Nuon Experience

by Thomas Wellicome

The UK's premier Jaguar and for that matter Atari event has been and gone and it seems from all reports to have been a success. From a personal perspective there were a number of good reasons to go. Mainly to get my sticky puds on some bargains and to have a good ogle at some of the latest Jaguar games and Lynx games. There was also the possibility of getting a look at the elusive Nuon machine from VM Labs and purchasing the even more elusive Papyrus X from R.O.M. Logicware for beloved STs. Sadly, the latter turned out to be still elusive with Nick Harlow from 16/32 Systems breaking my heart (well sort of anyway) with the news that as yet he hasn't received it. Seems as though the creaking Papyrus 5 will continue to be in service for a while yet. My other disappointment was not being able to get my hands on the rather excellent Alien vs Predator playable demo for the Lynx, which again didn't quite make it to the show. The Nuon was present though, and I did manage to grab time to give the machine a bit of a MyAtari test. See below for more details.

JagFest was seemingly dominated really by three areas, the 16/32 Systems stand where Nick Harlow had all manner of goodies to buy, the MyAtari stand and the "gaming" room which was totally filled with seemingly dozens of Jaguars, most of which appeared to be involved in a desperate effort to get a networked tournament of the awful Jaguar game Air Cars up and running (apologies to its fans). The gaming room was constantly filled with people taking part in numerous tournaments on Tempest 2000 and Worms. I never got round to entering myself mainly because of some excessive traffic on the M25 I arrived slightly late. During my visits to the other side, as it were, I caught glimpses of two Jaguar games that I hadn't thought I'd ever see. These were the elusive and horrendously expensive BattleSphere, which looked quite entertaining and the just released and bizarrely titled Barkley Shut Up & Jam. This was a competent looking basketball game in the style of the pretty entertaining NBA Jam and the pretty dire White Men Can't Jump that are already available on the platform.

The 16/32 stand had loads of Jaguar goodies ranging from the newly released and rather special CatBox replacement, the "ScatBox", to bog-standard Jaguar control pads. There were stacks of second hand and new games (including the rarer numbers like Breakout 2000 and Towers 2) and there were also newer games like Protector SE. However, those of us with an Atari computer leaning were not to be disappointed with a large range of ST software on display for purchase. I also noticed 16/32 had quite a few of what I had assumed were mythical grey Jag-pads for sale. After being subverted into the shadowy world of the JagFest raffle and purchasing a few goodies for my Jaguar I decided I was going to have to stay away from the stand, else my landlord might be wondering where the rent was for the month...

Elsewhere in the "serious" room MyAtari was busy putting together the June issue while I made some efforts to demonstrate the Milan. On the other side of the room were members of the Cheshunt Computer Club stand, busy selling software books and demonstrating their Ataris. I will be paying them a visit at their monthly meet shortly. There were also some ST and Falcon demos on display and the entire room echoed to sound of a godless ST sound chip on the verge of meltdown as chip music roared out of its speakers.

Nuon power
In the corner of the gaming room was a shiny Nuon N504 from Samsung. Those of us who have long followed the rather chequered history of this beastie will know about its development, but for those who are unaware a brief history lesson is in order. After the demise of Atari... no, sorry, reverse merger into a disk drive manufacturing company (what are those lovely Tramiels up to nowadays anyway?) certain members of the Atari top brass formed VM Labs, a company with a mission in life. A mission to put its Nuon chipset into your DVD player. The ground breaking system was based around VM Labs' Aries 3 chip, which was a lovely, powerful, true 128-bit monster. It wasn't just the Atari chaps that came along for the ride either. Jeff "Yak" Minter started development of the next generation of Tempest and the makers of Atari Karts (Miracle Designs) and Iron Soldier I and II (Eclipse Software) made some lurvely new versions of their classic Jaguar games. So in a way the Nuon was, to Jaguar owners at least, like the next generation Jag we never had. Unfortunately VM Labs suffered acute cash flow shortages and although released, the Nuon didn't make much of an impact. It didn't even properly make it to the UK, where we ended up with a pointlessly crippled N505 model with no joypad ports. The N504, which was probably the best version of a DVD player with Nuon hardware, was scheduled for release, but seems to have got no further than a warehouse in Europe. So it seems we're out of luck here in the UK, unless someone can import a load of them...

So what was the Nuon like? Well physically the N504 unit at JagFest unsurprisingly bore a passing resemblance to a DVD player. A nice DVD player but nonetheless just a DVD player. You wouldn't even know it was there unless you were in the know. This was the idea though so we can't blame them for that. At the front of unit were some joypad ports and these were all that distinguished it from something you might buy in Currys. Ah, the joypads, fortunately the Nuon team opted for something a little more stylish than the Jaguar's eighties mobile phone look. In fact I was quite impressed by the controllers. They seemed fairly comparable with the lovely controllers from the N64 and were pretty to look at as well. There are certain issues with the button mapping on the pads unfortunately, which doesn't seem to have reached any sort of agreed standard. These problems became apparent even during my short test.

The games
Obviously Tempest 3000 was high up my list of "have got to play" but some of the other games also looked pretty good. Tempest 3000 was everything you'd expect it to be. The visuals were jaw dropping and within minutes I was contemplating whether I would need eye surgery after playing. The webs, that in the Jaguar version were fairly static, have developed a very organic feel and seem to move of their own accord. The banging techno was also present en-force. Game-play wise the game seemed a winner with the usual hectic action. I was left feeling that I preferred the Jag version though which seemed a bit more tactical than the all-out blast fest of the 3000 version.

Moving on to the other games and it was the delights of Miracle Design's Merlin Racing. This was a joy to play and a considerable step up from its prequel Atari Karts. The visuals and audio were pretty good and the two-player option was excellent fun even if I did lose most of my matches. Is it comparable with Mario Kart 64? Well maybe not quite as good but certainly in the same league!

Next up was the only disappointing game, Space Invaders XL. Now Space Invaders is a classic, but it really did the Nuon no justice. The retro feel of the game was passable but the areas where the game could have taken advantage of the Nuon hardware, such as the title screens and menus, looked awfully 16bit. There are better efforts on the ST at bringing this game up to date.

This brings us to Freefall 3050. Not an instant hit are the words that come to mind. Freefall is a not an amazingly easy game to get to grips with. The basic premise is that you drop out of the sky at an alarming speed and into a building. The graphics are things of beauty and the game would definitely be a winner if you have the time to lavish on it. My poxy display on the game left a lot to be desired but I was intrigued enough to want to play it again.

Finally there was the monster that is Iron Soldier 3. Ironically (No pun intended?! - Ed) I'd joined the series on the second episode and had only just grabbed the first game second hand from the 16/32 store, however, neither could prepare me for this. What can I say about this game, other than that it was breathtaking! The opening sequence was eye wateringly pleasant to look at, even if it made no sense whatsoever. Not only that, the in-game graphics were also superb, a huge jump from Iron Soldier 2's semi texture mapped graphics. After some initial problems with working out the controls I set about doing what iron soldiers do best: destroying everything I could get my hands on. Fabulous. Fortunately for the city my iron soldier was wrecking, I was blown up in about a minute.

So four out of five great games isn't a bad tally really, especially when you consider this is about 60% of the games ever released on the platform.

I have to admit the Nuon impressed me. The graphics were lovely and pretty comparable with those of the Dreamcast I have tucked away in my cupboard at home. Sound-wise again the Nuon hits the spot. Now all I have to do is find a machine. There are two options for those who need a Nuon in the UK. Either you could try to get one of the US models on import, or fly to Europe and get yourself a machine there (if you can find one). The US model is generally regarded as inferior, which is a pain, and you'll also need to get hold of a power supply transformer for it. Supplies of the machine, never plentiful in either case, aren't exactly getting any easier to get hold of and Samsung, the manufacturer, isn't likely to be a lot of help. Still, if anyone manages to achieve this let me know how you did it. Non-UK MyAtari readers are likely to have an easier job of it, oh to not live on an island!

The final highlight of JagFest was watching Shiuming rip out my Milan's old LEDs and put some pretty blues ones in their place. Must admit I did have a somewhat concerned look on my face during the operation but was pleased with the outcome. Even if my NVRAM settings changed my machine to German TOS and the CD-ROM software went haywire shortly afterwards. Anyway I enjoyed JagFest and will definitely be back next year...

thomas@myatari.net

MyAtari magazine - JagFest highlight 2, July 2003