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Gaming on the IMAX
JavaTenor writes "The Tech Museum in San Jose, CA, is holding the 1st Annual MaxGames tournament on August 15, 2002. The final matches for each game will be held on the IMAX Dome screen, so if you've ever wanted to play Halo eight stories high, this is the event for you."
Having grown up near the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater in Balboa Park in San Diego, I saw many movies filmed in IMAX ...
... a midnight Led Zeppelin laser show, what do you expect?
Because of this I am absolutely positive that you could collect a full day's worth of complete "documentaries" that were not much more than a collection of helicopter/plane flights for no real reason other than to induce vertigo.
One documentary I know my whole family jumped at the chance to see was entitled "Speed". If I remember correctly, the first five minutes or so were computer generated tunnels which, of course, got faster and faster until people were practically passing out in their seats. They had cockpit footage in formula racers, jets, land-speed-record type vehicles, etc.
The most thrilling scene I ever saw in an IMAX documentary was the escape procedure taken by astronauts in case of a critical emergency on the launch pad. It involved strapping onto a line that's connected somewhere around the top of the shuttle and then zipping along into a net at ground level. It was completely unexpected in a fascinating documentary primarily dominated by shots of Earth from space.
Of course, none of this tops when I got a little older and started going to watch the midnight Led Zeppelin laser shows baked out of my mind, though. So I wouldn't worry about at least that theater allowing more adolescent activities. I mean
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
Maybe it's just me, but aside from the resolution problems of blowing an NTSC display up to OmniMAX sizes, seeing Virtua Fighter $(N) on an OmniMAX screen just doesn't make me want to get up and check out the competition. NFL Fever? Please. The X-style games (Tony Hawk, SSX Tricky) and racing games (Gran Turismo) might possibly be interesting.
OTOH, if you want to get me to claw my way to the head of the line, all you have to do is set up nearly any of the Star Wars spaceflight games (Star Wars Starfighter, XWing Alliance, etc.). Crank the resolution to 1280 * 1024 * 32bpp and even on an IMAX screen it would look stunning. Go the extra mile and compensate for the spherical projection surface, and you could have a major spectator attraction on your hands ("Come ride shotgun in an XWing fighter as some of the best gamers on the planet go after the Death Star").
I've always wanted to experience a truly immersive space flight simulator. XWing Alliance on an OmniMAX screen would do it.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Screw Halo! Imagine playing PONG on this thing
You may laugh, but that sure brought back a memory. Back in 1981 I was in college and working at the student union setting up for a concert later that evening when one of the building's directors wheels in this big, bulky thing and starts to roll down the 20-foot diagonal movie screen. Come to find out it was a new projection TV system. (Films were popular on campus, so the thinking was why not project videos, too?)
A lightbulb went off and I asked "What does it use for inputs?"
"Basically any NTSC source; there's antenna connections and RCA jacks."
Within 15 minutes' time, I'd hooked up my Atari 800 (*) to the projector and to the concert sound system (1000 Watts!) and started Star Raiders(**). The explosions were deafening, and when I launched into hyperspace, it sounded like a jet was taking off in the student union! Got to play for almost an hour until some students complained they couldn't study.
(*) That was a 6502 (8-bit) system. IIRC it ran at 2 MHz; had 8 KB of memory; display was in color and capable of 12 rows of 40 characters. It was pretty advanced at the time!
(**) Star Raiders was a killer app of the time. Many people bought an Atari 800 (or 400) just so they could play it! It was certainly a big factor in my decision.
While not quite up to IMAX standard, most college students can use lecture halls after hours for their own purposes. It's actually quite easy to do. I started by calling the Union and getting the central reservation office number for the university. I admit, it's not eight stories tall, but Quake is quite cool on 30ft screen too. Most major lecture halls have projectors with VGA and RCA in for both computers and game systems. Just a thought if you can't compete in the contest yourself.
For my last year of high school I went to a charter school that was housed in St. Paul's (as in Minnesota) old science museum. And lo and behold, they use to have an imax screen. The old imax theatre was transformed into the audiotorium and once a week we held gaming contests. We played all the N64 classics (goldeneye, mario kart, etc. etc.) and all the new X-box games on the huge screen. It was seriously a lot of fun.
The best though, was bringning in our own computers (the school's computers blew hard) and setting up Quake III tourney's, Counter-Strike tournmanets, TFC, and etc, on the school's network. The cool part was, if you weren't playing at any given time you could walk into the auditorium and watch the game spectator style on the huge screen.
I used to work at the Ontario Place tourist trap and would spend lunch watching the movies in the first IMAX theatre in the world.
Without a doubt the older movies are far better then the current efforts. The first IMAX filmmakers had a whole new canvas to draw on and used their abilities to the fullest.
The very first IMAX film was basically a travalogue for Northern Ontario which isn't a place you'd normally go. (Too many mosquitos and not much else) But the makers of "North of Superior" made it visually spectacular with a great soundtrack and an eye for the small details of northern life that translated so well to the large screen.
It was a big kick watching it in a retrospective years later and seeing the same gasping reaction from the audience to the opening sequence...
The little opening titles transitioning to a small square in the middle of the screen with what looks like rushing water behind and a soft folksy acoustic guitar soundtrack that fades out.
Then...
BOOOM! The picture blasts out to fill your entire field of view and you find yourself in a plane skimming fast over a northern lake. Soaring up and banking to the left you fly towards sheer cliffs just missing the edge then violently bank to the right and dive down the other side of the ridge.
Absolute fscking magic.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I grew up in Toronto, home of IMAX.
I saw the very first and subsequent 30+ IMAX films long before it became a common fixture at the local cineplex. (We're talking the 70's here)
There may be a bit of nostalgia but I recall the earlier films being FAR more entertaining than the current product.
"Siegfried and Roy"? Please.
"North of Superior" the first, remains my favourite. A mix of dynamic plane and helicopter shots with slow, almost lyric scenes from the North. The kids playing hockey on a snow-coverted street at twilight. The view from a tugboat pulling away from an ice-covered laker.
Last year we were able to watch "Silent Sky" which, while a bit repetitive, remains one of the most outstanding examples of aerial cinema ever produced.
And, although I've seen most of the Shuttle-filmed features, it was the docking scene in "Mission to Mir" that had me sitting there with my mouth hanging open. I haven't seen "Space Station" yet, though...
"If you live in the past, you are already repeating it." - Me.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.