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Around the time this game was made snowboarding games had just become the latest short lived fad, Atari for once caught onto this and commissioned French team Virtual Studios to produce this game. Set in the popular winter resort this game simulates both the popular snow based sports in one cartridge. There are several different play modes here to help add to the lastability of the game; along side Olympic style slalom events are speed based downhill ones, practice modes and some really good fun multi-player modes. Val D’Isere is a game that really impresses in the graphics department with some of the slickest and fasted scaled graphics you will see this side of a Sega arcade game. It’s generally pretty good in the sound department too with plenty of decent music and sound effects. The only area I feel this game really falls down in is that it can all feel a bit samey. Each stage really isn’t that much different to the last and after you have completed them all will you come back to it? Probably not, unless it’s to thrash one of your friends over a few drinks. This game will certainly appeal to all the fans of other powder punishing titles but the rest of us can take it or leave it.

While using the same name as the classic film this game really has little to with the movie except in style, don’t expect to be able to play as Wesley or Woody that’s for sure! It’s also notable for being the game that was packaged with the Jaguar Team Tap to allow 4-player action, that funny enough only ever worked with 2 other games which were both basketball games too! As you probably guessed it’s a 2-on-2 street hoops style affair where you play for money. You get to select the individual players and each one of them has their own strengths and weaknesses from physical strength to 3 point shooting. The court is all represented in 3D with lots of scaling and rotation used to great effect. WMCJ is one of those many games in the Jag library that gets a really bad rap and to be honest its not really warranted either. Sure the gameplay is a little clunky at times but it’s incredibly fun to play, especially in 4-player mode! Graphics and sound are both decent too and it’s also an exclusive game for the system. Don’t believe all the bad press and give this game a try, you never know you might just like it!

There are not many franchises over the years that have created as much controversy over the years as the Wolfenstein games and for that matter remained so popular too. The main bone of contention with this series is all the references to the Nazi party and Hitler himself that saw this game get totally banned in Germany and heavily edited in content when released for the SNES. Many people don’t actually know that there were 2 games before the better known Wolfenstein 3D that featured simple 2D graphics and were stealth based adventure games as opposed to being a FPS. By ID Software themselves this is widely regarded as the best console port of the legendary game and makes some considerable improvements over the original PC game. The completely re-drawn graphics look lovely and move so fast and smooth (maybe too fast in fact!). There are brand new digitised sounds too, getting screamed at by Nazi’s never sounded so good! My only slight quibble with this game is that came out at almost the same time as the even better Doom so kind made you want even more. That said it’s still a very good game that is a must for FPS fans and makes a great addition to the story of the franchise.

Originally starting life as a homebrew Amiga game Worms propelled Team 17 into stardom and the game was ported to everything from the Gameboy to the PlayStation and has since spawned many sequels. For those who somehow don’t know it’s a strategy war game with a big dollop of comedy that looks a bit like Lemmings with its little sprites and detailed backgrounds. You take control of a team of 4 worms and you must defeat up to 3 other teams who can either be controlled by other humans or by the computer. You do this by using a number of weapons which all have different effects on your opponent, some of these weapons are limited while other can be used as many times as you like. Each weapon drains a set amount of energy from its victim if used right, varying amounts will be taken according to how you hit them. As well as weapons you also have useful tools that can be used to dig, swing, build bridges and even commit suicide! The games are played across a series of randomly generated levels that follow different themes. Each of these level themes has their own traits that effect the way you play. For example the ice levels cause your worms to slide all over the place when hit and the moon levels allow you to jump really high. Compared to the Saturn and PS1 versions this Jag version look a bit better with cleaner visuals and more colours. In the sound department it’s pretty much identical and contains all the brilliant speech that you never tire of hearing. All in all Worms might not be the cheapest game for the Jaguar but its one of its best, in fact its an essential purchase.

There is no doubting this game is one of the most technically impressive games on the Jaguar and really shows what the machine can do, I just wish it wasn’t so bloody hard. Unfortunately this means most people won’t even see past the first couple of stages and what they have to offer. I was lucky enough to see somebody playing this at a show many years ago who was really hardcore and could get a few levels in! An after market game that was picked up by Telegames after being unreleased by Atari its based on an Atari STE game of the same name. While 3D space shooters are far from rare on this system Zero 5 is very unique in that it manages to mix lots of different styles into the same game. There are first person shooting parts, stages where you race through tunnels like STUN Runner and 3D take on a traditional space shooter. As I already alluded to the graphics here really are superb and is one of those games that proves the Jag can do 3D in the right hands. There is also some wonderfully melodic music to accompany the action too. If you like your games tough then this will be a must have game for you, if you don’t then you might want to think twice considering the high price this game usually sells for.

Many years ago when Mario was King and Nintendo ruled the platformers roost a young upstart came along, a blue hedgehog by the name of Sonic. This spiky sped demon helped put Sega's Megadrive on the map and the new King of platform games was born. Everybody tried to cash in on this console craze and it made the computers owners feel left out until Gremlin created Zool their own version of Sonic for the Commodore Amiga. A bit later on a ST version came along and then it all went full circle as the sequel Zool 2 ended up being released for several consoles of which the Jaguar is one. Zool was an alien from the Nth dimension and easily one of the more popular and likeable platform characters of the nineties in this sequel he is also joined by his girlfriend Zooz. As you can probably tell the Zool games are as close to a Sonic game as you are ever gonna find without seeing a blue mohican and have the same fast gameplay and non-stop action too that made those games so cool. Thankfully in this Jaguar version Gremlin dropped some of the overdone visuals from their CD32 version and it really pays off. For me this is the finest platform game on the Jag (yes I prefer it to Rayman!) I have never been a fan of platformers but always liked the Sonic games because of their fast speed and emphasis on action. Zool 2 is very much in the same mould. A must have for the 64-bitter with its fast and colourful graphics, great sound and all-action gameplay.

Puzzle games is an area that the commercial Jaguar catalogue is really lacking in, in fact this game is really the only traditional puzzler unless you count Flip Out. Thankfully this has been somewhat re-addressed by the Jaguar CD homebrew scene but its still a mystery while Atari choose to largely ignore this genre back in the day, even Zoop is a third party game. This title was released for a wide range of platforms and many will remember Viacom shouting about this game was going to be the new Tetris, only it wasn’t and people forgot about it quite quickly. You basically control a little thing in the middle of the screen who by shooting at rows of coloured bricks round the edge can match them up and make them disappear. You must stop these columns of colours to stop them growing and if they reach your little area in the centre it’s game over. The game is quite fun and generally well made but just seems to lack that addictive quality that keeps you coming back for more that the popular puzzle games like Tetris, Klax and Columns have. Fans of the genre will get a kick out of it most likely but others may want to think twice as this isn’t a game that’s going to show off the power of the Jaguar either.