AirCars

Screenshot from the original release.

AirCars is a shooter video game with free-roaming elements that is primarily played in a first-person perspective, where the main objective is to destroy E.B.N.E.R.S. and all of the primary targets in the area, which are displayed before the start of each level at the mission briefing screen and exit the area by crossing a teleporting gate, with a boss on every seventh area across 32 levels. Though played in a first-person view, players can change between camera angles by pressing 7, 8 or 9 on the controller's keypad respectively to view their surroundings, and although they can explore the levels at their own pace, a red line is put into the edge of the areas to limit the player from further exploring outside of the main playfield. The game has three levels of difficulty that can be selected at the main menu while progress, high-score and other settings done by the player are saved automatically via the cartridge's EEPROM. The game also features unlimited lives.

At the beginning of the first mission, players start with the Auto Cannon and Auto Shotgun as main weapons on the left and right of their AirCar unit respectively, with smoke screens and mines as their two main subweapons that can be used by pressing either 4 or 6 on the keypad and new weapons are obtained by destroying enemies scattered on the playfield and attach them either to the left or right of the AirCar by pressing 1 or 3 on the keypad as well. Players can also strafe by holding the C button. There are also two types of power-ups scattered around the map that players can acquire: Immediate power-ups that, as the name implies, are used the moment when they are picked up and Savable power-ups, which are stored for later use. If the player's current AirCar unit is destroyed, they are immediately sent and placed into a new unit but with the exception of saved power-ups, they lose all of the weapons and power-ups that were previously obtained.

The map radar inside the player's AirCar unit displays the location of items, enemies, targets, primary targets, among other elements placed on the mission playfield and they keep track of how much the area is revealed, even when their previous unit is destroyed by enemies. Teleporters are also placed on the playfield, which warps the player from one location of the map into another depending on their color, except those colored in grey, which are the level exit gates and they are kept closed until every primary target on the area has been eliminated. The game features a cooperative mode where two players can play the campaign mode with the JagLink. The deathmatch mode that supports up to 8 players across eight networked consoles, however, must be played with the CatBox.[7]

An organization named E.B.N.E.R.S. was established on the wake of an nuclear holocaust that occurred to the world, leaving it in a post-apocalyptic state, with the main goal of living in peace and nuclear scientific community members of the organization expressing desire that their work should no longer be used for destructive purposes, while also suggesting that society should be reformed to eradicate any kind of hostility but this was deemed as unrealistic and even laughed upon, with the organization later becoming known as a fringe organization of radical scientist trying to restructure society.[8] The government placed their spies into the organization to follow their activities and later found out about their recent development of teleportation devices, force fields and the nuclear powered crafts named AirCars, but in the turn of events this also revealed the real intentions of the organization, who planned dominating the world by involving the usage of nuclear weapons by teleporting them with their technology onto every major capital city around the globe and annihilating them in order to submit the remaining humans under their rule. Reaching the conclusion that E.B.N.E.R.S. must be completely eliminated, the government sends one of their pilot to destroy the organization's complexes and key installations by using their own version of the AirCars.[7]

Negative press and financial difficulties were factors that kept AirCars from being released in 1995.

AirCars was originally announced under the name Car Wars in Atari Explorer Online's January 1994 newsletter and was one of the first titles in development by MidNite Entertainment, who was one of the first third-party developers signed for the Jaguar by Atari Corporation at WCES 1994.[3][9] The CatBox, a multimedia peripheral that allows for local area networking with other Jaguar systems, was formally announced a few months later as a joint project between Black Cat Design and ICD, Inc.[10] It was originally listed for a vague 1994 release and was later featured in the Do The Math promotional recording sent by Atari Corp. to video game retail stores in an early but playable state on November 14 of the same year under its final name.[11][12][13]

The game was later advertized in EGM² for a December 1994 release and was previewed on their next issue in 1995, where it was touted to be one of the first games to support the CatBox.[14][15] The game was also showcased during WCES 1995.[16][17][18] AirCars was then previewed as 70 percent complete in Ultimate Future Games magazine.[19] Although the game itself was not available on the show floor, the much-touted CatBox was instead demonstrated alongside BattleSphere at E3 1995 by Tom Harker, co-founder of ICD.[lower-alpha 2][20] Prior to release, it received less than favorable reviews by magazines such as Electronic Gaming Monthly and VideoGames.[4] In addition, MidNite was suffering from financial difficulties at the time. Therefore, despite the game being completed, it was deemed not viable to publish and was left unreleased.[4] Before its cancellation, it was previously listed for a July 1995 release.[21]

Two years after the game was completed,[4] AirCars was licensed and published by ICD[1] as a limited run of 300 estimated copies. Each one came shrinkwrapped on a standard Jaguar box insert along with a 20-page manual, with the last page containing a representation of the game's control overlay in black and white.[5] Because of its extremely limited run, the original 1997 release by ICD is considered one of the rarest titles for the system.[5][22]

Next Generation reviewed the game, and stated that "Aircars is a good attempt in many ways, but it doesn't quite make the grade in a few vital categories, including, most notably, graphics – which are extremely simplistic and lacking in any particular variety."[27] Electronic Gaming Monthly's Seanbaby placed it as number 13 in his "20 worst games of all time" feature.[35]

AirCars was the only completed title by MidNite. The company had two more games in development for the Jaguar; Assault: Covert Ops, an arcade-style action strategy title for two players and Dungeon Depths, an 3D fantasy dungeon crawling RPG with support for up to eight players via CatBox.[36][15] Both were announced in magazines, featuring promotional artwork and were originally scheduled for a Q2 1995 release,[37] but ultimately they were never released. In 2018, promotional flyers of both Assault: Covert Ops and Dungeon Depths were published online by John Hardie of the National Videogame Museum and video game collector Scott Walters.[38][39] In 1996, one year before it was released by ICD, its trademark was abandoned.[40]

• Official website
• AirCars at AtariAge
• AirCars at GameFAQs
• AirCars at MobyGames