Previously on Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog:
"And with that... we've finally come to the end of Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog! All 50(+1) officially released cartridge games in order of release date (more or less), and I hope through this series you've come to better understand the kind of life the Atari Jaguar had, because I sure as hell had... That being said, though... the overall official (cartridge) catalog is actually shockingly better than you'd expect!"
Make no mistake: The Atari Jaguar was an unmitigated failure of a console that was produced by Atari Corporation, a company that was clearly unable to continue operating like it once did, i.e. being forced to return to consoles as its primary focus after its focus on computers had stopped being profitable. At only around 250,000 physical units produced it is now one of the harder to acquire video game consoles for most people to try its catalog on, though today there are other options out there, like the well regarded & constantly enhanced & updated software emulator BigPEmu by Rich Whitehouse, which first appeared in Digital Eclipse's celebrated Atari 50 collection in 2022 & even plays games better than the actual console ever could. So, after taking about 3.5 years to cover the entire official (cartridge) catalog for the Atari Jaguar, what have I learned... and how do the games rank for me, personally?
The Jag Was Screwed From Day One
Let's be totally frank here: Atari Corporation was never truly a well run company. While there were certainly flaws to be found back in the OG Atari, Inc. days run by Nolan Bushnell, arguably enough so that he needed to sell the company to Warner Communications just so that the VCS/2600 could even become a reality, there's no doubt that Jack Tramiel was not the right person to run an "Atari". While he inherited the console gaming side of things he showed no interest in it until the NES had hit it big... and even then he relied on outdated tech to compete, as the 2600 was nine years old when it got revived in 1986 as a budget-priced option, while the 7800 came out two years too late (tech-wise, at least); these endeavors were, at best, successful enough to break even. Meanwhile, Tramiel was already an infamous name in the personal computer industry from his time with Commodore, so while the PC side of things was still somewhat viable when Tramiel formed Atari Corp. his bad reputation put a glass ceiling on it, and when that started to underperform we got dumb ideas like the Atari XEGS (which actually sold even worse than the Jag, at only around 100,000 units!). Things weren't much better with the handheld Lynx in 1989, with Atari Corp. generally considered to have purposefully messed around with Epyx precisely so that Atari could have full ownership of the handheld itself, which in turn only made it easier for Epyx to eventually declare bankruptcy, rather than use the Lynx to help keep Epyx around to benefit both companies.
So when things shifted over to the Jaguar in the early 90s, it's not exactly shocking that Atari, once again, was in over its head. First, while Jack Tramiel had by then put his son Sam in charge of Atari Corp. by that point, it's not as though Sam Tramiel was making the best moves, either. In order to prepare for the Jaguar it was decided that pretty much every other piece of hardware from Atari Corp., whether that be the 2600, 7800, XEGS, & even computers (first the 8-bit lines, but even the ST by the Jag's launch), would be discontinued & not supported anymore. In other words, outside of the Lynx (which was a distant third place to the Game Boy & even Game Gear), Atari Corp. was essentially betting the entire farm on the Jaguar. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, the Jaguar itself was never truly ready for people to develop for it, at least in the way it was intended, as Atari's own documentation was poorly written, the dev tools were unfinished, & even the hardware itself had bugs that needed to be worked around. Therefore, many devs simply took advantage of the Motorola 68000 chip that was included solely as a "manager" for the intended "Tom & Jerry" GPU & DSP, effectively turning the Jag into a somewhat souped up Sega Genesis, or (more likely) a modified Atari ST, for a good amount of its releases. This, in turn, made the whole "64-bit" & "Do The Math" promotional blitz come off as completely hollow & without merit, despite the Jaguar being fully capable of stuff that the Genesis & SNES were not capable of at all.
Needless to say, the entire gambit failed, no doubt also hurt by The 3DO Company's legendarily cheap licensing terms making the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (which launched only a month prior to the Jag) a much more attractive alternative to the Genesis & SNES than the Jaguar ever could be, with the 3DO getting 4x-5x as many releases as the Jag (depending on if you include the Jag CD games or not); hell the 3DO even had a (relatively) "strong" Japanese presence when compared to the Jag. In all honesty, the fact that the Jaguar even got 50 games released on cartridge between 1993 & 1998 was a miracle, in & of itself. As for the Jaguar CD... well, the very fact that RetroHQ's Jaguar GameDrive can play (most of) those games without needing the add-on itself shows just how pointless it truly was, offering nothing more than the "Oooh, shiny!" appeal of the compact disc itself, which people in North Ameica could already indulge in via the 3DO, TurboGrafx-CD, PCs, & even the CD-i before it ever came out, let alone the later releases of the Saturn & PlayStation.
Someone should have called the ASPCA back in the mid-90s, because what Atari Corporation did to the Jaguar was straight up cruelty to an innocent animal.
The Current Atari Could Honestly Produce a Jaguar Mini
The current Atari that exists that's under Wade Rosen's leadership has put forth a strong emphasis on having Atari be caretaker-of-sorts for various retro gaming IPs, having purchased (or even purchased back, in some instances) entire catalogs that once belonged to the likes of Accolade, MicroProse, GT Interactive, Infogrames, Stern Electronics, & even Intellivision (including the M Network games released for the 2600), as well as select titles from the likes of Digital Leisure, Piko Interactive, Ocean, etc. Atari even publicly released an "IP list" showcasing the various titles it owns on a general level, though it (understandably) doesn't list each & every literal individual game. This emphasis includes releasing physical games for both the 2600 & 7800, some re-releases & others for the first time (as "official" releases, at least), while for more niche hardware has produced plug-&-play products like the Atari 400 Mini. As for the Jag, there's no doubt that producing a smaller-scale, cartridge-based emulation system, a la the 2600+ & 7800+, would make little to no sense due to the console's paltry selection of games (50) necessitating re-releasing a number of them, and Atari currently owns the rights to (at most) just shy of 1/3 of those games; plus, the CD games would be screwed over. In short, a hypothetical "Atari Jaguar+" wouldn't be feasible.
However, a self-contained "Atari Jaguar Mini" wouldn't be so impossible. Sure, there'd be licensing to deal with, but today it's actually not too unreasonable after all these decades. While Atari only included nine Jaguar games in Atari 50 (Atari Karts, Club Drive, Cybermorph, Evolution: Dino Dudes, Fight for Life, Missile Command 3D, Ruiner Pinball, Tempest 2000, & Trevor McFur), the company could possibly have rights to another seven cartridge games (Breakout 2000, Bubsy, Checkered Flag, Hover Strike, Iron Soldier 1 & 2, & Kasumi Ninja), as well as four CD games (Battlemorph, Brain Dead 13, Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands, & Iron Soldier 2); negating duplicate IS2s that's already 19 games, or ~30% of the cartridge & CD catalog. After that would be EA with rights to four games (Cannon Fodder, International Sensible Soccer [both after acquiring Codemasters], Syndicate, & Theme Park), followed by Dragon's Lair LLC (Dragon's Lair & Space Ace), id Software (Doom & Wolfenstein 3D), & Piko Interactive (Attack of the Mutant Penguins & Brutal Sports Football), which each have two; that's 29, or ~46%. After that would be Activision (Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure), Bridgestone Multimedia Group/Epyx Games LLC (Blue Lightning), Cyan/Sunsoft (Myst), JV Games (Towers II: Plight of the Stargazer; ideally replace it with the 2023 remaster), Seibu Kaihatsu (Raiden), Team17 (Worms), Ubisoft (Rayman), & even dev legend Paul Cuisset (Flashback), who each own one; that's 37, or ~59%. Urbanscan handles Gremlin's old catalog (which itself absorbed Imagitec), so they'd likely own Zool 2 & possibly even I-War, while Warner Bros. Games is the current steward of the old Williams & Time Warner Interactive catalogs, so Defender 2000 & Power Drive Rally are likely both there; Double Dragon V & Troy Aikman NFL Football may also be with WB, but both have extra IP & likeness issues, so excise those. Yeah, 14 companies to license from is a lot, but Sega had to deal with about that many third-party licenses, if not even more, for the Genesis/Mega Drive Mini 2, so it wouldn't be impossible.
That would bring a hypothetical total up to 41 games, or ~65% of the 63-game catalog, so what else would be missing? Well, Alien vs Predator & White Men Can't Jump are both now with Disney (after it purchased 20th Century Fox), Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story would look to be a mix of Universal Pictures (as it was based on a movie) & Interplay (which acquired most of Virgin Interactive's catalog), while NBA Jam: Tournament Edition belongs to, well, the NBA; in other words, these would likely be too expensive to license. Meanwhile, AirCars, Fever Pitch Soccer, FlipOut!, Pinball Fantasies, Super Burnout, Supercross 3D, Ultra Vortek, Val d'Isère Skiing & Snowboarding, Zero 5, Zoop, Baldies, & World Tour Racing are all giant ?s when it comes to rights due to the companies that once held them either going out of business & having no publicly-known steward or their rights are caught in confusion, like Fever Pitch Soccer being originally owned by U.S. Gold, which was then acquired by Eidos, and since then Eidos' catalog has been split up between Square-Enix & Embracer Group without everything being clearly defined. Finally, there's Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods & Vid Grid, both for Jag CD, which are respectively based on an animated TV series or feature tons of licensed music, so excise those as well. Thankfully, should Atari want to include maybe a solid 50 games for a "Jag Mini", that's where the homebrew scene could help out, because it could do what it's now doing for new 2600 & 7800 releases & work deals with the companies and/or individuals that AtariAge works with to include homebrew Jaguar games & ports to help fill out the roster & showcase the life the Jag has had since Hasbro made it an open platform, similar to how Yoomp for the Atari 800 was included in Atari 50; AtariAge even offers World Tour Racing for sale, so they've figured out the rights, apparently. If I was to choose nine games to finish things off, then I'd say Skyhammer, The Chaos Engine, Gods (all three are owned by Rebellion) Protector: Special Edition, Total Carnage (hey, if WB Games would have to get involved...), BattleSphere (one of the creators is still seemingly semi-active online, at least), Another World, Head Over Heels (it's owned by Atari now), & World Tour Racing. BigPEmu, which is what I imagine this theoretical mini would use, even supports both JagLink & Catbox LAN play (as well as even online play!), so include an ethernet port, too!!
[UPDATE: I have since discovered that Rebellion now owns the rights to Pinball Fantasies, so that's another game that could theoretically be included!]
Of course, some might think "Why would anyone even want a Jaguar Mini, anyway? Doesn't that console have nothing but terrible games?" Well...
The Catalog Is Way Better Than You Think It'd Be!
Without a shadow of a doubt, this was easily the most surprising thing for me via this entire series. Now, to be fair, I didn't go into the Jag's catalog thinking that there'd be barely anything good, as I knew that there were some solid, if not even great, games, but the vast majority of the Jag's catalog was filled with games I had never even tried out, so color me surprised that I found the majority of games officially released on the Jaguar to be well worth playing on the console. In fact, out of the 51 games I covered for Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog, 33 of them are what I'd rank as either "Good" or downright "Excellent", or 64.7%. And even out of the remaining 18 games, I found 10 of them to simply be "Meh", i.e. not necessarily "Good" but still at least moderately amusing, leaving only eight that I'd outright call "Bad" or straight up "Trash" & would recommend actively avoiding unless you are ready to not have a good time. So let's go over each of these five categories & see which games go in each rank, and in sticking with the way I covered these games each rank is in (roughly) release chronological order; also, any games included in Atari 50 will be shown in red for easy identification.
Starting off we have the "Excellent" rank, i.e. the creme de la creme that I would instantly recommend anyone curious about the Atari Jaguar to play. The first of the Jag's truly excellent games was Tempest 2000, Jeff Minter's outstanding revamp of the 80s arcade classic that has since been updated only slightly with future entries in the decades since, because Minter nailed it perfectly right away. After that would be Wolfenstein 3D, which is arguably better than the PC original by featuring a more streamlined, focused, & less repetitive campaign, as well as enhanced visuals. Then there's Alien vs. Predator, the first of Rebellion's various entries in this franchise that built on Wolf 3D's format by having each of the three campaigns play differently from each other, resulting in possibly the most complex FPS on the console. The Jag port of Doom, despite not having any music, remains one of the absolute best console ports of the 90s (topped only by the PS1 port &, more recently, the fan-made "Resurrection" mod for the 32X port), and would go on to be the basis for most console ports of the next decade or so. Iron Soldier knocks it out with a fully polygonal 3D world that your giant robot can absolutely destroy during missions, and its usage of the Jag's keypad is one of the most intuitive. Syndicate is 100% not my kind of game, but there's no doubt that it's iconic for good reason & it honestly does work out rather well on the Jag & its keypad. Cannon Fodder is a sarcastic, darkly humorous joy of a game to play, and the same is true on the Jag.
The only Jag game released by Time Warner Interactive (i.e. the latter day Atari Games/Tengen), Power Drive Rally is seriously one of the best racing games on the console & if it wasn't for what came out right after it I'd call it the absolute best. However, the title of "Absolute Best Racing Game on the Jaguar" has to go to Super Burnout, a technical showpiece that proved how capable the Jag truly could be when it came to 2D, both in scaling & frame rate, and it's a damn excellent racer, too! The Jag was 100% late to the party when it finally got a port of Flashback, as even the CD-i got a port before it, but it could very well be the best cartridge-based version of the classic cinematic platformer. However, the best platformer on the Jag, full stop, is easily Rayman, and the Jag version remains one of the most unique ones to play to this very day, likely due to it technically being the OG version, development-wise. The Jag doesn't have a wide variety of sports games, but NBA Jam: Tournament Edition stands heads above them all, & like Flashback may be the best cartridge-based version. Iron Soldier 2 is simply more Iron Soldier, only more difficult & with better saving options. Worms... is freakin' Worms, so it's awesome. Finally, while BattleSphere wasn't an "official" release on the Jaguar by the time it finally came out, it still remains a pretty damn ambitious game that, at the very least, commands your respect; up to 32-player LAN gameplay across 16 consoles!
Up next we have the "Good" rank, i.e. games that I would still say are worth playing on the Jaguar, but either just are simply not quite on the level of the "Excellent" ranked games or have something holding them back from true greatness. Evolution: Dino Dudes will mainly appeal to a specific kind of puzzle game fanatic, but there's no doubt that it's still an interesting little game, in its own right. Raiden on the Jag may only run at 30 fps, but it's still Raiden in the end, which means that it's a really good shooter. Brutal Sports Football may not really be either type of "football", in the long run, but it is still a fun & hectic time to be had, especially for those who like to roughhouse it more than traditional sports would allow. Val d'Isére Skiing & Snowboarding is admittedly on the lower end of this rank, but it's still a good time while you're playing it. Zool 2 is definitely an early-to-mid 90s Euro platformer in the ways most would usually think, but it is still a neat little game once you get to terms with the twitchy controls & mechanics. Theme Park is one of those games that really does require, at the very least, a mouse to fully engage with as intended, but this is another of those games where the keypad does come in handy... once you figure out what each number corresponds to, at least. Hover Strike is definitely on the higher end of this rank, & maybe could have even possibly made it into "Excellent", but the fact that there is an enhanced remake on Jag CD means that this just misses out on joining the upper echelon. I'm sure for some International Sensible Soccer should 100% be in the "Excellent" rank, so me including it in "Good" just comes down to personal preference (which is entirely what these ranks are, anyway), but there's no denying that it can be a lot of fun. With only two pinball games on the Jag Pinball Fantasies by far is the superior product, offering more tables & simply more enjoyable pinball action.
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a game that I absolutely wish I could put into the "Excellent" category, because I do really enjoy this game... but, unfortunately, the Jag version being locked to 30 fps prevents it from being the ultimate console version, though it's still a great game for the Jag. Missile Command 3D is two-thirds of an "Excellent" contender, but unfortunately the main attraction mode of the game itself, the one intended for Jaguar VR use, is just not fun at all to play. Atari Karts is, by default, the best kart racer for the Jaguar, and while it doesn't have the weapons that have come to be standard for the genre at least the actual racing itself is really damn solid. Zoop is, by far, the best puzzle game on the Jag, offering a gameplay loop that admittedly isn't anything too deep or complex but is easy to just pick up & play whenever you're in the mood, which is perfect. Defender 2000 is just like Missile Command 3D in that it's 2/3 of an "Excellent" contender, but its titular main attraction gameplay mode is just too unwieldly to really get into. Attack of the Mutant Penguins is a bizarre game, make no mistake, but it's also seriously one of the most unique & interesting games on the console; it just might be a bit too bizarre for most people. Breakout 2000, oddly enough, is the inverse of Missile Command 3D & Defender 2000 in that it's technically only 1/3 (more 1/2, in this case) of an "Excellent" contender, but in this case the titular main attraction mode winds up being the absolute highlight, especially when played in versus mode against another player or the computer. Towers II: Plight of the Stargazer is a rather straightforward first-person dungeon crawler of an RPG, in all regards, but since it's the literal only one of its kind of the Jaguar that makes it the best by default, and at least it's a solid one. Finally, Zero 5 is a fun little arcade-action 3D polygonal shooter once you fully understand how to play it (or, at least, the first of its three gameplay styles), but is hindered in some ways once you get to higher difficulties.
After those comes the "Meh" rank, i.e. games that I didn't actively hate playing, & in some cases I honestly found better than their reputations preceded them, but at the same time I wouldn't exactly tell people to actively play them, at least not until they've played the prior 33 games above them first. Original pack-in game Cybermorph is not as bad as what you've generally heard of online, and its legendarily meme-worthy voiced line doesn't even rear its (disembodied green) head all that often if you actually play it properly. However, it's still 100% an example of a tech demo that was simply turned into an actual game, and while it has its rare moments it never really goes (or even aims) above that. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is probably on the lower end of this rank, as while I didn't actively hate it I also fully admit that it's nothing more than mediocre, at best; this is about as pure "C-grade" as you can get. Troy Aikman NFL Football, to be perfectly honest, could honestly be better than how I wound up ranking it, but that's something that only someone who's more well versed in a traditional American football game could answer, as I don't really play these kinds of games; aside from some neat little touches, this is about as run-of-the-mill as you can get for a football game. FlipOut! is a puzzle game that I feel like almost could have been "Good", as it has a hectic & constantly moving feel to it (& its presentation is memorably weird), but the actual game itself performs slow enough to the point where it can feel more boring than engaging. White Men Can't Jump is often cited as one of the poster boys for "Bad Jaguar Games", especially since it came out a few years after the movie it was based on ran in theaters, but in reality it's just your purely average game of half-court street basketball, minus some immensely dated aesthetics, and when NBA Jam: T.E. exists on the same console there's really no reason to play this game instead.
Honestly, Ultra Vortek might just be a little undeserved for the "Meh" rank, as it's not really all that great of a fighting game, even for the Jaguar; Dragon is honestly more of a brawler than a fighter. However, it's still leagues better than the competition on the same console, it has a bizarre charm(?) in its visuals & style (I mean, come on... "Poopalities"), & I do feel like a theoretical sequel could have actually learned a lot from where this game faltered. Ruiner Pinball is still a more-than-decent game of digital pinball, and it aims to do stuff that you simply couldn't do with an actual pinball machine, but it's always going to be in the shadow of Pinball Fantasies, overall. I-War is a game so close to being really fun in a simple & straightforward way, but the lack of strafing makes combat immensely boring & repetitive without a sense of kineticism, almost as if the game wasn't quite finished before release; so close, yet just shy. Fever Pitch Soccer is similar to Troy Aikman NFL Football in that there's nothing really inherently wrong with it, and honestly is a decent enough game of soccer, but there's also nothing special about it, especially when International Sensible Soccer is also on the console. Finally, AirCars is truly best described as "Hover Strike, Only Not as Good", and while eight-player LAN deathmatch sounds really cool it's not enough to make up for its "just fine" gameplay (& truly repetitive voice work, even more so than Cybermorph); also, BattleSphere well & truly outdoes AirCars when it comes to LAN support.
Then there's the "Bad" rank, i.e. games that I just did not have a fun time playing, but at least I could see what the developers were going for, and I can argue that, at the bare minimum, an attempt was indeed made. Club Drive feels like an attempt by Atari Corp. at mimicking Atari Games' Hard Drivin' & Race Drivin', and you can see where it almost could have succeeded... but the end result it just not any fun to play at all; a hearty salute to all who manage to speedrun it ironically. Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales is a perfect example of a game that, with just two alterations, could have actually been pretty damn good. First, the awkward momentum Bubsy builds up just clashes horribly with the large & more open environment stages that really encourage exploration, so the end result is a game that feels like it's actively fighting you when it comes to movement. Second, Bubsy dying in a single hit is just too harsh because it's way too easy to start moving fast, giving you no time to properly react to foes in time. As for Kasumi Ninja, it's one of the most blatant Mortal Kombat clones ever made in the 90s, but it just plays so poorly, with stiff combat & much-too-simplistic controls making for a boring time, & not even it's more memorably bizarre elements can't save it. Finally, Fight For Life wound up being the perfectly emblematic final release from Atari Corporation before the merger with JT Storage, as Francois Yves Bertrand & his small team did what they could to make a game that built off of what the original Virtua Fighter did, but awkward controls, sluggish gameplay, & a literally unfinished game keep it from fulfilling whatever potential it could have had.
Finally, we have the "Trash" rank, i.e. the games that actively made me hate myself a little for even daring to try out, and I simply could not find anything even remotely redeemable about them. While Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy may not actually be the Panther-intended game that I originally alluded to it being back in 2021, it's still an absolute & utter embarrassment of a side-scrolling 2D shooter, and the fact that Atari Corp. felt that this was the only game that people could buy on test launch day on November 23, 1993 (and was even considered to be the pack-in!) is proof positive of how screwed the Jaguar was from the very beginning; Atari Corp. effectively gave the console a vote of no confidence on Day 0. As for Checkered Flag, the game is simply an unplayable mess on a stock console, so much so that even calling it something like "Virtua Racing from Wish" or "We Have Virtua Racing at Home" would still be giving it far too much credit; that said, I've seen BigPEmu brute force it into a solid 60 fps, where it looks far better. Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls is simply not a good fighting game at all, with stiff controls, lackluster combat, & a pretty poor roster... but the Jaguar version developed by Telegames is even worse due to the lack of face buttons forcing you to use 3, 6, & 9 for kicks, and since you can't re-assign buttons beyond the literal ones that are used you can't even take proper advantage of the Pro Controller that came out later; being able to assign 7, 8, & 9 to attacks honestly might have bumped this up to simply "Bad" rank. Finally Supercross 3D is an abomination of a game on the Jag, with unappealing visuals, rough controls, terrible audio, & poor performance that makes it a chore to actually play.
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And, with that, I can put a final end to Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar Catalog. Now, yes, I could one day decide to cover the Jaguar CD's 13 official releases, and I could fit those neatly across three parts, but that'd technically be "Prowling the Official Atari Jaguar CD Catalog", i.e. that'd be its own entire (mini-)series. Still, I don't regret doing this series one bit, because I think I now see why the Jaguar has been able to maintain such a fervent & dedicated fanbase for over 30 years, so much so that there's even a yearly event (JagFest) where these fans can get together, show off what's been going on with the homebrew scene, & simply celebrate the console & its games. By no means did the Atari Jaguar ever have a shot at becoming an unmitigated success, and even if things were all done in their most ideal ways I think it still would have eventually resulted in the collapse & dissolution of Atari Corporation as a company.
However, at the same time I think that's what makes the Atari Jaguar so appealing, because it was a humble little console that was lumped with the pressure of being the savior for an entire company, one that only barely managed to give it the bare minimum of support from the very beginning, & while its official catalog is still small when compared to even its most direct competitor (the 3DO) it still managed to find itself an honestly good overall selection of games that do make the console worth checking out. Meanwhile, the fans & small development studios have remained so loyal to the Jag that they managed to make Hasbro officially declare it as an open platform in 1999, which has allowed it to thrive for the past 25 years in a way that I don't think anyone could have expected. The Atari Jaguar is a great example of pure gumption & moxie in the video game industry, a literal "Little Console that Could", and in all honesty I think it deserves a little more respect than it usually gets online. I mean, even the controller isn't anywhere near as bad as people think it is; it's not one of the best, mind you, but it's nowhere near as unwieldly as people say it is.
Plus, if we were to get an "Atari Jaguar Mini", it could roughly be the exact same size as the Jaguar controller itself!
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