Taito in widescreen in the late 80s/early 90s!

[awbacon]

 

 

Sadly these multi monitor cabs are rare AF...mostly because they must have been a chore to maintain...but I LOVE the fact that Taito took common parts and used them in such a unique and uncommon way!

[+x=usr(1536)]

They're huge and heavier than anyone in their sane mind should want to have to deal with.  Never owned any of them, but have helped to move a couple.  Never again

 

Ditto this one:

 

 

[SlidellMan]

The original Darius was also a multi-monitor machine, just wanted to clarify. The only way I see myself getting a Taito multi-monitor board is building a carbon-fiber cabinet. At least it would weigh considerably less.

[Keatah]

I didn't like that that they charged extra for the peripheral vision "experience". It was usually a choice, play 2 games of such a setup or go fatten my ass at McDonalds. 

[Zoyous]

The only one I ever saw in arcades was The Ninja Warriors, which I think is actually the weakest of these games. I just felt like it had some questionable hit detection, and also - in spite of the ultra-wide view - you get struck by the tank with no warning when it's off screen. The Darius series is superb. I'd never even heard of Rastan Saga III - I only ever played the original and its home versions. It looks fantastic!

 

The three-screen cabinets were set up using a half-silvered mirror to reflect the image from a recessed monitor just behind the control panel - the middle screen. The left and right screens are actually mounted at eye-level just behind the mirror, and that's how the three images could be visually combined without any visible bezels. A maintenance/setup mode enables the operators to calibrate the screens.

 

I think a few years later Konami followed with some multi-screen games, like 6-player X-Men.

[Steven Pendleton]

My local arcade has a Darius cabinet. First-person view from inside it looks like this

 

 

The bass in the cabinet is intentionally set to make the entire cabinet shake when stuff explodes. It's deafening and awesome and extremely highly recommended if you can find one. If you do find one, don't hesitate, just get in there and feed it your cash because it's worth it. Yeah, you can play it on Steam, but it's nowhere close to the real thing.

[roots.genoa]

Damn, that Rastan Saga III sure looks incredible! ?

[digdugnate]

The ports on Steam and Switch don't do these multi monitor games justice at all, because, well.... 

 

That's seriously cool!

[Lord Mushroom]

On 2/11/2022 at 2:58 PM, awbacon said:

 

No wonder the narrator had difficulties understand what Rastan is saying. He was speaking German.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Lord Mushroom

[SlidellMan]

Oh, DariusBurst Another Chronicle--which runs on the Teatro 50 hardware--is a new multi-monitor game.

[Cobra Kai]

I've had the pleasure of playing quite a few of these multi monitor cabs. I always thought Darius looked great, but the gameplay just so incredibly bland. I've played the Tecmo Bowl cab, good fun there. 

 

There was a racing game that stands out as my favorite in this style, I want to say it was called T-1 or TX-1. Anyway I had a blast with that one.

[Steven Pendleton]

On 3/24/2022 at 9:49 AM, SlidellMan said:

Oh, DariusBurst Another Chronicle--which runs on the Teatro 50 hardware--is a new multi-monitor game.

Yeah, that one's at Mikado as well. Nice game, but be careful not to smash your head into the cabinet when extracting yourself from it. I don't have a good picture of it, though.

[+FujiSkunk]

Konami had one or two dual-monitor "widescreen" games as well.  My college had a full 6-player X-men that took up a fair amount of floor space.

[Cobra Kai]

Here's the racing game I was talking about:

 

[Zoyous]

On 3/25/2022 at 10:44 AM, Cobra Kai said:

Here's the racing game I was talking about:

 

I remember that game now that I see a picture of it... (I guess TX-1 is not a very memorable title!) Mostly I remember thinking, this isn't much of an improvement on Pole Position. Much later on in 1999 Sega made a three-screen racing sim called Ferrari F-355 Challenge that utilized the wide display well for a more technical racing style.

 

Nowadays we're getting to the point where screens can be any shape (including curved in unusual ways) so hopefully we will see some truly wild arcade machines.

 

 

 

 

[Cobra Kai]

Did Taito have a 3-screen version of Continental Circus? Because, after I looked up the TX-1 game, I don't remember being that excited about the game itself. You're right, it was little more than Pole Position. I do remember playing quite a bit of Continental Circus. I think I'm confused about which multiscreen racer I played a bunch.