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November 1992
STAR*TECH Journal
Prince's Corner
Donald B. Prince
D&RMusic
Bozeman, Montana
What's New? The AMOA Expo '92
YA-Hoo!
This years AMOA convention
was held at Opryland Hotel in
Nashville, Tennessee in mid-Oc-
tober. It is an extremely big hotel,
five floors up and at least a mil-
lion miles long! It was a minimum
of two miles from the lobby to my
room -by way of an indoor water
cascade & thru the indoor jungle.
~his did have its advantages
- though, you never had to go out-
, side for anything. It had a com-
plete mini-mall, ice cream shop,
restaurants, live music and
seven bars. The convention cen-
ter itself was equally as large, it
was also extremely loud by late
afternoon -and that wasn't even
in jukebox alley!
In this issue I would like to to
present you with a video over-
view of the new games and the
new technology that was on dis-
play at this years show.
VmTUAL RAcING
The place to start this review
would be with the advances in
technology. This years techno
novel is the multi-player games
with interactive screens. The
~rst of which is Sega's Virtual
..dacing. This game can handle
from one to eight players in a
racing format. It features real
time racing action and some of
the best polygon 3D graphics I've
ever seen in a video game.
All the multi-player games in this
set-up can play interactively on
each others screens for some real
racing excitement. In the four
seat game, there is a fifth monitor
for attracting future customers.
This fifth monitor, or attract
monitor, gives the onlooker a
complete description of the race
action via an announcer and a
track with car location info.
The game offers 3 different tracks
of varying skill levels and 4 differ-
ent perspectives of your race car
on the track. It also simulates G
forces through the movement of
the seat ( try putting that through
a cable fiberoptic link! -ed).
The four-player game can be tied
in tandem with another for an
eight-player game, and also
comes in 1 & 2 player versions for
locations with limited space.
This game is a big ticket item
($10,000 for the four-player)
aimed at the large dedicated ar-
cade arenas, but its graphics and
interactive play on multi-screens
will trickle-down to other less
expensive video games.
SPACELoRDS
Space Lords by Atari just may fit
this description of a trickle-down,
less expensive version of the in-
teractive monitor technology.
This game features super 3D
graphics in a dual monitor cabi-
net, and has one to four players
(two to a team -pilot, co-pilot).
Two cabinets can be placed in
tandem for an eight-player game
(4 teams) of air warfare.
The game takes place around, or
should I say through an asteroid
belt filled with gaseous nebulae.
The object is to seek out new en-
emies and destroy them while
avoiding obstacles. With a special
"ship Modification" option, you
can customize your ship with six
different attributes.
After playing this game, I was
very impressed -the graphics
were much more than Asteroids
like, much more advanced, of
course. The asteroid appeal is
appealing and the nebulae add
excitement as you steadily pick
your way through the galaxy.
The controls are excellent, they
have the positive feel of computer
controls on flight simulators. The
game overall has a great feel and
combined with its three-dimen-
sional fighting, it is a very chal-
lenging video. Recommended.
Stay tuned for part two! More on
the new technology and games of
the show. Some old ideas com-
bined with new digitization in the
next issue.