Atari Jag shmup background, Trevor McFur in Cresent Galaxy

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:29 pm

According to issue #15 of Retro Gamer, the original shmup developer (by the name of Eric Ginner) of the Atari Jaguar horizontal-screen oriented shmup, Trevor McFur in the Cresent Galaxy was going to be released as a "true" shmup gaming experience (and not the existing pathetic mess that exists to this day that was released by Atari).

Eric Ginner mentioned in the #15 issue of Retro Gamer that he enjoyed playing the classic Blazing Lazers shmup on the Turbo Grafx-16 console and want to make a cool shmup similiar to that one. While Cresent Galaxy was being developed, Ginner had plans for more elaborate weapons, etc. since this was his first gaming project at developing a shmup and he wanted to make a high quality shmup game for the Jaguar. But Atari said no to his demands and basically just the "hollow shell" essence of the Cresent Galaxy gaming engine remains but was never fully realized. Atari wanted the Cresent Galaxy done by a certain deadline when the Jaguar console finally was made available to the U.S. public in November/December of 1993.

Now if Atari was more concerned about releasing Cresent Galaxy as a high quality shmup game, then it wouldn't have gutted Eric Ginner's original vision of it being envisioned as a true shmup experience...and to develope one, that takes some development time to resolve all the issues of playability, scoring, techinque, etc. to make a truly great shmup title in the first place.

So yes, Crescent Galaxy was going to be released as a true shmup experience if Atari hadn't rushed it's development time and taken more time to fully develope it to it's fullest potential...so what if Crescent Galaxy wasn't going to released until the later half of 1994 or 1995...if you want a killer app for your new gaming console, best be better having worked on it a year or so before the (Atari Jaguar) console actually came out. Atari was hoping that Jeff Minter's Tempest 2K would be done in time for the Jag console launch date to be the "killer app" game title to be included with the console (but wasn't finally released to the U.S. gaming public in March 1994). The future senario of the Jag console's would've certainly have been very different if T2K was finished in time for it's launch date.

Again, it was poor marketing strategy by Atari themselves & not enough high-profile 3rd party software developers that caused the Atari Jaguar console to "go down the drain" by early January of 1996. Fight for Life would be the official last Atari Jag game cart to be released from Atari themselves...a very pathetic fighting title which I've bought but decided to return it as it was indeed shit and exchange it for another higher quality Jag game instead.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:58 pm

They thought the Fight For Life game was a solid contender against VF or Tekken since it had (get this) a character designer that worked on VF1. I think the 32X version of VF1 looks better than that.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:02 pm

As if the VF series is most noteworthy for its character designs anyways.

But hm...I wonder how many shmuppers would have eventually bought a Jaguar just for the one game if it had turned out really well...

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:31 pm

Well, there's AVP, Rayman, Tempest... erm... uh...

Shearie · Post by **Shearie** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:32 pm

I actually still have this game and yes it sucks and even when I was a kid and got it when it was released I didn't like it very much but there was no way at the time that I could have ever avoided getting this game because when I saw the pictures of Trevor McFur in GameFan magazine I thought it was one of the best looking games I ever saw.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:42 pm

I'm still ticked about Native not being finished and released. Had it been, I would've considered getting a Jaguar, but not now.

teenwolf · Post by **teenwolf** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 1:12 am

Shearie wrote:I actually still have this game and yes it sucks and even when I was a kid and got it when it was released I didn't like it very much but there was no way at the time that I could have ever avoided getting this game because when I saw the pictures of Trevor McFur in GameFan magazine I thought it was one of the best looking games I ever saw.

yeah, my brother and I thought the exact same thing after seeing the writeup and hype in Gamefan. He got my parents to spend hours driving him to and from somewhere that carried it when it was initially released. Whenever I think of complete and utter disappointment I remember my brother's face after he beat the game. Trevor McFur in the Cresent Galaxy still remains in my top 5 worst gaming disappointments of all time list. It was just horrible.

Thanks GameFan...thanks.

PFG 9000 · Post by **PFG 9000** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:36 pm

Shearie wrote:when I saw the pictures of Trevor McFur in GameFan magazine I thought it was one of the best looking games I ever saw.

Agreed. Back in '94 or so, at the height of my Atari fanboydom, I would go around showing off a Jag flyer with some gorgeous pics of Trevor McFur, among other games. The screenshot of the Bone-Dragon boss thinger was the single most impressive screenshot we had ever seen. What a tragedy that the game itself is so horrid.

But at least we've got Raiden.