Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure - 32X (left), BattleTech - SNES (right)
Activision was proud to announce the Atari 2600 Action Pack II, the second title in a planned four-CD series that will allow players to re-play their favorite Atari 2600 classics on their Windows-based PC. The disc will include 15 titles, ranging from Barnstorming to Keystone Kelly. Activision is also pushing ahead on the console gaming frontier with special attention to the next-generation systems. One of the early releases will be Shanghai:Triple Threat for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Activision also signed a long-term arrangement with Shiny Entertainment to jointly develop an action gaming engine for all the next-generation systems, including the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo's Ultra 64. The new game engine, based on the engine that drove Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Smash TV, Terminator and various others, will be a hybrid two- and three-dimensional action engine. Activision also announced Pitfall: the Mayan Adventure will be released on the 32X.
Space Pirates - 3DO
Coming in July, American Laser Games is bringing Drug Wars to the 3DO. This game features henchman, an evil drug lord, and a destructive international cartel. You help local law enforcement corps pinch the king pin in his fortified laboratory. ALG is also releasing Space Pirates, the planet-hopping, intergalactic pirate-filled game that pits the player as a star ranger that must stop them. You must collect energy crystals from the different worlds to charge up the star splitter cannon. Space Pirates features plenty of Full Motion Video.
If you are an old-west shoot-em' up fan then you should be looking forward to The Last Bounty Hunter, a live action shoot-out set in Tucson, Arizona. You should also look for Fast Draw Showdown. This game uses the 3DO GameGun. The game features a non-linear pattern shoot-out game with bonus random outcomes. Also being developed for the 3DO is the game Mazer. American Laser Games is another company who also plans to develop for the Sony PlayStation. They expect to release The Last Bounty Hunter with a GameGun in November, 1995.
Atari was drumming up some interest in their new UBI Soft game, Rayman.
Ultra Vortex - Jaguar (left), Rayman - Jaguar (right)
The most exciting development at the Atari booth was the Jaguar VR system, a joint project between Atari and Virtuality Entertainment, Inc. The Jaguar Virtual Reality System features a balanced one pound head mounted display featuring two degrees of freedom, stereo sound, and a 52 degree horizontal by 40 degree vertical field of view. The display (non-stereoscopic) contains a single 0.7 inch TFT active matrix color LCD. The highly-tolerant custom optics do not require focus adjustment, and have a large exit pupil size of 5mm by 14mm. The "V-Trak" head-mounted tracking system is rated as the fastest ever developed for the consumer market, with a 250Hz sample rate and only a 4 millisecond lag. An optional joystick is also included. The VR system has a projected retail price of $300, and will premiere with Missile Command 2000 and Zone Hunter.
Burnout - Jaguar (left), Fight for Life - Jaguar (right)
Another anticipated release from Atari, the Jaguar CD, was also on display. The add-on unit will be priced at around $150, and several titles will be available at launch, including Battlemorph, Highlander, Blue Lightning, Demolition Man, Myst and Creature Shock. The Jaguar CD is targeted for release in August.
Battlemorph - Jaguar CD (left), Demolition Man - Jaguar CD (right)
The Jaguar CD
Atari predicts that there will be nearly 100 internal and third party titles available for the Jaguar by the end of the year. Several new titles were on display at the Atari booth, including Thea Relm Fighters, a new fighting game starring many of the original Mortal Kombat cast, Rayman, an excellent fantasy adventure platform game, White Men Can't Jump, a two-on-two black top basketball game which will be packed in with the Team Tap four player adapter, and Ultra Vortex, a one-on-one fighting game. In addition, classic translations of Dactyl Joust and Defender 2000 - a prefect arcade translation plus much more from Jeff Minter - are also slated for release. Defender 2000 may be included as a pack-in for the Jaguar CD.