erik@ssc-vax.UUCP (Erik Strom) (04/18/85)
Nice to be reminded of the Bobby Orr Power Play machine, definitely
one of my favorites, along with Fireball. Another favorite on mine
was Jumping Jack which was the machine that really got me started.
After a few years though, I found myself playing the videos and
foregoing the pins. Two factors led to this, the fascination with
the new games and the tendencies of the pin manufacturers to make
their machines even tougher with multi playing levels, dimly lit
playing fields and brightly lit backglasses that created an unfair
handicap by blinding that player. In spite of that, Pac Man also
became one of my favorites because I would take and drape my coat
over the backglass. Once, I even had a barmaid give me a hard time
for doing that!
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"He's handsome, he's intelligent, he's funny, he's cuddly, he's loving,
but, he's also out, so leave your name and number at the tone..."
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From the lair of the Big E Erik
!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!erikbulko@ut-sally.UUCP (William C. Bulko) (04/26/85)
< The postman hits! --more-- >
< You have new mail. >
Anyone remember Mata Hari? It's pretty old, but it wasn't one of those
with the mechanical counters (i.e. it used 7-segment displays). It's
definitely my favorite, with Eight-Ball probably running a distant second.
Mata Hari was interesting to me because it gave you a choice of three
different "success strategies":
(1) Clearing two banks of targets was worth something like 50,000 points
each time; the first time, it also lights special, and awards a
replay each time afterwards.
(2) The playfield (which was laterally symmetrical) had a large loop
(sort of an inverted isosceles triangle with rounded corners), with
rollovers "A" and "B" on the left and right legs, respectively. With
a good shot, you could send the ball from a flipper up one side, across
the top of the playfield, and back down the other side, scoring an
A and B pair, and catching the ball with the other flipper. Each A-B
pair bumped a counter worth increasing points, followed by extra ball
and special.
(3) A drophole at the top of the playfield incremented your bonus multiplier
and gave you 3 ponus advances, so hitting it was a good way of winning
games by points. The drophole was in the middle of a concave "dish",
which made it harder to predict the direction of the ball's motion on
near misses.
I never got bored with this machine, since I rotated between strategies for
a change of pace. We used to play this a lot at the UTEP Student Rec Center
when not in class.
_______________________________________________________________________________
"To err is human; to admit it is not."
Bill Bulko Department of Computer Sciences
The University of Texas {ihnp4,harvard,gatech,ctvax,seismo}!ut-sally!bulko
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--
_______________________________________________________________________________
"To err is human; to admit it is not."
Bill Bulko Department of Computer Sciences
The University of Texas {ihnp4,harvard,gatech,ctvax,seismo}!ut-sally!bulko
_______________________________________________________________________________