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How the Nintendo Amusement Park Works
Tito! S. writes "HowStuffWorks has up an article describing how the Nintendo Amusement Park works. This is the New York city area theme park in the making with a physically augmented ride themed around Super Mario Bros. They plan to make the side-scrolling course 100 meters long with a safe and fully interactive course with foam crash padding platforms powered by hydraulic actuators." From the article: "It's really a single 'ride' — a real-life interactive adventure that allows players to dress up as Mario or Luigi, enter the Mushroom Kingdom and perform the actions that the heroes perform in the video game. Players can jump over obstacles, land on and ride moving platforms, and smash enemies. They can even collect gold coins and punch power-up boxes."
See? Wii graphics will be just fine. If that wasn't the most realisticly rendered white sheet hanging in the background, I don't know what is.
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What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
While useful in the game, I'd avoid eating the mushrooms at this theme park.
this does not sound like much of a park. Also thats gonna be a long boring line
nintendo has nothing to do with this. http://nintendoamusementpark.com/
To give you an idea of how much action fits in 100 meters, read this: A lot of NES games are drawn in the same scale as Super Mario Bros. 2 with 16 pixels = one meter, assuming Luigi is 2 meters tall and Mario a bit shorter than that. The NES screen is 256 pixels wide, and the first level of the original Super Mario Bros. is about 10 screens long, or a bit longer than this 6.25-screen course.
Another nit: The white glove in the picture in the article is inaccurate, as the Mario Bros. and most other Japanese animated characters have five digits on each hand, not four like Mickey Mouse.
The very first version of the Matrix, the human participants entered willingly.
. . . bake a cake for me if I succesfully finish the course?
When you leave the park, do you get a white bouncy star... to remind you to get a life?
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If this had come out 14 years ago, it would have been a sure-fire hit, but now I am not so sure. It seems that VR stuff is nowhere near as popular as it used to be. Also, I think that theme parks may have seen a decline in recent years with the rise of online amusements (I heard that Yellowstone National Park has seen a decline in tourists because people are content to look at photos of all the wildlife on Yellowstone's web site). Also, amusement parks generally appeal to young children, and Mario might not be as popular with kids today as he was when I was young (14 years ago).
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Does the "We love your characters! It's an homage!" line usually work on legal departments of large companies? My bet is no.
They're developing a project with intentions of taking it commercial all the while using the Nintendo logo and name. I'm not fan of Intellectual Property. I think the concept stinks. I'm not faulting them for using Nintendo characters. But using the name and logo to me implies some affiliation which this page specifically says there isn't any. That's pretty flagrant.
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Active winch support systems have been used for movie stunts for a few years now. For a good overview of how this works, rent "Underworld: Evolution" and watch the special features. It's really funny. First the stunt guys practice the stunt on a big padded mockup of the set until they get it right. The movements are recorded. Then, on the actual set, the actors are pulled through the same motions by servo-controlled winches. In post-production, the wires are removed from the images.
Yes, that's how Kate Beckinsale does all those high jumps and landings.
I'm a huge Nintendo fan but that looks like something from one of those goofy Nickelodeon game shows from the 80's. I would love to see a 3d interactive mario adventure but that aint it. It did make me think about how cool a truly VR mario or sonic experience could be. Maybe something like one of the rides at Universal or better yet one of those VR domes that has been discussed here before.
They should give you a green hat, and then you run around and collect stuff. :)
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I have two words for this (in funny-bad dubbing), "L-L-Let's go!"
Ok, three more words, "DON'T! GET! ELIMINATED!"
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This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. How does it work? Not very well at all should be the answer. I don't see anything that even resembles fancy technology. I just called my girlfriend over to watch the video because I thought it would be something neat and when it was over she just gave me a look like I farted in church.
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Step 1: Get sued by Nintendo for egregious copyright violation.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Pay civil fines.
Screw that, I'm waiting for the Legend of Zelda or Castlevania Amusement Park. :P
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FTA:
We would like to build a version to be displayed at E3 2007 as part of game company's booth.
Mabye someone should kindly inform them that the E3 as we knew it with booth babes and huge displays is dead. If oceans of demo Wii systems can't sell Nintendo products, a life-size Mario simulation that will bring joy to 10-15 E.B. and Gamestop employees certainly won't.
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But it might be sweet if it were the marble hill zone.
Somewhere Lou Albano, Danny Wells, Bob Hoskins, and John Leguizamo are all watching this and thinking "at least I didn't look that stupid."
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I guess, to be fair, the site is not named howstuffpeopleactuallycareaboutworks.com... but sheesh, they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
If you haven't RTFA, at least take a look at the picture of the Goomba on the "Reality Check" page for an example of how sad this really is. From what I can tell, that is their best, most-completed bit of interactive scenery.
Unless... as somebody said above, the whole thing is a joke... in which case, the fact that howstuffworks seems to have fallen for it is even more pitiful. Unless the howstuffworks article is also a joke, which I guess just makes all the rest of us even *more* pitiful for falling for that. Bleh.