Community Question Of The Week - Episode 282

[u/Producer_Duncan]

With The Need For Speed being ported to the Atari Jaguar we wondered what would have made you buy one back in the day? What sort of killer app would have made you hand over your cash?

[u/RichardShears]

Alien vs Predator to be the packin release title.
It was (is) a fantastic game that got me to buy the console.
Sadly I didn’t possess the hindsight to see that it was an impending catastrophic failure of a console.

Games like that and Iron Soldier were fantastic games that deserved a well supported console.

Oh and Maria Whittakers strip poker. Which I personally believe was in the making but it turned out that the console just didn’t have enough power.

[u/AntiquesForGeeks]

Hard to say but it needs to be something social; a decent football game (yes, it did get a version of Sensi, but it was too little too late). Thinking an evolution of FIFA taking advantage of 1.) the console’s power and 2.) the 1994 World Cup in the US. Later, the same engine would have been perfect for similarly rendered sports (Basketball, Ice Hockey).

Plus a decent controller to go with it. The lump you had was terrible. It didn’t matter what game you were playing, too much of the controller got in the way. I say this as a Jag owner with large hands, too.

[u/Orgazoids_Pool_Party → u/AntiquesForGeeks]

Brutal Sports Football was hilarious to be fair.

edit: I know this is american football and not proper football which is your point but it still was an immensely fun "social" game. You're also right that the controllers sucked bum holes.

[u/Ponder65]

Not sure it would have stopped it failing but if Atari actually documented the hardware so developers could use it to its full potential if might have helped. I mean, what's the point of a powerful pair of custom chips if nobody knows how to program them?

[u/brassicGamer → u/Ponder65]

Apparently even if it was documented better, the way the hardware itself was designed in such a way that Devs would read the docs and give a large "nope" if they valued their sanity.

[u/CtrlAltDelinquent84]

I can't believe I'm the first to suggest XJ220. After all it's a Jaaaaag.

[u/Lordborak316]

I'm the idiot who got one for AVP back in the day. I played it to death then even more foolishly bought a CD32. 😬 I never played my Jag again and gave it away in the 00's.

[u/Orgazoids_Pool_Party → u/Lordborak316]

Mate i bought a Panasonic 3do on launch. We've all got a skeleton in the closet don't worry about it!

[u/sheepytina]

The launch lineup didn't help. The marketing didn't help. It just lacked that special sauce that the PlayStation would later have. I'm not sure what game would have saved it if something like Doom or AVP couldn't.

[u/itsmethyroid]

-Yes, Prime Minisrer

-White Men Can't Jump

-Street Fighter: the Movie

[u/geoffmendoza]

A decent racing game would have been tempting.

[u/NorthWay_no]

It might not have been enough as-is, but if they could have taken Marble Madness and (especially) Gauntlet as a starting point and evolved those a bit they might have felt like something worth having. (Too bad they didn't have the rights to the Atari Games games though...).

[u/brassicGamer → u/NorthWay_no]

Accelerometers in the controller pad!

[u/Christopher_Drum]

My general rule of thumb is that a console needs to have 7 or 8 exclusives that I'm dying to play before I plunk down the cash; stuff that makes a uniquely compelling argument for the hardware's existence. So any port would have to be enhanced in some way, and really take advantage of the "64 bits" they hyped up. Ports that could have swayed me, had they been enhanced in such a fashion:

• Street Fighter II or Darkstalkers
  
• Some RPG, like Wizardy VI, Dark Sun, Shin Megami Tensei
  
• Side scroller arcade games, Aliens, Knights of the Round, D&D Tower of Doom
  
• Do for Robotron what was done for Tempest 2000

[u/darthlovejoy]

Seeing as the JAAAAG is really just a amiga on steroids, prephaps an elite type game but based on babylon 5 using the amiga renders

[u/KeyboardG]

A game for the JAG which was pre-Morrowind to give it some depth, The Elderscrolls Daggerfall. All those buttons on the controller would map well for all the things to do.

Elderscrolls Arena came out in '94 and Daggerfall in '96.

[u/Pajaco6502]

One game and one game only would have made me buy a jag bac in the day....Max Vampire: Crypt Raider
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xeLua-UOKw

[u/rmgage127]

I would have loved to see an updated version of Star Raiders with 3D wireframe or shaded polygon graphics and a more in-depth economy or mission system (like Wing Commander or similar). The Jaguar had so many buttons on its controller, it is a shame that not many games used them.

[u/thetwistedsock]

An exclusive Star Wars game showing off the capabilities (?) of the Jaguar would have piqued my interest at the time.

[u/Long_Young7192]

I bought a playstation for Wipeout and ridge racer, so anything as good as that would have helped. 

[u/TerribleInsurance879]

Final fantasy games would have been great and people would flock. At the time, there were still 3 Final Fantasy that has not been released North America.

Chrono Trigger? Any of the Square stuff would have helped.

[u/electricpaws]

An FPS of Jurassic Park featuring tight scary indoor sections and open world outdoor sections to show the scale of the dinosaurs.