Gaming, Red Vs Blue Gets IMAX Treatment

An anonymous reader writes "The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California will host its third annual Maxgames videogame tournament on Friday, July 23. Finalists on several of the games will duke it out for the championship on the museum's Giant Dome Screen [82 feet in diameter, and covering 12,000 square feet] and its 13,000 watt, 44 speaker sound system. The tournament will also feature two of the creators of the well-known Red vs. Blue machinima series, who will talk about the series during the day, and then show episodes on the Giant Dome Screen during the evening. Bungie will also provide a hi-res version of their nine-minute trailer for the upcoming Halo 2." Plus, any tournament which has a Super Monkey Ball 2 Monkey Target competition is a friend of ours.

Re:first post

[fulldecent]

Recursive Link

Re:Wow, Red vs. Blue on an IMAX screen!

[fulldecent]

Recursive Link [slashdot.org]

Re:Monkey Target

[fulldecent]

This is a recursive link [slashdot.org]

List of games

[Xoo]

A gaming competition!? whoohoo!
As much fun as LAN Parties are, there will be a massive Super Mario Kart: DD tournament here, along with several other games. If console competition is your thing, this event sounds like it would be right up your alley :-)

And here [thetech.org] is a list of all the console games that will be played at the tourney along with rules, etc.

And as a courtesy to my fellow readers here's just the list:

# Tony Hawk 4
# DDR: Max 2
# Downhill Domination
# Mario Kart Double Dash
# Super Smash Brothers Melee
# Super Monkey Ball 2
# NASCAR Thunder 2004
# Halo
# SSX 3

Slightly Confusing

[vijaya_chandra]

The FAQs [thetech.org] say

When it gets down to the final four players, we move to the large format dome screen where everybody gets to see who has the right stuff.

Does "everybody" include the players also or will they be supposed to be playing sitting in a cube with a normal display? If it does it'd be an advantage for some and disadvantage for some others depending on how well they can peep at the others' games.

But if it doesn't,
Finalists on several of the games will duke it out for the championship on the museum's Giant Dome Screen [82 feet in diameter, and covering 12,000 square feet] and its 13,000 watt, 44 speaker sound system.
from the post would be misleading i suppose

Re:Slightly Confusing

[thestray]

Hey all,
I'm helping The Tech get the word out about the tournament. To answer your question, the players sit roughly in the middle of the theater with their controllers. The console is hooked into a 5,000 lumen projector that projects onto the Giant Dome Screen.

Here's a good shot of the theater: Giant Dome Screen [jgpr.com]

If you have any other questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

Jim

Re:Slightly Confusing

[andy_fish]

Hi Ken, can I ask another question? Why are most of the games played with only 2 players at a time? (with one exception being Halo) Especially, Super Smash Bros Melee- a game that's really meant to have 4 people. Also, Double Dash, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't want to play 4-person Double Dash.

thanks!

Why it's two players per match in the theater

[thestray]

Andy,
The organizers realized that when you're dealing with a screen that size that anything beyond two players gets exponentially more complex and they wanted to make it as enjoyable for the finalists as possible.

We're already looking at expanding for the 2005 event (granted, that's a year down the road) but looking at a four-player game during the load-in and testing this year is something I'll see if we can do.

If you want, I'll post back here whether it's feasible for next year.

Jim

Re:Slightly Confusing

[Recrofne]

That's a cool dome!

No DDR on IMAX this year

[thestray]

I was actually hoping we could have DDR on the giant screen this year, but we realized, this close to the event, with all the planning required, that we wouldn't be able to pull it off.

This year's DDR tournament will be Perfect Attack. I'm going to lobby that next year we team up with local DDR groups, do PA and Freestyle, and have the finals on the screen.

Sorry about that.

Jim

Are there going to be spectators?

[Singletoned]

There's a later story [slashdot.org] that says that games will never be a spectator sport. This looks to be a perfect example of spectator gaming.

Make it big and loud and exciting and people will love to watch it (particularly 4-player SSBM).

Re:Are there going to be spectators?

[Singletoned]

You definitely deserve some mod points for that...

Re:Are there going to be spectators?

[andy_fish]

I think that article was saying that games will never be a "real" sport (like baseball is a "real" sport), because the market can't support high enough salaries for the people who would choose to play video games professionally.

I don't think the article was saying that video games could never have spectators.

As anecdotal evidence, I know lots of people who prefer to watch other people play games than to play them themselves.

I can imagine the chant

[M3wThr33]

An imax theatre full of nerds chanting Ei Ei Poo.

Yikes. Pixellation?

[yndrd]

Isn't RvB going to look like it was filmed on an Atari 2600 up on that giant screen?

Pixellation hasn't been an issue

[thestray]

Specifically for Maxgames, The Tech contracts with Billingsly & Brown, Inc. to prove a Digital Light Processing projector [about.com] shining a minimum of 5000 ANSI lumens onto the Giant Dome Screen.

The videogame image is about 40'x60' and is remarkably crisp. I'm pretty sure we'll be running RvB off of a DVD.

BTW, the sound is amazing.

Jim

I miss DrunkGamers...

[leland242]

the precursor to RvB.