Steel Battalion, for those who have never seen its wonder, was an old Xbox game from Capcom that’s famous for the absurdly large and expensive controller it shipped with. Something reader Dave obviously felt wasn’t absurdly large enough.
So he went and built this, the B.S.B.B. (Big Steel Battalion Box) Mk II. It is, at first glance, exactly what it seems: a huge box that replicates the cockpit of a giant mech. But it’s also so much more.
The inside of the box completely cuts the player off from the outside world, leaving them with nothing but the sensations of the game (and some added lights, vibration and sound).
They’re not alone, though. Dave added an external monitoring station to the box, broadcasting the action and allowing for external communication through a headset, which began as just a thing but later evolved into a new way to play the game co-operatively: one player sits inside with zero knowledge of how to control the game, while another sits outside monitoring them and trying to help by reading through a beginner’s manual.
You can read more about the setup on Dave’s site for the installation.
Comments
3 responses to “Hardcore Xbox Rig Is Almost Too Hardcore”
Dang, that’s awesome!
never got to play that game 🙁
Whenever I see stuff like this it reminds me of the old Battletech/Mechwarrior pods they used to have in arcades. I never played them (desperately wanted to) but the impression I got was that you linked and played team deathmatch, but I think there was also supposed to be some sort of persistent game progress kind of like an MMO. They even had their own newscasts.
Okay, apparently it was a whole thing call Battletech Centers. Very good, you win again, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleTech_Centers
I am sure you can buy most of this type of setup for PC.
Start with some ThrustMaster Cougar or Worthog sticks and Throttles. Get some peddles and I am sure that did have aux displays etc that could be programmed and you are over half way there as the software for all this stuff already exists.