Game: The Addams Family

Designer: Pat Lawlor

MFG: Bally

 
  Simsons Equivalent: The Comic Collector:

Smart, witty and funny. Addams can capture an audience
Reviewer: Rudy   8Ball   Drac   Buzz   Total  
Art-Backglass  10  9  9  9  9.25
Art-Playfield/Cabinet  9  9  10  10  9.5
Sound  9  9  10  10  9.5
Rules  7  8.5  10  9  8.5
Playfield Design  7.5  8.5  11  11  9.5
Replayability/Longevity  8  10  9  10  9.25
Total Score          9.27

Pluses:

     Rudy: Sound and light show intro for multiball is the best around.  Thing
flips and 'dirty pool' are great features

     8Ball: A timeless classic. Appeals to almost any pinball or non-pinball
player.
Lots of smooth ramps and orbits combined with lots of fun shots, sounds
and quotes. Tour the mansion mode is very cool with great effects

     Drac: The best use of playfield space on any table ever made -- pure
genius. Thing Flips is great. Brought mode-based rulesets into the
mainstream.

     Buzz: Great flow. 4-way combo rocks! Seance mode is a blast.

Minuses:

     Rudy: Suffers from somewhat linear play.  Game can be played by only
shooting electric chair and bear kick ramp for big scores.  Awards/modes
end after finishing modes during tour the mansion for that ball.

     8Ball: Train Wreck shot too deadly to go for plus EB is extremely
difficult to light this way. Skill shot maxes out too early

     Drac: I'm nit-picking, but I never did dig the Power throwing the ball
down the center or the outlanes

     Buzz: Train wreck sucks. Replace it with a loop back to the upper right flipper!

 

Pinballreviews.com: Mini Review

Bally Aladdin's Castle

Backglass - 9.5
Playfield - 9.0
Cabinet Art - 7.0
Playfield Art - 8.0
Rules - 9.0
Longevity - 9.0

TOTAL: 8.75

2 player, Bally EM classic. Great backglass with typical mid 70's adornments. Rollover
king with unique Aladdins Alley feature. One of the few Bally EM's with scissor flippers.

Rules: A-B-C-D upper lanes. Light A-B to max spinner at 100, and light outlanes to collect
current Aladdins Alley value. Light C-D for double bonus. Light A-B-C-D to collect extra
ball. Shot Aladdins Alley for 500-1000-2000-3000-4000-5000 and special. Bonus maxes at
15,000. Upper pops score 100, bull-eyes targets advance bonus. Rollovers (4 top
and 4 bottom) lit with corresponding A-B-C-D lanes also advance bonus when hit.

Strategy: From left flipper shot spinner to get ball up to the upper rollovers and A-B-C-D
lanes. Careful nudging here should get you the lane you need. Try to get lanes in either
A-B orC-D pairs to light features. C-D is more important initially, for double bonus. Upper
pops could, and will, yield A,B,C or D hits and more bonus advances. From right flipper shoot
Aladdins Alley. Try to max it at 5k, which is a huge amount on a game with a 72k
replay (3 ball settings). Once Alley value is maxed, flipper pass from left to right.
Let ball roll down to the lower scissor flipper (more control on Alley shot). Balls
returning from Alley can usually be bumped passed from left to right. Otherwise, try to
nail spinner on a fly, or drop catch, if a lane is needed for a feature.

Conclusion: Great shots from both sides with spinner/upper lanes and Aladdins Alley. Nudge,
nudge, nudge maxing your lane and rollover hits is extremely important. Careful ball control
will easily let you roll this game.

 

 

Game: Apollo 13     

Designer: HAL 9k

MFG: Suckga

 
Reviewer: Rudy   8Ball   Drac   Buzz   Total  
Art-Backglass  5  3  4  6  4.5
Art-Playfield/Cabinet  5  5  6  8  6
Sound  4  3  5  7  5
Rules  5  4  6  6  5.5
Playfield Design  4.5  3  6  6  5
Replayability/Longevity  5  3  5  5  4.5
Total Score            5

Pluses:

     Rudy: 13 balls! Decent modes

     8Ball: We don't get to see Tom Hanks mug on the BG because he's too big
of a star to be on a pinball machine, or too embarrased to be on this
one!

     Drac: Orbit based modes are decent. Nice supply of balls can be used to
replace balls on other pinball machines

     Buzz: Moon lock

Minuses:

     Rudy: tops JPs alert for most balls missing when broken.  13 ball play is
more of a novelty than a multiball

     8Ball: Flippers turn into wet noodles when trying to battle 13 ball
multiball.
Ramp entrances are no wider than a quarter.

     Drac: :"One small step for mankind". 13 ball multiball is unplayable and
just a contrived gimmick.

     Buzz: SEGA flippers collapse with 1 ball much less 13!

 

Game: Attack From Mars

Designer: Brian Eddy                      

MFG: Bally
Reviewer: Rudy   8Ball   Drac   Buzz   Total  
Art-Backglass  10  8  6.5  9  8.5
Art-Playfield/Cabinet  8  6  7  6  7
Sound  9  9.5  10  10  9.5
Rules  9  9  10  10  9.5
Playfield Design  9  9  8  10  9
Replayability/Longevity  10  9  9  11  10
Total Score               9

Pluses:

     Rudy: great rule set for both novices and wizards.  Shoot the mother
cow!  Strobe multiball may cause seizures

     8Ball: Playfield has excellent flow and speed. Multiballs are a blast!
especially when combined with Martian Attack MB

     Drac: smooth flowing game w/ terrific sound

     Buzz: Awesome! Best muliball on the planet. The most replayable game of the 90's

    EB's are limited and You only have to defeat mars once which adds to the replayability.

Minuses:

     Rudy: scoop kickout may send ball SDTM which may be attributed to
the tendency of scoop being bent back by shot balls

     8Ball: A made right ramp shot will sometimes stop and come back down.
The SOL will sometimes go SDTM, but not as frequent as RFM or MB.

     Drac: Rules a bit repetitious, but I'm nitpicking

     Buzz: Jets get murdered after so many plays. Not enough made

 

 

 

Game:  Austin Powers

Designer: The Borg (John)

MFG:  Sega-east-ern
 
Reviewer: Rudy   8Ball   Drac   Buzz   Total  
Art-Backglass  3  2  6.5  4  4
Art-Playfield/Cabinet  6.5  5  4  4  5
Sound  4  6  6  5  5.25
Rules  4.5  6  3  6  5.25
Playfield Design  4  6.5  0.5  6  4.25
Replayability/Longevity  5  6  0.5  4  4
Total Score          4.5

Pluses:

     Rudy: : Completing all modes is tough.  Quotes and music are tolerable for
new players.  Frickin' laser beam shot is not bad.  Nice bonus countdown
lights.

     8Ball: Great license especially if AP3 the movie doesn't BOMB! Fat
Bastard MB is a riot. Smooth right ramp. Some great quotes. Cabinet art
is good and bright.

     Drac: Helps you remember the layout on AFM and the rules of Monster Bash in case u forgot them.

     Buzz: On playfield bonus count. Fat Bastard mode is really fun & tough.

Minuses:

     Rudy: BG art makes Warhol look like a God (I thought the BG art
concept was uninspiring).  Sound quality is extremely poor, although not
as bad as X-Files.  Mini Me results in mini spins. 

     8Ball: Baaad BG art (is that hair growing on Liz Hurley?) or is that
hair growing on everyone! Standard blurry photo(tm)  PF art. A clean
shot to the toilet bounces out quite often.

     Drac: exact clone of South Park rules except with gun thrown in. If you've played Black Rose (canon) and South Park then you really don't need to play this game, unless you are a pinball reviewer, have a Mini-Me fetish, or feel that someday you will be in a pinball tournament which uses this game as one of the competition pins and you need to know the 0.5% rule variations that exist between it and Southpark

     Buzz: Super jetbumpers but the rest of the coils seem lifeless. Toilet shot is iffy with many rejects. Quotes dont seem to match up with whats going on. Time machine is stupid. Mojo multiball gets old real fast. And do we really need another bash toy??? Save your $$$ for Monopoly!