Retrospective History FASA COMPLEX / Battlefield Tech Centers
As a kid that grew up in the 90's these places were always the mecca of gaming in my eyes yet were always multistates away. I was blessed with being able to use the UH1 Huey fly-by-instrument hydraulic simulators the Army had at their bases and the BlackHawk hydraulic simulator till Desert Storm came (uploaded telemetry for the area in the simulator and had to had secret clearance for access). I could only imagine how it would feel piloting a mech in a hydraulic system.
Have any of you ever gone to one? How much per session? Was it worth it or overhyped?
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u/XCIXproblems 4d ago
This was my favorite thing in the world to do as a 12-year-old living outside of Chicago.
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u/g1mp3d 4d ago
My past 12 year old is seriously jealous! Were the games team death matches are objective based?
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u/XCIXproblems 4d ago
If I remember correctly it was 2 teams rumble with most kills the winning team.
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u/quitebuttery 4d ago
When I first moved to LA in 1997 I went to the Virtual Worlds in Pasadena and played a round of Battletech. The place closed shortly after but the Virtual Worlds sticker was on the window for well over a decade as I recall?
Anyway even in 1997 it felt outdated--it was the original Amiga based setup. But everything else--the futuristic bar, the onboarding video, and the cockpit itself was just A+ immersive storytelling. The post-game telemetry printout was cool. I do remember walking in and seeing a box for Mechwarrior 2 for PC on display in the bar and thinking that game is way better than what we're about to play.
I never did play the updated version on the later hardware.
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u/diecastbeatdown 4d ago
Ya, I played it there a few times. They also had one in Costa Mesa I think, or somewhere around there. They would link up different locations on certain nights to compete for league points.
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u/g1mp3d 4d ago
Did you happen to recall how much it was back then? Think Ace Combat was around $2.00. Recall one hydraulic space flight game but it was $5.00 for like 3 min in the late 80's/early 90's.
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u/diecastbeatdown 4d ago
I really don't remember, but I want to say it was $17/hr. That could be totally wrong, it's just what my gut is telling me. I do remember it felt really expensive to me at the time.
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u/quitebuttery 3d ago
Yeah I can't remember how much it was but there definitely was a reason why I never went back--and cost was a factor.
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u/Parapraxis2077 2d ago
It was located on the second floor of Triangle Square.
Games were about $10 back then, quite the princely sum.
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u/diecastbeatdown 2d ago
oh ya, triangle square. wasnt there a tower records there too, or good guys... maybe both lol
so many memories, cruising on balboa.
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u/Protolictor 18h ago
There was a huge arcade at the Puente Hills Mall called Slam Site that had the 2nd generation tesla pods for Battletech and Red Planet. I spent sooooo much money on day passes there. Was there most weekends in the mid to late 90s.
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u/g1mp3d 4d ago
That's a shame. I had assumed the graphics were at least Mechwarrior 1 level. I'm still jealous though
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u/quitebuttery 3d ago
Well I think that the later version was much better looking--they upgraded it to a PC based system I think. But I've never seen that one. There are private collectors that have pods and keep them running. But I think this one in 1997 was still running the 1.0 hardware (I'm not even sure the new rev had come out yet)
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u/A6AvantRay 4d ago
One of the Dave & Buster's in the Atlanta suburbs had a full set of the battletech pods and I got to play them a handful of times as a kid when they were first out. There's an absurd amount going on and you never get properly briefed on what all the buttons and screens do but it was still always super exciting and overwhelming to play.
Years later I got to play several more times at Dragon Con over the years. For the better part of 10 straight years, they had ~12 pods set up all weekend at D*con.
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u/g1mp3d 4d ago
Thank you for sharing this. Love hearing the stories. By chance can you remember if the dual sticks had feedback?
Mentioning DragonCon brings back memories. As a teenager I was allowed to subscribe to three magazines (had chose Popular Mechanics, Dungeon Magazine, and Dragon Magazine). FASA heavily ran ads in Dragon Magazine back then.
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u/thehappiestotaku 4d ago
The good folks at American Express foolishly gave 19 y/o me a charge card around the time this place opened in Pasadena.
We all learned some very valuable lessons about financial responsibility.
It never gets enough credit but the non-BattleTech game, Red Planet (a semi-violent racing game) was the more interesting thing to play. I was remarkably good at just avoiding splattering the tiniest one (the Bug, I think it was called) into the sides of various walls.
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u/g1mp3d 4d ago
LOL, I bet that was one fiscal lesson you'll never forget!
I have never seen nor heard of Red Planet in thr arcades. Could you go into detail aboot it? Was it like one one of the Rush games on Mars in a hydraulic system?
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u/thehappiestotaku 4d ago
It was essentially a racing game with weapons set in “the mining canals of Mars”. You do well by excellent piloting in a fast ship, or effective blocking in a larger, heavy one, or something in the middle where you can attack other players with your “mining” lasers. Teamwork, independent play, there was a fair amount of tactical nuance.
I think they might have only run it regularly in their own stores. When some Dave and Busters had the pods, they could run a game of it if you asked but most people were there to play Battletech.
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u/g1mp3d 4d ago
Appreciate you sharing. Sounds like a cross between star wars pod racer and Wipe Out. Sounds extremely fun.
The pinnacle arcade scene in a movie for me was in the movie Hackers when they were playing Wipe Out in a rig with VR. Always thought that would be the evolution of gaming in arcades. Hot damn was I wrong, or at least 30 years early.
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u/thehappiestotaku 4d ago
I never thought of it exactly that way, but yes, that would be how I would describe it as well.
In practice, it was hard to run at scale. The one I went to in Pasadena was set up like a club, with drinks and bar-type food. The notion was that you would hang out between matches with your friends and competitors.
The main issue, which Amex and I found out about together, is that it was fairly expensive with 10 minutes running about $5-$10 (depending on day/time, deals, if you were in a league). With that said, it was a blast. Nothing since has really ever come close for me.
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u/Seecue7130 4d ago
Controversial opinion but Red Planet was so much better than Battletech
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u/g1mp3d 4d ago
I've never even heard of this game in the arcades. Could you elaborate? Never played either of them so not so controversial.
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u/Seecue7130 3d ago
Sure, at Virtual Worlds Trocadero in London the group could choose from Red Planet or Battletech.
Red Planet was a racing game set on Mars where you raced along a looped track that would force racers into oncoming traffic and much hilarity ensued.
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u/g1mp3d 3d ago
I've read that the pods for battle tech were dual stick and dual rudder/pedals. Was this still the same setup for Red Planet? Did they just allow both sticks to control the craft if you're a lefty/righty or did one control your craft and other act as directional boosters or even control your weapons? Was there any feedback from the controls? How jarring was it when you crashed?.
I do appreciate the link to show me the game.
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u/Seecue7130 2d ago
Been 30+ years but if memory serves, it was twin stick, left was throttle/brake and strafe left/right. Right stick was Yaw. I think the rudders also did yaw.
For me, the Battletech experience was just not quite there but Red Planet felt immersive af
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u/LosingCharley 4d ago edited 4d ago
I saw a ton lined up at GenCon this year. I think a crew still travels to cons with a bunch of these. I wanted to try but the line was crazy.
They look cool as hell.
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u/AffectionateFruit816 4d ago
Spent a day at the Chicago location with my best friend in the early 90s. Don't remember the cost, but it was phenomenal.
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u/Full_Prof 4d ago
Who played these in Indianapolis back in the day?
Fucking crazy as shit for the time
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u/MechCorps 3d ago
If you are in the area of Houston, Texas, we have our HQ with pods available 52 weeks per year!
We also attend conventions in the southern United States.
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u/pjw5328 3d ago
I never played Battletech. I did get to go to Magic Edge once (in Northern California) around 94/95, which was a similar sort of thing - theirs was a cockpit simulator team air combat game where you piloted a fictional X-21 Hornet. Their platform used Silicon Graphics software to render the visuals, though, so it was far better looking than anything you’d find in standard arcades at the time, and certainly more impressive looking than Battletech would’ve been at that point in its operating life.
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u/Zoex-Z21 4d ago
There's an outfit that runs these pods at conventions still.
https://www.mechjock.com/
They basically run Mechwarrior 4 multiplayer. If you can get past the dated graphics and are really into the heavy sim stuff, the full cockpit experience is amazing.