Virtual-reality gaming dwells in a wonder stage, the territory of the curious and small groups of truly hip cyberteens - but GreyStone Technology's MagBall could change that. MagBall is not a "shoot or be shot" testosteronefest, it's a sport.
Six of the world's first sleek, black MagBall pods can be found at the Cybermind virtual reality center in downtown San Francisco. Greet your two teammates and three opponents, slide into a pod, and sit back as your new reality - a massive Day-Glo playing field - fills the high-res monitor before you. Sitting in what appears to be a giant jet-propelled drink coaster, your view is like the World Cup through the eyes of a center forward on acid.
In a streak of light, a ball zips past your pod. You pull your joystick trigger to magnetically attract it to the front of your pod and race off toward the goal, a running-back coaster bound for glory.
As in the old arcade game Asteroids, you have to overcome your pod's momentum to change direction. You can get going pretty fast, but changing directions is like stopping and running the other direction on a playing field - it takes time and effort. This helps make the gameplay more real, rewarding finesse and strategy over brute strength.
My second game was a clincher, down to the five-second warning. When I missed the shot at the last second, I felt exactly as if I'd missed a winning goal in a pickup soccer match. I shook my head, planned for next time, and joked with the other players.
MagBall is a virtual sport - with all the competitive excitement and team play of the real thing - and, more important, it's a giant step toward pulling virtual reality out of the wonder years.
MagBall at Cybermind Interactive: US$7 per eight minutes play time. Cybermind Interactive Inc.: (800) 492 9237, +1 (415) 693 0348, fax +1 (415) 693 0462, e-mail cybermind@compspec.com, on the Web at www.cris.com/~cybermn2.
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