Atari Jaguar Iron Soldier 2 Cart

Three Iron Soldier games were eventually released for the Jaguar. They were the original Iron Soldier, followed by Iron Soldier 2 on CD, followed by Iron Soldier 2 in cartridge format. An Iron Soldier 3 was also released for other platforms.

IS2 cart comes in the same packaging as IS2 CD, except the "CD" sticker is absent from the box (as it also was from the first, CD-R run of IS2). The cartridge itself is a standard, yet strangely heavy, Jag cartridge case, with a small silver-gray label.

Surprisingly little was sacrificed in the transition from 600+ megabyte CD to 2-megabyte cartridge. All the FMV is gone (no great loss), as is the in-game music (a rather more significant loss). Everywhere that FMV existed in the CD version, still images from the FMV have taken their place. Interestingly, the stills are from the source renders of the FMV, instead of the CinePak-mangled versions we've seen before. After months of playing IS2 CD, it's startling to see how sharp and detailed the uncompressed images are.

As for the music, while all in-game tunes are gone, there's still a song that plays during the menu screens. This was chip-generated even on the CD version, and remains so. One oddity... even though there is no in-game music, you can still adjust the music volume while paused. Overall, the loss of in-game music is unfortunate, but not crippling. IS players are known for turning off the in-game music anyway... it gives the game more of a "sim" feel.

In addition to the excised music and video, the cart drops the number of save-game slots down from 10 to 4. This is still much better than IS1, which only supported a single saved game.

That's basically it. No music, no video, and fewer save slots. Other than that, IS2 cart is 100% identical to IS2 CD, and well-worth owning if you don't have a CD player. Even if you do own a CD player, you might consider picking it up so you can still play IS2 years from now after your CD player has gone out of alignment (assuming you're paranoid about that sort of thing...).

A final note... to reach the break-even point on their production run, Telegames manufactured slightly more IS2 cartridges than they received pre-orders for. So if you'd like to pick up a copy of this rarity, you might still be able to.

Info by Clay Halliwell

Cheats (at Options Screen, unless otherwise noted):

• All Weapons & Levels: 5,2,6,2,0,4,8,1
• Unlimited Ammo: 1,4,8,8,2,5,0,2
• Invulnerable: 8,3,0,5,5,7,2,6
• Mission Pass/Fail: 3,4,4,9,5,2,2,0,7,1,6
  (then during game play press: * = Game Over, 0 = Failed, # = Completed)
• All of the above: 9,7,0,0,2,3,8,6,6,5,4,1
• Extra fast rotation: A+C while turning (during game play)
• Repair: Hit yourself with a Cruise Missile
  (only during the low energy warning!)
• Satyr War Walker: 7,2,8,9,7,6,6 ("SATYR ON" on phone pad)

Eggs (at Options Screen, unless otherwise noted):

• Insane Difficulty: 6,8,2,4 ("OUCH" on phone pad)
• Display Mission Stats: 8 (during game play)
• Single-Frame Advance: Pause, 1 or 3 (during game play)
• Instant Demo: Press Option on any menu screen.
• Endgame Sequence: 7,2,4,4,9,8,0,1, (then select "Start Game)
• Quick Exit from mech configuration screen: A