Arcade
PCOverview
Time Traveler, also known as Hologram Time Traveler or simply Hologram, is an sci-fi full motion video adventure game developed by Virtual Image Productions (with assistance by GTE Interactive Media) and released by Sega for arcades on September 1991.
Designed by Rick Dyer, the creator of the 1980's arcade games Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, Time Traveler tasks players with guiding American Old West cowboy Marshal Gram through various time periods to save the universe from the Time Lord Vulcor and rescue Kyi-La, the Princess of the Galactic Federation. Like Dyer's previous games, Time Traveler uses LaserDisc-based arcade hardware and its simple gameplay makes use of a randomized series of scripted quick time events in full-motion video cutscenes (now with real actors). It differs with its use of microtransactions (as players can purchase "Time Reversal Cubes" using credits) and gambling (as players can gamble lives using the "Hellgate" slot machine).
Advertised as "The World's First Three-Dimensional Holographic Video Game", Time Traveler is built on a unique dedicated arcade cabinet (the Sega Hologram Video Game), which projects the CRT television set from the bottom of the cabinet up to a concave projection mirror in order to give the illusion of a holographic display. It furthers this illusion by presenting the game alongside objects on a miniature black "stage", with the FMV footage rendered using a faux reflection to match the objects and a black background to match the stage. The cabinet was later repurposed for the fighting game Holosseum.
The game later received home conversions for Windows PCs and DVD players, both published by Digital Leisure in October 2000. These conversions attempt to replicate the game's original effect of holography by rendering the game on top of a recreated "stage" (with rotating shapes in the background). They also feature optional anaglyphic 3D backgrounds (with 3D glasses included) and include bonus content, including demos of conversions of other Rick Dyer games, featurettes, and behind-the-scenes clips.
