Cybermorph

A console that proudly declared itself the world's first 64-bit machine needed a game to prove it. Cybermorph became the title bundled with the Atari Jaguar in its early days, and thus also the first experience thousands of players associated with the console. In its time it was a bold demonstration of a fully 3D world driven by polygons.

As the pilot of the TransmoGriffon flying craft, you soar through open planetary levels, collecting lost pods, destroying enemies and searching for the portal that carries you onward. The game leaned on freedom of movement in three-dimensional space and a sense of exploration, which was unusual for its year of release. The untextured polygon environment may have looked bare, but the sheer freedom of flight was impressive for its day.

Cybermorph was developed by the studio Attention to Detail and released by Atari in 1993 as a Jaguar launch title. As a pack-in game it faced a tough task: to show off, at first glance, what the console could do. Among other things, it became famous for its digitised guide named Skylar and her line, delivered whenever the player made a mistake, which grew almost legendary among fans.

Critics received Cybermorph in a mixed way. Some praised the ambition and the vastness of its 3D worlds, others criticised the sparse, untextured graphics and the monotony. Even so, it is a historically important title, because it represents the very launch of the console and the era's vision of what the future of three-dimensional gaming on home consoles might look like.

Today Cybermorph is interesting mainly as an artefact of its time. It recalls the moment when the games industry boldly threw itself into fully polygonal worlds and when Atari bet everything on a technological offensive that sadly did not pay off. For collectors and lovers of Jaguar history, it is an essential stop and a window into the hopes tied to this console.

Why play it: To meet the launch title of the Atari Jaguar and an early vision of open 3D worlds. A historically valuable piece that reveals both the ambition and the limits of the console.