Ultra Vortek
Ultra Vortek — frequently asked questions
- Is Ultra Vortek on Steam?
- No. Ultra Vortek is not distributed on Steam, so there is no Steam Charts or SteamDB player count for it. Its live popularity is tracked here via Twitch viewership instead.
- What platforms is Ultra Vortek on?
- Ultra Vortek is available on Atari Jaguar.
- When did Ultra Vortek release?
- Ultra Vortek was first released on September 5, 1995.
About Ultra Vortek
Mankind must prove that it is worthy of the powers of the Ultra Vortek -- the eternal energy source for all life on Earth. Failure to meet this challenge will result in the Earth's destruction. Seven of the planet's mightiest warriors have been chosen to pit strength and cunning against the Guardian for complete control of the Ultra Vortek.
Summary via IGDB.
Ultra Vortek on Wikipedia
Ultra Vortek is a fighting game developed by Beyond Games and published by Atari Corporation for the Atari Jaguar in North America and Europe on September 5, 1995. It was the second fighting game released for the Jaguar after Kasumi Ninja and unsuccessfully sought to capitalize on the trend of violent fighting games started by Midway Games's Mortal Kombat in 1992. It was the only officially released game that supports the unreleased Jaguar Voice Modem peripheral for online play.
Source: Wikipedia (text under CC BY-SA 4.0).
Game details
- Platforms
- Atari Jaguar
- Developer
- Beyond Games
- Publisher
- Atari Corporation
- Game modes
- Single player, Multiplayer
- Themes
- Science fiction
Details via IGDB.
Collector value & authenticity
Atari Jaguar · PriceCharting sold data · Verified 2026-07-24
- Region
- NA+EU
- Released
- 1995
- Authenticity
- Low
The Jaguar's better fighting game — with online code for a modem that never shipped.
Beyond Games earned the job on BattleWheels for the Lynx, and founder Kris N. Johnson programmed and co-designed this himself: seven fighters, sharper digitized sprites than Kasumi Ninja, better animation, and a control system that rewards practice. Competent — which on this platform is a real distinction. It still arrived the same season as the PlayStation's North American launch, against Tekken.
The peripheral hook: this is the only released game supporting the Jaguar Voice Modem — a 19.9 kbit/s dial-up unit announced at CES 1994, then cancelled after roughly 100 units were produced. There is functional online multiplayer code in this cartridge that essentially nobody on Earth can use.
How it was made
Beyond Games developed the Atari Jaguar version, published by Atari Corporation. Credited: designed by Curt Hatch, D. Christopher Salmon, Kris N. Johnson; programmed by Kris N. Johnson; art by Dale Meier, Jim Meier; music by William C. Walker.
What the press said at the time
| AllGame | 3/5 | |
| Edge | #23, August 1995 | 3 / 10 |
| GamePro | #77, November 1995 | 62% |
| Next Generation | #10, October 1995 | 3/5 |
| Video Games (DE) | #48, November 1995 | 45% |
| Games World | #15, September 1995 | 80% |
| Game Zero Magazine | October 1995 | 27.5 / 50 |
| ST Magazine | #100, December 1995 | 77% |
| Última Generación | #11, February 1996 | 70 / 100 |
| Ultimate Future Games | #9, August 1995 | 21% |
| VideoGames | #79, August 1995 | 7 / 10 |
| X Gen | #1, July 1995 | 15 / 100 |
The contemporary press could not agree on this one: comparable scores run from 15% to 80% across 12 publications. Scores are printed in their original scales.
Cartridge & preservation record
Cartridge ROM capacity 32 megabit (4 MB), measured from the preserved cartridge image.
Catalogue part number J9082E
Cartridge data from the No-Intro preservation database (metadata only — names, sizes and checksums, no game data).
Worth knowing
- It was Ultra Vortex until it wasn't. Announced in early 1994 under the name Ultra Vortex, and shown at Summer CES that year with only four playable characters and different stage art. It missed a December 1994 target, then a February 1995 one, and slipped month after month before finally arriving on 5 September 1995.
- It exists because of a Lynx game. Atari was impressed enough by Beyond Games' BattleWheels on the Atari Lynx to invite founder Kris N. Johnson to see the unreleased Jaguar. Beyond Games had been preparing to move to another platform entirely; Johnson went, was taken with the specifications, and signed on as one of the console's first third-party developers. Ultra Vortek is the only game the studio ever released for it.
- A near-complete prototype is freely available. In October 2003 AtariAge published a nearly finished prototype ROM with Beyond Games' permission — unusually, with the developer's blessing rather than as a leak. Three of its fighters, Buzzsaw, Grok and Volcana, later turned up as guest characters in the PlayStation 2 game Motor Mayhem.
Before you buy
Moderately common but scarcer than Kasumi Ninja; modest premium over the 1994 commons. Cataloguing note: it was released under both "Ultra Vortek" and "Ultra Vortex" — search both spellings or you'll miss listings.
Authenticity & condition — Atari Jaguar
Specific to the format this title shipped in
Buying a Jaguar cartridge
Cartridges are the durable half of this library — the risk is provenance, not decay. The platform has an active post-commercial scene, so the question is usually which era a cartridge is from rather than whether it still works.
- Ask for a photo of the label edge and the cartridge back. Reproductions are usually printed on adhesive photo stock and sit proud of the label recess.
- Donor shells are the common trick: sanding marks on the back, or adhesive ghosting where an older label was lifted, are the strongest signals.
- Cartridges are region-free on this platform, so a cheaper PAL copy plays on a North American console — a price difference is not evidence of a fake.
Ultra Vortek screenshots
Watch on YouTube
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