Does Anybody Remember Those Virtual Reality Machines

[dosteridge]

Hi Folks

Do any of you remember the old virtual reality machines from the early 90's, if I recall correctly. They were arcade style.

They used to have two of them at our local Lazer Zone we used to play on, it was some sort of warrior walking round a castle/fortress and fighting skeletons!

They were big buggers, and you had a head set and a thing you held to register your hand movements for the sword and the like (a bit like in Red Dwarf - Better Than Life)

I remember playing on one at the Games Master show at the NEC (birmingham) around the same time, but that was an aircraft fighting game from WW1 I think.

I wonder if anybody knows who made them or whether the is a secondhand market for them or if you have any clearer memories of them than I do, or indeed, any info on them at all.

Thanks

 

[PokeParadox]

I played on one in the Trocadero, when I would have been... 12 I guess. I wanted to go to SegaWorld there, but for whatever reason we couldn't go

I've not been all the way down London since then really.

 

[nickspoon]

VR is the future!

 

[Trip]

That's like an old NHS monical

 

[DialTone]

The original arcade amusements games were supplied by the English firm W Industries, based in Leicester (they later renamed to Virtual Entertainment Systems). The games were marketed under the name Virtuality, and Cyber was marked on the machines.

 

[dosteridge]

VR is the future!

:lol: :lol:

Looks like shes got her head stuck in a porta-loo

Wow dialtone how did you know all that, im off to google it all

 

[Iorgy77]

I played Dactyl Nightmare and the flight sim one, was amazing at the time. I believe they were based on Amiga 3000s from memory.

Ah here it is: Amiga History Guide

 

[dosteridge]

I played Dactyl Nightmare and the flight sim one, was amazing at the time. I believe they were based on Amiga 3000s from memory.

Ah here it is: Amiga History Guide

Excellent, I couldnt find much but thats them.

They were good at the time.

Thanks

 

[skysnapper]

remeber playing on one of those VR systems back when i was 15/16 down the trocadero, was some 4 player game where were you played as robots..Think we went all the way down there to epecially play on it as it was around then that they appeared.

Looking the aforementioned link, it must have been Gridbusters as the year and description pretty much match.

 

[lizard808uk]

They were big buggers, and you had a head set and a thing you held to register your hand movements for the sword and the like (a bit like in Red Dwarf - Better Than Life)

What was the name of the game featured in a tv show presented by Craig Charles back in those days?

 

[Mudi]

They were big buggers, and you had a head set and a thing you held to register your hand movements for the sword and the like (a bit like in Red Dwarf - Better Than Life)

What was the name of the game featured in a tv show presented by Craig Charles back in those days?

Robot Wars? He did that for a while IIRC...

 

[craigix]

I remember Craig Charles and his VR show on channel4 in the night, quite a disaster, but I got the impression he was really into computers, but the technology was just not there at the time.

I have looked at some of the current VR headsets and they all seem a bit lowres and like not much has moved on, i'd love say Sega to come back from the dead with a VR home games system.

 

[dosteridge]

i'd love say Sega to come back from the dead with a VR home games system.

ahh yes - that would be fantastic

I really thought back in the early 90's, playing on those things "I will probably have something like this in my house in a few years" - What ever came of the idea? :blink:

 

[PokeParadox]

Nintendo released the Virtual Boy... People were getting headaches(because they didn't calibrate the lenses to their eyes!) and neck problems...

I guess after that relative flop... everyone else thought it a good idea to steer clear...

 

[craigix]

I guess it is something which will come back when the time is right... like electric cars.

 

[stormyandcold]

Virtual Reality is nowhere near a reality right now.

What would be acceptable VR to you guys?

For me, the virtual boy isnt VR, its just a headset that displays gfx with depth perception, same with those old headset arcade games (except in those you could control movement with your head/body to a certain extent).

Is watching a film with 3d glasses non-interactive VR? no.

I think the VR dream we all want is like (referencing films) Total Recall, The Matrix, Existenz...even Tron.

More specifically, the game/virtual world needs to be completely immersive with a minimum of things to take you away from that immersion.

Without a way to directly interface future hardware to the brain; VR will never happen.