HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sbb@panix.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: New games
Date: 9 Nov 92 17:35:59 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In article <1992Nov8.201358.3788@cbfsb.cb.att.com> yyz@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (donald.w.coons) writes:

   In my reviews of new games there is one thing I forgot to mention.
   On the Gottlieb game, (Al's Garage Band goes on a World Tour).
   There was no match sequence. I don't know if this was intentional
   or not, but it would really suck if this is going to be precedent
   on new games. First Williams new pricing, now no matchs?

I'm sure it's an operator-settable thing, but I will say this: The
match has gone away completely at Station Break in Penn Station in New
York City.  They also tried FISH TALES at 50 cents per play, but then
quickly backed off to 50/75/$1.  However, the "no matches" setting
seems to be here to stay, at least at this particular arcade (one of
the largest in the city).

(In any event, it's still not legal to award matches in NYC, but that
doesn't stop nearly everyone from doing it anyway.)

--
    Steve Baumgarten       |  "New York... when civilization falls apart,
    PANIX, New York, NY    |   remember, we were way ahead of you."
                           |  
    Email: sbb@panix.com   |                            - David Letterman
From: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Jordan Pinball
Date: 5 Nov 92 16:45:07 GMT
Reply-To: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson, TX
X-Disclaimer: This article was posted by a user at Ericsson.
              Any opinions expressed are strictly those of the
              user and not necessarily those of Ericsson.

Steve Baumgarten writes:
>
>People may tend to like games from one manufacturer more than games
>from another, but none of the manufacturers put out hastily made,
>slapped-together games.

I agree.  Even misses like Bad Cats and Riverboat Gambler (which
I still like) obviously had a _lot_ of work go into them.  I have
respect for the people who worked their tails off to go from a
vague concept to reality.  Sometimes the finished product is a winner
and more often it isn't.  But there is a difference between putting
your soul and inspiration into a game which turns out poorly, and
trying to make a quick buck.  In the pinball world, nobody does the
latter, IMO.

>We're lucky indeed that no one in this industry operates that way, and
>that the worst thing we can find to moan about is an over-reliance on
>licenses for new game ideas.  Players in the video world would, I'm
>sure, trade their problems for ours in a minute.

It is interesting to note that the video market is in such bad shape
that game companies are looking to the pinball world for product ideas.
Two of the biggest games for the Amiga in recent history have been 
pinball simulations (which cloned actual tables, nonetheless), at least 
three video pinball games have been released this year for the Lynx and 
Genesis (the Lynx game includes "Elvira" and "Police Force"), and several 
have either been released or are on the way for the PC.  Dynamix is making
a big deal about their "Take-a-Break:  Pinball" for Windows.

--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: xor@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Joe Schwartz)
Subject: Status Report
Organization: The Voice of Fate
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 04:15:27 GMT

A friend just gave me a helpful hint for viewing the Status Report on TAF.
I knew you could hold down a flipper button the get the Status Report.
What I didn't know is that you can repeatedly press the OTHER button
(while still holding down the first button) to speed through the various
parts of the report.  Joy.
-- 
Joe Schwartz       E-mail: xor@acm.rpi.edu
MapInfo Corp.
200 Broadway       Disclaimer: "Everything I know is wrong."
Troy, NY 12180     Corollary:  "Nothing I say represents MapInfo Corp."
From: zweldron@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Matthew Charlap)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Ignorance and TAF
Date: 12 Nov 92 02:19:07 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

smarties@nyx.cs.du.edu writes:
> I'm going to have to admit it, though; no matter how hard I try, I can't
> work out what TAF stands for! 

The
Addams
Family

'nouf said.
-- 
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From: stephens@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (mark stephens)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Auto-plungers
Date: 12 Nov 92 22:20:48 GMT
Organization: NASA/GSFC
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A72843425401EC3D@mstephens.gsfc.nasa.gov>
X-Xxdate: Thu, 12 Nov 92 17:22:10 GMT
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12

Subject: Auto-plungers
From: rON., blowfish@carina.unm.edu
Date: 11 Nov 92 07:09:10 GMT
In article <2!cqvsg@lynx.unm.edu> rON., blowfish@carina.unm.edu writes:
>
>Auto-plungers suck big fat hairy rocks.
>r.


In general I agree, but then I played Fish Tails for the first time and
actually liked the skill shot of using the left flipper to make a play.  

     mark
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: iott@rtsg.mot.com (Joel K. Iott)
Subject: Re: Jordan Pinball
Organization: Motorola Inc.
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 02:45:42 GMT

I wasn't going to respond to this flame either, but the posts from the Data
East folks made me want to.

I had the privilege of playing one of the few Michael Jordan games, and I
wanted to share MY impressions of it.

Beautiful Backglass, the new Data East artist has an interesting
photo-realistic style.  (same one as on LW3 and Star Wars)

Clever use of existing playfield.  The "uzi" lights are still there, but it is
not recognizably a gun anymore, due to the playfield art. 

Clever use of existing rules for LW3.  Just about every special mode had been
changed to basketball-related.  Barkley vs Godzilla was hilarious!

Lots of new dot-matrix animation of Michael and friends to enjoy.

Great background music - catchy "Rock and Roll Rock" tune in the background.

Sports fans will love the buildup before the game, just like at a Bulls game.


In article <1992Nov1.213227.22990@gallant.apple.com> Steve Bollinger <buzz@apple.com.> writes:
[re multiball animation]

>SUPER STUPID!  Armed Car says "Basketballs" on the side, instead of a truck
>ramming car, its a bull, says "Multibull" on side of bull.  bull continues to
>ram car for a while.  Why would a bull ram a armed car of basketballs?  Why
>keep basketballs in a armed car?  Why paint "Basketballs" on the side of a
>armored car just because it might have basketballs in it?  Don't they know that
>might attract huge bulls to ram it?  ;) Sorry, the stupidity of a gun shape on
>the playfield and a huge bull ramming an armored car got to me)

Why ask why? Try Bud Dry.  I would hate to hear you rip on Cactus Jack.
"And cactus don't talk and play music!  And they sure wouldn't play a polka! 
And they wouldn't dance around either!"

>Other Conclusion: Data East has stooped to new lows in their worship of money
>and their game design. Those who worried about all that time they would
>waste on a two-off pin underestimated Data East's ability to skimp. DE is
>truly the evilest force in existence.

Conclusion:

Data East has gone to new highs in their efforts to help charity.  It is truly
remarkable that the employees would put in all that effort and overtime to
create a specialized pinball.  Those who worried about Data East competing
against the other manufacturers underestimated Data East's ability to create a
low-volume but high-enjoyment pinball machine.  Data East is truly an up and
coming force in the pinball universe. 

Other conclusion:

Flamers and negative reviewers should attempt to be more positive.  Nearly
every pinball machine has some fans.  And any machine can play badly if not
maintained.  Yes, there are some problems with MJ, but they aren't TERRIBLE
problems.  Let's try and keep r.g.p a nice little niche away from the flaming
going on in those "big" newsgroups. 

Joel Iott

P.S.  I have been guilty of negative reviews too.  (Dr.  Who).  But I have
learned from my mistakes and attempt to be more upbeat in the future. 
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: josh@cqs.washington.edu (Josh Hayes)
Subject: Re: Fish Tales - bleah
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 21:43:53 GMT

Aggh. Steve is right. I couldn't resist trying the beast one
more time, and had several games over 200M and I'm starting to
figure out why it's so hard for me.

One thing is that I can't seem to drop a ball in the, uh, what's
it called....Fisherman's Club? The multiball-lock hole. That
thing -- can't hit it worth beans.

The flippers are excellent for drop-catching, and as usual, for
dead bounces as well. The side drain/inlane combo is the bounciest
I've seen on a machine in years; probably in decades, really. This
means that "UNGA!"-shoving does you NO good at all. Deft shakes,
and often maintaining a rapid side-to-side shimmy, will save an
AWFUL lot of side drains; once I figured this out the game didn't
exactly roll over and show its tummy, but it gave me a few replays.

So, maybe it's not so bad. This particular one has, of course,
short flippers, but more importantly, the flipper stroke seems
to be quite short as well. This perhaps explains why some shots
are so difficult to hit. The lock hole, for example, should be
hittable from a dead-stopped right-hand flipper backhand. It's
not. It CAN, of course, be hit with a running backhand....aggh,
I'm getting too detailed here, but anyway, I'm willing to give
it a few more chances (Whew! I bet that earns a sigh of relief
at Williams! :) )

Josh

--
Josh Hayes, Quantitative Sciences HR-20 U of Washington
josh@mowgli.cqs.washington.edu             206 543-5004
      We got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand.
From: v051r9bf@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (When will Mergle EVER shut up?)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Funhouse glitch
Date: 5 Nov 92 16:33:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

I was recently playing a Funhouse here in Buffalo set up only to give away
free balls for specials and replay values.  But during the third ball of
one of my games, at no point in particular, the machine did a 'maintennance-
check' on itself, put up a display message 'check switch 47' or something,
and gave me 2 free credits!  For no reason!  

Anyone out there know why?  

Also, on the thread of Buffalo pinball and its relation to gambling and NYS 
Law---I'm sure licensed coin operators who rent games to arcades, restaurants, 
and malls are familiar with the law, and advise the establishment on the ram-
ifications of the settings.  I almost guarantee that you'll never match or win
a free game at a Putt-Putt because they adhere to the law, being a high-profile
place.  I'd say 3/4ths of all places I've played have had the replay values
turned to extra balls.  Over 1/2 had playfield specials turned to extra balls.
And about 1/4 turned off the match sequence and 1/4 gave no free credits for
achieving a score on the top 4.  

But the two places I've seen that do not obey the law are, amazingly enough, 
arcades--- JNC on Transit Road in Elma,  and Just Fun in Galleria Mall.  UB
doesn't retain the law much, either.  

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From: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Jordan Pinball
Date: 6 Nov 92 22:56:36 GMT
Reply-To: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson, TX
X-Disclaimer: This article was posted by a user at Ericsson.
              Any opinions expressed are strictly those of the
              user and not necessarily those of Ericsson.

Steve Baumgarten writes:
> 
>I wrote:
>   I agree.  Even misses like Bad Cats and Riverboat Gambler (which
>   I still like) obviously had a _lot_ of work go into them.  
>
>When you say "miss", do you mean commercially?  Or that the games just
>weren't all that good?

Good question, and I'm not sure of the answer.  I guess there
really aren't many total losers, just games which are letdowns
simply because of they don't fit in well with recently released
machines.  Hurricaine isn't bad, IMO, but it was a disappointment
after FunHouse and The Machine.  And Black Rose was a poor
followup to TAF.  After playing a completely wonderful machine
which sets a pinball standard it is easy to bash other machines
which are only "good" and not "great."

Something there is definitely far too much of is people knocking
a machine simply because of the manufacturer or after only spending
a dollar or so ("I played Star Wars a coupla times and it sucks!").

--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
From: ec@fc.hp.com (Edgar_Circenis)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Loud pinball games...
Date: 10 Nov 92 16:13:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: fc.BxID27.I6x
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Site
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.4 PL6]

Bill Ung (ung@felix.filenet.com) wrote:
> In article <SBB.92Nov4215646@panix.com> sbb@panix.com (Steve Baumgarten) writes:
> |In article <LFS.92Nov3162312@arcadia.mitre.org> lfs@mitre.org (Lyman F. Sheats Jr.) writes:
> |
> |One problem that's relatively new, I think: games these days tend to
> |make all sorts of noise when they're in "attract" mode.
> 
> Hmmm, my HIGH SPEED (1986) has an option to make noise during attract
> mode.

Hmmm, My Black Hole (1981) has an operator settable option to have the
machine speak during attract mode (up to once every ten seconds).  It
says things like "Do you dare to enter the Black Hole" and "No one
escapes the Black Hole".  Unfortunately, I cannot do justice to the
incredibly goofy sounding speech that the old Gottleib sound board
produces. :-)

Edgar
From: broberts@uafhp.uark.edu (ghunwi')
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: help with old Gulfstream
Date: 10 Nov 1992 15:33:13 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Howdy folks,
        A new friend of mine works in an antique shop and came across 
        an old pin -- Gulfstream -- and wants to find out a few things about it.
        He has the manuals and schematics but the machine is really dirty.
        He said before he got it, it had been sitting in a garage.I don't know 
        if the thing works well or anything, because he needed to clean it up 
        first. There are only two small patches on the playfield with the paint 
        missing (dime/quarter sized) but the wood seems pretty dry under the 
        rest of the paint. When I showed him how to pull the glass off & open up
        the playfield and back box he was tickled. Major problem.. some previous
        owner put tape or something on the back of the backglass to keep it from
        peeling. He would like to know any values for the machine and info on 
        where to start cleaning/restoring as to not cause any (more) damage to 
        it. I took a good look & everything seems to be intact /unbroken with
        the wiring & relay contacts in good shape but I have never worked on 
        pin restoration before...

        e-mail or post any responses..
        thanks in advance,
                    Bruce


--
|========================================================|
|     Bruce F Roberts           |                        |
|        ( ghunwI' )            |      > vIta'pu'be'     |
|     broberts@uafhp.uark.edu   |                        |
|========================================================|
From: Roy Pearce
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: (None set)
Date: 9 Nov 92 14:36:54 GMT
Organization: The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

PINS FOR SALE IN UK

*  GOTTLIEB GRID IRON 1976 (PRETTY GOOD COND.)

*  CHICAGO COIN ASTRONAUT 1969 (DISASSEMBLED PLAYFIELD; POOR CONDITION)

*  UNITED MANHATTON BINGO 1955 (FULLY WORKING)

*  ASSORTED WILLIAMS AND ZACCARIA VERY DEAD PLAYFIELDS AND LIGHT BOXES

INTERESTED?

CALL ROY PEARCE 021-783 7624 (EVES)
                021-783 3303 (ANSAPHONE)
                R.A.PEARCE@BHAM.AC.UK (INTERNET)
From: mahalkdp@cnsvax.uwec.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Pinball problems and lazy repairmen
Date: 12 Nov 92 14:04:49 -0600
Organization: University of Wisconsin Eau Claire

Argh. I called the guy who owns the pinballs at our university two days ago
about the problems with them, and he STILL hasn't showed up..

Hey, are all the locks the same on pinball games? Mail me a Data East "Hook"
and a Bally/Midway "The Addams' Family" key so I can open the darn things up
and rotate the flipper rubber bands, remove stuck balls, etc. :)

The guy who maintains these things sure doesn't seem to want repeat customers
too much.

And now yesterday, the lower left flipper on the Addams' Family quit
completely! ARGH!! The upper one still works, but the bottom one doesn't do
a darn thing.

I'd like to kick the owners of these machines in the butt and get them to fix
the darn things already.....
From: zweldron@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Matthew Charlap)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: gambling (was:Re: Funhouse glitch)
Date: 6 Nov 92 18:31:05 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

v051r9bf@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (When will Mergle EVER shut up?) writes:
>Also, on the thread of Buffalo pinball and its relation to gambling and NYS 
>Law---I'm sure licensed coin operators who rent games to arcades, restaurants
>and malls are familiar with the law, and advise the establishment on the ram-
>ifications of the settings.  I almost guarantee that you'll never match or win
[examples and statistics removed]
>But the two places I've seen that do not obey the law are, amazingly enough, 
>arcades--- JNC on Transit Road in Elma,  and Just Fun in Galleria Mall.  UB
>doesn't retain the law much, either.  

The strange thing is that pinball is inherently a game of skill (OK, not the 
match, but most of the rest is). Under lottery rules (*NOT* gambling) if it
is a test of skill or knowledge or anything other than pure luck, then it
is not a lottery. That's how a lot of these 900 play-by-phone games are allowed
Since pinball is a lot more skill-dependant than 'let's make a deal' It seems
that it should fall into the same group: you pay to play, you test your skill,
if you're good enough, you win a prize. And beside that, the $.25 or $.50 or
whatever the price per game is on your local pinball is the price to play the
game, not a bet on getting a replay, since you generally do not get payoffs
from pinballs (exceptions include those pins that give away baseball cards
and stuff...). I think a decent lawyer could get any place with replay scores
set for free games and not free balls off the hook if they were prosecuted.
One final note: Most, if not ALL pinballs have a note on them, something like:
"for amusement purposes only" or "This machine is not for gambling, only 
amusement" or something similar.
--Matthew
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Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: ctrexp2@caa.mrs.umn.edu
Subject: Assorted stuff
Organization: University of Minnesota, Morris
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 18:44:10 GMT

	I played Robocop for the first time this weekend.  I didn't like 
it.  The one redeeming feature it had was the jump,  but the sensor on that 
wasn't working properly, because I jumped 7 times in a row,  and it 
registered as a crash each time.  Oh well... Oh yeah.  I got a ball stuck on 
the higher side of a bank,  and just let the machine cycle through the 
solenoid check, and it fired out the ball i had locked. On the first 
solenoid check! I thought it would cycle through two or three times first.  
But anyways, that ball disloged my original ball so I was in multi-ball.  I 
lost one of the balls, and  kept playing w/the second.  After I lost the 
second, and went to shoot,  there were two balls on the Plunger!  Did it 
count to losses, and short me a ball?  It was rather confusing, with extra 
balls, and extra credits floating around, and such.  
	Also had a game called radical.  Struck me as a really cheapo game.  
Played it, but liked robocop better.  
	BTW Robocop had a sticker billing it as the first game with solid 
state flippers.  Is that a fact?  Neat-o. 

Nate Miller
Millernr@cab.mrs.umn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: sigma@picasso.ipl.rpi.edu (Kevin Martin)
Subject: Re: High Speed Attract mode (was Re: Loud pinball games...)
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 03:49:58 GMT

Has anyone noticed that TAF flashes the coin door slots during the start of
Multiball?  And a few other times, I believe.

-- 
Kevin Martin
sigma@ipl.rpi.edu
"I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! WHY didn't you BELIEVE me?!"
From: kjohnson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Keefer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: machine repair
Date: 11 Nov 92 03:55:49 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech Computer Science Dept, Blacksburg, VA

Man, I tell ya...

I went to our student center arcade yesterday, and played T2 (even though
it's missing the pin) mostly because the scores were just reset.  So I played,
posted a couple of scores, and came back today to try it again, but "Out of
Order"...  I have no idea why, but it just doesn't surprise me...

So I look to see if any other game is worth playing and to my surprise, they
fixed the Hurricane juggler gate!  Yeah!  So I put in a dollar, and actually
won a game my second game.  Then I went on a big streak of constantly winning
games, getting one of the high scores (even made the 25,000,000 shot once!)
and after about 8 games, the gate gets stuck open again, rejecting shots to
the juggler back at you left and right.

If any of you wants to open a pinball game restoration/distributing company,
I have just the area for you to do it in!...

keith
-- 
|kjohnson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu|"And the piano sounds like a carnival             | 
|.....Keith P. Johnson.....| And the microphone smells like a beer            |
|.1711 Whipple Dr. Apt. 11.| And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar  |
|...Blacksburg, VA 24060...| And say "Man, what are you doing here?" -B. Joel |
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball