3d Imaging

3d glasses have never been commercially successful for video games but who knows, maybe VR will still make it big in the future.

The earliest home attempt at 3d imaging that was commercially released was GCE/Milton Bradley's Vectrex 3D Imager for the Vectrex console in 1983. I'm not sure exactly how it works but it has something to do with rotating discs.

http://www.heimcomputer.de/pics/3dimag4.jpg

3D Mine Storm, 3D Crazy Coaster, and 3D Narrow Escape were made for it. 3D Pole Position was planned but never released.

http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/vectrex/2.html
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/vectrex/1.html
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/vectrex/3.html

The Vectrex 3D Imager is very rare and from what I gather it's worth quite a bit of money today.

In 1987, similar technology came out from Nintendo and Sega although I haven't determined which company released theirs first. These glasses relied on the use of "flickering" for their effect. The glasses would rapidly darken one eye then the other, or at least I think that's how it works.

Nintendo's Famicom 3D System was released for the Famicom Disk System. Had they released it for the cartridge format, it might have been more successful and not so quickly abandoned. Nintendo made Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally for it and Konami made Falsion. The Famicom 3D System was never released outside of Japan and I have yet to try it myself. The closest the NES got to having 3d imaging was with red and blue cardboard glasses with games like Square's Rad Racer and 3D World Runner but those aren't a substitute for real 3d glasses.

http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/other/3dsystem-ad.jpg

http://www.planetnintendo.com/nindb/...dprix2-fds.gif

3D Hot Rally
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/fds/01/61.html

Falsion
http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/fds/pix/fals4.gif

Sega released their SegaScope 3D glasses for the Master System. Some SMS machines were sold with the glasses and Missile Defense 3D.

http://www.thepong.com/Sites/Left/Sega/MS/GFX/3D.jpg

http://www.dantiques.com/sshots/17950.gif

Some other 3d games were Space Harrier 3D, Maze Hunter 3D, Zaxxon 3D, Out Run 3D, and Poseiden Wars 3D.

http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/sms/posei.html
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/sms/out.html

These were the first real 3d glasses I got to try and I was impressed. The effect doesn't really make stuff stick out from the screen but it does give the illusion of depth into the screen. Although the overhead view game Maze Hunter 3D has your character jump up towards you and it's a neat effect. It's too bad Maze Hunter 3D wasn't a very good game unlike Space Harrier 3D which was amazing at the time.

http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/sms/maze.html

http://www.dragonbbs.com/members/1848/sh-3d2.jpg

I read somewhere that SegaScope glasses can somehow be rigged to work with the Vectrex but I imagine it would take some technical ability.

Like Atari with their unreleased Cosmos console, Sega experimented with holograms. Their 1991 arcade game Time Traveler was extremely impressive to look at but the game itself was boring FMV junk.

http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...e_Traveler.jpg

Sega followed up Time Traveler with Holosseum the following year. http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?...H&game_id=8132

Sega also made this game that was a huge room where where players shot holographic enemies. I saw it in the arcade section of a PC Engine magazine. I still have the mag but I can't find it.

Around 1994 when the VR buzz was at its height, Sega of America planned on making a VR unit for the Genesis but it never saw release. Judging by the pictures I saw of the games in magazines back then, that's a good thing.

[thumbnail]http://consoledatabase.retrofaction.com/consoleinfo/segavr/img1.jpg[/thumbnail]

Similarly, Atari planned a VR unit for their Jaguar but never delivered.

http://www.atarihq.com/museum/jaglyn...are/vr&pro.jpg

However, in 1995, Nintendo did resurrect 3D imaging on the console front with the Virtual Boy. Although it was technically considered a portable, it wasn't something you want to lug around everywhere.

The VB is definitely a mixed bag. On the one hand, you don't have to deal with the annoying flicker effect found in the old 3d glasses. But on the other hand, it ends up being an even greater stress on the eyes having your face trapped in there. I like the VB(it has a quirky Game & Watch-like charm) and I play mine on occasion but it certainly wouldn't be healthy to use all the time.

http://mudage.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gif/virtual1.jpg

Nintendo made Mario's Tennis, Galactic Pinball, Teleroboxer, Wario Land, Nester's Funky Bowling, and Mario Clash. Mario's Tennis, the system's pack-in, is my favorite Virtual Boy game.

[thumbnail]http://www.virtual-boy.org/images/mtennis4.jpg[/thumbnail]

http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/03/mario.html

Teleroboxer
http://yama-chan.hp.infoseek.co.jp/vb/tb_game.gif

I think T&E Soft. made the best third-party VB games: Red Alarm and T&E Virtual Golf. They also made 3D Tetris which I haven't played.

Hudson's Panic Bomber and Vertical Force were decent.

Other third-party games include Ocean's Waterworld and Kemco Baseball. I'm sure there are a couple more.

I'm having a mind blank on VR arcade games so hopefully someone can fill me in. All I can think of is Virtuality's Pac Man VR which came out in 1996. There are other Virtuality arcade games.

http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...ac-Man_V_R.jpg

Does anyone have anything to add? I'm sure I missed a bunch of arcade stuff and maybe some obscure PC stuff.

The SMS 3D Glasses were amazing. It's hard to believe that they came out so long ago and that we've seen nothing similar since...

Quote:

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Time Traveler was extremely impressive to look at but the game itself was boring FMV junk.

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Heathen!

heheh, that game was so cheesy, you gotta love that wacky wizard who would pop up, spin around and say some inane bullshit like "MAYBE YOU SHOULD DUCK NEXT TIME?!?!?".

I loved how 1999 was like a bladerunner-esque society with dudes running around with giant mohawks and chain saws.

*cowboy looks at the full moon*

cowboy: "They only come out at night.."

* HOMOCIDAL ESCAPED MENTAL PATIENT APPEARS FROM OUT OF NOWHERE AND LUNGES TOWARDS THE COWBOY BRANDISHING A SCALPEL!!!!!111oneone*

*cowboy shoots maniac*


...........wtf were they thinking?!?!?

I can't see in stereoscoptic 3D... :(

/me goes and cries next to his Vectrex

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Originally posted by sggg
The SMS 3D Glasses were amazing. It's hard to believe that they came out so long ago and that we've seen nothing similar since...

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Zaxxon 3D was sooo cool

I miss my Master System glasses. They broke a couple years back :(

I beleive the first 2 Virtuality games were Dactyl Nightmare and Exorex. I remember liking Dactyl Nightmare. There were a bunch of other later ones though, too... I played a couple.

man i friggin loved time traveller. always had a master system but never got the glasses. ive heard they're loud and clicky and break easily.

The Jaguar VR was a joint project between Atari and Virtuality.

Virtuality originally developed Missile Command 3D as one of the games for Jaguar VR. Although Jaguar VR was never released for several reasons, the Missile Command 3D game was retooled to work with the standard Jaguar and television display. It was released in late 1995. The cartridge that was released still has the programming code for the VR headset. There are a few prototype Jaguar VR helmets out in the wild, including two or three working units which can be used to play Missile Command 3D as it was originally intended.

By the way, Missile Command 3D is a great game for the Jaguar!

Cool. I didn't know Virtuality was involved with the Jaguar VR.

I found this site which has some nice screens of Virtuality's arcade games. http://www.cyberminduk.com/entertain...u_software.htm

Dyne, the SMS glasses are pretty fragile. Mine are broken. The noise isn't too bad though; it's more the flickering that's irritating. Still, they were always something to wow friends with in 1988.

I too am a SMS 3d glasses veteran. It was the coolest thing I ever owned back in the day. It would have been nice to play the SMS games w/o the 3d effect especially when my glasses broke :/ I also loved the light phaser (even more than the zapper). I tried to like Sega's Holo games but the gimmick was poorly executed. You have to look down into a black reflective space to see two FMV characters fighting horribly. I agree with the belief that the rise of the internet brought about the demise of interactive TV and VR. In alternate reality TNL I'd be typing out this message on my remote control and playing a game simultaneously . Wait, that sounded pretty cool...

Some of the SMS 3d games can be set to 2d-mode if you want to play without the glasses but there's usually a trick to it.

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Originally posted by Dragonmaster Dyne
man i friggin loved time traveller. always had a master system but never got the glasses. ive heard they're loud and clicky and break easily.

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I don't know about "clicky" but they were fragile. Thier 3D glasses were way way ahead of thier time (they might not ever have a time actually, the whole idea is not really reasonable now). Gene Siskel from Siskel & Ebert commented on the SMS back in its day to note its amazing 3D glasses which were unrivaled (as they said) and better yet - they were made in such a way that they'd fit over your normal glasses.

I thought they were cool too though I only played Missile Defence 3D with it.

the VB hurt my eyes...

So I head over to EB today on the off chance that maybe they have a spare copy of Ninja Five-O (they didn't) and what do I find but the DVD Time Traveller in the PS2 section! Complete with free 3-D glasses! Priced at only $2.99 I couldn't possibly disregard the sheer cheese and absolute stupidity that was sure to be rampant among the title. So I bought it, brought it home, and found that I was not alone in remembering it as two of my roommates and a couple of their friends also recalled playing it. We sat around and played it and times were good for a few minutes.

Sweet Jesus is that game horrible. Funny in every unintentional way, but horrible.

I played Time Traveler once in the arcades. I thought it was the worst game I'd ever played in the arcade. I never saw the other game made for the system, as the machine quickly made an exit from any arcade in my area.

When I was a little squirt my family went on a vacation to Jamaica and stayed at the Jamaica Grand. In the arcade...or was it a bar...bar i think. They had a Sega card game with a almost 3-D looking dealer woman. I think the game was called Casino Nights. I THINK!! I know thats a Sonic level, but it was a Sega made game so.... Anyway....I stared at it alot while my parents got drunk. I'm pretty sure it was 3-Dish.

Blade Eagle was another SMS 3-D game, it was an overhead shooter, and was decent from the time I spent with it.

Jim Power for the SNES came with those cheap 3-D cardboard glasses I believe, but the rental version I played was missing them.

Sony has a head-mounted display available for PlayStation 2 in Japan.

http://www.jp.playstation.com/jacket/l/pudj5a.jpg

Click here to see the page on Sony's Japanese site, or click here for an article in English that describes this device.

It evidently has two LCD screens (one for each eye) and supports motion tracking (changing the point of view as you move your head), but I'm not sure if it provides a true stereoscopic display. Does anyone here know for sure?