Stereoscopic Preservation
Play the lost 1990s Virtuality arcade pods in a modern VR headset.
MallVR is an emulator from Gainesphere Studios that runs original Virtuality SU2000 games on a normal Windows PC with SteamVR. Dactyl Nightmare 1 and 2, Pac-Man VR, Zone Hunter, Missile Command VR, Ghost Train, Olin Shotgun, Virtuality Boxing and Shoot For Loot all run today, with true stereo 3D and head tracking. No headset? Every game also plays in a window with keyboard and mouse.
MallVR ships no game files. Bring your own copy of the games.
Watch it run
Running in MallVR
Rare find: Sea Diving
This one is very rare. Its title screen reads Sea Diving and, in Japanese, ワクワク海の大冒険 (WakuWaku Umi no Daibouken, roughly "Exciting Sea Adventure"). It is a 4-player underwater arena game in the style of Dactyl Nightmare: dive in a suit with an air gauge, collect pearls and bring them back to the central temple while sharks and giant clams get in the way. The sea turtles are the lifts between the rock ledges. Players pick a diver: Ai (yellow), Nobita (green), Emi (red) or Gonta (blue).
The title screen is marked Copyright Virtuality Ent. Ltd 1995 and carries a Dentsu "Communications Excellence" logo and a Japanese promo for "Virtuality 2000". We searched English and Japanese sources and found no other record of it online, so everything here comes from the game files themselves. It ships with MallVR as Sea Diving (the files call it PEARL).
Three generations of Virtuality pods
Virtuality built its arcade machines in three generations. MallVR targets the middle one.
1000 series (1991)
Photo: 1000CS stand-up pod. Run by a Commodore Amiga 3000 with two custom graphics boards, one per eye, and magnetic head and hand tracking. About 350 were built. Stand-up (1000CS) games: Dactyl Nightmare, Grid Busters, Hero, Legend Quest.
1000SD sit-down
Photo: 1000SD. The seated version with joysticks, cheaper tracking on the headset only. Games: Battlesphere, Exorex, Total Destruction, VTOL, Flying Aces.
2000 series (1994)
Photo: the lighter Visette 2000 headset. Run by a 486 PC with a custom PIX graphics card and a higher-resolution headset. Stand-up (SU2000) and sit-down (SD2000) models. Games: Dactyl Nightmare 2, Buggy Ball, Zone Hunter, Pac-Man VR, Shoot For Loot, Missile Command, Ghost Train, Virtuality Boxing, Sphere, X-Treme Strike, and the Japanese-language Sea Diving. This is what MallVR runs.
3000 series (SU3000)
Upgraded Pentium host and a rifle-shaped controller. Games: Zero Hour, Total Recoil (with a replica Winchester), Quickshot Carnival, and Pac-Man VR, the only non-shooter on the SU3000. MallVR does not run SU3000 games yet.
Pod photos: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. 1000CS and 1000SD by RetroEditor; Visette 2000 by Yaraman. Specs from the Wikipedia article on Virtuality and Virtuality service manuals. Not affiliated with Virtuality, Bandai Namco or Atari.
Vote for Virtuality on TeknoParrot
TeknoParrot, the arcade emulator, runs a weekly community vote on which system to emulate next, and Virtuality SU2000 is on this week's ballot. If you are a TeknoParrot citizen, a vote for it helps get these pods the attention they deserve. Open the TeknoParrot Citizen Vote (this round closes October 16, 2026).
Help us ship it sooner
Hi, I'm Bobby. I build MallVR in my spare time at Gainesphere Studios. The free download is live, and a few dollars helps me finish the rest faster. Missing a game we don't have yet? Tell us, and we'll credit you for finding it.