From: campbell@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Paul Campbell)
Subject: Re: Questions about BattleTech
Date: 25 Apr 91 22:31:55 GMT
Organization: The Internet



It is in the North Pier Mall in Chicago. I was there during my last break
from school. They have 12 'sit-down' style arcade machines running on
TMS 32016 graphics processors strung up with Amigas and an IBM to do the
networking. It was interesting but had some problems. The worst problem
is that the targetting was done via a SWITCH joystick, so it took forever
to get a shot lined up. Most of the time, you were better off steering
via analog foot pedals (think in terms of tanks. It really doesn't use
the differences inherent in mechs at all) to aim the guns. They pre-rendeered
the graphics, but they were still only updating about 6-8 frames per second,
so the movement was very choppy. For paying $6/12 minutes of play, I was
not very pleased with the results (it's a do it once sort of thing) when
I know very well they could have done better. It also seemed to crash
often for various unknown reasons. I later found out that this is because
they didn't eradicate AmigaDOS before they started the project. They also
weren't even beginning to tap the potential of the 32016 processors.
Beyond that, it was a lot of fun, but because of the controls, very
frustrating.