For many, a 3D engine by a fan for a console such as the Atari Jaguar may not be all that interesting. I get it, I really do. I grew up with gaming, from Pong to today, I have played games most chances I got over the years. I watched in awe as cutscene clips screenshots were published in gaming magazines showing off the “power” of the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn – talk about a let down when real gameplay graphics were first published. Anyhow, back to the topic at hand. The Atari Jaguar will probably go down in history as the console that shot itself in the foot repeatedly at every opportunity. Programmers said the Sega Saturn was hard to program for which means they never tried the Atari Jaguar and the mess of hardware under the hood that thing brought. Most games released for the Jag only used one of the dual CPUs and we never got a sense of how loud the cat could purr in the right hands. While this 3D engine is not going to change that, it is impressive to see it in action.
Pushing the Jaguar
For aftermarket work, as far as I know no professional experience behind this, the fourth Work in Progress of this 3D engine is beyond impressive. Sure, there is no “gameplay” here, if you want to classify this as a genre, it might be a first-person walking simulator in a surreal world. There are no enemies, no obstacles to destroy, etc. Just walking around and seeing what the Jag can do at this moment.
There are severe limitations present in the video, embedded below, though.
For one, it seems the animation on the textured objects stops, or is EXTREMELY slow, as the player moves forward, left or right.
There is also severe pop-in, anyone that played just about any 32-Bit game on the original PlayStation or Saturn knows what I am talking about here.
Currently, the engine is a far cry from what we saw in Iron Soldier but is also pushing much more graphical elements than that game did.
Yes, There Is a Release Available You Can Download
You can head over to YouTube and grab the latest download from the description, or just click it here. Still, please go over to Ashra Ivy’s YouTube channel and leave them some support. We never know how much a like, a comment, a share, can mean to someone living their dream.
This 3D creation for Atari has good three-dimensional polygons. Of course, the quality isn't ideal, but at least it looks like a big step forward.