It took 29 years, but I think I finally kinda 'get' and like Cyber Morph

[T.A.P.]

After having the game for decades, and not really messing around with it, I finally decided to actually and legitimately try to play the game, and... it's surprisingly fun and decent (at least in that new Jaguar emulator)!

I mostly remember me and my cousins crashing around into stuff as kids, while the green head asks where I learned to fly, and for years afterwards, I just never bothered with the game after that, but now that I'm an old man, and I took the time to play it slow, I'm having some real fun with it.

 

Anyone else have games like that?

[Flojomojo]

There are a bunch of games like Cybermorph on the Jaguar (Hover Strike, Battlemorph, Air Cars) you can try now. 

 

The more modern game Battlezone Gold gives me strong Atari Jaguar vibes, you might like it too. It’s on Steam and consoles. 

[T.A.P.]

Does anyone actually sell Air Cars? I thought that was crazy rare/impossible to find.

[scrummy]

Cybermorph is a great game for playing while listening to podcasts or music.  Exploration simulator of a strange colorful world, full of odd aliens that act like they know what you are thinking.   When I first got my Jag, I had this and T2K, I was instantly nuts over T2K but my dad, who I had played Star Raiders with as his co-pilot when I was younger, really liked the look of Cybermorph.  I tried to explain at the time, how cool the music and visuals and gameplay was on T2K, but he was more impressed with Cybermorph.  T2K has never been equaled on other platforms, as the Jag version not only looks, sounds and controls wonderfully, it also is paced better than any other arcade like game I have played.

 

I took the system off to college, where Cybermorph continued to grow on me and I found it ideal for relaxing into couch-lock and exploring strange worlds while listening to other entertainment.  Just me and my spaceship. When people came over to my apartment, they usually wanted to play Jaguar as the system was a mystery and curiosity to most people.  

[Jag_Mag]

Played it for the first time a few days ago and like it.

[+LS650]

I find that Cybermorph is always good for a half-hour here or there.  

[GrizzLee]

Cyber morph is a vey good game from that era. I always thought it could use a bit more polish, but yeah, it had some great gameplay. As far as air cars… eh,  hmmm.. I wouldn’t bother.

 

I played through cybermorph again on the Atari 50th. I like the controls options on there much, much better. Still had fun after all this time. To me it has a nostalgic Logan’s run, Space 1999 feel to it. 

[sirlynxalot]

I wish it had in game music. 

 

How many levels does it have? Ive only played long enough to get through the first set, and then noticed I had a new set to beat.

[MikeA]

1 hour ago, sirlynxalot said:

I wish it had in game music. 

 

How many levels does it have? Ive only played long enough to get through the first set, and then noticed I had a new set to beat.

I wish it had music too, especially in light of how awesome the soundtrack was on Battlemorph.

[+LS650]

There are 5 levels of 8 worlds, plus a boss at the end.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/jaguar/586881-cybermorph/faqs/27983

Edited December 9, 2022 by ls650

[UHATEIT]

Ive always enjoyed Cybernorph. Sometimes the map can suck when the pods are hidden and don't show up. If there was a cheat code for invincibility and for showing the hidden pods on the map I'd be set!

[newtmonkey]

I thought it was a great pack-in game.  The graphics really set it apart from the 16-bit consoles back then, and as a game it's easy to jump into but has some depth/length to it.  I was very impressed with it when I got my Jaguar back when it was released, and I remember talking it up among my friends ("It's like Star Fox, but the ground isn't flat, and you can fly anywhere!!").  It's a decent game, but like others have said above, it really suffers a bit for not having any music.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

When I first grabbed the Jag and picked up CM from a pawn shop the day afterwards, I had a similar experience to many out there, but I slogged through it at the time since it and Wolf 3D were the only games I had for it for a couple of weeks. The crashing into mountains thing has always been played up by AVGN types but certainly overblown.

 

My main issue with the game, aside from no music, is that the gameplay is pretty dull. Every level except for the boss is...collect the pods. Then collect more pods. Then collect pods before the darkness gets them. Oh, you learned how to fly? Go collect pods as that'll teach the evil Pernitian Empire a lesson...or something. It's kind of meh. Perhaps if it had a JagLink feature so you could deathmatch another player or work together on pod collecting, then it would have been more exciting, but I suppose that's what AirCars was. 

 

For me, it was more entertaining to explore the areas but I prefer BattleMorph in every way - there's more to explore, it has the music, better graphics, the map function, and it's all objective based (yeah, plenty of collect-this-or-that missions but at least it's not solely that) 

[MrMaddog]

Yeah I too finally got a chance to not only play CM but also figure out the nuances...

 

How to avoid the ground and learn how to fly:

 

For one thing, you don't have a high attitude ceiling so you can't go over mountains.  And don't hold down the thrust buttons, just use them to adjust the throttle; in fact it's better to go slower to pick the pods than to speed around blasting things.

 

So yeah to be a proper retrogamer you have to play more than five minutes and figure the game out...don't be an Angry Nintendo Nerd!

[Leatherrebel5150]

On 12/7/2022 at 10:34 AM, T.A.P. said:

Does anyone actually sell Air Cars? I thought that was crazy rare/impossible to find.

https://www.wave1games.net/k-a-aircars

 

They are a user on here as well

[T.A.P.]

42 minutes ago, Leatherrebel5150 said:

https://www.wave1games.net/k-a-aircars

 

They are a user on here as well

Awesome! I didn't know you could still get it.

[walter_J64bit]

I've always liked Cybermorph from the first time I've played it, the only thing I didn't like there isn't any save state for the game. 😒

Edited December 11, 2022 by walter_J64bit

[Leatherrebel5150]

On 12/10/2022 at 8:31 PM, T.A.P. said:

Awesome! I didn't know you could still get it.

Hopefully you didn’t order from them. Turns out they are not a great place to do business with. Wish I never offered the link

[T.A.P.]

6 minutes ago, Leatherrebel5150 said:

Hopefully you didn’t order from them. Turns out they are not a great place to do business with. Wish I never offered the link

I didn't, but thanks for the warning.

[Jones007]

On 12/7/2022 at 4:00 PM, T.A.P. said:

...while the green head asks where I learned to fly...

The green head is called "Skylar".
Does anyone know who made that voice over? She got quite famous for that line.
Would be nice to do an interview with her.

Found a picture how she might look like today (-see attachment-).

BTW: I think Cybermorph is definitely a game that would look worse on the 3DO.
Imagine all the landscape only flat shaded...

 

[+Sauron]

Cybermorph was an ok game for its time. People like to slag on it now, but when it was released there really wasn't any kind of 3D "open world" type game, so the comparisons to Star Fox were valid. The main problem is that the game aged horribly pretty quickly, as it didn't take long for games on other consoles to make it look dated. Plus, like others have stated, the "search for pods" gameplay got monotonous. I always got bored with the game no matter how many times I tried to go through and beat it. 

[+LS650]

Actually I think CyberMorph is decent.  Back in the day it was visually impressive for a console game.  Is it dated now?  Sure, but it's worth plugging away at for a half-hour or so every once in a while.  I would give it a 'B'...

[Editorb]

Until release of AvP, I had TK2000 and Cybermorph. C-morph never got any real play, and it turns out I love collecting pods since I-War is one of my faves. Biggest beef with Morph is mountains suddenly towering in my path from what had been a plain. I get that the draw distance was going to suck, but it seems like that could have been designed around, like if the entire mountain can't be drawn, don't make it so @#$%^$#$ tall so it will appear before imminent collision.

[Warmsignal]

I love Cybermorph. It's one of my favorite games, and not just of the Jag. Gets way too much hate because of James Rolfe. He edited his review to show himself purposely running into a wall over and over and making Skylar repeat the same phrase way more than she really does to give a false impression of the game. Something he had a habit of doing a lot in the early years of his show. That, and he also is just genuinely pretty bad at most games, when you watch him playing something un-scripted.

 

Does anyone know if the Cybermorph carts on Atari Age are licensed repros, or are they genuine new-old-stock copies of the pack-in version?

[+madman]

7 minutes ago, Warmsignal said:

I love Cybermorph. It's one of my favorite games, and not just of the Jag. Gets way too much hate because of James Rolfe. He edited his review to show himself purposely running into a wall over and over and making Skylar repeat the same phrase way more than she really does to give a false impression of the game. Something he had a habit of doing a lot in the early years of his show. That, and he also is just genuinely pretty bad at most games, when you watch him playing something un-scripted.

 

Does anyone know if the Cybermorph carts on Atari Age are licensed repros, or are they genuine new-old-stock copies of the pack-in version?

They're legit NOS, there are TONS of Cybermorph carts out there. I bought a box of like 50 of them on here just to have shells/boards. If I had to guess, I'd imagine Atari made more Cybermorph carts than they did Jag consoles.