The video game industry has always shown keen interest in exploring the realm of holograms, but most projects ended up biting the dust for various reasons. In the specific case of arcade machines, holography takes us back to 1991, when Sega released Time Traveler. However, less than a year later, it had to adapt its technology to make room for Holosseum, the world's first holographic fighting game.
The Race to Holography
Our journey begins in September 1982. Sega unveiled Astron Belt, one of the first titles to use the Laserdisc format, but several development problems delayed its official release until November 1983 in the United States. During that time, Cinematronics' Dragon's Lair appeared and essentially cornered the market.
Seven years later, Sega would not make the same mistake. It recruited Rick Dyer (creator of Dragon's Lair) and upped the ante by adopting holographic technology based on a concave mirror designed by the Japanese company Dentsu, with a CRT cannon as projector. The project was named Time Traveler.
To make a long story short, an intergalactic princess seeks the help of a cowboy to stop an evil lord who wants to manipulate the flow of time and sow chaos. Those who have had the chance to play Dragon's Lair or Space Ace already know the mechanics: through a series of precise movements, the hero must overcome his enemies (either by evading attacks or through direct elimination), defeat the villain of the moment, and rescue the princess.
At first, Time Traveler was a spectacular success, raking in up to one million dollars per week, but the commercial spring didn't last long. Despite the visual effects, the live-action actors, and the colorful holographic environment, Time Traveler couldn't escape its natural weaknesses, also suffered by its spiritual predecessors. The game's difficulty was brutal, and once you mastered its predefined moves, there was no reason to return.
At the same time, there was a killer title among arcade machines that was gobbling up every coin in circulation: Street Fighter II. Sega got the message. Interactive adventures were dead and buried. It had to jump on the bandwagon of fighting games to get a piece of the pie, and with its holographic platform, perhaps it could make a difference. The result? Holosseum.
Holosseum: A Fighter with a Holographic Twist
No great effort is needed to understand Sega's strategy here. Holosseum was distributed as a conversion kit with the goal of reusing Time Traveler cabinets, whose development had cost a fortune. Holosseum offered a roster of just four characters: Dave (karateka), Professor Chen (Wushu master), Somchay Dompayagen (Muay Thai warrior), and Jack Garrison (martial arts expert), all heavily inspired by some Street Fighter II characters.
The variety of special moves was limited, and the same could be said for the available space in the holographic arena, which didn't even have a background. The player faces the other three warriors, then goes through a mirror match, and then must win ten consecutive fights against a randomly chosen fighter. In other words, four characters for 14 battles.
I admit that the four martial arts styles are (more or less) well represented, and the absence of special powers could be interpreted as a touch of realism, but no holography was capable of saving Holosseum. The public wanted something else, and any attempt to make a mark in the martial arts genre went up in smoke once Mortal Kombat tore our heads off in October 1992.
Time Traveler and Holosseum became true pioneers of holography for arcades, but with a radical technological advancement alone is not enough, something virtual reality has learned the hard way.
