Developer: Rebellion Developments
Publisher: Atari
Release Date: November 1994
The second half of 1994 saw the Atari Jaguar coming the closest it ever would to being an actual contender. Several of their most high-profile games would be released during this time. They already had Tempest 2000 and Wolfenstein 3D in stores, and they would get other high-profile titles like Alien vs. Predator and Iron Soldier out before the end of the year. However, there were still some very troubling signs. The Jaguar’s soft launch was in November 1993, and the Christmas season of 1994 would be the most prolific time the Jaguar would ever have. Despite the national launch, however, they still only managed to have 17 games out by the end of 1994. That’s not as many games as the NES had on its very first day. It is hard to succeed with such a tiny library of games unless every game is a masterpiece. Nintendo 64 had a similarly tiny library in its early days, but Nintendo still had the SNES and Game Boy to help keep them in the market. Atari didn’t have that kind of safety net and needed to impress with each and every game. So, if they were to release two similarly terrible games at the same time in a month that only saw the release of three games it would be concerning indeed. That’s just what happened when Atari released the twin driving horrors of Club Drive and Checkered Flag. I’ve already written about Club Drive on here. It’s an absolute mess with terrible graphics, bad controls, confusing goals, and ultimately boring gameplay. It fails on ever level. By comparison Checkered Flag looks like a winner. It looks nice and is easy to understand. It’s a real racing game with actual computer opponents. There was even a version released on Atari Lynx a couple of years prior, and that game was pretty good. How could they go wrong with an enhanced sequel? Of course, if you actually play Checkered Flag than you will quickly see how it can all go wrong. Checkered Flag reveals so many of Jaguar’s flaws that it should be called Red Flag instead. It’s an ineptly made racer disguised as an eye-popping next-gen game.
I’m just going to get right to the flaws this time. Why waste time pretending like this is going to end up as a positive review? Checkered Flag is an incredibly shallow game with some truly awful controls. When you first start up the game you are treated to a menu screen with different categories to adjust However, it’s all just for show. If you’re playing tournament mode all you get is a choice between a red car and a black car. No difficulty settings, no manual transmission, no nothing. Even the most rudimentary racing games will have different cars with their own strengths and weaknesses. In Checkered Flag they’re nothing but weaknesses. If you are going to play Checkered Flag, be prepared to drive into the wall. You will be driving into the wall at practically every turn. I spent a lot of time getting unstuck from the scenery. Not all of the scenery is bad though. Objects on the side of the road like rocks and trees can be driven right through, but structures like bridges and tunnel entrances are like spider webs to bugs. It’s hard not to get stuck on them. Also, if you get too far off the track the game will automatically put you back on the road, but it feels like the time it takes is random. Sometimes I felt like I was put back on instantaneously and sometimes it would put me well behind some of the other cars. It didn’t make much sense. This is bad in a game where it’s so hard to stay on the road in the first place. When I found out that the second race is in the rain, I thought it was all over, but inexplicably the rainy and snowy tracks controlled much better. I think it’s because the top speeds were lower in general on the extreme weather tracks. Have you ever played a racing game where the sunny tracks are slippery, and the icy tracks are smooth? If you play Checkered Flag, get used to experiencing the opposite of everything that should happen.
And the oddest thing is that even with the bad controls, I could often win races by a minute or more. The tournament has to be played through in one long, hour plus slog where all ten races have a ridiculous number of laps. We’re talking about double digit laps. No non-simulation racing game should have that many laps. The computer cars are mindless drones that just drive, usually in one big clump. So, once you’re past the clump of cars you can just drive and drive. They seem to have just as much trouble on curves because even with all the slipping and sliding it’s easy to get way ahead. I actually got a little relieved sometimes when I would get stuck on the scenery, because the thought of a challenging race was exciting. I can’t believe Atari didn’t put a password in this game. Or be like every other racing game and split it up into circuits with saves between them. Beating Checkered Flag was one of the most boring endurance tests I have ever experienced in a video game, but at least I was able to beat it. There’s not that much else to do in the game either. There’s no two-player mode, and you can play individual races with more options, but I don’t think many people are going to torture themselves with more Checkered Flag than what is absolutely necessary. Maybe if this was 1994 and you only had this and Cybermorph to play you might try to put more into it, but I don’t write for time travelers. If this is any year before 2024, please stop reading. I write for people who live in the present, and in the present day there is no reason to play Checkered Flag unless you are a completionist like me.
I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I really do enjoy playing and reviewing Jaguar games. I know it’s been a bit bottom heavy so far, but I want to get some of the lesser titles out of the way before I get to the more prominent titles. I’m not expecting anything great, but maybe it will at least have a 10% good rate before I’m done. Something about Checkered Flag rubbed me the wrong way, and I think most gamers agree this one is a dud. It seems like reviewers wanted the Jaguar to succeed and gave some of the early games overly good reviews. Checkered Flag got some good scores, but the reviewers didn’t have that many good things to say about it. It seems like they had to reach to find the positive, and it mostly came down to speed and graphics. The graphics do look nice, but not good enough to hide the bad gameplay. It’s yet another sub-par Jaguar racing game. Seriously, did they ever release a good one? I’ve still got a few to play so there’s still hope I suppose. I liked it better than Club Drive because at least it feels like a real racing game and the graphics are decent, but it’s still way down at #135 overall. We’ve been seeing a lot of red lately, so hopefully that changes soon. If I want to turn things around, however, I should probably quit playing so many Jaguar games.
Atari Jaguar Quality Percentage: 1/7 or 14.28%
(Images are from mobygames.com)
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