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Blue Lightning is a fun videogame, so why the hate?


Rick Dangerous

Your Blue Lightning Opinions  

49 members have voted

  1. 1. I enjoy Blue Lightning for the Atari Jaguar CD

    • True
      35
    • False
      14
  2. 2. I would enjoy Blue Lightning just as much if it were on another contemporary system (3DO, Sega Saturn.)

    • True
      26
    • False
      23
  3. 3. I only enjoy Blue Lightning ONLY as a Jaguar CD game, because I like Jaguar games, or for other reasons related to the Jaguars library or technical capabilities.

    • True
      18
    • False
      31

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This is a pretty good rule of thumb, though I'm not sure I would've been wowed by Blue Lightning during its release.

I had to look up at when it was released.

You got a point that by 1995 PS1/Saturn were around so not many excuses.

 

But maybe between the cracks of that year in which the 16bits were all fading away as the more powerful 32bits (and in 3D) were introduced, BL had huge objects moving around so as the "pinnacle of 16bits" it was showcasing something that outside the NeoGeo was hardly ever achieved. (I'm purposefully ignoring the 64bit do the math nonsense).

 

Imho it's not that fun to play, After Burner is better (and I don't exactly enjoy that either but it's at least exhilarating, 32x version hands down).

 

I bought the Jag relatively recently so I admit I can't speak of what I would have felt had I had it in 1995. It was a more hot-headed me so nothing too impressive would have come out of my younger alternative past me, that much is painfully certain.

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Yeah, as I mentioned earlier in the thread the arcade Afterburner released years before BL had a much better sense of speed. The 32X version is great, it's one of the 32X games I picked up BITD after the 32X tanked. Another factor is that Blue Lightning was the launch title for the Jag CD. In hindsight it was an indicator of its inevitable failure. Air/Ace Combat on the Playstation as mentioned was out at this time and so was Wing Arms on the Saturn, both superior games.

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regarding the comment about boatloads of Sega coin-op's never being converted to console:

Back in Aug'97 Mike Kumagi of Sega's AM3 department and producer of:The Lost World:Jurassic Park 2, was asked about the possibility of a Saturn conversion.
He replied that it would be very difficult to pull off as no console hardware could manage it (Saturn/Playstation or N64), but also it would be difficult to recreate the atmosphere of the arcade cabinet, in a console game.
So maybe Sega felt that way with a number of coin-ops?.
Personally i've always felt home versions of things like Paperboy, Afterburner, Hard Drivin` etc, no matter how technically impressive they often are, loose a lot when removed from the cabinet/arcade setting.
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He replied that it would be very difficult to pull off as no console hardware could manage it (Saturn/Playstation or N64), but also it would be difficult to recreate the atmosphere of the arcade cabinet, in a console game.

So maybe Sega felt that way with a number of coin-ops?.
Personally i've always felt home versions of things like Paperboy, Afterburner, Hard Drivin` etc, no matter how technically impressive they often are, loose a lot when removed from the cabinet/arcade setting.

 

 

I can understand things like light gun-centric games. The only recent consoles where they would make sense to port were the original Wii or Wii U (since the stock control setups can replicate a light gun), but then you run into the extra (and likely not insignificant) expense of paying the IP holder for a home license. Otherwise, I think all of the other games would translate well to just about any modern platform.

 

And it's not like they have a good excuse for the arcade games that weren't in environmental cabinets or what-not. It just seems like for whatever reason Sega favors infinite Genesis ports to properly mining its arcade stuff. I just don't know why they wouldn't do both. In fact, it doesn't make sense to me why they don't group certain game bundles together, like a Golden Axe bundle, which has all the home versions and offshoots as well as the arcade stuff. That's the kind of thing that would get a struggling company like Sega easy money with relatively minimal effort.

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This was the major issue with the Jag CD, it was now suppose to be on par with the PS1,Saturn, CDi,3D0, all that wass holding back the 64 bit power was the dang Carts that Atari had insisted on, now you could have 60 meg games vs. 4 to 8 meg games.

 

Oh yeah CD's or so cheap to make even if the Jag continues to bomb, they will get ports of games cause carts cost a to to make cd's next to nothing

 

Then you get like 8 titles, 3 of which are FMV games that are out on every cd unit at the time.

then you get Myst again on every cd unit at the time.

....will give Atari credit their versions of these games look about the same as they do on 3DO.

 

The other 4 games that came out all look about as good as the 1st generation Saturn stuff...Hoverstrike, IS2, Primal Rage, and Battlemorph(this should of been pack in).

 

Oh yeah Highlander, that kinda looked like Alone in the Dark, was awful;

 

World Tour Racing was a step up or on par with VR Racing.

 

....really the only game that does not look 32 bit is the pack in Blue Lightning.

 

Atari needed good press, should of chose any other game, Primal Rage would of been the biggest name, or ported NBA JAM to CD and included it with the Jaguar.

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NBA Jam on CD would've been a mistake. It was available on SNES/Gen/32x/Jag with zero loading time. The Jag CD was simply too little far too late. Its limited technology aside, Atari didn't have any decent 3rd party devs. Perhaps with better developers we could've seen more games and a slightly longer life span for the Jag, but at the end of the day the hardware is what it is. 3D was the future and it simply could not compete.

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Yeah I guess you are correct, Blue Lightning was not the worst of the JagCD lot, but that is a commercial release of 10 average to descent games at the time and Sony had already figured out that 3D Polygon games where the way to go, also giving developers the tools to easily make games for the system.

 

Atari nor Sega(a video game company with $$$) didn't know 3D was the next generation, they and everyone else went with supper 2d or Movie CD's and the rest is history

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@Bill Loguidice:

 

Having commented on perhaps why Sega never thought The Lost World would work on Home Formats, time to move briefly onto Scud Race.

 

Sega themselves seemed to of said a Saturn conversion was never attempted as hardware couldn't hope to replicate anything like the level of graphical detail featured on the coin-op (which was capable of what? 300,000 polys a second and at resolutions upto 496X384?) and they never considered it for Dreamcast because....

 

The Dreamcast was the much needed new start for Sega and they were focusing all efforts on new, exclusive launch titles...

 

(Irony here being those titles included coin-op conversions like HOTD 2, VF 3 etc :-) )

 

 

The message i seem to be getting from Sega, suggests that a lot of their coin-ops simply fell between consoles as it were.Far beyond abilty of the Saturn to replicate to any real degree, but not seen as current enough to be worthy of conversion to the Dreamcast.

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I played the game only for a short amount of time back then, because I'm not a big fan of After Burner like games. Remembering it as solid but not spacial. Maybe a later more polished cart release would have helped the game to get more attention.

I really should play a round sometime soon again.

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Yes, a cart version of BL, skipping all the annoying videos and layers of menus to click past, focusing only on the game itself would be a good game!

As a first impression on the CD add-on it was a bad choice for sure, and since they had a deal with the guys behind Cybermorph as a pack-in I think, next to others, that Battlemorph would have been the right pack-in able to show the difference between Cybermorph and the improved Battlemorph on the CD format.

All in all less rage from the few consumers actually caring at that point, since we tend to speculate here in the general forum.

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Yes, a cart version of BL, skipping all the annoying videos and layers of menus to click past, focusing only on the game itself would be a good game!

 

As a first impression on the CD add-on it was a bad choice for sure, and since they had a deal with the guys behind Cybermorph as a pack-in I think, next to others, that Battlemorph would have been the right pack-in able to show the difference between Cybermorph and the improved Battlemorph on the CD format.

 

All in all less rage from the few consumers actually caring at that point, since we tend to speculate here in the general forum.

 

Cybermorph was something of a divisive launch title for the Jaguar, so I'm not sure an improved version would have done much as a pack-in for the Jaguar CD, but it would have certainly been a quality improvement over the dreadful Blue Lightning, which arguably made a mockery of the console's audio-visual capabilities.

 

As we've discussed elsewhere, in retrospect, considering how poorly the console sold, there was no scenario, even a hail mary type of situation, where releasing the CD add-on made any sense whatsoever. Perhaps if they replaced console-only units with console+cd bundles it might have made some sense, but as we know, there was already excess console stock sitting on shelves, so even that wouldn't have been practical at that point.

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Cybermorph might well of pulled in decent review scores and indeed awards here in the UK, but it never seemed to be the 'flagship' game Atari Uk perhaps might of hoped for, in order to shift consoles, so yes, whilst Battlemorph would indeed of been a far better choice, in terms of quality, than Blue Lightning to bundle with the unit, what it would of done to boost sales is questionable, as the Jaguar itself was doing so badly at retail, the prospect of investing more on an add-on, did not sit well with many of the Jaguar owners i knew, nor myself.

 

Oh and another one for Bill, regarding why Sega home titles might not of been convertedAM3's planner, Shinichi Fujii said back in early'96 that they developed games with a specific arcade market in mind and looked to see if the game was a success or not, before deciding on any home conversions.

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Oh and another one for Bill, regarding why Sega home titles might not of been convertedAM3's planner, Shinichi Fujii said back in early'96 that they developed games with a specific arcade market in mind and looked to see if the game was a success or not, before deciding on any home conversions.

 

Just to clarify my particular stance, I was not necessarily questioning why they wouldn't mine their arcade library for their contemporary platforms - although that should have been a given, regardless, in at least some cases - it was more questioning why they haven't bothered once they switched to being a third party publisher. It seems strange to me to have such a rich arcade and home system catalog like Sega has and not milk it beyond mostly select Genesis titles, particularly since once they have the emulators running correctly, conversion efforts should be relatively minimal.

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Yeah it's something i've found very puzzling, hence digging out the various 'official' reasons i've found so far.

 

When Sega annouced they were going software-only, i kind of expected a great wave of home conversions to likes of the Xbox, PS2 etc that we'd never seen before, as the hardware now offered Sega the chance to convert games the Saturn could never of hoped to replicate well and the Dreamcast might of struggled replicating the complex water/lighting effects of newer boards.

 

That sadly never happened and then hope glimmered yet again, briefly when Afterburner Climax was converted to PSN/XBLA and said hope of more coin-op conversions faded as fast as it had begun.

 

So whilst i cannot shed any light on why they've never done it when technology was clearly there, there are reasons stated why perhaps they never did at the time and it goes beyond just the power of existing home hardware technology.

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The message i seem to be getting from Sega, suggests that a lot of their coin-ops simply fell between consoles as it were.Far beyond abilty of the Saturn to replicate to any real degree, but not seen as current enough to be worthy of conversion to the Dreamcast.

Sega's ST-V arcade system was basically a cart only Saturn. Their NAOMI system was pretty much (memory aside, mostly) a Dreamcast that took both carts and GD-ROMs. Of course there was other popular Sega arcade hardware like the Model 3, but I don't know that it'd be fair to make a blanket statement about home and arcade hardware not lining up. But of course none of this has anything to do with Blue Lightning.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Most of the hate that come from ANY JagCD game is due to critics actually never playing them. They watch one Angry video game nerd episode and their minds are made up. Most people you talk to do not have a cd unit and have never played this game.

 

Another reason is what I like to call the great blind generational leap. When cyber morph FIRST came out it would've blown all of you away. But because we've seen much better come afterwards that game just gets thrown in the category of ripoff. I'm amazed as critics will sit there and actually say "man these graphics are horrible even for the time". No they aren't and no they weren't.

 

Blue lighting is indeed fun. It reminds me of a cartoony Plane Arcade machine you would find at the movies. I dig it.

Edited by Scorponok
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Another reason is what I like to call the great blind generational leap. When cyber morph FIRST came out it would've blown all of you away. But because we've seen much better come afterwards that game just gets thrown in the category of ripoff. I'm amazed as critics will sit there and actually say "man these graphics are horrible even for the time". No they aren't and no they weren't.

 

Sorry, but that's nonsense. Most of us were around when Cybermorph first came out and were front and center for the launch. It definitely didn't blow most of us away and even the contemporary reviews were all over the map, from judging it very good to mediocre. All things considered, it was not bad as a launch title, but it was definitely an acquired taste and certainly a bit hard to appreciate its audio-visual qualities from a purely accessible "eye candy" standpoint. It was interesting technology, but definitely not something that would necessarily make most people go "wow" without understanding all of the calculations taking place behind the scenes to generate those pop-in heavy environments with relatively little else going on in-game.

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Most of the hate that come from ANY JagCD game is due to critics actually never playing them. They watch one Angry video game nerd episode and their minds are made up. Most people you talk to do not have a cd unit and have never played this game.

 

And yet there are some of us who did play the bloody thing and think it's not that good. Not even for its time.

The JagCD was released in September 1995, the same month the PS1 was, the Saturn was available in May 1995 .... so HELL NO the JagCD did not show anything relevant for the time.

 

And let's stop rewriting history about that particular chapter that is the JagCD.

 

Regarding the Jag prowess gfx in Cybermorph I am not a fan of the genre but with the 3DO Crush'n'Burn out not one month after the Jag I beg to differ that the untextured 3D gfx of Jag Cybermorph were impressive for its time (btw I think Crash'n'Burn is a boring game so I will not defend it past the eye-candy) ..... so told for that 1Y (end of 1993/end of 1994) the Jag was OK-ish (remember that both Saturn and PS1 were available via import at the end of 1994).

 

Could the HW have been used better? Sure but not likely for 3D comparable to what was coming not 1Y after.

 

EDIT: it did have impressive ports of Wolf3D and Doom by 1994, that count for something.

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Sorry, but that's nonsense. Most of us were around when Cybermorph first came out and were front and center for the launch. It definitely didn't blow most of us away and even the contemporary reviews were all over the map, from judging it very good to mediocre. All things considered, it was not bad as a launch title, but it was definitely an acquired taste and certainly a bit hard to appreciate its audio-visual qualities from a purely accessible "eye candy" standpoint. It was interesting technology, but definitely not something that would necessarily make most people go "wow" without understanding all of the calculations taking place behind the scenes to generate those pop-in heavy environments with relatively little else going on in-game.

This is 1993 dude....ahem...1993. Go Google what games were out in 1993. I had computer geeks at the time who were impressed with it. Also there are more mature ways to counter a point with your OPINION than claiming another person's opinion is "nonsense ". I just happen to think what you're saying is nonsense too! But I don't out right say it.

Edited by Scorponok
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This is 1993 dude....ahem...1993. Go Google what games were out in 1993. I had computer geeks at the time who were impressed with it. Also there are more mature ways to counter a point with your OPINION than claiming another person's opinion is "nonsense ". I just happen to think what you're saying is nonsense too! But I don't out right say it.

 

Why do I have to Google what I lived through, "dude"? I even worked at Electronics Boutique at the time, so it's not like I didn't have plenty of perspectives from other people as well.

Edited by Bill Loguidice
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I bought near launch. Games I got with system were Cybermorph (pack in), Trevor McFur and I think Dino Dudes. Played Cybermorph for a couple of hours. Then tried Trevor McFur. So unimpressed I was ready to return the system. Dino Dudes is what made me decide to keep it.

 

I decided to give Cybermorph a try a few years ago. Played it through to the end. Even more unimpressed

Edited by rayik
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This is 1993 dude....ahem...1993. Go Google what games were out in 1993. I had computer geeks at the time who were impressed with it. Also there are more mature ways to counter a point with your OPINION than claiming another person's opinion is "nonsense ". I just happen to think what you're saying is nonsense too! But I don't out right say it.

 

Word to the wise, if you don't know who Bill is, you might want to follow your own advise and Google him, 'dude'. ;)

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I was a day 1 UK purchaser of the Jaguar and someone who really enjoyed Cybermorph.

Whilst i could appreciate the free-roaming aspect, the morphing of your ship and the graphical effects used on the landscapes etc, there was no escaping the fact ATD, lacked a decent graphics designer.
This is understandable given size of the team, previous work they'd done on the ST etc, but there was no escaping the fact ship designs, buildings etc did look crude and somewhat out of place in the game.
The game managed to convince the more cynical UK magazines (i think Edge scored it an 8) and mainstream press like Gamesmaster, C+VG etc appreciated it as well and it was seen as a promise of things to come.
But like Tempest 2000, it was never going to have the instant OMG!! visual appeal of something like AVP had.
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Going back to my time at Electronics Boutique, I remember quite distinctly some of the games that impressed during that time. The 3DO stuff was a huge hit as a display unit because of all the - for the time - multimedia goodness, including the flashy pack-in game, Crash 'n' Burn (which was not that great when actually played). Most of the stuff on the 3DO couldn't help but impress (but didn't sell well for quite some time because of the crazy price; and of course a lot of the stuff, especially early on, didn't necessarily play all that great). Other games I remember impressing crowds as running demos were games like Greatest Heavyweights for Sega Genesis, with its pleasing graphics, raucous sound, easy-to-grasp-concept, etc.

 

Again, if you look at the type of technology that Cybermorph implemented and the type of game it was, it was not something that would make the average person say "wow." If you had a good understanding of the technology, you might think "wow", but it's just not something easy to interpret like the systems/games I mentioned above, or even something like AVP mentioned by Lost Dragon. That was probably the first Jaguar game that made just about everyone go "wow" without qualification and think that that was something that few other systems at the time (outside of PC or 3DO) could hope to replicate.

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This is 1993 dude....ahem...1993. Go Google what games were out in 1993. I had computer geeks at the time who were impressed with it. Also there are more mature ways to counter a point with your OPINION than claiming another person's opinion is "nonsense ". I just happen to think what you're saying is nonsense too! But I don't out right say it.

 

Most of the folks in this forum, dude, are in their 40s or 50s, and played Cybermorph at release time, dude.

 

Just sayin', dude, that most of these folks actually did play the game "back in the day", dude, and actually have a valid opinion that you shouldn't be so dismissive of.

 

Dude.

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