|1-Virtual Reality Review



                                By Bolty

W  Industries Virtuality At London's Trocadero Centre - Europe's biggest
games arcade (or so I'm told)

Price - £2 for 5 mins

All  the  hype about VR now seems to be dying down a bit, but I had a go
the other day and I thought I'd tell you what it was like.

There  were  4  Virtuality  machines linked together.  They are the ones
with  a  big  grey helmet with a brightly coloured band round the front.
You sat in a sculptured plastic seat with joysticks to either side.

These  systems  are  getting a bit old now and have been knocking around
for  3  or  4  years.   They  are based on Amiga 3000s, which by today's
arcade  standards are quite slow, with their 25Mhz 030s.  Their age also
shows in the heavy bulky design of the helmets.

So, you put your £2 in this slot machine which gives you a little credit
card,  which  you  then  hand  to a midget bloke who shoves it in the VR
machine.    There  were  no  queues,  in  fact  no-one  seemed  remotely
interested in these archaic devices.

As  you  sit  down the midget bloke then comes up from behind and plonks
the  helmet  on  your  head,  which feels like it has got 4 house bricks
strapped  to  it.   He  then slams the rear of the helmet and it becomes
tightly and uncomfortably clamped to your skull.  Your eyeballs actually
sit  in  sockets  at  the  front  similar  to  those  found on a pair of
binoculars.   The  headphones  are  semi-adjustable but don't cover your
ears properly and hurt.

Once  immersed  in cyberspace my main concern was that I couldn't see or
hear  a thing in the outside world, and my bag was somewhere by the side
of  the  machine.  The midget bloke could have been rummaging through it
for all I knew.

I'm  sure  the  game  we  played  has  been  on Gamesmaster or something
recently.  You're placed in control of a strange buggy in a giant saucer
shaped  stadium, with a big football in the middle.  The aim is to score
as many goals as possible by knocking the ball out of the stadium, while
avoiding the other 3 cars.

At  the  start  of  the  game  you  get  a brief tutorial explaining the
controls.  The left gearstick toggles between 2 view points:  in car and
tracking  camera,  and also has a hand brake button.  The right joystick
controls  direction,  with  a button for the horn, and one for the turbo
boost.

The  introduction screens feel very strange, as when you move your head,
the  pictures  stay  in the same place in front of your eyes, which is a
bit disorientating.

When  the  game appeared I found myself looking at the floor, due to the
heavy  weight  on  my feeble neck.  When I moved my head the movement of
the graphics seemed a bit jerky, but with your head in one position they
moved  quite  smoothly.  The graphics were simple polygon based efforts,
with  similar  detail  to  F1GP.  An attempt was made to texture map the
floor,  but it was really just a fuzzy snow map, similar to the crowd in
F1GP.   The  colours  weren't  that great or plentiful, and looked to me
like  Lores  32  colour ECS, but apparently the A3000s have extra custom
graphics boards fitted, but I didn't notice much difference.

The  view  is  supposed to be 3D but I didn't really notice this at all,
compared  with  the  effect given by 3D specs or steriograms.  The sound
wasn't particularly 3D either, and could well have been standard Amiga 4
channel,  although  there  was a lot of speech in an irritating American
accent giving out useful hints such as "The ball's to the right!" "Yes I
can bloody well see it you silly twat"

What  about  gameplay?   Well  it  was  alright, but we were really just
learning  what  to do, and I didn't start scoring until the last half of
the game.

I think I would have been more playable if we had another go, but by the
time  we'd  finished we were dizzy, had headaches inside and outside our
heads  from  the helmets, stiff necks and big red circles round our eyes
from  the  goggles.  Also we had a train to catch in about 20 minutes at
Euston.

Conclusion:

Visibility:
67% - OK, but old and not up to today's texture mapped standards
Audiability:      	
60% - Nothing special, only a bit of speech.
Playablilty:
70% - Quite good fun while it lasted
Lastability:
01% - You would end up in a very sorry physical and financial state
Valueformoneyability:
50% - It should be half the price.
Comfortability:
25% - Not very comfortable, but controls were good 
Noveltyfactorability
98% - This is the only reason people play this game

Overall: 
65% - Worth a go, just to experience it  for yourself, but you won't   
      be desperate for more.  



End