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When I was a kid, my parents would take my sister and I to Babbage's to purchase all of the hot new releases for the Super Nintendo. Proudly displayed in the center of the store, was the new, ultra-powerful, super-neat controlled, mega expensive power house the Atari Jaguar. It looked cool and ever so tempting, but I knew even at that young age that the machine was too expensive. Fast forward twenty years, and now, the Atari Jaguar has collapsed in price, and it is certainly feasible for collectors to add this to their shrines. It does seem that only collectors would appreciate this machine for what it is: a lot of untapped potential. The graphics are stunning for its time and the controller with its telephone keypad, is completely unique and potentially offers limitless game play experience. The reality of the machine, however, is that game developers found it difficult to work with, thus we see that the vast majority of games for the console don't show the system in all of its true glory. The controller, which is essentially a Sega Genesis controller on the top and a touch-tone phone on the bottom, had infinite opportunities for unique game play, but ultimately, the keypad was often considered to be an after thought. The simple reality is that there a few games for this platform, and the ones that we see woefully under-represent the Atari Jaguar. That is not to say that there are not exquisite titles for the Jaguar. The platform thrived on horrifyingly gruesome fighting games- products that critics (rightfully so) declare are Mortal Kombat rip offs. Ultra Vortek (one of the Jaguar's few exclusives) is a specific game of this genre, and it is the reason why I purchased the Jaguar. Ultra Vortek does not disappoint- it delivers a great deal of nauseating violence in a soul-crashing cyberpunk nightmare. Overall, the Atari Jaguar really is a solid machine, but it really only has appeal to somewhat hard-core collectors. If your goal is simply to have machines that have a wide variety of high quality games, then the Jaguar is probably not for you (hmm... with that last sentence, I think I just explained why the machine failed so abysmally). Many of the Jaguar games are available on the 3DO, Sega Saturn, Playstation, and even the Super Nintendo, and the Jaguar versions of those titles do little to show off its capabilities. However, there are treasures that can only be experienced the Jaguar, and if you want to expand your collection to a new and largely overlooked frontier, then I certainly recommend the Atari Jaguar.Read full review
Grew up with this console so I am obviously a bit bias, but I understand that this isn't the greatest console to have. With that said, though, there are a few games that make this console worth having. Alien vs Predator, Tempest 2000, Iron Soldier, Space Ace/Dragon's Lair, Ultra Vortek, Doom, Wolfenstein, and Cannon Fodder. Some of those games are hard to come by, but worth every penny. This system still has a strong home-brew community, and at the time I wrote this review (2013) several new games, cartridge and CD based, have been released this year alone. If you are a collector, this system is worth having considering it is Atari's last console, but also, because it has a few games you simply will not find anywhere else.
To be honest anyone who steps forward today 22 yrs after jaguar and outs it down is either lieing for no reason or didn't own one and going off u tube like nerd idiot whatever his name is.anyway it's an awesome machine has huge libary today new games monthly still real games boxed Manuel's not just a burned disk yet there out there too. Buy and u will see if programer did work games are great but if lazed off and ported crap it was 16 ports then .anyway u spill it it's a blast to this day Atari age songbird ,and duranik are a few of big hitters making gems monthly and there new games not ports but then there the Atari St computer games 560 titles and there now being ported over to jaguar so as libary grows how many others besides Sega Dreamcast which is another monster can brag like that ..just play for yerself u will thank us real Atari nuts.Read full review
Verified purchase: No
This is an underrated console of its day. It does have some cool games for Atari fanatics. I would suggest purchasing an Atari GameDrive from the Atari Age store so you can really enjoy this unit. As far as cons - The CD player not included is super expensive. As far as the pros - Atari Age are continuing to make games for this as well as other units such as the 7800 and 2600 so one should see new titles coming in the homebrew category. I have had a blast with this console although I would probably say it really helps my case if you are an Atari-Freak like me.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The question is hard to resolve, largely because the definition of what constitutes an "N-bit" system has not been set. Of the five processors in the Jaguar, only the object processor and the blitter are "true" 64-bit components. Because the blitter and the object processor are in the Tom chip, by extension Tom is a 64-bit chip. Furthermore, the Jaguar also used a 64-bit memory architecture Most say the Jaguar should be considered a 32-bit system, as that is the maximum register size in the programmable processors (the 68000, the graphics processor, and the DMA sound processor). The Jaguar visually appears between 16/32 bit in graphic capabilities when analyzing the consoles entire library of around only 57 games. Atari Jaguar titles such as the arcade style fighter "Ultra Vortek" and exorbitant space exploration game "Battlesphere Gold" show the console had potential when handled correctly by dedicated programmers.Read full review
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