Looks Like Days Are Numbered for Jaguar

With the price of Atari Jaguar slipping below $100, it almost makes sense to pick one up just as a collector’s item. Although Atari promises to deliver new titles this year for its underdog system, it’s pretty clear that the Jag won’t be around much longer.

Already, it’s darn near impossible to find the rig around town. And games? Forget it. Most of the big shops like Toys R Us stopped selling Jag titles because nobody was buying.

Add to all this the fact that Atari laid off its in-house development team--choosing instead to rely on third-party game developers--and the message is pretty clear.

Too bad.

True, the Jag has hosted many a turkey. But some of its games delivered the kind of high-end play one would expect from the company that started the home video-game market. Take a look at Alien vs. Predator or Tempest 2000 and you’ll see what I mean.

But a system needs more than just two games to make a name and earn an audience for itself. Most Jag games fell somewhere in the deadly middle and were neither awful nor much fun. They were just sort of there.

For example, a relatively new game, I-War, shows off just what the Jaguar can do when used properly, but also points up some of the weaknesses that doomed the system. A first-person shooter, the game requires all the basic skills of videodom, but never takes them to any kind of new levels.

Drive. Shoot. Dodge. Seek. Destroy. It all gets old after a while and feels familiar from the beginning, almost like a souped-up Battlezone. The Jag’s flaky and skittish joypad makes maneuvering more difficult than it should be, and control is often awkward at best.

To its credit, I-War shows off how well the Jag can handle objects, color and motion. I-War delivers a 360-degree environment in constant motion without slowing down or screwing up. When exploited by the right software, the Jag’s hardware can handle a huge load.

Problem is, few have asked it to do any heavy lifting.

I suppose, though, that the Jag’s fate is not entirely its own fault. The finicky game market is more unpredictable than ever. What worked yesterday doesn’t necessarily fly today.

Take a look at how much trouble Sega is having with Saturn. Nintendo is delaying introduction of its 64-bit machine from April to the fall. Only Sony, with its PlayStation, has had the kind of success it expected.

But it, too, could face stiff competition from newer PCs. With video acceleration cards, high-end Pentiums can pump out the kind of video that gamers in the past could expect only from dedicated consoles.

So it just may be that more systems end up going the way of the Jaguar.

Staff writer Aaron Curtiss reviews video games every Thursday. To comment on a column or to suggest games for review, send letters to The Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311. Or send e-mail to Aaron.Curtiss@latimes.com.