Amuro, You Got 500 Yen I Could Borrow?

I've only just recovered from my first and most probably last experience playing "Senjo no Kizuna" ("The Bonds of the Battlefield"). It's this new Bandai-Namco game where you get to pilot a Mobile Suit while sitting in a mock-up of a "linear seat" inside an enclosed pod. The game's great. It's got sharp graphics, responsive controls, great sound, headsets for chatting and strategizing with your fellow players, and the wrap-around panoramic projection monitor totally fills your vision and immerses you in the action. It's amazing. You really feel like you're piloting a Mobile Suit. It's a quantum leap beyond those "Battletech Centers" that used to be around last century (am I the only one who remembers those?)

Unfortunately, said wrap-around panoramic monitor gives me a wrap-around case of motion sickness within minutes of a game kicking off. Although the pod remains perfectly stationary at all times, the images are all too good at convincing your brain that you're pirouetting through the wreckage of a space colony. (One of the things I liked best about the game was being able to gaze upward and see the other side of the colony arcing above my head, although the insane perspective didn't do much to help my incipient case of space-sickness.)

Eight hundred yen later -- yeah,you heard me: eight hundred yen. Three for a reusable member card, then five for each two-round game. Remember when a fifty-cent game felt really expensive? Welcome to Japan. Anyway, eight hundred yen later, I staggered out of the isolation pod and into the streets of Akihabara like William Hurt in "Altered States." Word to the wise: the neon signs, diesel fumes, presence of maids, and constant audio-visual bombardment make it a rich cultural experience and quite possibly the single worst place in the world to try to get over a case of motion sickness, even if it is robot-induced.

Guess I'm not a "Newtype" after all... Though I did manage to bag two confirmed and one probable GM kills with my lowly, underpowered Zaku II. Boo-ya.

Comments

[Steve Harrison]

I *SO MUCH* want to play that! Holy crap I want to play that!

Oh, I remember the Battletech centers, I played at the first one at Navy Pier in Chicago. It was cool, but I really came to dislike the limitations of the Battletech 'world concept' (that whole heat generation thing) when all I wanted to do was get out there and shoot other robots. I don't think they ever really realized the full potential of the system, I don't think they ever got the 'meta game' running where players in other cities played against each other.

but for the time? Not too bad. I did enjoy how much 'atmosphere' went into the storefront, but boy did some of the employees have attitude.

Not as bad as at the Photon arenas. Oh I miss that but when one of the employees decides to get in there and play to up their stats with easy kills....oy. tres' annoying.

So, Matt. It's Zaku only? The players are all Jion pilots and you're taking out the Feds? There's no GM/Gundam version? Poop.

What are the controls like? I see the two handgrips, are there footpedels as well? how about selector buttons on a side console? I suspect it's as simple as possible in order to ease maintaining the cabinet...

Ohhh I wanna play! DAMN YOU BANDAI!

(like there are any arcades here in the US anymore to put things like this...)

[Matt Alt]

There are plenty of Mobile Suits to choose from, but you've got to work your way up through a certain number of battles/kills to be able to choose them. Everyone starts as either GM or Zaku, depending on if you declare yourself as being Federation or Zeon when you purchase the member's card. I'm not sure if you can "switch sides" after making the choice, but here's the list of available Suits:

http://gundam-kizuna.jp/game/ms.html

[Corey]

I don't like video games.

Too many of them take too much time to learn and for what? So you can master a set of skills that do nothing but help you to while away your life.

The others, the ones that take little time to master, are dull and within minutes, you find yourself asking why you are whiling away your life with such mindless stupidity.

Then there are the ones that I really hate.

You know, the ones that are just challenging enough to master to be entertaining, and continue to offer that level of challenge? I really hate these games.

This sounds like one of those games, the kind I could hate for hours and hours (and I'd be sure to bring along a barf-bucket - yeah!)

[Matt Alt]

I hear ya. Ironically in light of what I do for a living, I'm not a particularly fanatical player of video games, either. But the Gundam simulator hits all the right buttons: it feels like more of an "experience" in that you're immersed in an environment that -- admit it -- you've always wanted to try, and also in that since it's only in arcades you've got to physically get together with your pals if you want to play.

And then there's that other "experience," of your wallet getting lighter...

[Steve Harrison]

So another question or a bazillion...

I looked at the list of available MS to play and man does the Fed side get the shaft!

Granted, there's nothing in the inventory on the level of a Z'gok, but there MUST be more available than just some of those super weak GMs!

I mean, the light armor GM? The heck?

OTOH, the Feds *should* have advantages...Beam weapons.

Somewhat surprised no Gelgoog.

So I'm guessing you have to keep racking up kills to 'buy' better MS, and it's all on the 'pilot card' you've bought. Makes me think it might be a flash rom smart card rather than a simple magstripe..DAMMIT! I wanna play it before they pull the plug for the 'next thing'!

Looking at the pod, it looks like it's designed to have near the same 'footprint' of a DDR machine. Which would mean an arcade wouldn't have to lose money pulling out two machines to fit one of these on the floor...or is this only at Namco arcade centers and thus that is not a consideration? ARE there still Namco arcade centers? I know there used to be Sega ones...I AM SO OUT OF TOUCH! I MISS ARCADES!

[Corey]

> the Gundam simulator hits all the right buttons

It sounds like it. I'm sure I'd suck but I'm also sure it'd be a blast to play. I'd love to try it at least once!

[Matt Alt]

So come out to Japan, ya big galoot! The booze is on me, if you'll loan me the money to pay for it.

Steve: Just guessing, but I suspect the lack of a Gelgoog and other famous suits is to give the inevitable sequel/upgrade a hook. What I'd like to see next is a version of the game set in space (yeah, just what my motion sickness needs.)

[Patrick Macias]

The Fed mobile suits tend to have better armor, so there's the advantage right there. Not like it mattered much when I played. Zero-fucking-kills. I guess I should stick to the Cobra Psycho Gun game...

[Ike]

Nice. Hope to play this some point in time.

[Matt Alt]

Get ready to wait -- there's always a huge line, especially on holidays and weekends. But then again, if you're a REAL dyed-in-the-wool "Gun-ota," that just gives you more time to assemble one of these new Lego-style Gundams as you wait your turn:

http://mega.channel.or.jp/mega/gundam/lineup.html

[Gilles Poitras]

Matt:

What you experienced is known in the trade as 'sim-sickness'. The brain response is actually different than regular motion sickness, not that that helps dealing with it.

Somewhere in a box I have a special issue of Virtual, an MIT magazine, entirely devoted to the phenomenon. It used to be quite a problem for military training simulators until they figured that they could use hydralics to give small corresponding movements that would counter the effect.

I keep having visions that someday someone will create a popular headmounted game display system that will result in vomit stained carpets all across the various suburbias of America.

[Matt Alt]

I hear ya. A Japanese friend termed it 情報酔い -- "information sickness," though it's really a lack thereof -- and I agree: if the machine had moved even slightly to follow the motion on screen, it probably would have been a lot less vomit-inducing. Yet I can't stop going back for more....

[gg]

I played the game yesterday here in Japan and it is REALLY fun. :)))

[Matt]

No motion-sickness?

[Kirshwasser]

Play this game quite a bit. I get no motion sickness. I really get into this game; my friends and I all go in there with a top gun additude, and we get pwnt thoughroly though. Any word on this coming to amerika? I know the arcade has died over there over the last 5 years...

[Schwenke]

i played this game with my friends when we visited japan on the 1-12 of july. It was awesome, and we ended up being pretty good at it. One question though...is it ever coming to the USA?

Sieg Zeon!

[Ray Rivera]

Hey, ever heard of motion sickness pills. It's the only way I can play Half Life, but oddly enough not COD or Quake or Doom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimenhydrinate

[brandon ball]

as far as the damage is it area damage or is it an hp bar??? and as far as weapons do u get to chose ur set or depending on the mobile suit its set in stone??? and do u ever get to play as a gundam or is it all mobile suits???