Chas
07/31/02 01:13 PM
66.187.6.9
|
Okay, for those of you who weren't aware, Virtual World Entertainment (the guys who run the BattleTech sim pods at D&B (and used to run their own locations), have updated their system.
System 5.0 (BattleTech: Firestorm) is now out at the Chicago VWE site at Dave and Buster's.
New hardware.
- Old System: P90 or PPro 180/200, Division Graphics System
- New System: P4 1.8Ghz, 3 GeForce cards (likely 3 GF4 MX cards, 1 AGP, 2 PCI), 256MB DDR SDRAM. System provided by Alienware.
Available mechs are:
- Light Mechs
- Medium Mechs
- Heavy Mechs
- Vulture
- Catapult
- Loki
- Thor
- Mad Cat
- Assault Mechs
I had a chance to play this back on the 28th of July, 2 days after debut. Quite nice. It's not as in-depth as the old System 4 pods were. But most people never used full cockpit functionality anyhow.
The engine is basically a hopped up MW4 engine (which was based off the original System 4 code anyhow). All the mission control interfaces are directly out of MW4. As are the scripted taunts in Free For All modes and the commands in team-play modes.
A little work needs to be done on maps and spawn points. But, the game itself plays very smoothly and the physics are an improvement from System 4.
Jump capability is now present in the game on a few of the mechs. So DFA and jumping up onto buildings is now a distinctly doable proposition. They just need to work on placement of the jump control button or make it assignable.
All in all, I spent a very nice evening mashing mech.
---
"High necked fashions just became the IN thing here on Tharkad."
-- Morgan Kell
-- Grave Covenant
|
SSFSX17
08/01/02 12:37 PM
209.233.16.47
|
The old system sounds like we could run it on our very own computers, if only we had the cockpit controls and everything. Is there any information for buying any of these pods?
Lousy good-for-nothing mortals. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
|
PeterSmith
08/01/02 05:52 PM
4.17.223.29
|
Though the systems were built around a standard processor, they incorporated a custom interface board. So you needed to have all the displays setup, the specific joystick and throttles, and the array of buttons.
Essentially, you needed a Pod.
Peter Smith
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kinda neat.
|
novakitty
08/06/02 05:57 PM
209.242.100.230
|
You feel ripped off because they used a game engine that is not exclusive to this use? If so, you are pathetic.
meow
|
PeterSmith
08/12/02 09:54 AM
67.37.184.47
|
Play Firestorm like you play MW4, you'll get blasted out of your 'Mech faster than a Hussar taking on a Daishi Hohiro.
In addition, the MW4 code was a version of the VWE code. So Firestorm is just a round-about, updated version of the previous VWE code.
Peter Smith
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kinda neat.
|