Cybermorph

"A very disappointing initial release for what was, potentially, Atari's saviour in the console market ... :("

FOREWORD

Not that I'm blowing my own trumpet, but my family was one of the first to purchase the Atari Jaguar upon its release on the island. Given that it had been widely touted as Atari's last push into the console market, we were tentatively hoping good things. This was the inaugural cart that was released alongside the Jaguar, so we were chomping at the bit to see what this puppy could do !!

OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVE OF THE GAME

Cybermorph is, at its most basic level, a three-dimensional flight game. You take control of a craft - in the game it's called a Transmogriffin (or T-Griffin as it's referred to during play) - basically it's a flying ship, and pilot it about the surfaces of various planets picking up odd-shaped little yellow pods.

The yellow pods contain goods (weapons, items, etc) that the Pernitia Empire has nicked, and your job is to retrieve them.

Sound simple ? It is ! And THAT'S part of the problem ...

GRAPHICS - 4/10

Although the game is three-dimensional, it's VERY polygonal. Your ship has hard lines to it and the landscapes are flat, bland and uninspiring. The graphics are WOEFULLY below what I had hoped for ... nay ... what I had EXPECTED of Atari's lifesaving console.

The green floating head that pops up to give you directions and complain about your poor flying abilities is reasonably well done, but has only very limited facial expressions and involvement during play.

Your ship floats about the landscape, and whilst there are SOME nice graphics they are few and far between. All in all a rather poor offering.

SOUND - 5/10

The quality of the sampled speech is reasonable ... I did laugh the first time the floating head said "That hurt" when I SLAMMED my ship into a mountain just to see what would happen, but that's about as exciting as the game gets unfortunately. There is VERY little on offer in the way of music, and the game's sounds don't even have a rushed feel to them - it really is more a "we didn't know what to put here so we didn't bother", which is even MORE disheartening.

CONTROLS - 4/10

The Jaguar's controller is a BEASTLY thing - it's big and clunky and NOT suited to easy gameplay at ALL. Furthermore it lends itself to wrist-strain :(

The controls in Cybermorph are reasonable, but owing to what is effectively very limiting HARDWARE (in the controller's design), the game winds up being something of a chore to play, and that's NOT good.

PLOT - 4/10

Considering the closest thing to this game in terms of its style of play is PROBABLY something like Starfox on the Super Nintendo, the developers had CONSIDERABLE scope to plump for a decent plot, but this again does not appear to have been given a lot of thought. The Pernitia Empire (which sounds kinda cool I must admit) have stolen a load of supplies, these supplies having found their way into little yellow pods that you must rescue from their locations on several different worlds ? KILLER boys. Yeah. Not the kind of thing you thought up at 3:30 am after going without coffee for MONTHS ?????

GAMEPLAY - 5/10

Initially you will be intrigued as to how this massive new console produces such a limp offering - SURELY there must be something really cool around this next corner you think ... and then you go around that corner and think ... hmmmmmmmmm ... ok ... what about over HERE ? And so o and so forth until you are forced to realise that what you're left with is really no more impressive than what you experienced in the first five minutes of play.

There really isn't that much depth to the game. It plays almost like a demo of what COULD be a really good game, if considerably more effort were put into it prior to its release.

To say that it is an unfulfilling title to play would NOT be an understatement.

REPLAY VALUE - 4/10

Unfortunately because there really isn't that much depth to the game, the only replay-value this title possesses is going to come by way of your trying to convince yourself the purchase of the CONSOLE was worthwhile.

The Jaguar was beleaguered with problems, one of the biggest being the total lack of support software-wise. There was only this one title available at the game's release, and even when the pace started to pick up there were only about ... 15 ? Games ever released for it =(

VALUE FOR MONEY - 8/10

I'm actually marking this on the high-side for one very simple reason. If you DON'T buy this title after you've plumped for buying your Jaguar, what exactly are you left with ? Exactly ;) If you've gone to the expense of buying a Jaguar, then this is one of the very few titles you have to choose from, and it's ok - it's just NOT special.

OVERALL - 3/10 (This is NOT an average)

A disappointing initial release that fails to show off the potential of the Jaguar as a console, or the talents of the developers in exploiting the hardware.

MAIN GOOD POINTS

* "That Hurt" is quite a funny comment the first time you hear it.
* It's not a complicated game to get into.

MAIN BAD POINTS

* The graphics are poor
* The sounds are sparse
* The game is dull and not entertaining ... need I go on ?

SO SHOULD YOU GET IT ?

If you're a Jaguar owner, then odds are you already own this title. If not, then you might as well get it to bulk up the number of titles you have to play on this very poorly supported console. If you DON'T own a Jaguar ? Don't bother buying one. It had great potential, but it wasn't handled with the respect and dedication it should have been. Caveat emptor.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/16/04