Atari Jaguar #3: Club Drive

Developer: Atari

Publisher: Atari

Release Date: 11-28-94

 

So far, we have been talking about Jaguar games that look nice but play somewhat poorly. Well Club Drive is a nice change of pace. It’s a game that both looks bad and plays bad. The graphics look like a parody of what people thought computer animation would look like in the mid 80s, and it is all about driving wobbly cars toward boring and unclear goals. The fact that it came out in late November on the same day as another poorly received first party racing game, Checkered Flag, is certainly one of the reasons the Jaguar failed. If you can’t even do a decent racing game after a whole year of practice than you have problem. It’s not like decent racing games are that hard to make. Almost every console has at least one. The 2600 had quite a few good ones. In their early arcade years Atari practically popularized the genre. But when it came to Jaguar they seemed completely lost. At least it’s good for a few laughs.

(What more do you need to know? Also note that the tv is showing your game in progress as if seeing it once wasn't bad enough)

 

Considering how bad this game looks the backstory is hilarious. The game takes place in the future where normal driving is obsolete, and people come to the Club Drive amusement park to drive death-poof cars in exciting environments. Well that at least explains the game’s dumb golf-styled name. This game is supposed to look futuristic, but it’s about as advanced as a Model T. The cars can’t kill anybody, but patrons could easily die impaling themselves on any of the thousand sharp, 90 degree angles to be found everywhere. I’ve never seen a blockier 3D game. Everything is made out of single-colored geometric shapes. It’s a bad sign when you see your car for the first time and can’t tell if you’re looking at the front or the back. I know some people will argue that graphics don’t matter, but that’s a strange notion in a visual medium like a video game. Graphical power may not matter as far as overall quality, but nothing can be more distracting in a video game than bad graphics. This is especially true in a game like Club Drive where the graphics are so bad it’s hard to tell what anything even is. Nothing’s funnier and more depressing than seeing a legless, perfectly rectangular cat that looks more like a toaster with a hood ornament than any kind of animal. How is it even moving?  Is that a cat with wheels? If so, why am I not able to drive the cat around? That sounds like more fun the regular game. Even my six-year-old knew it was bad.

(It must be San Francisco. It has hills!)

 

The gameplay isn’t much more inspired than the graphics. I know this is listed as a racing game, but it’s more of a driving simulator. At no time will you be racing against other cars. There is a racing mode, but it’s actually just a solo drive from point A to point B and back. I suppose the goal was to show off the good graphics by having the player experience the whole environments. Too bad they forgot to include any. There’s really no way to lose this mode so the only goal is to try to get a better time. At least it saves high scores. The other mode has you collecting pods scattered around shortened versions of the levels. Once again, the goal is to simply improve your own best time. Unfortunately, the pods pop up in a different order every time, so the goal is practically negated. How are you supposed to improve when it’s all random? All the while your car shakes and skids like it is constantly driving on a block of ice. It’s a true triple threat. It’s looks bad, plays bad, and controls bad.

(I think that's Iron Soldier off in the distance. I wish I was playing that game instead.)

 

So with Club Drive we have the Atari Jaguar’s first true stinker. Sadly, it won’t be the last, but it’s one of the more entertaining of the Jaguar’s total disasters. What really solidifies it’s infamous place in history is its release date. Some of the real stinkers came out closer to the end of the Jaguar’s life when Atari was circling the drain and was just trying to recoup some of it’s losses. Club Drive came out soon after the console went national. By then the Jaguar had a few good first party games, but the double whammy of Club Drive and Checkered Flag certainly put a damper on things heading into Christmas of 1994. I hope Jaguar owners got Tempest 2000 instead. As far as my rankings go I am putting it, appropriately enough, right above E.T. at #108. I don’t like the order of some of my bad games, so it may be subject to change. It’s at the bottom of the Jaguar list of course, but since we still have games like Fight for Life on the horizon that won’t last forever. At least there’s that.

 

Jaguar Quality Percentage: 0/3

 

Jaguar Rankings

 1. Cybermorph

2. Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy

3. Club Drive

Atari Jaguar #2: Cybermorph

Developer: Attention to Detail

Publisher: Atari

Release Date: 11-23-93

 

If you know anything about the Atari Jaguar than you have probably heard about Cybermorph. It’s probably the system’s most well-known game. This comes more from it being fist, however, than from it being particularly memorable. Cybermorph was the pack-in for the Jag, so if you are one of the ten people who got a Jaguar in its early days than you probably played this one to death. Its status as a pack-in title has also kept it affordable in the modern day meaning that if you bought a Jaguar many years after its demise than you have still probably played it. Thank of it as the Jaguar version of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. Is that going a little too far? Okay maybe the Jaguar version of Las Vegas Poker and Blackjack. Either way it’s an important game on the console, and one that’s also interesting to talk about.

 

The Atari Jaguar only had four games going into its first Christmas, and while this isn’t necessarily a bad sign considering its November release, it does mean that every game needs to be important. Atari was trying to make a big statement, and it’s difficult with so few games to choose from. However, if they were going for impressive visuals than Cybermorph was a great place to start. Much like Trevor McFur it’s a great looking game. It’s a free-roaming 3D shooter which was practically unheard of in the console world at the time. Sure, Star Fox looked great, but you couldn’t back up and explore another path. At least in a technical sense the alien worlds presented were open to exploration in a way that very few space shooters had been before. Unfortunately, much like Trevor McFur they nailed the graphics and presentation, but faltered a bit in the gameplay department.

 

The premise of the game is surprisingly simple. You go to different planets, fly through trenches, and collect pods. When you collect enough pods, you find the exit and do the same in the next level. An attractive bald lady is on board to give you advice, but she mostly makes fun of you. This is probably the part of the game that most people know about it. Didn’t Atari learn that people don’t like to be constantly made fun of while they play a game? Hey maybe this game is like Duck Hunter after all. I was surprised by how much Cybermorph reminded me of Pac-Man. There are open areas to explore, but much of the game takes place in maze-like trenches surrounded by impassible mountains.  It’s all about flying through mazes and collecting dots. At least Cybermorph gives you a radar and has a wider variety of enemies. Not to say it’s better than Pac-Man, but it is better than the theoretical 3D “Pac-Man 2000” that this game could’ve been. Cybermorph must be good if it makes me start talking about imaginary games.

 

Where this game falters, however, is in the combat. There is no logical progression in the levels, so they often go from no enemies to swarming death within seconds. Your ship can’t take very many hits, so usually if you see a swarm of enemies coming you will die. The best strategy seems to be avoiding danger altogether which is never fun in a game like this. There are powerups to be found, but they are not nearly as helpful as they should be and don’t change the strategy much. There are no continues and only three lives. I know you can earn more by getting a whole bunch of points, but I’ve never even been close to that amount because everything is too dangerous. I’ve played rounds that lasted about a minute before I was blown to smithereens. Clearly the 3D combat was not refined enough, and it keeps the game from living up to its potential.

 

I very much wanted to like Cybermorph and put it in the good column. In fact, I remember enjoying this game fifteen years ago when I first got my Jaguar. Unfortunately, it’s not a game that has stood the test of time very well. The visuals are still fun, but the gameplay is too repetitive and too hard. If I had gotten a Jaguar in 1993 (which I really wanted) I probably would’ve convinced myself that Cybermorph was a winner. Deep down inside, however, I would've known that it’s another mediocre space shooter on a doomed console that really needed an impressive first year to have a chance at success. It did get some good reviews at the time it came out, but overall, the reception was mixed. Of course, it wasn’t all doom and gloom when the console came out and, in a few months, they would start to release games more regularly and would end up having their killer app. So, if you were one of the 10 people who got a Jaguar for Christmas in 1994 than you might feel a bit more optimistic. Too bad things would only get worse from there. I’m ranking it one game above Trevor McFur at #68 which is close to the good section so at least it’s not in the red. We’ll get some good one on the list fairly soon I promise.

(screenshots are from mobygames.com)

 

Atari Jaguar Quality Percentage: 0/2

Atari Jaguar Rankings

1. Cybermorph

2. Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy

Ranking List