BattleTech Centers

• • Manufacturer: Virtual World Entertainment

• Designer:Jordan Weisman

• Generation:1st

• Bits:32 bit

  • Year Released: 1990

• Units sold: 416 units, 20 million tickets

• Media: arcade

Summary: battle tech centers are/were much like an arcade in witch the player goes to a location to play the game but unlike arcades the location only carried one multilayer game that you would run on ten min cycles. while you waited to play there were often lounges and bar sum-times even a small restaurant. after the game there would be a debriefing room ware you would get a score card and damage read out of your mech. in the debrefing room there were monitors displaying the game you just played so players could talk about how pulverized each other. the software and hardware went through many updates to stay competitive with games els ware but the cockpits them selves were only updated 3 times.

History

Virtual World Entertainment built the first BattleTech center on the upper floor of the North Pier terminal, on the north side of Chicago that consisted of two sets of eight pods. (an arcade like systom that would encase you inside of it so it would feal like you were in a mechs cockpit.) The company was then was bought by Tim Disney and they built 26 more centers around the world that most of witch have closed by 2000 except for a few that have been bought and continued to be operated by extreme fans. the one in Connecticut still runs anoul invitational competitions.

Hardware

each pod ran on a Commodore Amiga with an added 16 bit card with a custom processor

External Hardware

since it was an arcade game there was no external hardware but at the end of each game you had the opertunity to watch replay footage of the game with the other players on separate screen

Notable Qualities

first networked systoms out side of the US government and were the first to employ two and a half D. the system was maid to feel like a cockpit of a mech

and would close you inside with variety

buttons joy stick and footpedels to operate the game

the first generation of pods

the third generation of pods named the Tesla 2

Notable Titles

Battle Tech and Red Planet

References