Atari Jaguar Title On the Way

GS News recently discovered that Telegames isn't the only company still creating games for the Atari Jaguar console system.

Independent game developer 4Play plans to release its Jaguar space shooter, Battle Sphere, by the end of this year.

The title revolves around Sector 51, a spherical sector of the universe that the seven dominant races of the galaxy have set aside to make war within, and not beyond. More specifically, their conflict is a tournament of battles whose outcome decides the ruling race of the galaxy. The developers describe the title as having, "the play mechanics of Star Raiders with 16-bit color, and graphics along the lines of TIE Fighter."

Battlesphere supports the linking of eight Jaguars, but since the game can be played as pilot and co-pilot on each console (the pilot flies the ship, while the co-pilot fires weaponry and controls internal systems), it can support up to 16 networked players.

How can they do that? Not by using the Jaglink cable, the peripheral developed by Atari that can link two Jaguars together but no more. BCD (a wholly-owned subsidiary of ICD) and the gang at 4Play designed an alternative networking system called the catbox which can link up to a whopping 32 Jaguars on an RJ-11 network (modular phone cable).

Responding to the question of why 4Play didn't walk away from the system when its creators did last year, lead coder, Scott Legrand, had this to say, "We're only expecting to sell 1,000 or so copies, but at the time that Atari fell, we vowed to complete this game and we're sticking to that promise."

Battle Sphere will be published by ICD, Incorporated (who has released several games for the Atari ST and Amiga computers) and will be available directly through its web site. The catbox is available there, as well.

For more information on picking up games from older systems, be sure to look up the VGS feature, Video Game Bargain Hunting.