Anyone playing Ultra Vortek?

[Jag64]

Was messing around with Ultra Vortek, easily the best fighter released on the Jaguar during the console's lifespan. And much like Kasumi Ninja, I wondered what the characters would look like modernized. Personally, my two favorite characters were Buzzsaw and Skullcrusher. Still sculpting the latter, but here's an early look at the former.

[Austin]

Nope.

[Jag64]

You're missing out, depending on what you're into. If you like 16-bit side scrollers that blind kids can churn out, it might not be your bag. If you want a decent fighter, with the best controls (for a fighter) on the Jaguar, it's definitely worth checking out. It doesn't look like an amateur converted it from a stolen computer game, but you still might enjoy it. A decent stable of characters too.

[sirlynxalot]

Your cg robot reminds me of the PC game one must fall battlegrounds.  In fact that game has a fighting robot named Jaguar.  It's all coming full circle now

[Albert]

Is that ridiculous watermark really necessary?

 

 ..Al

[+CyranoJ]

Just now, Albert said:

Is that ridiculous watermark really necessary?

 

 ..Al

 

Its not like anyone would want to steal it. Except maybe one of those blind kids.

[+remowilliams]

[Jag64]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

Is that ridiculous watermark really necessary?

 

 ..Al

Nothing is "necessary." 😁

[+Stephen]

2 hours ago, Albert said:

Is that ridiculous watermark really necessary?

 

 ..Al

DO THE MATH!!!! (64-bits)

[Jag64]

So just for kicks, I'll try asking the question (in the title) again, since the picture was so distracting to people. Anyone playing Ultra Vortek? The infatuation and obsession with a rough draft throw away mockup image of Buzzsaw is impressive though. Everyone focused on that, except for the cat with the limited "nope" lexicon.

 

If you haven't played it, Ultra Vortek is definitely worth checking out. I've picked up a couple more copies over the summer myself. (Had planned on selling my Jaguars, but the community here is so welcoming and inviting, I figure I shouldn't sell my Atari stuff, but get more and ingrain myself with fun and smart people.... But I'll settle for hanging out here too.) 🤣 LOTS of nice people here too.

 

All kidding aside, Ultra Vortek has to be the best fighting game on the Jag, although High Voltage Software's Thea Realm Fighters clearly had potential. It's a lot of fun for people looking to play something besides tiled together 2D platformers a dyslexic monkey could cobble together. But just like puzzle games or hidden object games, there is a market for bad knockoffs of 35 year old pc games. So I won't knock those either.

 

tl;dr Ultra Vortek is worth picking up, if you can find copies.

[+CyranoJ]

Kidding aside, go fuck yourself with your snide comments.

[+save2600]

Can't wait until Jag64 moves on to the CD-i multimedia system, what with its proprietary Motorola 68070 super CPU! A fighter still worthy of play today, Ultra Vortek ain't got shit on Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam...

 

 

Philips CD-i... no need to take a RISC when you can choose CISC!™

 

[Jag64]

27 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

Kidding aside, go f*ck yourself with your snide comments.

Language, Pally. Well I guess we won't be exchanging gifts at the Atari Age Christmas Party this winter. Do I know you, friend? You seem like you've got some pent up anger. I promise, if she was your wife, she didn't tell me she was married. 😇 JK! I knew. Double kidding!

Edited August 14, 2022 by Jag64

[Jag64]

22 minutes ago, save2600 said:

Can't wait until Jag64 moves on to the CD-i multimedia system, what with its proprietary Motorola 68070 super CPU! A fighter still worthy of play today, Ultra Vortek ain't got shit on Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam...

 

 

Philips CD-i... no need to take a RISC when you can choose CISC!™

 

Not. Even. Gonna. Lie. I like it, lol.

 

This is actually the type of gameplay I expected Double Dragon V to be - with more Streets of Rage elements mixed into the fighting game mechanics. The move sets here look limited, but it also looks pretty fast. I know I'm just a "glass is half full" kind of guy, but I could dig this game for a while.

[doctorclu]

Yeh, the snark does get old.  But about Ultra Vortek itself...

 

Overall, not into fighting games.   Helps when you have another person to play against, and I guess it could be said Ultra Vortek had what would have made that possible: a way to play over a phone line using modems.

 

Here is where I go off the rails, but bear with me, just brain storming...

 

I've actually hoped that at some point someone will figure out a way to mimic the modem connection possible in Ultra Vortek and make it where that can be done over the interwebs.   And then maybe that ability can be hacked or programmed into other Jaguar games.

 

As I write this, I remember back to when I had my Atari 8-bit connecting to the UDS 10 (serial to ethernet devices) some 15 years ago?   We all were logging in that way to a BBS (Computer Bulletin Board System), connecting our 8-bits, replacing modems with these devices that mimicked over ethernet what the term programs were expecting from a modem connected to a phone line.

 

The Jaguar does not have a term program, though I'm sure one could be programmed.   But the good news with a device like the Lantronix device (and many other devices like it) is you can set the device from another computer and it stores the settings in the device.  

 

So essentially you could have two Jaguar players with Lantronix devices set up their devices, and I was thinking, that is all fine and good, but Ultra Vortek is trying to call a number, and these devices would try to "dial" a IP address.

 

Here's another interesting trick that could be thrown into the mix: a guy in the BBS community that set up dial-up numbers for BBSs with only IP or telnet addresses.   So he set up the number that could be dialed, and it would connect to that BBS's IP address.

 

So in effect a person could:

1) set up (once you figure out a serial adaptor to the Jaguar to connect to a serial to ethernet device) actually I guess in this scenario, have ONE Jaguar user with a Lantronix UDS 10, have it's IP address set up with a phone number from a service like the one I mentioned above.   The Jaguar user, with the ethernet and a phone number set up to receive (like BBS) could be the call in point.

 

2) Get another Jaguar user with phone line and modem to try to call the "number" of the above user.

 

------------------------

 

Lantronix to Lantronix would be ideal, but how to get Ultra Vortek to "dial" an IP address?

 

--------------------------

 

So yeh, when I think of Ultra Vortek, which isn't often, probably been years, my two thoughts are of Volcana...

 

 

 

... and what could have been as a networked two player game.

 

I obviously don't know much about how the prototype Jaguar modem worked.   And maybe I need to try a null modem connection between my Jaguar and another computer to see how Ultra Vortek tries to dial.

 

If it sends out a standard "ATDT(phone number here)" then maybe one of several BBSing tricks like I mentioned above can be tried?

[Jag64]

9 minutes ago, doctorclu said:

Yeh, the snark does get old.  But about Ultra Vortek itself...

 

Overall, not into fighting games.   Helps when you have another person to play against, and I guess it could be said Ultra Vortek had what would have made that possible: a way to play over a phone line using modems.

 

Here is where I go off the rails, but bear with me, just brain storming...

 

I've actually hoped that at some point someone will figure out a way to mimic the modem connection possible in Ultra Vortek and make it where that can be done over the interwebs.   And then maybe that ability can be hacked or programmed into other Jaguar games.

 

As I write this, I remember back to when I had my Atari 8-bit connecting to the UDS 10 (serial to ethernet devices) some 15 years ago?   We all were logging in that way to a BBS (Computer Bulletin Board System), connecting our 8-bits, replacing modems with these devices that mimicked over ethernet what the term programs were expecting from a modem connected to a phone line.

 

The Jaguar does not have a term program, though I'm sure one could be programmed.   But the good news with a device like the Lantronix device (and many other devices like it) is you can set the device from another computer and it stores the settings in the device.  

 

So essentially you could have two Jaguar players with Lantronix devices set up their devices, and I was thinking, that is all fine and good, but Ultra Vortek is trying to call a number, and these devices would try to "dial" a IP address.

 

Here's another interesting trick that could be thrown into the mix: a guy in the BBS community that set up dial-up numbers for BBSs with only IP or telnet addresses.   So he set up the number that could be dialed, and it would connect to that BBS's IP address.

 

So in effect a person could:

1) set up (once you figure out a serial adaptor to the Jaguar to connect to a serial to ethernet device) actually I guess in this scenario, have ONE Jaguar user with a Lantronix UDS 10, have it's IP address set up with a phone number from a service like the one I mentioned above.   The Jaguar user, with the ethernet and a phone number set up to receive (like BBS) could be the call in point.

 

2) Get another Jaguar user with phone line and modem to try to call the "number" of the above user.

 

------------------------

 

Lantronix to Lantronix would be ideal, but how to get Ultra Vortek to "dial" an IP address?

 

--------------------------

 

So yeh, when I think of Ultra Vortek, which isn't often, probably been years, my two thoughts are of Volcana...

 

 

 

... and what could have been as a networked two player game.

 

I obviously don't know much about how the prototype Jaguar modem worked.   And maybe I need to try a null modem connection between my Jaguar and another computer to see how Ultra Vortek tries to dial.

 

If it sends out a standard "ATDT(phone number here)" then maybe one of several BBSing tricks like I mentioned above can be tried?

A lot of interesting info there (and some cool Volcana art - always nice). I always wondered about the modem link on Ultra Vortek. I need to dig out one of my XP machines, but (and I may be glossing over a LOT or missing something due to my own ignorance / reading too fast) could a Jag modem plug into a an old PC (like a PCMCIA modem card), and then bridge the connection, writing something to simply mimic the number it would be calling? We did this a lot on GameSpy back in the day with other consoles pre-every-console-having-ethernet - so pre-2002, I guess. Dreamcast servers do it often. Or is that a hurdle to overcome after figuring out the comms device (serial, modem, new, old - some kind of hardware to "talk") in general?

[doctorclu]

38 minutes ago, Jag64 said:

A lot of interesting info there (and some cool Volcana art - always nice). I always wondered about the modem link on Ultra Vortek. I need to dig out one of my XP machines, but (and I may be glossing over a LOT or missing something due to my own ignorance / reading too fast) could a Jag modem plug into a an old PC (like a PCMCIA modem card), and then bridge the connection, writing something to simply mimic the number it would be calling? We did this a lot on GameSpy back in the day with other consoles pre-every-console-having-ethernet - so pre-2002, I guess. Dreamcast servers do it often. Or is that a hurdle to overcome after figuring out the comms device (serial, modem, new, old - some kind of hardware to "talk") in general?

 

 

Using a PC as a bridge was one method.  This is something Atari 8-bit users did with the APE device in the late 90s and early 00s.   Was some of the first times we got those 8-bits on internet based BBSs.

 

Would be curious if you have links to some of these other examples you mentioned to take a look at them.

 

[+cubanismo]

I brainstormed similar ideas for JagLink games in another thread recently that I can't be bothered to look up, and someone has already done something like that for the Lynx recently:

 

 

Technically the Skunkboard could emulate a Jaglink or Jamodem over USB with just firmware updates,  but a atand-alone device plugged into the comm header on the Jaguar would probably be more useful.

 

Would be nice if someone had time to prototype something and see how well the games deal with internet latency to see if it's worth it though.

[JagChris]

I liked UV and I thought the graphics were pretty nice but I thought the gameplay could use a little more time in the oven.

 

I always preferred Primal Rage.

[+Stephen]

I really liked the game when it came out.  I did find it to play much better when the turbo cheat was enabled.

[+Sauron]

UV being the best fighting game on the Jag isn't some kind of noteworthy thing. A better way to describe it is as the least shitty Jag fighting game. Granted, the game had some nice graphics as well as some potential, but it was never going to rank up there with the likes of the Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter series. Personally, I had more fun with Kasumi Ninja, and I'm hardly about to sing the praises of that game.

 

[mozzwald]

3 hours ago, cubanismo said:

Would be nice if someone had time to prototype something and see how well the games deal with internet latency to see if it's worth it though.

I just did less than 5 minutes of research and it appears the Jaglink is just a serial connection. This would be trivial to get started with FujiNet. All you really need to do is hookup the TX/RX/GND (optionally 5V) lines to an ESP32 and you're almost done. I assume the Jaguar uses 5V for logic levels which is absolutely fine and safe on the esp32. No need for level shifting, just hookup directly to the gpio pins. This is what we started with for the Lynx:

 

A new bus/platform can be created in the code and tweaked for Jaguar, probably using Lynx a the basis. We can assist with that when you're ready, just hop onto the Discord server (or if you want to start a new thread here instead). Note, I don't have a Jaguar and no plans to get one so it's all on the Jaguar community to start this. We will help where we can.

 

 

[JagChris]

4 minutes ago, mozzwald said:

Note, I don't have a Jaguar and no plans to get one so it's all on the Jaguar community to start this. We will help where we can.

 

 

Are you sure? Because we got a dude here with a box full of them he's looking to unload.

[mozzwald]

24 minutes ago, JagChris said:

Are you sure? Because we got a dude here with a box full of them he's looking to unload.

If one appeared on my doorstep, I wouldn't complain, but I don't have $500 to throw down on a console and gobs more for games

[JagChris]

29 minutes ago, mozzwald said:

If one appeared on my doorstep, I wouldn't complain, but I don't have $500 to throw down on a console and gobs more for games

If I remember right there's also an alcoholic with a few in his attic? Probably get one there for a 12 pack or two.

 

Reminds me of back in the day I had a retired mechanic living next to me who was an alcoholic. I use to be able get crazy stuff done for a couple 12 packs. 

 

I miss those days.