Long lost love for the Atari Jaguar and Sega Saturn

Another week, another batch of old games to check out, but first: the games that never were. While Psygnosis blasted the PlayStation with dozens of games, several projects fell through for various reasons. Entropy, Elric and Parasite were three of these from the mid-90’s although Parasite was later found to have made it to the PC as Ar’Kritz the Intruder.

Three ghosted games that would surely have been the 32X’s saving grace were Jet Ski Rage, Virtua Hamster, and Heavy Machinery. All three hold the distinction of disappearing from multiple platforms; Jet Ski Rage and Virtua Hamster were both Saturn projects that never happened while Heavy Machinery made its jump from the Genesis before petering out of existence.

Onto actual games, it was a Jaguar-heavy week as I finally gave up hope of playing these titles and settled for just watching. Power Drive Rally is a fantastic looking 2D, top-down rally game with some impressive sprites. I found this honestly positive review of the ill-fated 3D fighter, Fight for Life. Blue Lightning for the Jaguar CD moves a lot smoother and faster than I had expected. And lastly is Phear whose earliest screenshots looked eerily like Tetrisphere on the Nintendo 64. Turns out, Nintendo saw the up-and-coming Jaguar game and swooped in to lock it down as an N64 exclusive.

It was also a Saturn-heavy week as I finally got around to watching Scavenger’s unique Scorcher and AMOK. I always liked their impressive visuals but neither appealed to me enough to buy; watching them now I feel pretty much the same way. Then I dug up Classic Game Room’s review of Gran Chaser (Cyber Speedway) which I can only praise for its sweet Syd Mead designed hover vehicles. I also started watching The Fanciest Bard’s playthrough of the much-maligned Virtual Hydlide and a funny thing happened… I bought the game. So look forward to my own series once it arrives!