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

[+save2600]

Whoa dude... is that you Kevincal/JAGUAR ...?

 

[Lost Dragon]

the entire 32/64 bit era was one Sega Europe's Marketing Manager described as 1 aimed at the 'Graphics Tarts' (a jibe at people taken in by the flashy visuals of something like Toh Shin Den or Ridge Racer on PS1 over saturn Virtua Fighter/Daytona USA)....

And the simple fact was, something like Crash 'n' Burn running on 3DO did look bloody impressive and smacked of Next Generation ,compared to what was on offer on MegaDrive/SNES and far better than something like Cybermorph on the Jaguar.

Gamesmaster (UK TV show) featuring rolling demo of AVP early on in development, now that was how you showcased the Jaguar.

To someone like myself, huge Aliens fan, loved Alien 3 on both MegaDrive and SNES, this was simply a visual milestone and it highlighted the potential of the Jaguar there and then.

The only problem was, it was just 1 OMG looking title, at a time Atari so badly needed a whole line up of titles like this.

Not titles ported from 16 bit systems or moved from Panther/Falcon to Jaguar....

[phoenixdownita]

Imho even AvP was late, released at the end of 1994 it went face first against PS1 and Saturn (available in Jap around that time and in all import outlets if you were willing to spend the dough).

AvP was impressive for the time, but once you saw what the new gen was doing already you also knew Sat/PS1 were worth the wait for an official release outside of Jap.

The press was all over the place during those years wrt Jap consoles development and things to come, so even with AvP in the lineup people were hard pressed to wait for the next gen.

[Lost Dragon]

I know i'm in the minority, but i still rate AVP far higher than the more visually impressive (in areas) Alien Trilogy on PS1/PC/Saturn.

It wasn't until Alien Resurrection arrived on PS1 i saw a more impressive Aliens game for that era.

For all it's 3D motion capture, CGI cutscene previews etc, the visuals suffered from extreme pixelation and the animation seemed lacking, something i thought the 3D motion capture was supposed to avoid?.

[phoenixdownita]

I was not comparing AvP Jag with other Alien based games, I was simply stating that as good as AvP looked on the Jag it exuded Doom-like style all over the place (which was released one year earlier on the PC).

It was well know at the time that Doom/Doom-like games of the era were not really 3D beside the clever raycasting rendering technique (rooms/corridors were non intersecting, camera was not tilting etc...etc...) but when Sat and PS1 came along they showed real 3D worlds (3D fighters/racing were all the rage and they basically nailed it at a competitive price point).

In the late 1994 AvP showed how much of "Doom-like" games the Jag could do [Doom itself being released not 1 month earlier, and Wolf3D a few months before that] but the earlier screenshots of RR/Tekken etc... on PS1 showed how much of the new shiny 3D gaming scene the up and coming next gen consoles were capable of doing (Daytona USA in the living room, unheard of).

 

Yes, hindsight is 20/20, and we already know Atari severely underestimated the importance that textured 3D gaming would take not 1Y after the Jag release, so I won't get back there.

I know that even I was looking at the press of the time and seeing the Jag as a much improved 2D console with some foray into 3D-ish, once I saw PS1 earlier screenshoots in those same magazines I was sold and started saving money for what I would consider "the real deal". So for inasmuchas I was impressed by AvP (and the fact that it was an Alien based game played no small part in that fascination) I chose to wait.

 

In all fairness at the time I got my gaming fix from my PCs (and there was a horde of Doom-alike at one point), it was the PS1 that prompted me to get back in the console fray. Then a Sat (for curiosity), then an N64 (again curiosity), but the PS1 was the highlight for me of second half of 90' gaming (that and Super Mario 64, I am just fascinated by it beyond belief) ... and I did have a Voodoo card to show how nice texture filtering would look, then later a dual Voodoo2 setup to brag about high res and high frame rate etc.... still I spent most of my time playing with my PS1.

[Lost Dragon]

Very true.

 

As impressive as AVP looked and for all the impact it had on myself at the time, it was not the jaw dropping impact i had seeing Ridge Racer and Toh Shin Den running for the very 1st time on the Playstation.

 

(Seeing Virtua Fighter running on the Saturn on BBC Breakfast News did liitle for me).

 

 

Where as the Jaguar impressed, what was being shown on the PS1 simply amazed.

 

The simple fact was, where Atari (and indeed Sega with original specs for Saturn) seemed to go wrong, was in beliving the future lay with very powerful 2D machines, with improved 3D performance over what we'd seen with DSP based SNES/MegaDrive games.

 

Sony simply understood the importance that textured 3D graphics were going to play, having had experience on Silicon Graphics workstations prior to the release of the Playstation.

 

3DO tried to make early steps into the realm of texture-mapped 3D as standard on home console hardware, but at the expense of it's 2D ability.

 

Swings and roundabouts.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Lost Dragon

[Bill Loguidice]

Very true.

 

As impressive as AVP looked and for all the impact it had on myself at the time, it was not the jaw dropping impact i had seeing Ridge Racer and Toh Shin Den running for the very 1st time on the Playstation.

 

 

Definitely. As we know well, Sony somehow got almost everything right with their first console. And yes, those launch titles were undeniably impressive and probably the last time most people truly went collectively gaga over audio-visuals thanks to that shift from 2D to 3D paradigms. Thanks to that shift, the Sony stuff seemed light years ahead of everyone else. In retrospect, that's the kind of wow factor we probably expected from the Jaguar (thanks in part to hammering home the jump from 16- to 64-bit), but never got.

[phoenixdownita]

 

Definitely. As we know well, Sony somehow got almost everything right with their first console. And yes, those launch titles were undeniably impressive and probably the last time most people truly went collectively gaga over audio-visuals thanks to that shift from 2D to 3D paradigms. Thanks to that shift, the Sony stuff seemed light years ahead of everyone else. In retrospect, that's the kind of wow factor we probably expected from the Jaguar (thanks in part to hammering home the jump from 16- to 64-bit), but never got.

mmmhhh, I remember my jaw dropping again when I saw Soulcalibur on the Dreamcast, absolutely stunning.

Then again, jaw floored with Gran Turismo 3 and 4 on PS2 (and many other).

Then again when I saw 16:9 full support and 480p on many XBox titles (and even 720p on some)

Then again with GT5 on PS3 and Halo3 on 360 [basically the first coming of "HD gaming"], and again with Ni No Kuni on PS3.

I have refrained from buying a PS4 and have not spent much time at all with XBOne (the wife adores Halo and because happy wife=happy life -> buy whatever console plays Halo) but the intro to Halo 5 down the snow is simply exhilarating, apart than that I can't comment too much.

 

Next will be (maybe) gaga over the VR promises (which is AV once more), not sure.

 

You are correct that maybe we're growing more used to it and there's diminishing return on increased resolution and SoundFXs but imho we're not at a point where you can't tell.

[it's not like the screen res of modern phones that almost reached the peak of what human eyes can distinguish, so no more increased ppi to wow the consumers, we've seen it happening to cameras already: 1MP, 2MP, 4MP, 8MP, 20MP, 40MP and now we're starting to see a slow down ... at least for the consumer market].

 

EDIT: BTW I can admit I have not been blown away by any of the AV from GC (it was good, just not too different from the rest), Wii (..no comment..) or even Wii U (..again nothing mind blowing..) but with Nintendo it is the first party games that do the talking and there was plenty to be enjoyed but as you said no gaga over AV.

[Major Havoc 2049]

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.

Lol...chill dude. I was an avid Atari fan and Diehard Gamefan reader back in 1993 and was all hyped for the Jaguar and Cybermorph at launch. Being an Atari fan though, I pretty much knew the the chance of the Jaguar being a success was slim, as the Lynx, TT and Falcon all bombed and Atari Corp was on life support. And while I personally loved Cybermorph and though it was a fun, deep and meaty shooter to sink my teeth into, I knew it didn't have the mass appeal and AAA gloss (in-game music and more story with cut scenes) it needed be a system seller.

[Austin]

Whoa dude... is that you Kevincal/JAGUAR ...?

 

Oh god.. I sure as hell hope not.

 

Or maybe I do? At least that would be predictable.

[+CyranoJ]

 

Oh god.. I sure as hell hope not.

 

Or maybe I do? At least that would be predictable.

 

For gods sake, don't mention the war.

[Austin]

 

For gods sake, don't mention the war.

 

The war was real.