From: ung@felix.filenet.com (Bill Ung)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Loud pinball games...
Date: 9 Nov 92 23:21:53 GMT
Reply-To: ung@fritz.filenet.com (Bill Ung)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA

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.  Certainly of
|the games I have at home (BK2K, TEMPEST, ROBOTRON), none make any
|noise at all if they're just sitting there waiting for me to play
|them.  In fact, there's no option in any of them to have them make
|"attract" noises (not that I'd really want them to).

Hmmm, my HIGH SPEED (1986) has an option to make noise during attract
mode.  Every 3 1/2 minutes or so, the game turns on the siren light
and (optionally) either makes cop radio calls or sounds of car skids.
One interesting thing, it will also blink the general illumination
(thus making additional noise because the G.I. relay is fairly loud)
for the first few cycles of attract mode.  I think after about 10-20
minutes it gives up and just spins the light and (optionally) makes
sounds.  In any case, it's at least 6 years old.

Actually, wait a sec, I'm not sure what revision ROM it might be
but Galaga (a video game, I know), from Midway/Bally (1981) had
some attract mode sounds too.  It would cycle through it's little
routine, only when it was showing what the Galaga's were worth
(based on flying/non-flying and # of escorts), it would play the
appropriate sound effects during this demo mode.  The reason I'm
not sure about the ROM rev. is because I'm not sure if this was
an original idea or something that game along later on (would
they make new ROMs for a game that's 2 or even 4 years old?)

|But these days -- what a din!  For a while now I've been showing up
|before work once a week at Broadway to get lots of uninterrupted
|playing time in.  But it's anything but quiet in the place, even when
|I'm the only one playing a game; the rest of them make an incredible
|racket.  The difference in overall, ambient noise between the time I
|walk in the place and the time Steve finishes flipping all the circuit
|breakers and the games finish their self-tests is phenomenal
|(especially the "wall 'o SFIIs", all of which start blaring their
|"Theme from STREET FIGHTER II" in perfect one-part harmony at
|precisely the same time).

I guess I've never heard SFII's attract mode, I guess I should be
thankful since it's probably because it's always being played.

|(Hmm, come to think of it, BK2K seems like a transition game in this
|respect: it continues taunting you after you finish playing, for maybe
|the next 30 seconds or so.  But then it shuts up for good, or at least
|until someone starts a new game.)

It doesn't do ANYTHING in terms of attracting players?

|So now even empty arcades sound like the inside of a 727's cargo hold.
|Think there's any chance this attract-mode one-upsmanship will ever
|end?  Why do I even ask?  We all know that things only go from quiet
|to loud to louder, until towns have to start passing pinball machine
|decibel ordinances...
|
|--
|    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