77 replies to this topic

[RicXX]

First time I saw one was at the CN Tower in Toronto, me and a few friends skipped school and drove the hour to Toronto for a day of fun up the tower but we got sucked into the game! We got more friends together and went down almost every weekend! Damn it was fun, much better than the lazer tag they had. I cant wait for this to come full stream, was big on the table top, and all the video games now this...

[Scurry MacLeod]

played at the ones in D&B in Pittsburgh, when they got taken out, D&B got boring...

[Darkton]

I have one of those things around where I live. They're fun, if only for the unique experience.

[Trap]

I've played at the Old Town Pasadena location and at their (then) headquarters on Glendale Blvd.

The Martian Football variant of Red Planet was actually their best game.

[syngyne]

Yes. I used to work at the one in Dallas.

[VillageID10T]

Major Tom, on 19 June 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

Those are awesome, and they are still around in places.
The Airlock Kirkland, WA

Mad props to Kelly for keepin' it going.

[RangerOne]

Played Hundreds of hours in the tesla pods. Also a little Red planet football now and again.
Still have a copy of the old website I had done up but do not maintain it. uticabattletech.b5station.com

[Zolaz]

I got 2 Gold Cards for myself and gave 1 away to a friend playing at Dave and Busters in Houston. I won my master trial with a Mad Cat, the 2 PPC variant.

However, there was this little Asian guy who went by Sodaku or some such. He was the only other guy who I know that killed 3 masters in 1 mech. What can I say, that guy was awesome.

There was also a guy who went by Lazy 8 who was a good sniper. He loved the Loki with ACs.

[Nimblewright]

I remember going to the River North/North Pier one in chicago when I was like 10. It is what got me hooked on mechwarrior and battletech. I made a vulture out of legos that night and still have it. That and the first edition set of battle tech. I want this game soooo badly now!

[Hikaru]

Played many a hot summer's night at the one in Old Town Pasadena.

God, so ridiculously expensive.

What I really miss are the 200+ player realtime Battletech MUDs that folks used to host on their mainframes, back in the early 90's.

[LesIzmore]

Walnut Creek veteran here also.

[Aiba]

Wow, this brings back memories!

I used to play at the Old Pasadena place. Only a couple of times (and I was never very good), but it was a trip to play!

[Shock Wave]

I played in the Sacramento, California area at a place called America Live. Place had everything, night club, bar, resteraunt, and of course it's own Virtual World with about a dozen pods. Games were like seven dollars for 15 minutes. Played dozens of games there. Then the place went bankrupt and I started going to Walnut creek to play. That wasn't bad either as they sold the game in sessions, not per game. By the time you broke it down it was $2 or so per game and you ran games for hours.

As for the pods... they were the last series before the teslas came out. In fact one of the techs managed to buy most of the pods and hardware from the auction company when America live closed.

[Chupacabra]

Looking fwd to playing at GenCon!

[Paulo187]

Yeah, we used to go to the Virtual World in Pasadena about once per month in the 90's! It would take us an hour to get there in my junky Ford Tempo whose speedometer didn't register anything over 70mph. I remember it was like 20 bucks for three games if it was your first time there. So we used to have to come up with new names every time.

It had an attached bar that was decorated like a WWII fighter pilots rec area. We would watch the replay on the big screens. It was awesome. One time I actually got the highest score out of the 20 people playing by taking a Loki with all machine guns and just firing into groups of other 'mechs duking it out. I was one visit from buying a Loki patch for my jacket and then the PC version of MechWarrior came out and that was the last time I went to Virtual World.

Sometimes we would play Red Planet too. I remember Cheech Marin was in the introductory video and he was hilarious.

[Buddah]

I loved playing Downtown Chicago at North Pier, got a gold card at Dave & Busters because of those darn pods, lots of good times.

I was at Origins and played a whole bunch, it's still a blast. They will be at Gencon as well, so bring your wallets!

[Katt Man]

a place in manhatten had it, i think it was called laserpark or something like that.

[Wo0m3rA]

Here in Australia the Vworld simulators were part of a chain of "Intencity" arcades that included lazer-tag arenas and such - often part of a Westfeilds Shopping Mall etc.

I used to love running circles around people in my Vworld mech of choice - the Vulture. Hope they bring the current generation of simpods back to our shores soon.

[Tannis]

Sabastion, on 19 June 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

Very much so. Mine was in San Diego.

It was the main reason I learned to network computer games together when mechwarrior series came out.

Cool I too played here in San Diego, at Hazard Center and there was a Pen & Paper shop next door called Game Empire.... So we would go down and play table top for a few hours and then go play a few matches at VW then go back and play a few more games of table top... I even had a Birthday party there once, where me and like 20 friends rented the pods for like an hour or something like that...

the cool thing was to just go and hang out, the one down here was pretty cool with the waiting area all done up with Maps and Models and books and stuff...

I understand they sold off the first gen ( Ply Wood )and second gen ( Plastic ) Pods when they went out of buisness. The better and faster Home PCs with home net works ment less people had to play at the VW shop/game hall... there are a few places still around... but not many left...


T

[Juvat]

I went to the ones they had in Las Vegas and San Diego back in the mid-90's... was an awesome experience but yeah a bit pricely. Being able to whoop up on my buddies though was priceless LOL