Ultra Vortek

Lucius defeating Skullcrusher after giving an uppercut.

Ultra Vortek is a fighting game featuring digitized graphics and sprites similar to Kasumi Ninja. The player fights against other opponents in one-on-one matches and the fighter who manages to deplete the health bar of the opponent wins the first bout. The first to win two bouts becomes the winner of the match.[9] Each round is timed, which can be adjusted or deactivated in the game options; if both fighters still have health remaining when time expires, the fighter with more health wins the round. The game features four levels of difficulty. Although inaccessible during normal play, players can also activate a turbo mode for faster playing speed similar to Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting via cheat code. In single-player mode, players can choose from seven playable characters and fight against computer-controlled fighters. A hidden character can be fought by fulfilling certain conditions. If all of the opponents are defeated on the Normal difficulty or higher, the player will be able to fight against the Guardian. Like Mortal Kombat, special and death moves are performed by entering button commands while pressing the d-pad. A notable feature is the ability to turn opponents into feces by performing a "Poopality", a finishing move which players execute against a defeated opponent. Multiplayer options include a local two-player versus mode and a network mode. When network mode is activated, players are required to dial each other with the Jaguar Voice Modem for online play.[4]

Ultra Vortek spent well over a year in development and became the only title developed by Beyond Games released for the Atari Jaguar.

Atari Corporation was impressed enough by Beyond Games' BattleWheels (1993) on the Atari Lynx that they invited Beyond Games founder Kris N. Johnson to see their upcoming home video game console (the Jaguar) in development. Beyond Games was preparing to move onto another platform and develop new projects at the time, so Johnson visited and was intrigued by the hardware specifications on the new console. Beyond Games signed with Atari Corp. to be one of the first third-party developers for the console and they received software development kits that included several demos for it months later.[8][10][11][12] Johnson began to disassemble the demo source code to slowly build an understanding of the hardware architecture, eventually managing to make a scrolling background demo with full-color support.[8]

Beyond Games originally had plans to release an updated conversion of BattleWheels as one of their first titles for the Jaguar, however Atari requested them to create a fighting game instead. After the success of both Street Fighter II: The World Warrior and Mortal Kombat, the team decided that a digitized one-on-one fighter would serve as a positive showcase for the hardware and their creative efforts.[8][10][11]

During a brainstorming session, Johnson and designer Curt Hatch determined that some of their ideas for the company's next project would be unachievable with digitized actors. Hatch and artist William Clark Walker were developing computer-animated character concepts, which lead the team in creating a fighting game project by combining digitized actors along with stop-motion models and computer-animated characters that would become Ultra Vortek, albeit with limited resources.[10] Moving from hand-drawn graphics to digitized images, motion capture and 3D modeling represented a big leap for Beyond Games. Johnson contacted artist Jim "Meats" Meier, who was experimenting with 3D art, to recruit him after seeing his artwork locally and the project became Jim Meier's first work in the video game industry.[8]

The development of Ultra Vortek reportedly took over a year with an estimated budget of nearly US$100,000 and it was described by writer Tim Huntsman as "very indie", as most of the team had several roles during this process.[8][9][13][14] Johnson served as the game's sole programmer in addition to being producer. His previous background with martial arts helped during the design and creation of the characters.[8][9] Jim Meier was art director and responsible for the stage artwork and cover art.[9][10][13] Both Hatch and Walker, as well as D. Christopher Salmon and Chris Hansen, designed the characters and costumes used by the actors.[8][9][10][13][15][16] Dale Meier and Walker were responsible for composing the soundtrack and making sound effects respectively.[9][10] Huntsman wrote the scenario, assisted with gameplay design, and lent his voice for The Guardian.[8][9][15][17]

After the characters were designed and Jim Meier began working on backgrounds early in development, the team started filming the actors with a blue screen at a warehouse. There were several problems that occurred during this phase such as with the lighting equipment that led to various character costume elements being scrapped. They eventually moved to the "Bar and Grill" nightclub owned by Johnson, due to its large space that allowed actors to move more freely.[8][10][16] Four of the playable characters were digitized live-action actors, two of which had no previous experience in martial arts. Both Buzzsaw and Lucius were played by Huntsman and Clark Stacey respectively, while former bouncer Lamont Hanna portrayed Dreadloc and volleyball player Toni Fitzgerald acted as Volcana. Fitzgerald also brought some of her own costumes for the character as well.[8][10][15][16]

Both Grok and Mercury were pre-rendered 3D characters by Hatch and Walker, while Skullcrusher and The Guardian were made by Chris Salmon as 14-inch models that would later be filmed through the process of stop motion animation.[10][13][16] Afterwards, both Huntsman and Dale Meier edited and cleaned the films to provide the necessary frames to animate the characters within the game. Bruce Johnson applied finishing touches to some scenes.[8][10][13]

Ultra Vortek originally went under the name Ultra Vortex and was announced in early 1994.[11][18][19][20] It was first showcased to the public at Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) of the same year,[21][22][23][24][25] featuring only four playable characters and different stage visuals compared to the final release.[26][27][28][29] The game was originally intended to be released in December 1994 and was later featured in the Do The Math promotional recording sent by Atari Corporation to video game retail stores in a more advanced state of completion, closely resembling the final version.[30][31][32]

From early 1995 up until its eventual release, the game was showcased across several events such as Winter CES 1995,[3][33][34][35][36] Spring ECTS '95 and E3 1995.[17][37][38][39][40][41] The latter was its last trade show appearance ahead of its Q3 1995 release.[42][43][44][45][46] The game suffered a series of delays, missing its original February 1995 release date and was pushed back month after month, before finally being released on September 5, 1995. These delays were due to refining gameplay and technical issues with development tools.[1][13][17][39]

Ultra Vortek is the only Jaguar game that support the Jaguar Voice Modem. The device was announced in 1994 at the Consumer Electronics Show by Atari, as a partnership up with Phylon, Inc. to create the device. The unit was delayed and eventually in 1995 mass production was canceled altogether, but not before an estimated 100 or so were made. The unit used a 19.9kbit/s dial up modem and had the ability to answer incoming phone calls and store up to 18 phone numbers. Players were required to directly dial each other for online game play.[4][13]

Atari Lynx version

Gameplay screenshot from the unreleased Ultra Vortex for Atari Lynx.

A version of Ultra Vortek featuring hand-drawn graphics was in development by Beyond Games for the Atari Lynx under its original Ultra Vortex name. It was intended to be released as part of a planned relaunch of the Lynx if the Jaguar proved to be successful on the market.[8] The game was only displayed for versus play once at Atari's booth during Summer CES in 1994, where it featured one stage and two playable characters.[47]

The Lynx version was left unreleased due to the Jaguar's lack of commercial and critical success. Carl Forhan of Songbird Productions, who had interest in completing the project, contacted Johnson in regards to his unfinished projects for the system and eventually picked up their rights for distribution.[48] Johnson sold his original development equipment and source code to the company, and the game was renamed to Ultravore.[6][7][8] A prototype of this incarnation also exists but has yet to be released online. Several emulated screenshots have been made available to the public for viewing.[49]

Ultra Vortek was met with mixed reception from critics.[67]

In his review, Scary Larry of GamePro praised the game's "impressive" graphics and the ease of executing special moves, but gave it an overall negative assessment based on its lack of original elements. He concluded that "Ultra Vortex is a great game for someone who hasn't seen Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat II, or Super Street Fighter. But if you've seen and played those games, you've seen more than Ultra Vortex has to offer".[55]

Next Generation reviewed the Jaguar version of the game, and stated that "Though this game is unoriginal and suffers from slow control, you forgive Ultra Vortek because of the overall good job (graphics, tone, and gore) Beyond Games has done with the borrowed concept."[58]

In October 2003, a nearly complete prototype ROM image of Ultra Vortek was made freely available to download by website AtariAge with permission from Beyond Games.[68] Buzzsaw, Grok and Volcana would re-appear as guest characters in Motor Mayhem for PlayStation 2.[69]

• Official website
• Ultra Vortek Archived March 28, 2017, at the Wayback Machine at AtariAge
• Ultra Vortek at GameFAQs
• Ultra Vortek at Giant Bomb
• Ultra Vortek at MobyGames