I’d like to thank everybody who helped make that possible, especially Tom Porter of Maine for his countless Laserdisc and footage donations.
PIONEER LASERACTIVE TIME GAL ARCHIVE
Over the past 4 years, I’ve learned so much about a platform which was essentially lost to time, and we’ve been able to archive so much footage to ensure this platform will not be forgotten. This has been an incredible journey – this blog was run by two people, one of which (me) had little to no knowledge of the LaserActive when I first got started around 4 years ago this time. In the likely event that the failure is too catastrophic or expensive to repair, we will begin the process of selling off the rest of our LaserActive components – the CLD-A100 player, Pyramid Patrol, Rocket Coaster, 3D Museum, Hyperion, and Triad Stone (along with some miscellaneous Laserdisc movies) – individually to interested buyers and/or eBay. The status of the failure is currently unknown but under investigation. This can be traced back to the failure of the Sega PAC.
As of February 13th, 2016, our LaserActive unit is no longer functioning. We at the LaserActive Preservation Project come to you today with sad, but not wholly unexpected, news. Well, there you have it! A little bit of LaserActive trivia to brighten your day. This theory makes sense, since the visuals of Rocket Coaster are all over the place. Internet discussion says that Rocket Coaster was actually made using assets scrounged from various other D3BOS games – I think that Bayside Cruise on the above flyer may be a candidate, since the pictured car looks awfully similar to the ones in Rocket Coaster. (Taito did this yet again for the 3DO “port” of Pyramid Patrol, Pyramid Intruder, which was more like a remake that added significant amounts of new, higher-fidelity CG).Īs for Rocket Coaster? Here, the history gets a little more obfuscated. I think it’s safe to say that the LaserActive version of Pyramid Patrol was made using some of the ASSETS from the D3BOS games, re-arranged and re-rendered alongside new assets. …Zoom Volume 7! You can find some good snippets of what the D3BOS version of Pyramid Patrol looked like in the sizzle reel starting around the 6-minute mark. The gold shiny ships in that thumbnail are, of course, nowhere to be seen in what we know of as Pyramid Patrol on the LaserActive. Sound familiar? It should! But it may look a little different than what you’re expecting. One of those rides, visible on this flyer, went by the name of Pyramid Patrol. The Super D3BOS could seat two riders at a time (for a hefty 1,000 yen each), who could pick from up to four different rides loaded at a time. Unlike the R360, however, the Super D3BOS was merely a motion theater, rather than an arcade cabinet, making its content non-interactive.
PIONEER LASERACTIVE TIME GAL UPGRADE
The Taito Super D3BOS (or DYNAMIC DIRECT DIMENSION BURST OUT SYSTEM – the three D’s more likely standing for the three axes of motion) was a 1993 upgrade to the original Taito D3BOS, both of which were 360-degree rotating seated motion simulators, similar to the more famous Sega R360. That origin is none other than the Taito Super D3BOS! Sorry that things have been rather quiet around the LAP Project for… a while now, but I figured this was a cool story to upload! I recently did a little research that led me to the origins of Pyramid Patrol and Rocker Coaster, two MegaLD titles from Taito.