Luckily, there are tougher skill-levels. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: THE BOX (aka Battlesphere!) Author: Brian R. Date: March 28, 2000 at 17:48:47 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II I came by home today during lunch to check my mail on the chance that my copy of BattleSphere had arrived. And guess what? It had! Although I had to go back to the office, I immediately opened "the box." I was amazed. The box, manual and cartridge all look top-notch professional. You couldn't tell this came from "hobbyist developers." It looks just as good as anything you'd buy at the mall. (And it plays the same way.) Excellent work! (I haven't bought any of the Songbird games yet so this is my first experience with such games. But I'm looking for Skyhammer next!) I had to get through the rest of the work day until I was able to come home for an hour to try it out. I played the pilot training level. The controls were surprisingly easy to figure out. I got killed at the end of level five after I flew through the last ship's fireball with too low shields. But I had to go anyway. I was worried the controls would be complicated. When I saw how slim the manual was I was either happy there were no complicated instructions or worried there wasn't enough documentation. But they are very, very simple to learn. But then I had to go back to work for an evening meeting. I just got home, and now have to go through the formalities of eating, putting out the garbage and visiting JI2 to type my praise and check on the discussion before getting back in the cockpit. In short, excellent game, great accomplishment, well worth it. Looking forward to spending many hours with it. There's always a bit of hesitation when paying full price for a game you can't try out before buying, but now I know any concern was unjustified. Worth every penny. A question - Is there a best ship to use while you're learning the game? Up next - Skyhammer! (Come on Carl, give us the good word!) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BattleSphere? WOW!!! Author: ETHunter Date: March 30, 2000 at 16:05:39 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II I thought I saw all I needed to see of this game at JagFest '99. The game rocked and couldn't possibly get better, right? WRONG!!! I just got done with a 5 hour non-stop session with this game. Currently addicted to "Gauntlet" mode. Got to wave 52 before my brain couldn't take it anymore. The game just keeps on getting better and better each wave I complete. I never thought there would be a game on the Jag more addicting than Tempest 2000 but BattleSphere tops it. The largest thanks humanly possible to Doug, Scott and Stephanie for getting this game too us all. All your talents continue to amaze me further with every level I progress. Micah =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BattleSphere CRASHES on K series Jags with CD? Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-193-48.nwrk.grid.net) Date: April 01, 2000 at 05:16:51 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Anyone else have this problem in single player mode? I'll >reseat everything and try again to confirm. :-( I doubt that the CD has anything to do with anything, software wise. BattleSphere was WRITTEN on K-Series Jaguars, and I did extensive testing with the CD installed. As a matter of fact, I ran the demo mode (which simulates play very well) for 21 days in a K-series unit with my CD installed. While it's not totally unthinkable that there are weird bugs in BattleSphere causing crashes... nobody's perfect (especially the Jaguar hardware)... I suspect that the crashes are due to a physical problem rather than a software problem. In any electronic circuit, every time you pass through a connector, you introduce small amounts of capacitance and resistance and degrade the signals. The JagCD has 2 connectors between the cart and the Jaguar. The Jag itself has only 1 connector. Any sensitivity to noise in your Jaguar will be doubled by the use of the JagCD. BattleSphere is especially sensitive to noise on the cartridge port because BattleSphere reads code overlays and some graphics and samples from the cart directly -all the time-. Other games load into RAM once at the beginning of each level and never go back to the cart until the next level needs loading. Other games load from the cart all the time, but not as frequently as BattleSphere. Keep in mind that our jaguars are not brand-new anymore, and the contacts are getting WORN on the cartridge ports. Remember... I am NOT saying the contacts are DIRTY... I am telling you that the connectors are wearing out. The spring tension of the metal fingers in the connectors is getting less and less, making the cartridge port MORE sensitive to shock or vibration. Also... I have noticed that some games for the Jaguar are made with a slightly thicker printed circuit board, which has the effect of spreading the contacts further apart and making them looser. I would recommend that people experiencing problems take the following precautions: 1) Avoid playing through the "stacked" connectors of the JagCD if you have problems with it. 2) Keep your Jaguar on a FIRM STABLE surface, free from vibrations. (i.e. don't put it on top of the entertainment center that houses the TV speakers and subwoofer (BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Great source of vibration!) 3) Keep the Jag off the floor and especially off the carpet. 4) Use long controller cords which you won't yank or pull during the heat of battle. I hope this helps. If it's not, then we must have missed something. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: AATE... Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-170-236-nwrk.grid.net) Date: April 01, 2000 at 20:35:46 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >TBird, Scott, Stef, >In AATE, I'm assuming that you can't merge two squadrons of >friendly fighters into one sector - is this correct? Or is it >a restriction regarding the number/type of ships trying to merge? Merging is not an option. It would have been nice, but would have made some other details difficult. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Some Cool BattleSphere Observances Author: Mister E... Date: April 02, 2000 at 11:44:28 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II For those of you who haven't really tried out the Free For All mode, here's some cool things you're missing. I've got the game set to include 15 ships, skill level of starfighter, all types of ships involved, 20 kills to victory and a respawn time o5 25 seconds. It's very cool to see two ships battling it out and then come up on the attackers rear and blow him out of the sky (only to have the ship being attacked turn on you and take you out! :) ) Or how about setting up that perfect shot - lining up the target nicely when all of a sudden laser shots come flying from the right of the screen and take out your target for you..@%&#*#@! And better still, having a good run, taking out three or four ships and continuing to survive only to realise that those 3-4 ships have since respawned - all with a lock on you! Before you know it you've got 3-4 ships chasing you down - VERY COOL!!! :) Now, for Gauntlet (I haven't been playing this mode very much - yet) - I cleared Level 19 only to be awarded 6120 points, 3 extra starbases and 1 more starbase restored - don't ask me how I pulled that off though! I also find that Gauntlet is heavily tweaked in your favour - enemy fire doesn't seem to do quite as much damage as it does in the other modes. Finally, does anyone have any favorite ships that they like to use yet? I'm definitely preferring the Claw right now. Mister E...(I've had the game crash on me twice so far - once in Free For All and once in Gauntlet IIRC) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BattleSphere opponents Author: BSB (dynamic47.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: April 05, 2000 at 09:52:57 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Are the ships you face randomly selected when you continue >like that? There is a component of randomness in many of the level elements. This was done on purpose to prevent too much memorization as well as enhance replayability. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: I've got a secret... (WARNING- BSCODE) Author: the UA (rh001h26.east.iit.edu) Date: April 05, 2000 at 18:08:11 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Check your BattleSphere box. There is a number that has no real purpose on a game box. Have fun... shhhhh.... Fard =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BattleSphere Second Coming Author: Thunderbird (pool-207-205-163-132.nwrk.grid.net) Date: April 06, 2000 at 16:28:44 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >>Anyway, good luck then and hope that it is possible for >>the second run to become a reality. Thanks for the >>insight as well. CYA Actually, if anyone out there knows someone with some purchasing clout with any of the big electronics chip distributors, please email me. The EPROMs we need are almost impossible to find now, and they want to sell to the "big" guys first. We're too "small potatoes" for them! Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: The Julia effect on the BS Cart Author: Thunderbird (pool-207-205-161-32.nwrk.grid.net) Date: April 07, 2000 at 18:31:48 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >The Julia effect in the background of the story of Battle- >Sphere during the intro. Was this code the same code from >the Virtual VCS code that Carl acquired? Ours is BASED on that code, but had to be heavily reworked to run with my music engine. The algorithm is the same, and the basic structure is the same... Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: The Julia effect on the BS Cart Author: BSB (143.186.161.53) Date: April 07, 2000 at 18:48:24 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >So- the fractals are supposed to react to the music, or is >it that the code would interfere with the music? Actually, one of my seldom seen NUON demos both rendered Julia sets and reacted to music at 60 fps. I think they showed it at WCES '99 and never again. Don't ask me why, I just worked there. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Code 101 (WARNING- REAL BS CODE AND HINT) Author: Codeman (rh001h2.east.iit.edu) Date: April 10, 2000 at 22:28:55 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II WARNING!!!!!!!!!!! The following post has a BattleSphere Code in it- as well as instructions on how to enter them. DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU WISH TO FIND IT BY YOURSELF. You have been warned. Here goes... scroll down. . . . All right. Now that the coast is clear... Look on the bottom right hand side of the back of the box (or on the back flap- your preference....) There should be a 12-digit number. 372663-536823 (1) A similar number is on the BattleSphere Cart Label. 328635-372663 (2) How are they similar? Look at the sequences. The first six numbers of (1) and the last six numbers of (2) are the same- also the last six numbers of (1) and the first six numbers of (2) are reverses of each other. If you follow the pattern, the next number in the sequence is 328635-366273 [sequence (2) with the reverse of the last six digits.] How do I enter them? Go to the Setup Menus. Now go to the Gameplay Options Screen. Press some number keys. You'll hear some Atari 800 Star Rai... um... I mean... BattleSphere Plasma Bolt sound effect. Enter the code. You should hear the trademark Doug Engel "Awesome" sound effect- the code is on. Enter it again. You should hear the BattleSphere Warp Sound Effect- the code is off. Enter it one more time and leave the Gameplay Screen. Now what? Go to a game of Free-for-All. Wreak havoc... if you eye your weapons correctly :) What does this code mean? Look to your touch-tone telephone dial. After a couple of hours of decoding, I find that the code translates to "Eat Me Leonard." Looks like the folks at Scatologic were angry at the Atari Corp. when making this easter egg. Are there any other codes? Yup. I'm on the search right now. Have fun- and let slip the dogs of war. :) Fard =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Battle Sphere is Ah Ah Ah Ah Awesome!! Author: Chad Tindle (pm520.bardstown.com) Date: April 15, 2000 at 07:17:39 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Man I couldn't wait to play this game the day I got it, hell I can't wait to play it again today. It opens with an awesome looking 4Play logo unfolding down the screen with transparency I believe. The opening music inspires awe as it gives you that "this game is awesome feeling" and your about to do something awesome. The menus are really high quality and your cursor is this cool reflective bubble actually three of them that bobs in and out around your selections. Some cool effects as you switch between menus, they break into horizontal parts and fall away. I got two copies so I got my other jag hooked up in my brothers room and I hooked up an extremely long phone cord between us and I believe we tried Gauntlet first. When we both selected Gauntlet at the same time it was unable to find any players so a quick check of the connections and a retry didn't work either. So I looked at the cable that came with the Jag-Link and noticed it had 4 wires inside and I took a look at the cord I was trying to use and it only had 2 so I found another 4 wire cable and we were back into action. It probably wasn't the wisest choice to go with network play modes first because me and my brother couldn't work the radars and didn't know what all the buttons did just yet. So the first couple of play modes were uneventful as we couldn't figure out what was going on. So the next play mode we tried was Free-for-All which is the best multiplayer play mode if you're just beginning to play. We quickly figured out the controls and radar, which after you learn is very effective. You get several ships to choose from, a lot more than in single player mode without any codes. All the ships are very cool designs and you can even be an ejected pilot if you wish but you'll be throwing out your radar if you do so but you will be very hard for other ships to hit because you're so small. All the ships have a decal on them showing what race owns them. The selection screen shows you several different stats about each ship and they're transparent and you can even control the transparency and you can tilt the ship around a bit to get a better look. The cockpits are very nice looking and mostly they don't detract from your field of view like Hoverstrike. You won't believe this is a Jaguar game once you're flying around at 60fps!!! Like the FAQ says the stars aren't moving past you but there are random pieces of space debris so you know you're moving forward and unlike other games you can actually get right up on a chunk of debris so it is actually in the game not just a fake overlay. When you turn you actually bank from side to side so you get feeling of true flight. It's nice to see every button be used on the Jagpad and that's not bad because the really important ones are not on the keypad. There are also cool nebulas and things you learn about in astronomy in the background and also a star that is much closer than you that lens flares as it passes through the glass of the cockpit. It is a very cool effect especially because the star has this cool pulsating effect when you stare straight at it just like the real thing. All of the HUDs are transparent but you can still see them, they don't just fade away but their color distorts, a very cool effect. All of the ships handle very differently and drain your lasers at varying amounts and some are faster or stronger than others but each ship is unique. There is a cool lock-on tracking system that your on-board computer does that lets you aim at exactly the right spot of the ship you targeted taking in account its velocity and turn rate. Your crosshair becomes more precise and the beeping sound quickens as your aim is dead center. The lasers you shoot are made of polygons and fire away from your ship very realistically. The sound of the engine also corresponds to how fast you are moving and it sounds very real just like something out of the movies. The music is all very well done and changes quite frequently to the mood of safety and danger. When you destroy an enemy ship it actually breaks apart and you can hit the chunks doing some damage to your ship and the explosions are very well animated and I really like the blueish tint to the smoke, just seems like what an explosion would look like in space. When you're firing at a capitol ship you blow off chunks of it and its explosion is even more dramatic as a shock wave leaves its core, very cool. The AI is very impressive and relentless at higher stages of Gauntlet and you can select the level of AI in Free-for-All mode, one such choice is "Minter" which I have not yet dared to try. Another cool thing is that each race has its own starbase design. There is so much more about this game that I don't know yet and I'm going to go play some more. Put simply this is an excellent game worth every penny if not more. It is great to see such an awesome game made for a system that really deserved it. I can only hope there will be more like it in the future. I hope the second run comes very soon so all can enjoy it and I wish CatBoxes were produced by a trustworthy company because I would buy more Jags and copies of this game in a heartbeat to get as many friends in Free-for-All mode as possible. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Where are the codes? Author: ETHunter Date: May 12, 2000 at 16:34:48 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Been wondering why there haven't been any postings of Battle- >Sphere codes yet. If there has been, I haven't seen it. >Surely, there must have been more discovered by now than just >the two I'm aware of - pilot eject and the one Fard listed. >Is everyone keeping them a secret? I thought the idea was going >to be for the codes to be posted with credit given to the person >who first found them. There was talk about credit being given to the first to find them but it never materialized. To help out a few of you and give you pilots a fighting chance, I'll post the code below that gives you another alien race and their ships. "INTRUDER" ALIEN RACE CODE: 874633746537 This will give you much better ships to fight with and will aid in your advancement. Oh, and one more thing...your welcome! ;-) Micah =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Rein BattleSphere Manual [CODE HERE] Author: Tennis (billions and billions served) Date: August 24, 2000 at 18:30:12 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II It's not a code; it's a key to seeing that the BattleSphere codes actually spell something when placing it through the phone pad. Look on the bottom right hand corner of the back cover of your BattleSphere Manual. You'll see this number: 37465-9687-87463 What does that spell? The ol' PG-13 BS slogan: "Drink your Urine." Fard Muhammad- Webmaster of the BSEC. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Nuon Gripe Author: BSB (52.216.6.64.reflexcom.com) Date: November 02, 2000 at 00:15:13 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Well, it's still early and there are still only a few >games confirmed as to what is being worked on. ScatoLOGIC >said they were developing for NUON once didn't they? There is zero zip nada null chance of a NUON edition of BattleSphere. Some people from old Atari just can't let go of the past. But before y'all make a stink, there are plenty of other people who can, so all you'd do is make their lives miserable. Please don't do that. BattleSphere's future, if it ever has one, lies elsewhere. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Re: Nuon Gripe Author: Thunderbird (pool-63.53.78.214.nwrk.grid.net) Date: November 02, 2000 at 03:39:03 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >I'm just curious... have you tried Sega? SegaNet seems like >the perfect thing for multiplayer. Let's put it this way: every place we ever try, and every contact we ever made absolutely LOVED the game and wanted BADLY to produce it. However, these people we seem to meet are not high up their company food-chains to actually be able to get us produced or get any money for us. It never gets past the "Wow! This is GREAT. Let me go tell my boss and we'll get you a contract." stage. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Re: BattleSphere / Star Raiders conversion Author: unused@my-deja.com (Scott Le Grand) Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 22:31:08 GMT Forum: alt.atari-jaguar.discussion >Will BattleSphere be ported over to the PC or Playstation? >They beefed up Pong. Why not a killer Star Raiders game? Well, since Hasbro doesn't own BattleSphere, that would leave Star Raiders since no opportunity to "beef up" BattleSphere on anything but our own time and till has ever been presented to us. Since we enjoy eating and paying the mortgage (highly recommended), such an effort is not exactly lightning fast. However, Hasbro has supposedly been developing an updated Star Raiders for over a year. Since nothing has been heard of it since 1998, one might guess that they are encountering "difficulties". Since they just had a massive round of layoffs, one might hypothesize about what has become of this effort but who knows for sure? Scott Le Grand Lead Coder BattleSphere ObPlug: BattleSphere was developed under Linux. Aren't we cool? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jag Encryption =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: JAG BAG - Jag emulation Author: Thunderbird (pool-207-205-162-202.nwrk.grid.net) Date: December 16, 1999 at 16:36:45 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >>If you could disassemble the boot ROM, would there be >>anything stopping you from porting the section that >>performs encryption validation to 80x86 code, then using >>that version to brute-force the checksum for a ROM image >>at speeds far in excess of 8 Jags? > >Better, I won't have to try every combination, it will >encrypt it right the first time. Don't hold your breath though. I won't, since you WILL have to try every combination. It will NOT encrypt it right the first time unless you rewrite the code as an ENcoder (right now all you have is a DEcoder). Also, the code which everyone is going ga-ga over runs on different processors at once and is very large. Manually converting to X86 is possible but you're converting a TON of RISC code to X86 which is very difficult because of the SIZE of the code which makes it time consuming for the programmer, AND the dearth of registers in the X86 (Intel Sux) and the Big-endian/Little-endian differences in processors. You'd have more luck writing a GPU emulator. But doing all that is a big pain in the butt. Thunderbird 4Play =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: JEO Vol 3 Issue 1 Dealing with BS encryption Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-0-142.nwrk.grid.net) Date: March 27, 2000 at 15:33:25 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >I was just wondering why they had to setup the encryption >process they did since according to the below statement >they already had the key and software to do it. They were >just waiting on Hasbro to make the Jag public domain. Just >wondering and thought it was interesting. Because we were going on the word of someone at Hasbro that they had everything we needed, they just needed permission from the top brass. As it turned out, it was all a lie. Probably constructed to piss us off. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Hardware Encryption Bypass Author: Thunderbird (pool-209-138-169-230-nwrk.grid.net) Date: December 01, 1999 at 20:58:38 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Hey t-bird, I asked you about the encryption, I wasn't referencing your message. You have a legitimate question. I was referring to someone on ICQ apparently trying to create friction against 4Play to promote another encryption scheme already ruled out by 4Play almost 2 years ago (for various reasons). >It was not a shot. However, don't you think that it is >strange that a good amount of the time is up and it still >has not been cracked. I check here every day expecting to >see a post so I still have my fingers crossed. You have to understand that my scheme works like those old briefcase combination locks... remember the ones with 3 wheels with the digits 0-9 on them? If you start at 0-0-0 and try 0-0-1, 0-0-2, 0-0-3, 0-0-4, etc. eventually you open the lock right? Well, when you're trying 5-1-7, 5-1-8, 5-1-9, 5-2-0, etc. would you think it was strange that the lock didn't open yet? What if the owner set the combination to 9-9-9? It would take every try to open it, right? Well, that's where we are. >Talking about strange things, what do you think about this >"my copy of protector did not work, because the room was >cold". From my understanding this should not affect the >Jag or game at all. It seems like the I-war glitch. Good >thing 4-play is not going to use the bypass that might be >some of the problem. What do you think? Atari had a lot of problems with their bootup/initialization routines they provided to developers. There were several updates provided and they eventually got tired of developers being too lazy to use the new code and they made it a requirement to get approval from Atari. They never did say what the changes were in the code but my understanding was that the early code didn't work right on some Jaguars. Perhaps the people who wrote most of Protector didn't bother to update the init routines? That's my best guess. We'll have to wait until Carl releases more of his games to determine if the bypass is causing the problems or not. If all his games have the same problem then we can be pretty sure it's the hardware bypass. Thunderbird 4Play =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Hyper Force =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Jaguar Hyper Force news Author: Posted by Carl Date: March 18, 2000 at 09:47:42 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Songbird has good news and bad news regarding the impending Hyper Force release for the Jaguar. The bad news is: Due to minor production delays and real-life obligations requiring me to be out of town for a number of days, the official release date of Hyper Force is being moved to April 10, 2000. I apologize to a number of customers who will have their shipment delayed as a result. The good news is: I will have the "first wave" of pre-orders sent out by Monday. Due to the aforementioned obligations, I will not be able to mail all pre-orders early as originally intended. Your understanding is greatly appreciated. Also, quite a few pre-order customers have not yet sent in their balance, so their copy of Hyper Force will be held pending that payment. Please send your balance in ASAP to avoid further delays in your shipment. Finally, Skyhammer is still slated for a May 2000 release. This is a great time to be a Jaguar fan! Thanks, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Hyperforce Review... Author: Dan Date: March 21, 2000 at 00:04:31 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II As I've mentioned, I received Hyperforce today in the mail. Here's the review. (feel free to copy and post this where ever you please by the way all you site owners. Just tell me that you did it.) I was quite happy to get the package and spent a good three minutes trying to rip it open. Finally, the priority box opened and I pulled out the lovely looking Hyperforce box. Of all the Songbird releases, the front of the box is the most appealing one so far. The graphic is bright and uses all types of colors. The words HYPER FORCE look absolutely stunning and my expectations of the game started to climb much higher then originally anticipated. I removed the cartridge and the instruction manual. Where'd the color go? The same HYPER FORCE graphic which looked so incredibly cool on the outside of the box seemed to blend right in with the black of the manual. The cart was almost the same way. If you look at it from about 10 feet away, it appears to say HYPCN TONLE. Oh well. That doesn't really matter in the long run. I plugged in the cartridge, turned on the surround sound and was immediately blown away by the stunning opening music! I don't remember hearing the music on the JagFest video, and if it was there it didn't sound this good! I happily pressed the "fire" button awaiting my first mission. The screen went blank and... it stayed blank for about five seconds. I hit another button, fifteen seconds... blank. Thirty seconds... tried the reset buttons... what the... Manually restarted the game. Game loaded 100% fine. Funny things our Jaggys are. I commenced running around. At first I thought the game looked like a version of Metroid with large graphics. Unfortunately, no. The control is extremely touchy and whenever you crouch the screen immediately drops at a high rate. UuGgHh! If you hit down too much, the game starts to look like a ride on a tilt-a-whirl... The jumping/flying thing gets kinda annoying too. After the jerky crouching, the jerky flying doesn't help control much. It's really too bad because this is the only thing that caused me trouble in enjoying the game. Your hero is very big, but unfortunately he isn't animated nearly as well as the rest of the game. The enemies on the other hand are large and animated extremely well. I also like how most of them operate. Many of them resemble cartoon animations and not video games. Unfortunately, since you are so freakin' big along with the enemies, it's very hard to avoid them. Some things that are indestructable are nearly impossible to pass as your guy bounces back whenever he hits them. This size/bouncing imbalance makes it quite annoying to pass certain areas. You must either run and hope you get it after two or three blitzes, or wait and try to time it just right. Most of the time, you're timing is off. I kept playing of course and was quite happy to find out that even with the sloppy controls I could still get along in the game and find a lot of redeeming qualities. I played until the third or fourth level, at which point I had to leave the house. I am still impressed with the games music. I found out you could save, but I haven't tried this yet -- a definite plus for a game like this. I liked Soccer Kid a lot but the stupid codes for countries was just too much for me. The game is well paced with both puzzle solving and platforming tasks. Unfortunately, most of the puzzle solving is the "throw the switch" or "get the key" type of thing that is in so many video games, but HF's puzzles seem to be a little more easy to find and balanced. It's platforming action on the other hand is what I would expect from a game of the genre. The only thing I was disappointed in was an inability to jump instead of using your blasters. It makes some things harder to do. Once I was used to the controls, the game had stopped making me sick. It surprised me by being better then I originally thought it would be when I ordered it, and it is a good attempt to fill a void in the Jag's "adventure" category. While it is only a mediocre game, with the recent rash of Tomb Raiders and other horrific 3D adventure games, it's pretty darn good. dan =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Hyperforce Review... Author: Carl Date: March 21, 2000 at 07:02:50 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Where'd the color go? The same HYPER FORCE graphic which >looked so incredibly cool on the outside of the box seemed >to blend right in with the black of the manual. The cart was >almost the same way. If you look at it from about 10 feet >away, it appears to say HYPCN TONLE. Oh well. That doesn't >really matter in the long run. The Hyper Force logo appearing on the box cover was not available at the time of the label/book production, sorry. Instead, a graphic was captured from the title screen, which, while not perfect, at least matches the game. >Your hero is very big, but unfortunately he isn't animated >nearly as well as the rest of the game. The enemies on the If I would have had the source, I would have definitely improved the size/animation of the hero. It's OK, but not as fluid as it could have been. >I kept playing of course and was quite happy to find out that >even with the sloppy controls I could still get along in the >game and find a lot of redeeming qualities. I played until the Yes, the game is fortunately forgiving when it comes to damage to your hero (unlike Aircars, where you get blown away every few seconds!). >I am still impressed with the games music. I found out you >could save, but I haven't tried this yet -- a definite plus for >a game like this. Absolutely. The game saves are critical later in the game. >Once I was used to the controls, the game had stopped making me >sick. It surprised me by being better then I originally thought it Thanks for the honest opinions and kind words on Hyper Force! Carl Forhan Songbird Productions =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Hyperforce Review... Author: Jesse (logan241.modem.xmission.com) Date: March 21, 2000 at 08:12:13 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >I plugged in the cartridge, turned on the surround sound and >was immediately blown away by the stunning opening music! I >don't remember hearing the music on the JagFest video, and if >it was there it didn't sound this good! The music on the little AVI of Hyper Force that I downloaded from Songbird or Jagu-Dome immediately enchanted me, and was what first made me want to buy the game. Besides, it looked like a fun game. I can't wait to get it! Because a few others received it yesterday, I feel it is likely that I will receive it today (that's what happened with Protector, anyway). I hope so, anyway! This is going to be an AWESOME week! Hyper Force and Battle Sphere (two games with awesome music!) in one week! Admittedly, I've been waiting for BS for approximately five years longer than I have been for HF, but still.... ;) Jesse =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Woohoo, Hyperforce! Author: Kevin Date: March 21, 2000 at 14:38:05 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Just had to share that I got my copy of HyperForce in the mail today! Yes! I'm about to go and give it a good playing, but the box-art does look quite excellent. Time to go crank it up, -Kevin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Woohoo, Hyperforce! Author: Carl Date: March 21, 2000 at 14:47:06 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Just had to share that I got my copy of HyperForce in the mail >today! Yes! I'm about to go and give it a good playing, but >the box-art does look quite excellent. Thanks, Kevin! Tony F. did a great job of depicting my humble suggestions on what the action should look like. I was quite pleased with the end result. Carl =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: HyperForce... Just that good!!! Author: JaguarGod (CLEVA010-0998.splitrock.net) Date: March 21, 2000 at 15:28:27 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II I have been playing HyperForce since I arrived home from work and found it in the mailbox. My wife and children are not home yet, and I simply can not stop playing this game. In my opinion, the Jag finally has a great platformer. (yes I did like Rayman, but I did not think it was great). From the HUGE characters to the SUPER-SMOOTH movement, this is a very positive game for the Jaguar. I can't get over the size of the characters! Carl, this is a great game with a lot going for it. This is the one I was really waiting for, and it is a thousand times better than I could have hoped. Thank you so much for keeping the Jaguar alive, and for all you have done personally for the Jaguar community. Jason =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Got Hyperforce! Author: Justin Date: March 21, 2000 at 17:40:38 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II All I can say is .. wow! Totally not what I was expecting.. Don't get me wrong, I was looking forward to all the new games, but for some reason, was not looking forward to getting Hyper Force as much as the rest.. I guess I just had heard enough "mediocre" talk that it was like "ehh, ok." But I got it today and wow! It's a LOT of fun, even if I AM totally lost on the 4th level. ;) The graphics are very VERY crisp and fast and clean, the control is really pretty dead on (IMHO, I know some people don't agree), the music goes great... I think this may be my favourite Songbird release yet! (while I love Protector, I have always been horribly bad at Defender type games... and Soccer Kid is cute but tough [still can't get past the first boss!]) Box art is really impressive, too. But it's fun to have an old fashioned shooter that's quite well refined considering the situation (picked up after it was abandoned, released as is, etc). If anyone remembers the game Obliterator on the Atari ST's and Amigas, it is a LOT like that. And that was always one of my favourite games on the ST... While I have only played the game for about 15 minutes, it's GREAT. While it's nothing earth shattering in graphics or gameplay, it's incredibly solid and a great addition to the Jag library. Kinda like Pitfall in that sense (nothing new, but really well done.) Thanks, Carl! Justin (off for dinner and then more HF :) Maybe I can find my way out...) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Hyperforce received! Author: Bones Date: March 21, 2000 at 18:24:46 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Woo Hoo! Got it today, and so far, so good. I figure most people will have plenty to say on the positive side, so here's a few nit picks: Option menu: Downright cheesy. Looks like the font on my BJL! "Purchase" screen: Really hard to read the prices on here. Then again this is on my composite monitor, but that tends to sharpen, not dull the image. I'll have to try it on my big screen TV and see how it looks there. Map: Non-existent! It'd be nice to have a mapping option when you get lost deep in the levels. Other than that it's great. Graphics are sharp for the most part, and the controls don't bother me like other posters have mentioned. I love flying around and looking for secret passageways, good platform feature (: Thanks for another great addition to the Jag library. Next stop BattleSphere! Stop after, Skyhammer! Bones =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: I love HyperForce! Author: Shaggy Date: March 22, 2000 at 15:04:43 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II I've been playing this since I got home from school, and I LOVE IT! Even my friends have been playing it and commented that it was a cool game. IMHO, one of the best platformers on the Jag by a long shot. Hey Carl, maybe there could be a soundtrack released or something? That music is so freakin' cool, sorta reminds me of BattleMorph. Thanks Carl, this is one awesome game! The Jag really needed more of these kind of games back in the day, probably would've helped it a lot... Adam =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Hyperforce - Yes!! Author: Carl Date: March 22, 2000 at 20:19:29 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >The options are also not described in the manual, so some are >still a mystery to me. Some are still a mystery to me, too. That's why they're not described in detail. :) I'd love to see someone write up a nice web page on the purchase screen for HF. Also, I'd love to see a Protector page that details a lot of the alien ships and what strategies you use to survive. >Thank you Carl. Very nice game, glad you decided to publish >it. Thanks! I'm very pleased with the feedback so far. Carl =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Protector =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Link to Protector Image that shows Copyright 1998 Carl Forham Author: Carl (socks1b.rochester.ibm.com) Date: November 30, 1999 at 13:29:30 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Please note my last name is spelled "Forhan", thanks. >This copyright banner seems to have been removed from the >final Product for some reason. That's because the copyright was a placeholder and not accurate for the final product. >Also, what 8 bit machines was protector released on? I thought >Protector was a Jaguar exclusive. I was surprised when I saw >the 1989 copyright date. Protector was originally known as/ported from Datastorm, IIRC. I think it came out on the Atari 8-bit, or maybe it was an old Amiga. I'll have to dig through my email archive to know for certain. Carl =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Protector Ported from Datastorm Author: Ow! Ow! Ow! I forgot my Protector... (dynamic63.pm01.santa- cruz.best.com) Date: November 30, 1999 at 15:08:42 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >That may be so, but the Atari 8bit version came first. It >*was* called Protector in the US, and was distributed by >Synapse software. Protector and Protector II were written by Mike Potter who also wrote Chicken, Nautilus, Shadow World, Imperial Walker, and Sands of Mars. I bought both of these games. They were a cross between Defender and Choplifter where you fought baddies but also had to pick up good guys and move them to safety before they were killed by aliens or by a volcano. And the guy who ported Protector II from the 800 edition now works for VM Labs. In contrast, the Protectors was a short-lived Gerry Anderson series with Robert Vaughn, Tony Anholt, and Nyree Dawn Porter. And if you remember this series, you're really really old... And if you know where my handle comes from, then you're also a hopeless geek as well as older than the hills... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: PROTECTOR... better than I had hoped. Author: Marshall (user-2ivfl3d.dialup.mindspring.com) Date: November 30, 1999 at 23:29:40 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Well, like many here, I received PROTECTOR today, and have been playing it since I came home from work tonight, and to be quite honest, it's frankly better than I had hoped. Unlike what I feel is a lot of you, I really liked Defender 2000, regardless of the fact that success in it depended largely on playing by the scanner (I find myself wanting to use the scanner more than I have to in PROTECTOR), it looked and animated nicely, had decent tunes and multiple gameplay modes. While PROTECTOR might not have all the notoriety of a D2K (thanks largely to the YaK), what it does have is dead-on control, nice graphics (not pastel & gaudy like many in D2K) and good sound (am I the only one who gets reminded of the classic movie 'the Fly' whenever a human is abducted?). It just feels right, like a true update to Defender. It stays true to the formula where D2K strayed in areas, and the areas where additions to the gameplay are made, like the Meteor Showers, only intensify the gameplay. The power-up system is handled nicely as well, and the game is truly difficult enough for you to take a beating, but it also makes you want to keep coming back for more. As for the box & instructions, well, this is truly standout work to all those involved (Carl, Kevin, Doug and the artist Tony Ferguson). If not for the sad but necessary omission of the Atari 'Fuji' you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference. Congratulations Carl on a job extremely well-done. My only question is, when can I send in the balance on Soccer Kid ;) Marshall PS. Hmmm, $20 in Songbird Coupons. What to do, what to do... LYNX GAMES!!! :) Life is good for the Atari faithful (all I need now is the IS2 Cart and those CatBoxes...) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Nitpicky Protector Lover and Critic Author: Dough (dialup-209.245.39.231.SanDiego1.Level3.net) Date: November 30, 1999 at 21:49:28 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II That's right. I love to explore the intricacies of a good game. Protector more than qualifies. The gameplay has captured me. The gameplay can not be overstated here. D2K never had me feeling this compelled to give it another go once my game ended. I am proud of each new level I make it to and each one of Carl's high scores I wipe out ;-) (So far, I am only up to 7th high score :-{ ) I think the "Ye old Shoppe" is perfectly adequate. It serves its purpose in adding a strategic component to the game. If Carl had expanded on the shop, I think it would have been a little silly. The government sent this guy as the only defender for the outpost, so how come he has to stop and shop for his own weapons? How come the only remaining debris from an enemy ship explosion is the local currency? I guess I like the shop's implementation as-is. I love to stock up on shields baby! Shields! Buy them cheap! There's a sale on shields! It's getting close to meteor season, so don't forget to stock up on shields! Available at all "Ye Old Shops". With over 40 convenient locations throughout the solar system! Ask for it by name! I love the backgrounds I've seen so far. Cool indeed. Again, better than D2K, in my opinion. D2K had too much distraction for me. So what would I change then? Well, the control configuration screen is a bit rough for me, because it seems quite touchy as I rotate the different combinations. Also, speaking of controls, it's been hard for me to NOT expect to be able to maintain my shooting direction as I maneuver my ship ala-D2K. While that's probably just a matter of breaking an old habit, I kind of miss that. Also, unless you reset the game, it will never return to the title screen. Not a big deal, just odd. One can also not reset from the wave select screen (even though the manual tells me I can reset anywhere in the game ;-) Another completely insignificant item: Why is there a small group of color- cycling pixels in the extreme lower left corner of the screen? Curious. And yes, I have been having "the blank screen" thing. For me it seems to occur more often with the CD player than without, but that may be an incorrect perception. It has been only a very slight delay in my Protector fun, however. The only instances of slowdown I have seen are when I use a smart bomb on a screen filled with a lot of baddies who, upon destruction, not only erupt with their beautiful explosions, but also "give birth" to a number of smaller baddies while releasing power-ups too. It does not hamper game-play at all, due to its extreme brevity. Thunderbird, upon extremely close scrutiny, I can find only one nitpick for the box. This may be more due to my ignorance of formatting protocol. On the back of the box, after the game synopsis, there is a bullet list of game features. Each one is preceded with an asterisk. Only one item in the list is two lines long. I think that perhaps it would have looked better if the first letter of the second line was aligned below the first letter in the line above and not below the asterisk. Just like my nitpicks to the game itself, I had to try to be extremely anal to come up with this. BTW Thunderbird, what is that small white space on the bottom of the box for? UPC? Holographic Jaguar sticker? ;-) Now that's some super minor nitpicks huh? Golly, I love this game!!! In fact, I am going to go play it again..... -Dough =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Prot... Wha...? Author: Carl (pmroch7-113.rconnect.com) Date: November 30, 1999 at 20:37:02 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Anyway, I won't bore everyone with the same, "Protector is >great!" stuff. Instead, I'd like to nitpick a little. And I'll Don't worry, I never have a problem with a thoughtful critique! >1. CEF for every high score? Carl, couldn't you have made >up a few high score names?? Oh, like PAT, SAM, TAT, TED, >GOD, BZO, YAK, KEV... Shoot, I hardly ever use my own >initials on the lower scores. :-) Really, that wasn't vanity! Honest. The game was defaulted to AAA for every high score, and it was easy to change that to CEF. Changing each entry to a unique value was certainly doable, but a lot more effort. >2. I like the parallax scrolling, BUT: Some parallax stars >would have been cool too. Agreed. I had at one point thought about adding more layers, like several ground layers. Again, doable, but a lot of work for a "[long] nights & weekends" project. Might be nice if a sequel was ever made, though. >3. Could the title screens been done in a higher resolution >or with more colors? Some kind of animation on the title >screen would have been cool. I was giddy when I saw the >Songbird logo! Too cool! :-) See above. >4. Not really a nitpick, but man, it's hard to get those >powerups sometimes! Consider yourself fortunate. A few months ago, you'd almost never get a powerup in the game! I stepped it up by a factor 4 or so. >5. I had hoped this would be included, but it wasn't: No >shooting of the meteors allowed? Drats. Hey, a few of the foes have to be pretty tough, you know... ;-) >6. The "shop" part could have used a little character. I >always think of the dude from Hydra when I think of a shop. Did I mention my limited time and paltry art ability? =) Fair enough, the shop could have been enhanced quite a bit. >1. The ship looks just like a Viper from Battlestar >Galactica! I've always wanted to fly one of those puppies! I thought that, too. >2. Eyes glued to the game, not the scanner. Just the way it should be! >3. It's FAST! I'm still taking it a little easy because >I'm used to getting vexed in one shot with D2K, but I forsee >some fast & frantic blasting in the near future! :-) >4. The whole package is amazing. I commend everyone involved >it producing it. It's such a good job, I hope we don't get >let down with future releases! There was clearly an advantage (cost-wise) to being able to buy parts and printing all together. Hard to say what would happen with future games if only one was being released. >Thanks Carl and everyone else involved. Protector is >something to be proud of. I am absolutely thrilled to have been able to bring Protector out on the Jaguar. Enjoy! Carl =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: I am now Protected Author: Stephen Anderson (a14s160.neo.rr.com) Date: November 30, 1999 at 16:27:19 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Excellent - I received Protector today (and Atari Karts >yesterday), and I don't have to go to work either - I'll >post my thoughts on the game after I get some play time. >The box and manual are excellent though! > >Stephen Anderson Well, I must admit it - I suck!!!!! I was never a good Defender player, and man does it show. This game is pretty tough! Graphically, it is well above average. I have not experienced any slowdown yet, even in the middle of a meteor shower (very cruel addition to the game). It must be because I am used to Defender 2000, but I am having trouble adjusting to how fast the ship stops, but I'm sure I'll adjust. Overall, this is a very professional package. Carl did a great job finishing up the game, and T-Bird did a great job on the box. Kevin - the manual is awesome, and I am jealous - I have never had my name in a video game before:( Protector is definitely a game worth showing off, especially to those who are not familiar with the Jag. I love the number of enemies on the screen at once during the intro screens. Makes me wish the Jag's library was 85% excellent 2D games. It is quite obvious this is what the system was designed for (sprite manipulation) - too bad it only has 2MB ram. This game is perfect for the arcade joystick I made for the Jag some time ago. Even the pro-controller cramps my hands relatively quickly - the joystick is lap sized, and nearly indestructible. Stephen Anderson - very happy - I got to open TWO new Jag games in the past two days!!!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: No probs w/ Protector.. 'cept it's hard! Author: Justin (sc-24-31-59-48.socal.rr.com) Date: December 01, 1999 at 19:10:00 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Well, after reading all the "problems" with Protector, and knowing my Jag/JagCD combo is one of the few (only?) that has the exact same problem with Zero5 (Z5 will NOT play unless the Jag has been on for at least 30 minutes prior!!) I've been seeing if mine has any problems with Protector, and so far, no problems at all! Too weird... Game is lots of fun. Really is what I wish Defender 2000 would have been. Of course, D2K has more eye candy (no offense intended to Protector), but I really get into Protector. Did have a strange logic situation come up, I finished level 6 and right as it played the "Well done" sound effect, a rogue shot hit my ship and it blew up. The game stuck me back at the beginning of level 6. :( Oh well, not a huge deal (except I'm having trouble getting past that one! :) (hope this makes sense, I'm still fighting this stupid flu) Great game!! If you haven't ordered it yet, be sure to!! Justin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: PROTECTOR KICKS SOME SERIOUS @$$! Author: Jonathan J. Hunt Date: 1999/12/03 Forum: rec.games.video.atari Excellent job all around! Thanks so much for you long work on this Carl -- it was worth it. Thanks also for the coupons & Jag pin -- it's so cool -- it's going on my jacket right away. Here's my review (note: I've only played it for like two hours -- I got 125,000 & reached level 8): Packaging: 10 This is just as good as any professional release Jag game. Box, cart, label is all authentic. The cart is the standard Jag type, box fits right in with all the others. Good instructions, cool label. The cart was even wrapped in one of those plastic baggies! Coolness. The only thing different is that the cart was wrapped with bubble wrap rather than in one of those flimsy cart holder thingys. I'm sure the bubble wrap offers better protection anyway. (Gee, we never used to rate the packaging of a game, did we?....) Graphics: 9.5 Very fast & very smooth. Great explosions. Great animation. I really like the player's ship design. Cool looking enemies. Cool hyperspace effect. The action gets real hectic real quick! Beautiful backgrounds. Nice parallax scrolling effect. I love the planets & space scenes in the background. The only reason this isn't a 10 is that it would make things easier if the objects on the scanner were different colors to help identify them. Sound effects: 10 I've never been very critical of most games sound effects. What I can tell you is that everything sounded good to me. Nothing was out of place or got annoying after a while. It was all good here. I really like the "Help me's" when a humanoid gets abducted & the "Medic!" when you blow one away. Music: 10 What can I say, it's right up there with Tempest 2000 & Defender 2000. Excellent techno music. Very well done. I'm recording it to a cassette tape to listen to in my car! (Carl, besides the main title track, how many different in game tracks are there & how far into the game do you have to go to hear them all?) Game play: 9.5 Idunno, maybe it deserves a 10. I did just get it after all & only spent 2 hours with it so far but the difficulty seems a tad bit on the high side but it's not so high as to be unplayable by any means. I am new to it & an old time gamer -- I'm no good at most new games. It's a blast to play, that's for sure. I really like the way power ups are used. In most games you use them to build up unbelievably high fire power/defenses, then when you die & start over with nothing you've got no hope & it's basically game over unless you luck out & grab a few power ups right off the bat. In Protector power ups are used to either purchase after a level or automatically upgrade your ship during game play. What you use them for are shields, hyperspace jump capability (a good one to have!), smartbombs, extra ships & rapid fire (not that your ship normally doesn't fire pretty rapidly). That's why Protector is so playable, they're used very reasonably. Replay value: 10 Just like all good classic games. Fun Factor: 9 This to me is an overall score of how much I enjoy playing the game. I guess it depends on how much you enjoy Defender-type games. I love them but the difficulty of them always a little more than I'd like. While I love Defender- style play there are other types I enjoy more so for me it's a 9. Average: 9.7 That's after my first impression. Needless to say I'm very pleased. Now, on to the inevitable comparison to Defender 2000: I'd rate them both at about the same level of excellent quality. One could spend countless hours nitpicking both games, there's some areas where the graphics of D2K are cooler, some where Protector's are cooler. Overall, what with the far nicer player ship design on Protector than either the Plus or 2000 mode on D2K, the fact that Protector only scrolls horizontally like the original, & that Protector's powerups don't get carried away I say Protector comes closer to capturing the spirit of the original Defender. D2K, on the other hand has three different version of Defender, including about the funnest port of the original I've ever played & Plasma Pong as a hoot is a total riot. Final thought, both are EXCELLENT & different enough to justify buying both of them. Thanks again to Carl & all involved in bringing this instant classic to the Jag. I truly appreciate all your work. Later, JJH PSubject: Anyone, help me understand something, if you could. Why was Protector able to avoid the encryption road block that still has BattleSphere hung up & why can't BattleSphere avoid the issue the same way Protector did? >>==--> Jonathan | E-mail: csjjh@eiu.edu <--==<< >>==--> Jax | To send e-mail please make sure you use <--==<< >>==--> Hunt | this address - my news reader messes up. <-- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: I KICKED PROTECTOR'S @$$! I'M THE KING OF THE JAG! Author: Jonathan J. Hunt Date: 1999/12/05 Forum: rec.games.video.atari :) Well, kinda. I managed to defeat the boss on the easy level (was it after level 10?) which ended the game & rewarded (punished?) me by unlocking the Insane difficulty mode! My Score was 187,900. The boss was really cool. My only hint on defeating it: use a ProController & have that finger on the index button! I managed to (I think) get past the first level on Insane (you start out on level one with no humanoids & a screen full of mutants!) & on the radar it looked like the humanoids were replaced but when I got to one it was this big mechanized thingy - not friendly, I think... Can someone help me figure something out? Here's my impression: To complete a level you have to do it all on one life. If at any time you die, including after the wave during the meteor shower or attack of the red ships, you start all over & don't progress unless you beat the entire level on one life... Is that what everyone else is noticing? Yowzer! Anyone know how many different music tracks there are & what level you've got to get to to hear them all? I'm gonna record them to a cassette tape, they're cool! Are there any cheats or codes anyone wants to let out, Carl?... ;) JJH =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Protector easter-egg Author: Carl (pmroch7-57.rconnect.com) Date: December 03, 1999 at 18:20:15 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >I held down 3 and powered up like you're supposed to but >all it does is tell me that my cart is erasing. I almost >fainted when I saw that! I shut it off really fast and >when I turned it back on it works still so I got it quick >enough before anything was damaged. Whew! > >What I wonder is why would anyone put a self-destruct into >a cart like that and why would they make it so that would >be so easy for someone to trigger accidentally? > >Is this some kind of joke? I am not laughing! It's not a joke, nor will it erase your cartridge in any situation. It is simply an artifact of the process used to bypass the encryption -- the Jaguar has been "fooled" into thinking a flash ROM cartridge is inserted. Flash ROM carts can play unencrypted games on regular Jaguars. So basically just ignore the "Erasing" message -- it has no effect on any Songbird release. Sincerely, Carl Forhan Songbird Productions =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Phase Zero =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero Author: Keita Date: June 30, 2000 at 14:41:55 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Phaze Zero looks like quite a game. Very impressive looking >from the pics. Has anyone been playing the demo and what are >your thoughts? I sure would like to be able to play it, will >anyone like Songbird be able to distribute this game, I would >buy it even if it's not completed. Anyone want to sell a >functioning BJL Jaguar?? Phase Zero is far from finished and it's really bad. Only collectors and die- hard Jag fans would care to pay money for it. Carl would have a LOT of work to do to finish the game, if he cared to take on the task. Even then, the game is fundamentally not a good one so it's probably not worth the effort. Skyhammer in comparison was much more polished, playable, viable and near completion when Carl bagged it. I think Santora, Scott L. and others can vouch for me on this. - Keita =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero Author: Mark Stingray Santora Date: June 30, 2000 at 15:14:40 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Phase Zero suffers from a lot of problems. 1. It's letterboxes and still has a crappy frame rate with no horizon. The only way to play is to follow along the guide arrow that points you to the next target. 2. It's buggy. Noticed by the level 5 game hang. There are more levels. 3. There is about as much depth to the gameplay as a teaspoon. Goto A, touch it, end of level. Goto A then B, end level, or return. Come on guys, I've seen Pascal code that's better than this. No wonder Atari didn't want to publish it. 4. The network code is unfinished - and what is there supposedly was written with much help from the gang at Scatologic. (you know, 4Play). Basically, it's an interesting graphics demo, and based on it Sony brought the Hyper Image guys in-house to make two games on a huge budget - and they are supposedly so bad even Sony won't publish them. I TRIED to get it out before JagFest for the guys down there, but got swamped. SO I put it up so someone (most likely Carl) could load it into a Flash ROM and let people play it at CGE2k - which I will not be at this year... -Mark =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero Author: Carl Date: June 30, 2000 at 18:13:50 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Phase Zero is far from finished and it's really bad. Only >collectors and die-hard Jag fans would care to pay money While Phase Zero clearly has some problems (level 5 bug, as Mark and others have pointed out, and yet the game is supposed to have 8+ levels built in it), I wouldn't be quite so harsh. I look at the game and think, "This is what Aircars should have been like." It has more interesting terrain, a frame rate that is almost TOO fast (I find myself sometimes whirling out of control like you can in Jag Doom occasionally), really cool enemies/explosions, and no annoying "Target Destroyed" voice. =) But I'd like to hear more opinions on this game... Thanks, Carl =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero Author: Thunderbird (pool-207-205-160-65.nwrk.grid.net) Date: June 30, 2000 at 18:34:20 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Phaze Zero looks like quite a game. Very impressive looking >from the pics. Has anyone been playing the demo and what are >your thoughts? I sure would like to be able to play it, will It's an AWFUL, AWFUL game. Nice engine, graphics ranging from gorgeous to wretched. Gameplay ranging from laughable to painful. Save your money. (if it works on BJL, then it works on JUGS) Thunderbird =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero Author: Kevin Date: June 30, 2000 at 19:04:34 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Phaze Zero looks like quite a game. Very impressive looking >from the pics. Has anyone been playing the demo and what are >your thoughts? I sure would like to be able to play it, will I thought it was extremely impressive for an incomplete game. The game moves VERY rapidly and the explosions are really cool looking. Setting the trees on fire is a nice touch too. Basic "Go here and do this" gameplay that's been done 1,000,000 times before on the Jag, but it is no doubt above AirCars, HoverStrike, I-War, etc. At least the cockpit doesn't take up 50% of the screen in this game like in Skyhammer and Hover Strike to maintain a decent framerate. Sure it may be letterboxed but just barely. The smooth flowing terrain is awesome looking, and the fact that the water has movement is really impressive as well. If completed I'd say it'd be one of the Jag's best, despite what T-Bird obviously has against the developers. -Kevin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero Author: Kevin Date: June 30, 2000 at 19:06:38 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Forgot to mention that it uses Q-Sound too. Very realistic simulated surround sound from only 2 speakers. The only Jag game to use this in gameplay, AFAIK. Well done. -Kevin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero Author: BSB (dynamic48.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: June 30, 2000 at 20:48:58 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Phase Zero is far from finished and it's really bad. Only >collectors and die-hard Jag fans would care to pay money >for it. Indeed, it's nothing more than a 4 level demo that crashes on level 5... Nice engine though... >Carl would have a LOT of work to do to finish the game, >if he cared to take on the task. In fact, he would have to travel back in time and rescue it from the hyperimmature clowns who deleted all the source code. >Even then, the game is fundamentally not a good one so >it's probably not worth the effort. Skyhammer in >comparison was much more polished, playable, viable and >near completion when Carl bagged it. I think Santora, >Scott L. and others can vouch for me on this. It could have been a lot of fun. Some of their level ideas were really neat. Unfortunately, there were some serious ego issues as well so things fell apart. Scott =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero Author: Thunderbird (209.138.241.108) Date: July 01, 2000 at 08:14:09 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >The smooth flowing terrain is awesome looking, and the fact >that the water has movement is really impressive as well. The DEMO of the engine they wrote was equally impressive. It was perhaps BETTER than the game because it was smoother and didn't have enemy AI slowing it down. Unfortunately, in a year's time with Atari's money, they managed to make a game out of the demo that was less fun than the demo itself. >If completed I'd say it'd be one of the Jag's best, Well, if by "Completed" you mean they actually corrected the numerous faults AND put a GAME into it, then perhaps it would have been good. Considering that the developer to date has never completed a project, I don't think it would ever get done. >despite what T-Bird obviously has against the developers. I was critiquing the game, not the developers. There's a whole different subject. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero - 5th mission Author: Carl Date: November 09, 2000 at 21:35:52 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Hey, how many people have made it to the 5th mission on Phase Zero? I know the mission apparently does not end, but I've been trying my best to beat it anyway. ;-) The mission log indicates that not all foes will be visible. Perhaps this is a clue? By searching the entire map, I've found several pockets of enemies that don't show up on the 'directional indicator' radar. I just stumbled upon them. Makes me wonder if there are more I've still missed. If you follow the directional indicator, you'll only find two groups of enemies. You're supposed to find 8 enemies total in this mission, again, according to the log. But by doing my random search, I found at least another 10-15 enemies to fight. The mission log also indicates that you should return to Nav Point A after completing the mission for retrieval. Makes me wonder -- should you destroy those pod-thingies on the ground at point A? Or should you keep them around for your 'extraction' later? Any thoughts on this would be great! The binary indicates there is text for 8 missions included in the game -- I'd love for Jag fans to be able to reach them. Oh yeah, look for some pics from two thought-to-be-forever-lost games (one Lynx, one Jag) coming in the near future! :) Carl P.S. - Thanks, Micah, for the tips on Phase Zero gameplay. I love rebalancing the shields, and using the extra weapons. Very cool! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phase Zero - 5th mission Author: BSB (52.216.6.64.reflexcom.com) Date: November 09, 2000 at 23:31:01 Author: ji2 >Hey, how many people have made it to the 5th mission on Phase >Zero? I know the mission apparently does not end, but I've been >trying my best to beat it anyway. ;-) According to Paul Good, there is a better binary cut of the game out there somewhere which includes snow missions with snowmen and igloos and such. What you really need is to figure out the mission index and skip mission 5 because it is indeed unwinnable... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Black Ice\White Noise =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: black ice/white noise Author: PBMaX Date: November 30, 2000 at 12:30:06 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II The source code exists, and I know exactly where it is. Unfortunately, due to factors beyond my control, I'm afraid it's destined to sit and rot for eternity. PBMaX =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: black ice/white noise and others lost games Author: BSB (52.216.6.64.reflexcom.com) Date: November 30, 2000 at 19:23:49 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Patience guys... Count on human guile and stupidity to ultimately make all of this stuff available... Just keep up the dumpster diving and it will eventually show up somewhere... And then somebody will try to sell it off... What would really help at this point is the incentive of a working Jaguar emulator. Since I know the two people at Atari that worked on BI/WN, I take their information as the most accurate one can possibly get. The coolest aspect of the engine (notice there is no game here and there never was) is that it could stream content off of the CD without any noticeable slowdown. The most uncool aspect of it is that there was no game. A game does not consist entirely of walking from place to place (although one could say this is an accurate description of Daniel Day Lewis in _The Last Of The Mohicans_). According to other ex-Atarian sources, the entire development budget outside of Atari was blown in nudie bars by the development team. I trust that source more than I trust the developers themselves. This is the compelling explanation as to why there was no game. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: black ice/white noise and others lost games Author: PBMaX Date: November 30, 2000 at 14:54:05 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II WHERE? - I once had my hands on a box containing 20 or so CD's that had various builds, source code, and multimedia from "Black Ice/White Noise". I know exactly where that box is, as I had to leave it in the very spot where I found it. Many, many other boxes full of other interesting things sit in that very place with it. WHY? - You see the contents of that box, and the piles of other boxes I got to search through that weekend; are not my property. The owner of that property is generally oblivious to what may be in said boxes. I made a very concerted effort to raise the owner's awareness of what they had in their possession. The owner was actually starting to care, and almost got to the point of authorizing me to do something with the contents of said boxes. Unfortunately, that's were the story ends as our relationship was severed without warning on Dec 10 of 1999. Some select items however, did manage to find their way out of their respective pile of boxes. Efforts are being made to make some of those items available to others. PBMaX =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: black ice/white noise and others lost games Author: PBMaX Date: November 30, 2000 at 19:52:18 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II I just explained to you (in a round about way) what is in the way of getting our hands on all kinds of cool stuff. I've seen it all and had it all in my hands. I don't know how close the game was to a final or anything like that, but I do know the builds, source code, and art resources for that (and many other unreleased games) are sitting all together in a pile of boxes. PBMaX =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// VR Headsets Discovered =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Anyone have the Prototype of the Virtual Reality thing for jag? Author: Visionik Date: 1999/11/24 Forum: rec.games.video.atari Yes, someone does... I held it in my hands and examined it just two weeks ago. It consists of the "helmet" and a controller unit that has a rather large (5" diameter) clear red "eye" which I'm guessing is used to track the user somehow, or perhaps for the wireless "joysticks" that were supposed to come with it. The controller unit connects to the DSP port on the Jaguar. The controller unit also has a Jag joystick port on the front, and what looks like a DSP "passthrough" port on the back, perhaps so you can chain other unreleased Jag DSP port devices. The prototype came in a box that also includes mock ups of the wireless "joysticks", basically just different shaped handles with a fire button on it. Unfortunately, the unreleased version of Missile Command 3D that works with the prototype was *not* in the box, so the prototype may or may not be working... there is no way to tell without some software to try it with. (rumor is that the Missile Command 3D carts that shipped do not have support for the VR helmet) Now for the kicker: the person who owns it is not a Jaguarite (he doesn't even own a Jag!). He's a full-size arcade game collector. I was over at his house to buy some rareish early 80's arcade games, and while moving those 200 pound particle board behemoths into the truck, I mentioned how much less physically demanding my home video game collecting hobby was ;-) He then asked me if I'd ever heard of the "Jaguar" (oh have I...), and within minutes I had in my hands the Virtuality Jag prototype. The kicker part 2: He bought it at an electronics surplus store in Silicon Valley!!! The store was next to a Fry's, and was named "Weird Stuff" or something like that. I've spoken with some other folks in the Jag developer community, we have absolutely no idea how it would have gotten there, but then we remembered -- this is Atari we're talking about, of course the only proto would end up at a surplus store. I may be back to buy some more games from him in December; I hope to bring my digital camera along and grab some pics to put up on the web. -Jonathan Taylor -Jag developer, "The Artemis Project" =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Jag VR (just in time for x-mas) Author: Ted (201.chicago-01-02rs.il.dial-access.att.net) Date: December 24, 1999 at 20:07:57 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Well I knew it was coming but didn't expect til 2nd week of 2K and much to my delight a huge box from overseas showed up today. I got the Jaguar VR Headset (prototype) w/ the controller. Anyone know of anyone else who has this? I've sent pics to a couple of people show they should surface after the holidays (if they put them on there sites). I'll be toying w/ it a lot in the upcoming weeks if I get it to work somehow i'll let you guys know, problem is the table-top transmitter is not populated so it'll take a miracle to get it to work. (i'm assuming, but hey I think it's a miracle I got it) The other surprise I got was a couple of Alpines, didn't know I was getting 'em. (also got developer console along w/ 3 Jags (pal), t-shirt, poster, mock-up VR Headset only says Virtuality across the front. So if anyone knows anything that could help me out please lmk.... Merry Christmas, Ted Rusniak =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Jag VR (just in time for x-mas) Author: Kevin (pm3-a-btv-b-p32.pcom.net) Date: December 27, 1999 at 20:34:28 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Hmm, could it be a Scuba I believe their called in "Jaguar >clothing", so to speak? With out a hands on inspection it's >hard to say. Someone with the right connections could take >the time to make a bogus copy but at what cost? It would be >farily easy to scan the Jag/VR logos and with the right >connections, cut out by a special printer/plotter set up >via a nice PC, in an adhesive vinyl but you could tell it >was made that way, if you gave it a little inspection. However >in a photo it would come across as "virtualy-real" LOL. >Forceman Ummm, no he also forwarded me the e-mail from the guy at Virtuality. Did I forget to mention they also sent him 2 Jag developer boards with it? Believe it or not, this is legit and I'm actually pretty happy that some of these are still around...unfortunately I'm not the one in possession of them, but what can you do ;-) -Kevin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Se: Jag VR (just in time for x-mas) Author: JagVR Boy (dynamic53.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: December 24, 1999 at 20:49:21 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Actually, one of them was apparently purchased from Weird Stuff Warehouse in San Jose for about $25. It is now in the hands of a collector who is alas well aware of what he thinks he can get for it... Expect it to show up on eBay one of these days. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Jag VR (just in time for x-mas) Author: BattleSphere Bob (dynamic25.pm01.santa-cruz.best.com) Date: December 29, 1999 at 09:56:45 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >>Does the transmitter box look like it had anything in >>it at one time? > >Yes, It appears that it was populated at one time. It has >a couple of screws on the rear inside that might have held >a board or something. Well, then it sounds like you're out of luck until you can figure out what went in there and reverse engineer it. As I remember, the whole mess plugged into the Jag's DSP port (correct me if I'm wrong guys), and that would mean they were screwing with the Jag's UART. That ought to be a bundle of monkeys to figure out. My best guess would be that they probably made a minimal version of the "Cortina" board which was to be their proprietary interface to a keyboard for making the Jaguar into a web browser. I only say this because Atari shared their best toys with their favorites and left just about everyone else out in the cold. Scott =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jag II Prototype Discovered =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Jaguar II Prototype Author: Curt Date: October 19, 2000 at 16:22:06 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II For those interested in seeing the Jaguar II prototype, I have just posted images up on the Atari History Site. Direct link to the Jaguar section: Curt =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Re: Jaguar II Prototype Author: Curt Date: October 20, 2000 at 07:15:24 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Well, What I'd like to do is take the unit to some of the shows coming up like PhillyClassic, CCAG so people have an opportunity to see the unit in person (pictures are nice, but its better when people can see the actual units in person) and then play a few games on it. Also I'll dump the boot eprom on the unit and put its .bin up onto the Jag II page in the coming weeks so that anyone interested in disassembling and looking through it may uncover some interesting info and facts on the Jag II. Curt =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Re: Jaguar II Prototype Author: Curt Date: October 20, 2000 at 16:23:47 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >>So were there any games/demos written specifically for >>the JagII architecture or is it backwards compatible with >>original Jag games? Just wondering what would be playable >>on it ;-) >Yeah, no kidding! Don't just drop details like that on us >then walk away... :-) >Carl Hmmm, The person who might be able to answer the question on demos and/or games with enhance Jag II capabilities would most likely be Yak himself. I have no information on games/demos for the Jag II and I'd kill for a copy of the Tech Reference Manual for the beast. However, the unit is backward compatible, I plugged in Tempest 2K and it came up with no hitch whatsoever. However either there is an overheat problem or just a problem with the design, but no matter what I do, the Jag II always locks up after 5 mins + of being on. At one point it just wouldn't come up at all and I let it sit, came back 10 mins later and after two attempts it came back up and worked again for nearly 15 mins and then locked up again. The cooling fan is rigged up to a separate power supply and the Tom II chip does get VERY warm, but not so much that it burns to the touch or anything, but it could use a killer heatsink and a larger fan for sure. Curt =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Re: Jaguar II Prototype Author: Curt Date: October 21, 2000 at 01:23:17 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >I'll check with John M. and see if he's still got his. If >so, I'll post the info for everyone. >P.S. - Jag II protos went through various stages, so while >I've seen the one you have, I've seen quite a few others >that are quite different in layout and design. I'll put >up info if I have the time, but I need to work on getting >commercial games to market first =) >- Keita Thanks Keita, I hope John M. still has his, he did as of Dec 99 so I'm hoping it is still lurking around. Yeah the Jag II also was in a more Jag 1 shape in a later revision, it looks more like this was done in this shape specifically for design reasons and not also for packaging reasons as it does not match the config of the JagDuo case that is shown in pictures on AGH, so I'm sure it went through several designs. If the tech ref man is still around someplace and you can get it, please post it, I know everyone will lose sleep that night reading through it! :-) Curt =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Alien vs Predator Prototype =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Alien vs Predator prototype Author: The Fallen Angel Date: September 14, 2000 at 20:45:06 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II I just got this about 15 minutes ago after coming home from a party at work...here are my thoughts. My God, this thing is cool. I booted it up, and it came straight to the Marine's interface - no title screen or options are present. The interface is unlike the release version, and identical to the prerelease screenshots given to magazines very early on in 1993. This was *definitely* an extremely early version, as the Predator I encountered has many more frames of animation than the released version, and the Alien I encountered looked completely different (less quality in the Alien, but somehow looked great). Shooting them made the Predator disappear into thin air by way of him accessing his wrist computer and kind of disintegrating, for the lack of a better word. The Alien simply stops mid- stride and doesn't move again for about 10 seconds. Then they start bugging you all over again. Think 'Red light, Green light'. I might mention there is NO sound, NO AI, and gunfire does nothing. No score is registered, the # and * do not work to reset the game, and you are only on Sublevel 2 for this prototype. Elevators do NOT work. You can select weapons, and oddly enough, weapon number 4 is a KNIFE. You can press the keypad for 1-3 and select them, but your weapon does NOT change on-screen accordingly. And you cannot press 4 and get the knife. This is indeed strange. Moving around the map, things were rather ripshod. Elevators were close together (I mean next to each other!), tiles for doors were varied, and it was just *strange* wandering around. I finally found my way to the door which took me to a room whose ceiling and floors were made up of computer terminals (and a different tile was used for the computer terminals than the released version, I believe). A massive room about the size of an entire map. I found a 'loose' tile and was able to access a LOT of strange things. There are tons of tiles in here that differ from than of the released version, including one that looks like a computer terminal that belongs in the Med Lab. A lot of doors also look different. And, of course, the Jaguar tiles that feature the likeness of the Jaguar from the bootup screen of the Jaguar system. Absolutely bizarre. I locked myself into an area and couldn't get out, so I booted down and that was that for tonight. I might mention that this prototype was very professionally packaged. Came in a black box that seemed to fit the proto perfectly, and was also padded by a spongy packing foam. Not sure whether this was Atari's or the seller's doing, but either way, I am pleased beyond belief with this purchase. Well worth it for a piece of history made even BEFORE the Jaguar's release. For the record, as the eBay listing said, this prototype looks to have been hand-assembled. The EEPROMs look to have been inserted into individual sockets, rather than soldered into the board itself. Truly wonderful. Again, this prototype had to have been made before really serious work was even done on the game. It seems they were just testing the boundaries and playing around, more than really settling down to make the game when they made this prototype. I believe this is definitely pre-alpha, and unbelievably early in development. (Mr. Seller, please correct me if I'm wrong.) Screenshots will be made when I can find the time to do 'em! Hope this gives an accurate description of my impressions of the prototype...more will be forthcoming if I find anything else interesting! - G =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Jag Chatter on Slashdot =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Ah, the Jaguar... (Score:3, Informative) Author: John Carmack Date: Saturday March 04, @09:18PM EST Forum: Slashdot com I actually dug up all my old jaguar development hardware to give to these guys a year or two ago. Unfortunately, it turned out that I had lost the C compiler that I had retargeted to the Jaguar RISC engines, so DOOM was no longer buildable. There is something noble about developing on a dead platform -- it is so completely for the joy of the development, without any commercial motivation. The quick recap on the Jaguar: The memory, bus, blitter and video processor were 64 bits wide, but the processors (68k and two custom risc processors) were 32 bit. The blitter could do basic texture mapping of horizontal and vertical spans, but because there wasn't any caching involved, every pixel caused two ram page misses and only used 1/4 of the 64 bit bus. Two 64 bit buffers would have easily tripled texture mapping performance. Unfortunate. It could make better use of the 64 bit bus with Z buffered, shaded triangles, but that didn't make for compelling games. It offered a useful color space option that allowed you to do lighting effects based on a single channel, instead of RGB. The video compositing engine was the most innovative part of the console. All of the characters in Wolf3D were done with just the back end scaler instead of blitting. Still, the experience with the limitations and hard failure cases of that gave me good ammunition to rail against Microsoft's (thankfully aborted) Talisman project. The little RISC engines were decent processors. I was surprised that they didn't use off the shelf designs, but they basically worked ok. They had some design hazards (write after write) that didn't get fixed, but the only thing truly wrong with them was that they had scratchpad memory instead of caches, and couldn't execute code from main memory. I had to chunk the DOOM renderer into nine sequentially loaded overlays to get it working (with hindsight, I would have done it differently in about three...). The 68k was slow. This was the primary problem of the system. You options were either taking it easy, running everything on the 68k, and going slow, or sweating over lots of overlayed parallel asm chunks to make something go fast on the RISC processors. That is why PlayStation kicked so much ass for development -- it was programmed like a single serial processor with a single fast accelerator. If the Jaguar had dumped the 68k and offered a dynamic cache on the RISC processors and had a tiny bit of buffering on the blitter, it could have put up a reasonable fight against Sony. Now the LYNX, on the other hand, was very much The Right Thing from a programming standpoint. A fast little processor (for its niche), a good color bitmapped display, and a general purpose blitter. Price and form factor weighed too heavily against it. John Carmack =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Ah, the Jaguar... (Score:1) Author: Thunderbird Date: Saturday March 04, @09:46PM EST Forum: Slashdot com ) Actually, I believe you're referring to Carl Forhan of Songbird Productions. He's the guy who you gave your development systems and DOOM source code to. He's been trying to come up with a revival of the DOOM code with another fellow. Carl is the guy who's been publishing an additional 4 "complete but never published" Jaguar titles which someone else here already mentioned. The problem you mention with the Jaguar being unable to run from system RAM was actually a bug in the memory controller. It was intended to be able to run from main RAM. There were quite a number of these (fairly crippling) bugs in the hardware, and we had to work around them to get BattleSphere completed. The fact that it runs at all is pretty amazing... (I'm not sure if this is something to be proud of or not.) Doug "Thunderbird" Engel BattleSphere Assistant Coder & Lead Artist Scatologic =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Ah, the Jaguar... (Score:1) Author: bvmcg Date: Sunday March 05, @08:07AM EST Forum: Slashdot com >The little RISC engines were decent processors. [...] the only >thing truly wrong with them was that they had scratchpad memory >instead of caches, and couldn't execute code from main memory. >I had to chunk the DOOM renderer into nine sequentially loaded >overlays to get it working (with hindsight, I would have done it >differently in about three...) Actually, you could execute code out of main memory. You merely had to be careful about crossing page boundaries because the instruction pointer wouldn't update properly. I'd say the biggest problem with the processors was Atari & Brainstorm's documentation. =) We manually paged pieces in for NBA Jam, White Men Can't Jump and Ruiner Pinball. Vid Grid sat entirely in one chunk on either RISC with the 68000 just facilitating major modes. (and you thought 64k games were gone!) For Dactyl Joust, we were using an automatic memory paging system which was started with Ruiner. This worked by augmenting function calls to load in each function in 256-byte chunks, as many as needed, and doing address fixups. Rarely-called support routines remained in main store, specially tagged to avoid being loaded in. (See above re: running from main RAM and crossing page boundaries. The addresses had to be guaranteed by creating a million sections in the link file. Can you say link file nightmare?) In the end though, C and eventually C++ use became pretty invisible (read easy and efficient) even on the GPU RISC processor. Going back and looking at Jaguar code again when I did Tempest/X3 for Playstation was a total trip. Even just a couple years later, I'd forgotten how fun/weird/ugly that beastie was. I honestly miss it though. I really do. For all its quirks (especially because of its quirks!) it was a great little box. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Ah, the Jaguar... (Score:1) Author: bvmcg Date: Sunday March 05, @04:21PM EST Forum: Slashdot com ) >Dactyl Joust? > >I thought that was one of those "Jaguar Urban Legends" >(a.k.a. marketing hype / vaporware) like MKII and Tiny Toons >Adventures.... Sure enough, it existed. It was far from finished, however. You could fly about the arena and bop, lance and fireball things. There was some rather simple enemy AI, sound and a few keen special effects. One of the nicer things was that it was RGB based, not CRY, and therefore rather pretty. Very careful manipulation of the shading let me still do some depth cues and use the green channel for some pretty wacky field effects. The game was probably half a year of solid work from completion. But at that point, everyone who could've paid for continuing development felt it was time to move on to Playstation, so both Dactyl Joust and TRF [Thea Realm Fighters - -Ed.] (Mortal Kombat style fighting game - I didn't know actual MK-II was in the works?) got shelved. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Kev's Kiosk =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: SCORE!! (brag) Author: Kevin (pm3-a-btv-b-p29.pcom.net) Date: January 02, 2000 at 12:53:36 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Well I went down to the local game store today and what did I find? A Jaguar Kiosk! So I ask the guy if he wants to sell it, he says yeah, and now it's here in my apartment! It even came with the SC1435 monitor, which B&C sells for $300...I paid less than that for the whole kiosk and monitor together! Woohoo! I'll take some pics and get it them up on JD soon. It came with some cool brochures and stuff so I'll get 'em scanned too. I'm psyched! -Kevin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Re: SCORE!! (brag) Author: Kevin (pm3-a-btv-b-p07.pcom.net) Date: January 02, 2000 at 14:54:22 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Hmmmm...something tells me there's more to the story than you >just walking into your local video game store and finding it. >Veee have vayz to make you talk. Feel free to email if you >don't want the public to know of your questionable tactics >for obtaining rare products. :) > >Micah Really, that's all there was to it. It happened so fast I couldn't believe it...I walked in, saw the Kiosk and went "WOAH!" to myself, walked around a bit and then non-chalantly asked him if he'd sell it. He said "Make an offer" so I did...he said "Cash?" I said "sure", I then proceeded to run to the closest ATM, withdraw the cash, then load it up into my Daytona and drive home with it sticking out the back. Just got done playing some Brett Hull Hockey on it! :-) Time to scan in some of the literature that came with it. -Kevin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Miscellaneous =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Manufacturing Costs Author: Thunderbird (pool-207-205-163-65.nwrk.grid.net) Date: December 21, 1999 at 03:32:25 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Just a quick question for all the developers out there. I had >read somewhere that it was cheaper to produce games on CD rather >than cartridge format. Is this true? If so, then why bother >selling the games in cartridge format rather than CD? Because: 1) Games have to be coded with the CD format in mind. Less RAM is available to the programmer because RAM has to be used for loading from the CD. Rewriting existing games could range from difficult to impossible, especially if there is no source code to the games anymore. 2) Fewer people have the CD. Sure, the people online here are super Jaguar fans and probably all have it, but the general public audience doesn't have the CD. 3) The CD needs to be encrypted to run on a production Jaguar (just like the carts) and the encryption tools were lost when Atari went under. The sheer size of the CD in terms of Megabytes means it is much much much more difficult to bypass the encryption. To this day NOBODY has successfully cracked the cart encryption (yet). And the problem has been worked on for quite some time. Imagine how long a CD would take... Thunderbird 4Play =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Interesting Jag M-Peg Info Author: Curt Vendel Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 04:29:11 -0500 Forum: alt.atari-jaguar.discussion,rec.games.video.atari I ran across this tonight, I don't know if the email address is still good, but this company was working on some Jag related MPEG software and who knows, perhaps they'd be willing to donate it into public domain: ~Subject: SUBSECTION - Atari [ Brainstorm is not continuing to develop their MPEG-Player for ] [ the Atari, really sad :o( Maybe somebody can help them ? ] From: laurent@brasil.frmug.fr.net (Laurent Chemla) Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1993 14:39:39 +0000 (GMT) Frank, Of course you're right. Raphael Lemoine replied quickly, directly online on Compuserve, and as the author of our MPEG software he's quite disappointed by the little interest there is about. As a commercial entity, Brainstorm is trying to sell his work. But this kind of work is not an easy thing to sell. A few developers asked us about our software, but couldn't pay for it. An easy solution would be to sell it to Atari Corp directly, and then developers could get it from Atari at low price. But Atari licensed Cinepak for this usage, and they aren't interested in buying our MPEG. So we decided to forget it for a while. Our MPEG runs at the same (or so) rate, not depending on the resolution. It uses some of our 'real time' dithering algorithms on Atari. Added to the work on the DSP coding, you can see it's a good piece of software Raphael did. But it's not enough for selling it as a Shareware library, because it doesn't handle P and B frames nor the sound, and we won't work on it if we can't expect to be paid for this work. I have personally written a few news about this software in Atari's Usenet conferences, but only got 3 mails in return, and nothing really exciting. Anyway, be sure we will tell you if anything new occurs about that. Laurent Chemla @ Brainstorm Curt =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Who wants to be a millionaire? Author: Big I Date: January 25, 2000 at 18:47:29 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Anyone see Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The question was: "Which of these brand names, translated into Japanese, means roughly, "prepare to be attacked": A. Atari B. Kawasaki C. Fujitsu D. Nikon Answer? ATARI! Heheh and here I thought it meant "go"... A was my FINAL answer though, cuz it was the only one I knew any sort of translation for in Japanese... hehe And to make this Jag related...uh... my university closed for the first time in my four years there due to snow...and the only thing that could cure my cabin fever was two words: Cannon Fodder. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Atarian Font for Download Author: JayEm Date: March 19, 2000 at 09:34:57 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II I found a great free font download site at www.1001freefonts.com and they have a font called Atarian, which is the same font used in the Atari logo...pretty neat I thought...the link below (which is http://www.1001freefonts.com/fontsaz/) will take you right to the index page where the font is listed, but you really should check out the whole page...beware though...there's lotsa popups... --JayEm members.xoom.com/offonline "A" Links, Atarian, near bottom.... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: BJL? Help a newbie please? Author: Thunderbird (pool-207-205-161-127.nwrk.grid.net) Date: March 25, 2000 at 09:05:19 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Forgive me for slowing down the conversation, but can someone >give me a rudimentary explanation of what these are and what >they do? Do these allow playing other games downloaded from a >computer? What are the benefits and where can I get these? The BJL is a "First Generation" addon which allows you to play homebrew games on your Jaguar. There are some cool games and demos which run on it. In order to use it, you must have a Jaguar that you're willing to modify, and the skills to solder chips and wires into a Jaguar circuit. You must also have access to an EPROM programmer, to make the program for the modification. After that, you can load your own games (commercial games do not work on the BJL). The "Second Generation" JUGS system performs the same functions as the BJL, and runs the same homebrew games, but has the advantage of not requiring your Jaguar to be dissected or modified in any way. Hence, it's portable (take it to a friend's Jaguar and play on that) and much easier for anyone to use (no soldering skills required). JUGS will be out shortly. Thunderbird ScatoLOGIC =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: The Atari Cake! Author: GreG Date: April 07, 2000 at 17:00:05 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Ok guys, I've been holding this as a secret for awhile, but the pictures are finally back, and I wanted to share this with you... I got married on March 11th, and we went to London for our honeymoon. (So, I delayed my BS shipment. Monday, monday, I tell you!) Anyhow, to make a long story short, the groom's cake (mine) had a nice big Atari symbol on it. Check out the link below for pictures! This was the most delicious cake I think I've ever had! And everybody had a piece! I wonder if that has any symbolic meaning? I have the greatest wife in the world to allow me to have an Atari logo on my cake! How many can say that? :-) Greg "Fruitman" George P.S. TAT will return... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Yesterday... Author: The UA (host71.north.iit.edu) Date: November 05, 2000 at 15:21:39 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II ...marks the 7th Anniversary of the Atari Jaguar's release. Fard =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Phear Author: Carl Date: July 15, 2000 at 09:02:25 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II >Hi Carl, >what about "Phear" aka "Tetrisphere" (N64). The Jag-Version >was already done years ago. I've heard that just the sound >was missing. Unfortunately, the developers of Phear have indicated that all Phear/Tetrisphere-related products are in the hands of Nintendo. They can't even supply me with the binary. How sad... Carl =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Once upon a Jaguar Secret! Author: Clint Thompson Date: December 01, 2000 at 00:07:01 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II For the almighty Jaguar Community - I come back from underground.. ==================================================== I noticed some saying : Why are people trying to HIDE stuff from the Jag community... and why can't they just tell us, show us, give us all this great and glorious stuff. Good question... I seem to wonder the same time to time. Would it not make everyone sick if I were to tell you it was possible to obtain several boxes full of prototype Jaguar2 hardware about 1 year ago, and for just about nothing? Yeah, it's a shame that MOTOROLA doesn't care to keep stuff more then 5 years at a time.. -It's called an ARCHIVE my friends.., just damn shame it took me 5 years too late to realize what they had- (it's also a shame no one else jumped on it besides me...) ((unless you did and were unsuccessful)) This is one fine example of why many secrets are held within. It's MORE disappointing to hear about a loss instead of a gain... (sick to stomach) makes you wish you didn't know about it at all instead of knowing about it afterwards. On the other hand, other people are "ONLY I CAN HAVE THIS" and no one else can, because I'm special and your not. I'm not sure why people are selfish, mind you, I'm not like that... It's not like I have excess numbers of VR headsets just to hand out... but if I had source code... (and didn't pay for it) I see of no harm but to release it to the OH SO MANY 200 or so current Jaguar fans that are active (from what I see) - which really isn't that much either...- a shame. Feel free to call up Motorola...(if you think I'm bluffing) I'm sure you'll hear the great news.... (sigh) (oh, I guess you would have to ask Curt Vendel or go to his site to retrieve the serial numbers on the chips as well! - Motorola will ask for them) =) ---and they said you couldn't reproduce a CatBox, HA!~ "Perhaps I had a wicked childhood" and "That's what I get for _thinking_ like a hacker!" Care for more secrets? (if that's what you really want to call them...) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: T2K rotary controller, a short review-2nd round Author: Gunstar Date: December 09, 2000 at 14:54:49 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II I received the T2K rotary controller in the mail today from JediJeff (jeff__t@juno.com or jeff__t@hotmail.com). When I first opened it I was surprised at the quality of the controller. This thing is well made and a lot of effort went into it. The only complaint I have is that the dial is not weighted, so it doesn't have that "arcade" feel to it. I have already fixed this by taking it off, putting about 8 quarter- inch lugnuts in it and then pouring in hot candle wax to hold them in place. It works and feels great now. Upon opening the case(I always open stuff up to see how they were engineered and designed) I noticed it is all either original jag controller parts or high quality electronics inside. The case itself seems to be made of a lightweight but sturdy plastic, which has been professionally coated with some kind of flat black paint (similar to the original Lynx case). On top of the dial is a really cool holographic sticker of a Jaguar, similar to the "seal of approval" stickers found on game boxes published by companies other than Atari. This is an extremely responsive controller that makes T2K a *lot* more fun to play. One plugs a controller into port 2 to make it easier to go through the menus and to do the bonus levels (except for the green path level, which uses the rotary control, and is almost too responsive, but I'm getting used to it). It may not be for everybody, as $75.00 is a lot for a controller that works on only one game. But if you're a big fan of T2K, then you don't want to be without it. It makes a great conversation piece and collector's item. Thanks Jeff for making a quality product and for you support of the Jaguar. Gunstar =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Jag/Lynx article submissions wanted for printed book Author: Carl Date: February 03, 2000 at 22:55:18 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Songbird is considering the publication of a professionally printed "post- Atari" Jaguar/Lynx book which would highlight as many released and unreleased games and hardware items as can be crammed into one ~100 page or so book. But, we need your help to make this happen. Article submissions need to be made on each game or hardware item, including screen shots / pictures of said items. Each author whose work is used in the final book will be credited appropriately. By submitting an article to Songbird, you agree to give Songbird complete publication rights to edit and print said article at Songbird's sole discretion. Please use the following guide for writing your articles. Proper grammar and punctuation are musts, do not include vulgar language of any kind, and make sure any submitted graphics are at least 300dpi. Try to keep the articles relatively short -- no more than a few hundred words per section. Multiple submissions will be accepted for each game/item, and the best submissions will be used or combined as needed. Any questions, just ask! I hope to read through some great articles in the next few months. =) Carl Forhan Songbird Productions http://songbird.atari.net --- Game Title - Jaguar / Lynx Format: xMB cartridge / CD Release date: month / year Developer: Publisher: Summary [Overview of the game/item -- not necessarily a full-blown review, but feel free to include some "what's great" or "what's not so great" comments] Strategies [Games only: suggestions on how to beat tricky parts, general strategies, etc.] Hints and Cheats [Games only: unique hints or previously unknown cheats] Collector's Corner [Tidbits and trivia on the history of the game/item, what the developer is doing now, etc.] - Author's name =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: Midway drops Atari name Author: unknown Date: unknown Forum: Jaguar Interactive II On a sad note which I have known about for sometime now and have waited for it to become official, Midway has officially dropped the Atari name from its products. Atari Games Corp, located at 675 Sycamore Drive in Milpitas, California has been owned by Williams Entertainment/Midway since 1996 when it was purchased from Time-Warner. Since its purchase, many have noticed how with each new game that was released, the Atari name and logo were becoming smaller and less prominent on their games. Over the last 6 months the www.agames.com and www.atarigames.com websites have been slowly and steadily changed from being an Atari dominate look to where Midway dominated the sites and the Atari name was relegated to a contact telephone # in the sub-menu's. Atari Games Corp will now be called Midway Games West. Many have already publicly voiced their opinions that Midway is doing itself and the industry and injustice by dropping the very name that in itself created the Video Arcade Industry and that it is a sad day for us all to see the Atari name and logo on the final product: SF Rush 2049 and for ever more see it disappear from the video arcades and entertainment centers and leave the very industry it started and set into motion. --==--==--==--==-- || BattleSphere News || By: Scott Le Grand \__// varelse@best.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// BattleSphere Countdown =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= [from Scott Le Grand's Official BattleSphere Countdown page .] 02/28/2000 - Getting business license and Merchant account for Scatologic, Inc. so that BattleSphere can ship. The day is nearly upon all of us. Meanwhile, we're auctioning off the very first copy autographed by all 3 members of Scatologic and which will incorporate a digital signature of the high bidder. 03/01/2000 - BattleSphere is an IRS Form and a business license away from full-scale shipping. Nobody in this country seems to know where these forms can be obtained so when I finally got help from a nice lady at a local bank, the county offices had closed. Tune in tomorrow when I walk into the right office and they insist I'm in the wrong place :-). 03/02/2000 - Scratch the business license off the list and place the acquisition of an employee identification number (EIN) from IRS form SS-4 as the final obstacle to the merchant account that allows BattleSphere to ship. This ought to be a slam dunk and I ought to be able to get it by phone, but the phone number on the form is not in service. It's even inaccurate on the form downloaded directly from the IRS web server. Somehow, this is of little surprise to me. Oh well, just a little more time. 03/03/2000 - EIN obtained, merchant account set up. Orders to be announced shortly from www.battlesphere.com. Stay tuned. The obstacle to the EIN was the fact that Fresno had an area code split and all the printed IRS numbers are now incorrect. The employees of the IRS apparently raise this at every staff meeting, but they are ignored. Big surprise, eh? --==--==--==--==-- || Llatest from Llamaland || By: Jeff "Yak" Minter \__// net.yak@yak.net ----------------------------------------------------------------- [All of the following postings are taken from Jeff Minter's web page, Yak's Zoo . Check it out, and see what else Jeff has yakked up lately. --Ed.] //// 30 Jan 2000 Completion, Availability, Good Goat Almighty It's been a... dense couple of months :-). A lot of stuff happened in a very short space of time. It's been pretty intense... and finally I'm through the other side of it, sitting here doing the PC equivalent of moving house, getting all my favourite bits off my old PC and moving them over onto my new one, which, when it first came online at VM Labs I gave the network name of "GoatAlmighty" to, and which has kinda stuck :-). GA is a 733MHz Penty III completely tricked out for speed (256MB SDRAM, ultra/fast/wide SCSI HD), and I have it for a very specific reason... which I shall explain about, in due course. In the last two months I have been absolutely hacking my tiny brains out all the hours that Ghu sends, and quite a few that Ghu wanted to keep for himself but which I nicked anyway. I have consumed sufficient Red Bull to float a medium-sized battleship, and for me the Millennium was something that more or less occurred between compiles. I hope it was worth it... Some of you have been coming to this page for awhile now, and have read endless waffling about that stuff that started out as Project X, and which lately I've been working on; and by now it's been going on long enough that you're probably convinced it's all vapourware, because the two things I have never mentioned, with regard to either the 'wares I'm working on or the hardware itself, have been completion and availability. I have a tale to tell :-). Last November, I was happily hacking away on Tempest, when I had contact from work to the effect that we needed to be demonstrating a functional VLM-2 at CES in Las Vegas, on the 5th of January. At first I was not unduly alarmed, for, as you will know if you've read last year's updates, I had a reasonably well-functioning VLM-2, with ten or eleven effects on it, working since last Summer. However... since back then, the environment in which VLM-2 has to "live" (VLM-2 is just a small part of a complex app, written by many coders, that performs all the functions of the DVD player - MPEG2 decode, audio decode, special modes, game loading and execution, CD-Audio and of course VLM-2) - the environment had changed quite substantially since last Summer. So much so, in fact, that my existing VLM-2 was completely, irretrievably broken. And that did give me cause for concern, because by then it was the middle of November, and in December I had one weekend away and over a week away on holiday with my Mum at Xmas, and I was faced with the prospect of having to design and implement a completely new VLM-2, and not an awful lot of time to do it in. Still, I thought, with a few late nights and nonobservance of weekends, I could probably get something VLM-like happening before the 5th of January. However II...as December came around it became plain that what was needed was going to be more than just something in its early stages exhibiting VLM-type behaviour. In fact, I would need to deliver a complete, finished VLM-2 by the 28th of January. A VLM-2, I might add, with 100 effects. And, since as it turned out I was going to be spending almost 2 weeks away in the US at the beginning of January, it was evident that the only way I would get that done would be by shutting down all functions nonessential to immediate survival, reducing my non-work bandwidth to almost zero, seriously disrespecting conventional circadian rhythms, and basically working like a complete and utter bastard. We did make it to CES, and I had something VLM-oid, with around 24 effects in it; trouble was, everything had come together so fast that I had spent most of my time just on implementation, getting the component parts of VLM actually into existence and working together, and the effects I had I'd had almost no time to consider the aesthetics of, and so basically most of them were quite pants. There were one or two that were OK, and those are the ones I usually demonstrated the most :-). [pic of Yak posing with a functional VLM-2 --Ed.] The Grunting Ox in Las Vegas, demonstrating one of the couple of VLM effects that weren't completely pants. Once the show in Vegas was over, everyone buggered off back to California and I managed to get my vector generator back online, which was a great relief to me because once I got home from the US, I had to produce 100 non- pants VLM effects in about two weeks... but I realised that, in that time, I was going to be doing an awful lot of edit/compile/test cycles, and my old machine was just bloody slow grinding through all that, and so I mentioned to the powers that be that it would seriously improve my chances of making deadline if I could have a system that was a bit faster. And so, a couple of days later, I was presented with GoatAlmighty :-). GA does indeed blaze through the compile cycle, and I've been very grateful for that, because over the last two weeks I have worked almost to the limits of my capacity and endurance; but on Friday night I did indeed manage to squirt down the wires to VM a fully-functional VLM-2, with 100 effects that I don't think have any aspect of gentlemen's bottom-half apparel... but fuck, it's been an intense time... The bottom line is: VLM-2 v1.0 is finished :-). You may well be thinking that's all well and groovy, but it doesn't do you any good because you can't get your sweaty hooves on it anyway, and whilst that may be true at this instant, I would ask you to have a gawp at this: [pic of the Samsung DVD player --Ed.] Hardware. Not vapourware. That, my friends, is a Samsung Extiva N-2000 DVD player, and it will be available in Spring of this year. You will note the little Nuon logo on the bottom-left of the machine. You will also note that one of the listed key features is "Virtual Light Machine" :-). And that is the reason that I have had so many late nights and had to drink so many cans of Red Bull the last couple of months - because it's going into production imminently. So I have been working like a bastard so that you lot can get yer mitts on VLM-2 very shortly :-). 'Course, you'll also be able to play T3K on it too :-). As well as enjoy the coolest DVD tech and special modes around :-). [pic of Yak's workstation and attendant pyramid 'o cans --Ed.] Aftermath: the Yakly workstation after VLM-2 completion. Note the ceremonial Red Bull pyramid, which accreted during late-night sessions, and which testifies to the amount of caffeine consumed during the project. I must say that I have found Red Bull to be the most excellently effective coder-fluid I've found; a much nicer experience than the traditional wirejuice, Jolt Cola (which is, anyway, unavailable in the UK, at least 'round these parts). When it gets to that point at about two in the morning, your neurons are starting to unravel but you need another couple of hours runtime yet, just reach for the old purple-and-silver can and suck that Bull... when I first got in to the US I was a bit alarmed because at first it looked like there was no Bull to be had out in the Valley, but it is being introduced over there, and in due course supplies were located. In fact I became known as a bit of a Red Bull evangelist when I was working in the office, and random individuals would sometimes drop by my workstation and hand me a can of the precious liquid :-). I'm glad I can give it up for awhile, though - there is still a little bit of work to do, some minor debug of an occasional screen glitch, but nothing that can't be done in normal work hours; nothing that will require prodigious feats of continuous consciousness and irrational amounts of caffeine :-). Although the work has been hard, especially in the latter days, the consolation has been that the view from my workstation has really been getting rather nice of late... [pic of a VLM-2 effect --Ed.] A giant, glowing, rotating disk flies over a rolling alien cloudscape, emitting streamers of gently-coloured plasma. In time to Pink Floyd. On Friday night, after the deed was done, I sat down and for the first time actually played with VLM-2 (rather than hack dementedly on it in an attempt to ram more stuff into it) and... well, I don't think it's too bad a toy :- ). Certainly I look forward to when I can get an actual Samsung DVD-player in my hi-fi stack and have VLM-2, always there, hardwired, ready to play with :-). [pic of another VLM-2 effect --Ed.] Plasma flows outwards from the centre of the screen; suspended within, a formation of glowing disks pulsate and emit pale green smoke. Those of you who remember the Jaguar VLM will, I hope, be pleasantly surprised when you see VLM-2... there are more effects, and some of them are things that could not even be attempted using the Jag's old hardwired graphics manipulation hardware. VLM-2's main aesthetic is based on things that are not normally considered to be the domain of (at least low-end) graphics systems - mist, smoke, even fluid surfaces that appear to flow together and break apart in a natural manner... [pic of yet another VLM-2 effect --Ed.] A vortex of blue liquid that oozes, flows together and breaks apart like mercury on a flat surface, according to the pulsation of the spiral generator-function that is visible in the centre of the image. Of course there are some more "trad" kaleidoscope-y effects in there too, because some people like those as well as the more exotic ones; but even they are rendered in the Nuon style, heavy on the translucency and neon- effects; with one or two of them, the influence which inspired 'em will be obvious, if you happen to be a Pink Floyd fan... [pic of still yet another VLM-2 effect --Ed.] A throbbing yellow neon vector llama rotates in the middle of an effect which, if you have ever been to a Pink Floyd concert and noticed what they do with the lights all around the edge of their big circular screen, may look familiar :-). As I mentioned, VLM-2 has 100 effects (by the way, only two of the effects I had in Las Vegas actually made it into the final cut of VLM-2) and, if you're feeling in the mood, if you use the analog joystick, you can "jam" along quite effectively. Although the interactivity is quite simple - often just colour/feedback intensity/scale changes - it's surprisingly satisfying. You can just sit there and kinda "air-guitar" with your thumb (if that makes any sense) and it looks great on the screen :-). A fun toy :-). I'll prolly add some more to this in a few days - more to tell, about the trip and suchlike; not a lot of nonwork-stuff to talk about (there is some, just not as much as usual) because there hasn't been a lot of nonwork-stuff in my life recently :-]... There was, of course, my holiday with my mum, which was excellent and a lovely bit of calm in the middle of all the mayhem that came before and after... but I'll tell all about that on another update, soon. For now, I just wanted to let ya know that VLM-2 is in full existence, and that soon Nuon will be unleashed at last :-). More (and very definitely more about Nuon - Samsung is not the only manufacturer releasing Nuon tech this year) on a later update... right now I am going back to trying to get a nice comfortable environment sorted here on GA. Like I mentioned, moving PCs is a bit like moving home - you don't feel fully settled in your new environment until all your old familiar clutter is unpacked and deployed, and for the last two weeks all GA has had on it has been my work stuff - a bit like moving into a new house that only has a desk and chair in it :-). So I'm bringing over all my goodies like my emu collection and my Web stuff and my fave sample editors and such... and it's starting to feel a bit more like home now :-). I need to sort out my FTP program before I can upload this though - for some reason the thing thinks it's unregistered, which is a rotten lie :-). Must be some config file lying around somewhere I forgot to copy over. Doesn't help that one of the machines is without a network card, so I am having to schlepp everything over by hand. Thank Ghu for CD-RW, iz all :-). And... extra thankmodes are due to those very excellent mates of mine who have been watching out for me and keeping me from getting so far into the workmode that I forget to run basic self-maintenence (or intervening when that happens)... to those people who noticed when I forgot to feed myself and rammed me full of sausages and chips, or who noticed I was overstressed and forced me to get off the bloody machine for awhile, or who stayed in touch and kept a part of me human when it felt like the machine was taking over... much thanks, guys. This one's for you :-). Thanks are, of course, also due to that bloke on Barbados who sold me some wicked ganja. But that's for another update :-). //// 22 May 2000 E3 and Spawning Baah! Yes I am alive, and occasionally I might even update this page. What can I say, except that I haven't been arsed to do it for awhile. Too much T3K and VLM going on... speaking of which, VLM is now all done, bugs fixed and integrated into the Samsung firmware; in fact mass production is now underway and the Extiva N-2000 should be hitting the streets in the US sometime in the next few weeks. It will come with one Nuon game, a puzzle game called Ballistix that is actually quite addictive in a Puzzle Bobble stylee; and also a demo disk that will contain demo versions of, I think, Iron Soldier, Merlin Karting and T3K. The demo of T3K isn't some pansy-arsed over-in-an-instant stylee demo, either. It allows you to play levels 1 ("Welcome to the Machine"), 9 ("Hay Ewe"), 15 ("Dark Side of the Moo"), and, uhh, I think it's around level 24 ("Interstellar Overdraft"). The last level in particular is no pushover, featuring as it does those beastly Pulsars, and Rotors (a new enemy type that causes the entire web to spin around whilst it's on it - quite disorienting, especially when you're pussyfooting it around the Pulsars. Don't try it if you're pissed and full of lager and curry!). Most of the powerups are available ("Hover" is disabled in the demo), and if you're really good, and collect *all* the powerups on the last three demo levels, then you can get into one round of the Bonus Round before the demo ends. The whole demo also has one of the new music tracks from the game - the finished game will have all the old faves from T2K, plus some great new music. The track on the demo, called "Intimidation", was written by a mate of mine, and it rawks ;-). In the full version of the game you can expect to see more variation in the dynamic textures that fill the web, more backdrops, prolly a slightly higher framerate (I'm not using up all the chip yet) and of course a shedload more levels and effects - there will be 128 unique levels, and then if you reach the end of that, webs will be generated by algo, so your torment will know no end ;-). I just got back from E3 llast week, and it was quite an enjoyable trip. There was plenty of interest in Nuon, and quite a few people stopped by to play Tempest, so I had my first real feedback from actual gamers, and it seemed to be pretty good. Nobody said they hated it, and some of them even said they would get a Nuon to play it on, so can't be bad ;-). It was good to see actual Nuon players out and being used, as opposed to tucked away behind perspex like they were at CES. I had my video camera with me but not my digital still camera, and I took a few pics from the video - the quality isn't great as stills, but you can see what's going on... [remainder of update snipped -Ed.] //// 20 Oct 2000 Change returns success, going and coming without error... (Is it just me being a geek, or does it sound in that song as if Syd took a particularly heavy trip one day and flashed forward into the mind of a coder? That lyric seems to describe the successful execution of a procedure called "Change()". And there's all that business of "darkness++" in the same song, too. Heh. Okay, I'm too much of a geek for my own good sometimes). Er. I'm digressing before I've even started. What was I going to say? Oh yeah, just a small thing, really. T3K is finished. And, you know, it feels rather strange... today is the first day I've woken up and not had anything to do to Tempest today. And after... what's it been? Couple of years, at least... that feels really odd. There's a void in a certain part of my head (well, you knew that anyway, right?) - I mean the bit which used to be full of T3K-workmode. I'm sitting around here listening to Underworld and feeling faintly bemused :-). 'Course, I may yet have to do another compile or two. What I uploaded to work at one in the morning last night was "RC1" - that stands for "Release Candidate 1", which basically means that as far as I can tell, the game is complete in every way, it doesn't crash, everything works properly, it plays correctly - basically it's *done*. RC1 will be scrutinised by a few more people before it goes "golden" - that is, cleared for release. It's possible that someone may request a few small changes - to the wording of menu pages, or minor stuff like that; but such mods should be trivial, if required. Basically, it's finished :-). I don't know what to say about it, really, except that I hope that those who has been waiting for the game aren't disappointed... it's kinda hard when you work really close to something, especially for so long, to form an objective opinion about it. Subjectively, I'm pleased with it. It looks nice, plays well and sounds great. I had a few mates round the other day and they thought it was very cool. So I hope it really is OK :-). 'Course, there was that time I was playing the game in a dark room, sound cranked, my nerdly pallor illuminated only by the flickering stroboscopics of Superzapper discharges and Pulsar blasts, tranced out, deep in the Zone, and convinced that this was the best game known to Man... but that probably had everything to do with the fact that someone had encouraged me to burn a quantity of herbal matter in a small pipe and inhale the resultant smoke just a few minutes prior ;-). I think it's OK. I hope you do too :-). (Mother do you think they'll like this song?) Now that Nuon players are actually available (both the Samsung Extiva N- 2000 and the Toshiba SD-2300 are on sale now in the US) some of you will have already seen the four-level "demo version" of T3K that's distributed with the players. There's now an updated version of the demo around that is somewhat closer to what the Real Thing is like, but for those of you who have the original version of the demo, well, when you see T3K "for real", you're going to notice quite a few differences :-). Firstly and most importantly, the final game is faster, both in frame rate and pace of gameplay. The speed of everything is faster now - in particular your projectiles, and the speed with which the Flippers make their way up to the Rim. There are more simultaneous enemies on the Web at one time, and they come at you faster. This makes the gameplay considerably more intense than in the demo version :-). Also, the somewhat sloppy control of the Claw has been tightened right up. There was waay too much inertia on that original version of the demo. I played it the other day, when I was at a party with my Extiva, and found that the control was as sloppy as a bucket of custard :-]. If you've been playing the demo, you're in for a nice surprise when you get yer hooves on the real thing. Fans of T(NT), the composer of the track "Intimidation" that accompanied the demo, will be pleased to hear that he has provided another three excellent tunes for the game. There are nineteen tracks in all - four from T(NT), two from Andre Meyer, one from VML's own James Grunke, and all twelve tracks from the CD remix of the original tunes from Tempest 2000 :- ). Plenty there to keep you aurally satisfied as you blast your way to Level 128 and beyond :-). I should take a moment to introduce T(NT) here, because he's been instrumental in more ways than one in assisting the completion of both T3K and VLM. He's also a good mate of mine, and has been supportive beyond the call of duty at times during the making of all this bollocks when I have got a little... er... stressed-out :-]. Coincidentally enough, he's even a fellow goat-keeper (although his are rather larger than my little goatlets :-). In fact, one of his two goats features quite prominently in T3K. You'll hear Copper's bleating during the Bonus Round, as well as during things like menu selection :-). Flossie gets a look-in, too - remember the Yes! Yes! Yes! powerup trick out of T2K? Well, if you do that in T3K, then you'll get to hear the Prettiest Sheep in the World going a bit bonkers as you zoom off into hyperspace :-). I certainly hope that there will be further collaborations between me and T(NT) on future occasions. Anyway, you should pay a visit to his website and meet both his goats :-). They are really very cute (although Copper's 'ard as nails, she'll 'ave ya, she will! ;-). I'll be uploading an "Unofficial Strategy Guide" to T3K in the next day or two, so you can start preparing yourselves for the full version of the game :-). Although "strategy" is altogether too grand a word to use with regard to T3K - "Agh! There's one of those! Shoot it! There's another one! Shoot it too!"... heh ;-). Nevertheless, there are a few tricks and tips that I can pass on, from the ox's mouth so to speak, which will help you rack up higher scores on your way to Level 128 and beyond (although how far beyond it is possible to go I don't really know yet. Should anybody actually make it to level 256, something really evil happens). So that's it, really - T3K is done. Bloody hell, it doesn't half feel weird :-]. You may now be asking yourselves, "so what's the smelly old ox up to next"? And basically I have a few small projects to undertake for VML before I start on a new game, stuff like making some of the techniques I used in T3K more accessible to other Nuon programmers, and designing a tool that can be used to create new VLM effects. This will occupy me for a few months, and I'll probably be starting on a new game proper sometime early next year. I already have a design in mind, something original this time, not an updated arcade game - and again in a unique style, using a custom renderer assembly-coded for Nuon. I'm very much into having my games look different from those produced on standard polygon-based libraries, and I work on the perfect machine for being able to roll-yer-own renderers, so why not ;-). A word about VLM and the available Nuon players - if VLM is a major consideration when you're thinking about buying Nuon hardware, then you should opt for the Samsung rather than the Toshiba. Not that the Tosh is a baa-d machine; just that on the Tosh there are only 8 built-in VLM effects, whereas on the Sammy there are 100. Both of 'em will run T3K, of course :- ). [remainder of update snipped -Ed.] //// 3 Dec 2000 [massively chunks of sheep fetishism clipped for brevity --Ed.] Yak and T(NT)'s Big Day Out; VLM (Iteration); some sad news; general wibble... [cool "Holiday Greetings" pic on original arcade Tempest --Ed.] Yeah, I know it's a bit early to put the decorations up. Not that I can ever actually be arsed with decorations, anyway. But I found this somewhere and it seems appropriate - apparently the original coin-op Tempest team made it for a greetings card back in the days. Work-wise, well, I haven't been idle. T3K is, as I write this, about to hit the streets in the US in the next few days. It was released to manufacture awhile ago now, and although there have been a couple of delays since then getting it actually out there, I can only assume they were due to packaging or duplication hassles. I'm watching the Nuon boards to see when it finally gets through to those who have been waiting for it for so long. After Tempest, I've had an opportunity to go back to the VLM for a while. This is good news for future European Nuon-owners, who will get the benefit of some improvements to the VLM itself, as well as a bunch of nice new effects. User-interactivity has thankfully been restored; if you have a controller with an analog stick on it, you can twiddle the effects with your thumb in an intuitive and gratifying manner, as I had always intended. I've also made it so that VLM can run in a slightly different configuration that allows for VLM to be concurrent with other, more computationally- intensive audio playback modes than just straight CD playback; the same mode also allows you to effectively increase the frame-rate of VLM when you *are* just doing straight CD playback. Andreas from VM Labs, my collaborator on VLM and the guy responsible for all the actual difficult bits of the audio analysis, has also improved the beat-extraction code so that it's much more effective. A bit of a result for us Euros, it seems :- ). --==--==--==--==-- || JagFest 2000: The Aftermath || By: The Helpful Gamer, Joe Fix, and the Gang \__// lincoln_log@crapmail.com, jdfix@thompson-grp.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- There follows all the reports from JagFest 2000 that I was able to lay my hands on. For all these and more (including lots of pictures), browse to: Thanks to Tim "Sauron" Wilson for putting on a great JagFest! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// The Helpful Gamer's Report =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= JagFest 2000 is off to a flawless start! Scott Walters showed up with a great supply of interesting stuff, Tim is busy running around, people are playing games everywhere... I've met a few 'Fest attendees already and it's nice to put a face to the name. Throughout the day, we'll be seeing some prototypes, thanks to Scott and others. It is even rumoured that a game called Leather Clad Turkish Warriors will be displayed in early, unfinished form. I did get a chance to play some Brett Hull Hockey. It's fun, but nearly every hit results in a penalty. Boo! Richard and I have been having some deadly NBA Jam: TE battles... he won the last two games, but I beat him handily the first time. There is some action heating up with the first round of Alien Vs. Predator tournament, as well, but I have not had a chance to check it out. I've got one thing to say about Brett Hull Hockey for the JagCD (that's right, CD, not cart!!): Shoot the between periods reporter! The quality of the "newsroom" is shoddy at best. We should all thank our lucky stars that this one never came out... otherwise the suicide rate would be through the roof. It's actually quite humourous, but if it was released, it would make a mockery of the JagCD. And who *was* the newsroom man? An employee of Atari? Richard and I (yes, the REAL Richard... my friend from the bad side of Lincoln, Nebraska, not the guy from England who, for some reason, thinks that he's the only Richard on Earth) played some more NBA Jam: TE. He beat me again, though. It was amazing... I've never seen more men running after a ball and putting the ball through the hoop. It was UNBELIEVABLE! I haven't eaten in hours... since I started driving early this morning, anyway. I had a popsicle before I left. But when I was driving, I was groggy and I dropped it on my pants. There are actually a couple girls here at JagFest. I want to talk to one, but every time I try, odd noises come from inside of me (like a demon or something) and it smells funny. Like a funny smelling demon! There are people playing videogames here at JagFest. There's a guy who looks like Darth Maul here, and another with glasses! Did I mention that I haven't eaten anything today? Every time I play a videogame, I get all shaky and thirsty. I feel so cold! This year's JagFest will go down in history as the greatest ever! I had a lot of fun... I played Club Drive with somebody (I think it was Dane Stegman) and beat him in the ten ball race. Phase Zero... what's up with that?!?! I cleaned the popsicle from my pants. This is the greatest JagFest ever! The Helpful Gamer always says "Remember, kids, club soda will rid you of those pesky pants stains!" =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Joe Fix's Report =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= There were about 15 people there (if you include the three wackos that just walked in and sat down and started playing games...) Total Carnage is totally complete, but the "Option" button automatically skips you to the next level. Scott seemed to think that part was incomplete - maybe that's how they were going to leave it?? The game is pretty much arcade perfect, except for the controls, which use the keypad for 8-direction fire. We tried hooking up a pro controller to see if that would help with the fire control issue, but basically the best way to play is to set the controller on a flat surface and have one hand on the D-pad and one hand on the keypad. Scott said that Bally(?) wouldn't get together a contract for anyone to release it, but that Carl was currently trying to negotiate it. Total Carnage is a definite buy if he ends up working out the details - I'm not aware of any other Jaguar game of this genre. For those of you who are not familiar with the game, it is similar in concept to Taito's old arcade game, Front Line. Very impressive with great sound and graphics. If you look a few posts down, Mark posted the ROM image for Phase Zero. After seeing all the stuff available, I'm going to get me a cheap Jag at VGLQ to mod. Phase Zero is VERY smooth and the graphics are quite good. It is not very challenging, though. One of the highlights is being able to shoot at the trees and watch them light up like a torch. The completed cart version of Brett Hull Hockey was also available for play. The graphics are so-so and the control is good, but not great. Very easy to get penalties. I didn't play it enough to see if there were settings to change to make the penalties less frequent. Slam Racer was also available to play. I didn't play it, but it looked very similar to Power Drive Rally, only amazingly smoother. Only one level available on that one. As far as I know, they only got the title screen of Arkanna to show up... I was looking forward to seeing it in action, along with The Assassin, but that didn't happen either. Scott brought Carl's new games, of which Skyhammer and Hyper Force got the most play time, with Protector running a close third. I played Skyhammer and Protector - I will probably try to pick up Protector as soon as I can hack together a joystick for the Jag... I couldn't see how you could play it effectively without a stick. Scott also brought BattleSphere, but unfortunately he was the only one with a copy, so there was no networked play. He did, however, bring two Jagmodems which were successfully linked in a game of Ultra Vortek. The voice was not hooked up, so that capability was not demonstrated. The two units were sitting side by side, so it wasn't quite as dramatic demonstration as it could have been, but oh well. The game would periodically slow down to snail speed, apparently because of modem communication problems, but otherwise there was no lag. There were some great door prizes, including a complete vendor kit for the Jaguar that include: a vinyl banner, IS and AvP posters, bumper stickers, game flyers, brochures, and a cool cardboard table display that had tear-off coupons for a "free controller when you buy a system". Other door prizes included a Club Drive cart with a Jaguar pin, a Dino Dudes cart with a Jaguar pin, a Jaguar keychain, and a complete copy of Missile Command 3D. Joel, the winner of the Ultra Vortek contest (thanks to a cheesy overuse of Lucius' flying hawk move), won the grand prize of a Lynx system with carrying case that included a ComLynx cable, AC adapter, sun shield, battery pack, and a copy of Batman Returns. The fest was well-planned (Thanks again Tim!) with a room that was very comfortable (even had couches and cushioned chairs!). Having it in the UT Union was a great idea, since there was a Wendy's fast food right down the hall. Chow down on the Biggie Fry and get back to playing games! Scott made the day interesting with all of his great protos, and it seems that he's raising his son to be a Jag fanatic too. I've still got quite a few standard Jag controllers available, and I'm still looking for Atari Karts and Defender 2000 to trade with someone. Missile Command 3D is available to trade! -Joe =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= //// Miscellaneous =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: JagFest rocks! Author: Richard Date: June 24, 2000 at 13:26:59 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II Take that! I just won my fourth straight NBA Jam:TE game! JagFest 2000 is rockin'! The competition is heating up everywhere. My favorite part of JagFest is listening to the Britney Spears CD constantly... Oops! I Did It Again! on repeat, baby! Of course, I've got a Discman and earphones, so I'm the only one enjoying it! You're all missing out now, aren't you?! Richard =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: The REAL JagFest 2K Report! Author: Sauron Date: June 24, 2000 at 22:29:09 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II This really isn't much of a report, as I'm about to head to bed. I'll do a more in-depth one tomorrow. However, I just wanted to let y'all know that JagFest 2000 was a success! While this year's JagFest may not have had as many attendees as the previous year's, there were still plenty of us there to compete handily at Warbirds and have a rousing Ultra Vortek tournament, with a surprise winner. Also, you won't believe who won the ultimate raffle prize of the day! Can't put many details down right now, but should be able to tomorrow. Tim Wilson JF2K Coordinator =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Subject: JAGFEST 2K REAL REPORT Author: eXtreme-Rush Date: June 25, 2000 at 07:54:25 Forum: Jaguar Interactive II JagFest 2k was a success. There were not as many people as we had though were coming but we all still had lots of fun overall. We had lots of Warbirds tournaments and Ultra Vortek tournaments and Doom tournoments. Also Scott brought some really cool games like Total Carnage and Phase Zero and the 4 new Songbird games and BattleSphere which I might add was a really cool game. Just about every game we had we played at JagFest 2k this year. Well I'm kinda tired because I wrote this last night and then posted it this morning and I'm just now correcting my spelling errors and jumbled up sentances. See you guys later. --==--==--==--==-- || CGE 2000: A Classic Games Enthusiast's View || By: Lee Krueger \__// resqsoft@earthlink.net ----------------------------------------------------------------- I attended the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas over the last weekend. For me, this year was different than last year's event because I was sharing a booth as an exhibitor as opposed to being an attendee. I went as an enthusiast with no particular agenda other than hoping to have an enjoyable time demonstrating some of my projects and promoting the NorthWest Classic Games Enthusiasts (NWCGE). I arrived Friday morning, arriving from Seattle on an internet airfare special that I booked in advance which cost me $210 for the roundtrip. I stayed, like most, at the Plaza Hotel. Unlike last year, I had no roommate, so I had to pay a little more than I would have liked. However, the room rates were reasonable and my total costs were $143 for the room from Friday morning night thru Sunday night. When you add the $100 I spent for the booth and admission, I invested a total of $453 (excluding food and entertainment) to attend the CGE show. Below is summary of what I got for my money. I arrived Friday morning around 10:00 a.m. and after checking in I went directly to the exhibition hall to drop off my boxes and help folks setup. As I mentioned in my report form last year, the Plaza Hotel is a little dated and is obviously an older establishment in Vegas. However, the accommodations were still much better than I have experienced in many of my other vacation such as the prior 2 weekends where I was pursuing my other passion, mountaineering. Believe me, the Plaza is much better than sleeping in a tent on a glacier at 10,000. That being said, I must confess that the 115 degree heat I experienced in Vegas just about caused me to have a seizure upon arrival. Although I am an avid outdoor enthusiast, there was no way I was going to spend any significant time outside in this heat (why they built a city in the middle of the #%!! desert is still one of the mysteries of man I'll never understand). Because I was an exhibitor I had the opportunity to meet up with the other exhibitors and meet some of the volunteers who were helping to set up. Most of which I have had many email transactions with. I was fortunate enough to share a booth with my friend Hans Reutter (Cyberroach and NWCGE sponsor) and Joe Santulli (Digital Press). I knew that I would not get to explore some of the other booths and exhibits during the show because we would have to take turns manning the booth so I was able to see that displays and chat with folks prior to the show opening which was very nice. On Saturday the doors to the show opened promptly at 10:00 a.m. There was an immediate mad rush to get to the Intellivision Productions Booth where there were limited copies of unreleased games such as Atari 2600 Sword Fight, Sea Battle and Steamroller (Colecovision). Fortunately I was able to get a copy of each. However, it is my understanding that more copies will be available on the Blue Sky Rangers website after the show. I really enjoyed the keynote presentations that I was able to see. They were varied and frequent. Some of the keynote presentations were repetitive from last year, but were interesting nonetheless. The room set aside for keynote presentations was much larger than last year. As a result there was plenty of seating for everyone at the presentations and lots of room for the swap meet session. The swap session didn't seem as good this year. Maybe it was because I didn't make any good trades. Some of the booths and displays that were the most impressive are as follows (no particular order): Blue Sky Rangers/Intellivision Productions =============================== Like last year, these folks had the most impressive booth and were very enthusiastic, especially Keith Robinson. Missing this year was the display of the Master Component Computer and accessories, but one hardly noticed with all the excitement they generated during the course of the show. They had a very cool soundtrack playing from their upcoming "Intellivision Rocks" CD. On Sunday they celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Intellivision with a birthday part including cake, balloons and party favors. Afterwards they had an Intellivision Karaoke contest (mimic the sounds of an Intellivision game as it was displayed on the video). These guys definitely get the "Life of the Party" award. CyberPunks ================== Glenn Saunders and Russ Perry Jr were on hand to sell their videos of Stella, both Volumes 1 and 2, along with "Stella Gets a New Brain" Starpath CD. The videos are a must for any Atari 2600 enthusiasts as is the Starpath CD. A nice touch would have been to have a couple of monitors playing the videos and demonstrating the Starpath CD. Mark Lambright Sales ================== Mark had many classic games, new and used (mostly new) for sale. The new games he had ranged from Atari 2600/5200/7800 to the Intellivision and Colecovision. The great thing about his booth was the prices. Very reasonable indeed. B&C Computers ================== Bruce and Cathy are always a pleasure to meet with. They also have some pretty cool stuff for sale, including a Jaguar Kiosk and many items "rescued" from the dumpsters in Atari warehouses during the last days of Atari. He always has a good selection of prototype hardware and manuals for all Atari products. They also had great prices on Jaguar and Lynx games. CGE Services ================== The organizers of the event had a large booth where they sold everything from t-shirts to multi-carts to shrinkwrapped games. They also sold limited copies of prototype games for the Colecovision (Power Lords and Lord of the Dungeon) and the Odyssey 2 (Autographed copies of Video Pinball by Ralph Baer). They also had many items for sale behind the table if you asked. Classic Game Creations ================== John Donzilla was on hand to demonstrate and sell his wonderful Vectrex and Colecovision products, including Vecmania and Dacman (Colecovision). Mark Shaker also shared a table with John and sold versions of new Vectrex prototypes such as Tour De France, Polar Rescue and homebrew efforts of Moon Lander, Vaboom!, Frogger, etc. Both Mark and John had great pricing on all their products. It was a pleasure to meet and chat with both of these gentlemen. Digital Press ================== Joe Santulli runs Digital press and was taking orders for the upcoming DP guide. He also sold orders for back issues of the DP newsletter. Scott West Productions ================== Howard Scott Warshaw (Programmer of Yars' Revenge, E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark for Atari) appeared briefly to sell his remaining stock of "Once Upon Atari" videos. He seemed to disappear as fast as he came though. Songbird Productions ================== Carl Forhan has been supporting the Jaguar and Lynx with new releases. Among the highlights at his booth, were the new Jaguar cart releases, Skyhammer, Protector and Soccer Kid. In addition Carl sold new Lynx titles and some homebrew efforts for the Lynx including his limited CGE edition of Remnant: Planar Wars 3D. I picked up his rapid fire controller for the Jaguar (highly recommended) and a couple of other items. He also had custom made Jaguar arcade sticks. Also on hand were playable demos of some possible up-coming Lynx Releases, including CyberVirus and Eye of the Beholder. NorthWest Classic Games Enthusiasts/Cyberroach/ResQsoft ============================================ This was the booth I shared with Hans Reutter. Hans and myself were there to promote the NorthWest Classic Games Enthusiasts, a classic gaming club based in the Pacific NorthWest (Seattle and abroad) Cyberroach also sold and demonstrated the Jaguar Commercial CD which contains cool Jaguar Commercials and footage of unreleased Jaguar games. ResQsoft demonstrated the Trac-Mar 2600/7800 development system. Using this system 2 more Atari 2600 prototypes were dumped and will be announced soon for public consumption. Also, the last of the Worship the Woodgrain Atari 2600 CD collection was available for sale and demonstration. Atari/Hasbro Interactive ================== They had a booth from which you could play the upcoming releases of Galaga, Breakout and Frogger II. All three looked pretty good. Play the games and they gave you a PC version of Atari Arcades Hits 2. Telegames ================== They had a booth with lots of goodies ranging from the Atari 2600 to the Neo Geo Pocket. They also had reasonable prices (Reasonable for Telegames that is) on all their wares and towards the end of the show on Sunday, their prices got even better. I picked up a copy of Towers for the Game Boy Color and Worms to round out my Jaguar collection. I also picked up a copy of Iron Soldier 3 (previous ones were Jaguar exclusives). Classic Gamer Magazine ================== These guys have put together some really nice magazines with the classic look and feel of the 80's. They were selling back issues and taking subscription orders. I highly recommend this magazine for all classic gamers. Twin Galaxies ================== Walter Day, Billy Mitchell and crew were on hand to promote their book "Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records". High scores were recorded and archived. United Games Source ================== These folks had a large selection of NES/Famicom, Virtual Boy and various other classic game software and merchandise. They even had a portable NES Player that can only be described as a near clone of the Sega Nomad in looks. Overall my impressions of the show ranged from high enthusiasm for the keynote presentations to a little disappointment at the lack of more vendors. The ballroom definitely had room for far more vendors and displays and at times the show seemed a little thin. I would have liked to have seen more tables for private individuals to display and sell their trade stock. Attendance appeared to be down from last year, but that could be my warped perception. At one point I had to assist B&C with two teenage punks on scooter bikes with a security matter. It seems these punks were attempting to steal from them (how did these punks get in the door with scooters anyway). I was very excited to see that the CGE staff are very active in promoting and releasing unreleased games and prototypes for all to enjoy. On the downside, there are rumours that the show may not happen next year. Let's hope that is not the case. Additionally, myself and many others sure miss the Atari Historical Society, Best Electronics and Don Thomas's presence. They have contributed a lot in the past. I hope they can attend future expositions. Hits: ***** The Blue Sky Rangers sure know how to drum up enthusiasm The keynote presentations Keith Robinson and the Blue Sky Rangers The new games released for the Atari 2600 - Sword Fight and Sea Battle Great Pre-Show party with the guys from Southern California (Room 2443 in the South Tower) Intellivision Karaoke The new games released for the Colecovision - Lord of the Dungeon, Steam Roller, Power Lords Ralph Baer's autographed Odyssey 2 unreleased prototype game Pinball Great Selection of Classic Arcade Games set on FREE PLAY!! Meeting Jan Boehm - She was in charge of sending and receiving prototypes for Atari Oh, and did I mention.The Blue Sky Rangers sure know how to party in classic gaming style Misses: ******* Not enough Attendees Not enough Vendors No Don Thomas No Atari Historical Society Booth - Curt Vendel No Best Electronics - Brad where are you? No private (non-vendor) trading tables and such No Jerry Jessop - Where were you Jerry? No Dan Kramer - Dan the Atari TracBall Man Will Nolan Bushnell ever show up? Not enough Bally Astrocade Guest Speakers Not Enough Odyssey Guest Speakers Too #!%!! hot Things I missed on my visit: *********************** A good night's sleep Boy-lesque show at the Plaza When I tally it all up... I had a great time for my money. Your mileage may vary of course. Many thanks are owed to the show organizers for their hard work and dedication in organizing and promoting this type of activity. Also many thanks to their spouses and family members for their understanding and support. Having organized similar events ,on a much smaller scale of course, there are many sacrifices that must be made on an individual level and at a family level as well. My personal thanks go to Joe Santulli and Hans Reutter for sharing a booth with me and I also must thank Al Backiel and Mary Katherine who helped man (woman?) the booth for all of us at one time or another. Hope to see you next year, Lee Krueger ResQsoft@earthlink.net http://home.earthlink.net/~resqsoft --==--==--==--==-- || || Shutdown ....................... Power off, * + #, EOL, Game Over \__// ----------------------------------------------------------------- Buzzword Index: Buzzword Occurrences Bug 7 Network 10 Hasbro 14 Skyhammer 18 Fest 39 CD 56 Protector 57 HTTP 73 BattleSphere 109 Atari 275 Useless Fact O' The Year: Some of the sound effects in Doom and Jag AvP were designed by the same person-- award-winning Hollywood sound designer Mike McDonough. Sound Ideas sells a CD that's all his work. This is a very popular CD... anytime you hear a computer chirp or servo whine on TV, odds are it's from this CD! 'Til next millenium! Your Editor Clay Halliwell --==--==--==--==-- (This issue printed on recycled photons) --==--==--==--==-- Salt the Fries --==--==--==--==-- DNFTEC --==--==--==--==-- Where do you want to play Atari today? --==--==--==--==-- Jaguar Explorer Online Magazine is a monoannual publication covering the Atari Jaguar community. Reprint permission is granted, unless otherwise noted at the beginning of the article, to registered Atari user groups and not for profit publications under the following terms only: articles must remain unedited and include the issue number and author at the top of each article reprinted. Other reprints granted upon approval of request. Send requests to . No issue of Jaguar Explorer Online Magazine may be included on any commercial media, nor uploaded or transmitted to any commercial online service, in whole or in part, by any agent or means, without the expressed consent or permission from the Editor or Publisher of Jaguar Explorer Online Magazine. Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, or of the publishers. All material herein is believed accurate at the time of publishing. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains. --==--==--==--==-- Atari, 400/800, XL/XE, 2600, ST, Mega ST, STe, Mega STe, Atari Falcon030, Blitter, Atari Lynx, ComLynx, Atari Panther, Atari Jaguar, AtariTel, Pong, and the Atari Fuji Symbol are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Infogrames Entertainment. All other trademarks and identifying marks mentioned in this issue belong to their respective owners. --==--==--==--==-- Jaguar Explorer Online Magazine "Your Source for Jaguar News" Copyright (c) 2000, White Space Publishers ****** ** ** ** ** **** ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: J E O :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :: Volume 4, Issue 1 JAGUAR EXPLORER ONLINE December 31, 2000 :: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::