Fight For Life Beta or Commercial?

[ataritiger]

8 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

Yeah, I was joking (kind of) about the patched CF, pretty sure it's in these forums somewhere.

 

Not to be pessimistic but you're talking about a lot of various dumps/timestamps that are likely to be the same thing just copied/modified headers at different times for different needs. Was there something you noticed that stood out over the supposed new ones over the 3 or 4 already out there or do any actual file comparisons between the 3-4 already out of whatever was just uploaded by Mitch? I didn't bother going through the files because I've been down the rabbit hole many times already, with one in particular I uploaded to JS2 myself back then. Case in point, the beta that I uploaded and found hidden in Curts stuff labeled as a different file completely is what was sold on JS2 but that has long since been circulated. So basically that's two on your list and is a duplicate.

 

Seriously doubt there's some magic post-release dump out there. All these YouTubers just re-circulating various unverified claims and false rumors to make material (no doubt interesting) because who doesn't want to find a better game than what was released someday. Final source code rom dump? Pretty sure it's the same old stuff that's been around forever now. Incomplete, doesn't compile and the same various versions of betas/roms within.

Can you or somebody here pm me the checkered flag steer fix rom? To me the jaguar is cool with tempest 2000, avp, wolf3d, doom, rayman, nba jam t e, iron soldier, cybermoroh, checkered flag and fight for life I can see people liking jag more than 32x maybe... but virtua fighter and virtua racing deluxe are better because of refined gameplay/control and game speed only...I think jag doom better and I like sega cd soulstar final fight etc library as much as jags. But since cf was fixed, maybe one day ffl can be fixed as people in this thread wished. 

 

About rumors, there facts proving a 1994 prototype sent to vg mags. It was reviewed unproperly as final build. A 1995 etcs 3.22 beta, a e3 beta, retail, a 2000/2005 beta dump and 2008 jaguar sector 2 pc compilation dump. That's more than 4. Who is to say he doesn't have better rom, can you get me in contact with him?

[ataritiger]

On 11/1/2020 at 11:39 AM, Clint Thompson said:

Yeah, I was joking (kind of) about the patched CF, pretty sure it's in these forums somewhere.

 

Not to be pessimistic but you're talking about a lot of various dumps/timestamps that are likely to be the same thing just copied/modified headers at different times for different needs. Was there something you noticed that stood out over the supposed new ones over the 3 or 4 already out there or do any actual file comparisons between the 3-4 already out of whatever was just uploaded by Mitch? I didn't bother going through the files because I've been down the rabbit hole many times already, with one in particular I uploaded to JS2 myself back then. Case in point, the beta that I uploaded and found hidden in Curts stuff labeled as a different file completely is what was sold on JS2 but that has long since been circulated. So basically that's two on your list and is a duplicate.

 

Seriously doubt there's some magic post-release dump out there. All these YouTubers just re-circulating various unverified claims and false rumors to make material (no doubt interesting) because who doesn't want to find a better game than what was released someday. Final source code rom dump? Pretty sure it's the same old stuff that's been around forever now. Incomplete, doesn't compile and the same various versions of betas/roms within.

Have duplicates been proven though ? Mitch has 4 roms , 3.22 etcs beta a sept 7 e3 proto, a 2000 or 2005 beta and 2010 rom. Plus there a 1996 retail rom he linked. Also 2008 source code leak. So only one missing is 1994 vg mag reviewer rom. So whats doubled?

[Austin]

Another bump for this trashy game.

 

I wonder how much ST Format was paid for this review? Did that sort of thing even happen back then? ?

 

 

"Superbly playable.."

 

 

*edit: Felt the need to post as I finally beat the game a couple of times, for the first time... by jump-kicking my way through. Seriously, the moves are ridiculously difficult to pull off consistently, making the jump-kick the only reliable strategy. It's dumber than dumb.

[Silver Back]

Oh God there is no way this game is a 90%. I like some of the Jaguar games that are traditionally hated but I would never call any of them 90% or 9/10 games. 

One thing I'll say is I did buy a beta release on cartridge, and after playing it and the original release back to back the beta I have is superior in speed, which makes it more playable. But even then I wouldn't give it anything near a 90%. 

[+remowilliams]

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, remowilliams said:

It wasn't that bad - if you entered the cheat code that made the computer run both players, it was not a bad little tech demo!

[+jgkspsx]

(I actually enjoy it in a stupid way…)

[Lostdragon]

10 hours ago, Austin said:

Another bump for this trashy game.

 

I wonder how much ST Format was paid for this review? Did that sort of thing even happen back then? ?

 

 

"Superbly playable.."

 

 

 

ST Format was by Future Publishing who were notorious for low Jaguar scores on games like:

 

Defender 2000 Edge 3/10 and ST Format 31% reviews by the Rev Stuart Campbell. 

 

AVP 4/10 Edge. 

 

So this raised some eyebrows. 

 

Atari did pay them to do an advertising supplement for the Jaguar, given away free with Edge early in the Jaguar lifespan, but by the time of FFL, Future were very much into the promotion of the Sony PlayStation. 

 

 

How the hell this pulled in 90% is something only the reviewer or editor can explain, it can't of been in return for advertising revenue, the usual publisher ploy with magazines. 

 

The fact the reviewer found it in the same league as Tekken and Virtua Fighter, in terms of playability, just beggars belief. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by Lostdragon
Put the full review up for context.

[Zogging Hell]

To be fair to ST Format, by the time this came out they only had one full time member of staff (the editor), and some regular freelancers (most of whom were more into serious ST applications like word processors, programming and music). This review is in one of the last issues, and they probably hadn't even had any new commercial ST games of any real note for quite a while to review. The whole magazine had pivoted to reviewing serious ST software and shareware/ public domain, so a textured polygon fighter probably blew their minds, at least compared to some of the PD games they saw regularly. I would say that ST Format by the end was almost a professionally printed fanzine with content provided by people who really loved their Atari's and didn't want the company to die, so the score probably reflects that a little.

I think graphically Fight for Life looks 'ok' for the time, the models are a little blocky but move ok, the small cartridge probably limits it a bit, and the wild camera actually probably makes it look uglier than it really is. It's patently not finished properly, the high score table isn't even implemented, there is one, but you can't actually get on it, and there seems to be other cut content as well.

[Lostdragon]

1 hour ago, Zogging Hell said:

To be fair to ST Format, by the time this came out they only had one full time member of staff (the editor), and some regular freelancers (most of whom were more into serious ST applications like word processors, programming and music). This review is in one of the last issues, and they probably hadn't even had any new commercial ST games of any real note for quite a while to review. The whole magazine had pivoted to reviewing serious ST software and shareware/ public domain, so a textured polygon fighter probably blew their minds, at least compared to some of the PD games they saw regularly. I would say that ST Format by the end was almost a professionally printed fanzine with content provided by people who really loved their Atari's and didn't want the company to die, so the score probably reflects that a little.

I think graphically Fight for Life looks 'ok' for the time, the models are a little blocky but move ok, the small cartridge probably limits it a bit, and the wild camera actually probably makes it look uglier than it really is. It's patently not finished properly, the high score table isn't even implemented, there is one, but you can't actually get on it, and there seems to be other cut content as well.

Good point. 

 

Commercial ST Games had been thin on the ground for months and didn't they also turn to reviewing Lynx titles, just to try and fill pages as well, towards the end?. 

 

The magazine had become a mere shell of it's former self as the Atari market dwindled away. 

 

Future's policy of using the same freelancers and thus the same bodies of work, meant if any individual didn't like a title, it ended up getting a hammering in multiple publications. 

 

 

FFL was never a 90% title, but then for all it's shortcomings, Defender 2000 was never a 3/10 title either. 

 

Ultimate Future Games Magazine was another Future Publishing title from the era, who's Jaguar review scores caused much controversy at the time amongst the Jaguar community I knew back then. 

[Leonard Smith]

9 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

ST Format was by Future Publishing who were notorious for low Jaguar scores on games like:

 

Defender 2000 Edge 3/10 and ST Format 31% reviews by the Rev Stuart Campbell. 

 

AVP 4/10 Edge. 

 

So this raised some eyebrows. 

 

Atari did pay them to do an advertising supplement for the Jaguar, given away free with Edge early in the Jaguar lifespan, but by the time of FFL, Future were very much into the promotion of the Sony PlayStation. 

 

 

How the hell this pulled in 90% is something only the reviewer or editor can explain, it can't of been in return for advertising revenue, the usual publisher ploy with magazines. 

 

The fact the reviewer found it in the same league as Tekken and Virtua Fighter, in terms of playability, just beggars belief. 

They were probably on LSD like the editors of Gamefan magazine who raved about Cybermorph.