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3D Museum (LaserActive, 1994)

Another horrible field trip.

In this special series on the Pioneer LaserActive, guest author Taylor Pinson will be discussing some of the games released on the Sega PAC, an add-on for the LaserActive that could play Genesis, Sega CD, and Mega LD titles.

Do not adjust your peepers. This cover is supposed to be blurry.

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER: Pioneer

DEVELOPER: Multimedia Creators Network

GENRE: Screen Saver

RELEASE DATE: 02/25/94 – (JP), 1994 – (US)

3D Museum isn’t a game. It isn’t even an edutainment title like The Great Pyramid. It’s a random collection of nature recordings, still photographs, and odd animations generated with computer rendering software. Sometimes these pieces include classical music, other times there’s new-age fluff, but regardless of its subject, 3D Museum is always dull. It’s a glorified tech demo disc sold to unsuspecting customers for a staggering $170 (!) at release.

Garden + Menu = Boredom

To add to that theory, 3D Museum is the LaserActive’s first 3D title. Besides offering boring video footage, it offers two different kinds of boring three-dimensional video footage. One kind is based on the old red-and-blue cardboard 3D glasses that used to come with comic books, while the other uses the super-rare LaserActive 3D Goggles that were sold separately for a staggeringly large sum.

Now you’re playing with a waste of money! (thanks to CyberRoach.com for the photo)

The LaserActive Goggles work in the same fashion as the 3D glasses used with the Sega Master System. The two products are in fact interchangeable, as long as you have the LaserActive’s 3D module to plug them in to.

“Mom, I’m having a Nickelodeon flashback again…”

There isn’t a lot to write about the ‘game,’ so here are a couple interesting facts:

1) It’s a double-sided disc (and I believe the first one released on the LaserActive), which makes it much more prone to Laser Rot.

2) It was released on the Mega LD format in the US and Japan, and on the NEC LD-ROM2 format in Japan. The NEC version seems to be rarer.

Submit. Conform. Obey. Now in 3D.

3D Museum is another relic of a bygone-era, and outside of occasionally looking pretty, it provides little entertainment or educational value to the player.

Nothing screams “The future!” like men made out of metallic liquid.

Rating3D Museum isn’t a game, so I don’t feel a grade is justified. If I had to give one, it would be an F, simply because there’s not enough content to warrant its price tag.

8 replies on “3D Museum (LaserActive, 1994)”

Glad you’re enjoying the reviews. I must admit, as I continue to play through the LaserActive’s library I was not expecting it to be so underwhelming.

Here’s hoping things pick up as we get into the back half of the system’s catalog.

I enjoy these LD reviews, but the games themselves just depress me. Fortunately I just bypassed the FMV “game” era – I think I largely spent it replaying old Ultimas. The closest I came was PSX Road Rash, which at least played really well.

There’s always the chance that someone will finally get around to emulating the darn thing, even if things don’t look too good at the moment.

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