Just a year after the NES-like Atari 7800 retired in 1992, a new console for the 16-bit era was introduced (It was technically 64-bit, but as far you could see, the games all looked and sounded 16-bit).

Anyways, my brother got this system during his 7th birthday, so I shall say a bit about each game. (I was 5 years old, and this system introduced me to some of my first M-Rated games):

Raiden - This port was actually released 4 YEARS LATE, but it was such a cool game. Me and my brother would play 2-player cooperative mode often, and I was proud of being "good at the game". A lot of people seem to dislike this port for the fact that it has the copper-colored status bar dominating 1/3 of the screen, and I really don't get why that is a big deal.

Cybermorph - If there was a game that literally scared me, this would be it. From the bombarding opening, to the black background, to the annoying green female "guide" and the lack of music, this game would often have me running from the screen, leaving the control to my brother. Looking at it now, it seems to be somewhat a "Star Fox" ripoff, except I have no idea what the plot is. Or if this game even HAS a plot.

DOOM - Jaguar's DOOM was actually considered the most true to the PC version of all the console ports. I remember buying this at Wal-Mart with my brother, and I was so anxious to play this version of the game that I even threw away the CANDY I was eating, just to play this.

Kasumi Ninja - Another M-Rated game. Sort of a "Mortal Kombat" ripoff with real-life backdrops, and lots of BLOOD! One thing as the screwed up 5-year-old that I was that I found funny was the fact that your life bars were swords that would get covered in an increasing amount of blood as you lost health!

Rayman - A GREAT platformer for the system. A lot of people hadn't heard about Rayman before his recent debut in "Rayman: Raving Rabbids", but this is something much different; one of the few good sidescrollers on the system.

And finally...

Attack of the Mutant Penguins - This is another game that scared me (And I will explain why later). In the game, you could choose to play as either an Apple or a Pear, and you had to save normal penguins from being mutated into evil penguins in some isometric canyon. But what I found scary, was the GAME OVER screen; with the cackling green mutant penguin staring right at you.


We owned a couple of other games for this system, but these are the ones that still really stand out to me. Anyways, I really don't see why people hated this system so much, it gave me alot of good memories, and I think half of the problem is that when they see the "64-bit" tag, they expect it to be more like a Playstation or an N64, but it just didn't see those days. If people looked at it more as along the lines of a Super NES or Genesis, I don't think people would blast it for what it displays.

The problem with the Atari Jaguar was just like the Linx handheld they couldn't attract enough third party game developers to make games for their system largely due to Atari's rigid corporate culture and the system's difficulty to work with. It was so bad that Sam Tramiel took out ads in Gamepro begging gamers to write to video game companies demanding them to make games for the system.

like 2 years bad i saw a jaguar in value village up here in canada, in box and everything for like 50 bucks i wish i bought it but i didnt have the money for it tho

Sadly that's always the way.

There were a couple problems with the Jaguar.

There was a brief era of the Jaguar vs. 3DO. The 3DO actually came out on top... they had 100's of 3rd party supporters. Did they get games from those 100's of supporters? No... but they certainly did get a whole lot more games than Jaguar. Were they any better? Probably not... but they weren't any worse either.

3DO was a true 32-bit system. Jaguar was more or less 32-bit with a 64-bit RISC Object & Blitting PU, but a 32-bit RISC GPU. The sound is what was 16-bit, which I think the original poster may be confusing the system as actually a "16-bit system".

Don't forget the fact that the system was cartridge-based still with a gangly control pad vs 3DO's basic SNES-like control-pad (sans 1 button) and CD-only format. There were no killer games for either system, however 3DO did have EA for some support such as Madden Football, Road Rash, & Need for Speed. Jaguar had to depend on Lynx titles converted for the Jag, or their own original titles. Some were arcade conversions from the past... and they had a few decent 3rd party games. Some even came out multi-platform for both 3DO & Jaguar.

Alas... the competition didn't last too long with this "next-gen", as Sony came out with their PS1 in '95 along with SEGA's Saturn (it was a short 2-yr battle), and the N64 came out in '96, thus shortening the life of both 3DO & Jaguar to near obscurity... probably the shortest life-spans of a real gen game-systems (don't ask what that means).