From: ung@felix.filenet.com (Bill Ung)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Which One???
Date: 15 Sep 92 21:22:49 GMT
Reply-To: ung@fritz.filenet.com (Bill Ung)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA

In article <BuAExo.Drr@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> kjohnson@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Keith Johnson) writes:
|Although TAF IS a very good game and has lots of neat new scoring features
|(it's got the frenzy-type scoring, a hurry-up shot, 3 & 4 way combos, 2 &
|3 ball multiball, mansion scoring), I think I have to say that it really
|is just another Whirlwind-genre game.

For the record, TAF has been noted to resemble WHIRLWIND before ... see
part 2 below.

|I said it in my first post, but if you're going to take a poll, then I 
|will say it again:  My favorite game is FunHouse (also a Whirlwind-genre
|game).

At this point, I'd have to ask you to define a Whirlwind-genre game.
What do you mean?

|FunHouse has every possible feature you could want, including almost if
|not all features in TAF, plus a couple that TAF doesn't have.  It has the
|mirror (tons easier to complete than the mansion [or the cellar door for
|that matter]), Gangways (a scoring technique TAF lacks),

Okay...

|2 & 3 ball multiball, skill shot, 3 & 4 way combos

TAF has 2 & 3 ball multiball.  There's Thing-Multiball, Quick-Multiball
(same thing?), each are 2-ball multiball ... and normal 3-ball Multiball.
TAF also has a skill-shot as well as 3 & 4 way combos.

|Frenzy & SuperFrenzy,

TAF *DOES* have things like THE MAMUSHKA, which I think is Frenzy in
disguise.  No Super-Mamuska that I know of.

|and of
|course, the Crazy Steps.  (That is just an outstanding gimmick, if you
|ask me.  WAY good idea.)

Agreed.

|Oh, and the SuperDog, which TAF sort of has,
|but links it into the frenzy idea ala Cousin It.  And of course, a 
|couple of hidden values (including those combos) like the Rudy Gulp and
|the Sausage Bonus.  And I will admit I still am not positive what lights
|the Sausage Bonus.  That is the only thing I don't understand about that
|game.

True, each game has it's own set of gimmicks.  TAF has things like THING
to pick the ball up and THING flips.  THING is more for new players, but
THING FLIPS is just too damn neat sometimes, you don't really do anything,
but it's a neat feature.  Probably the neatest thing about TAF has
nothing to do with actual play, the quotes all throughout the game keep
pushing it along.  From "Welcome Back!" for an earned replay to things
like "Have a nice swim" if you fall into the swamp.  The graphics are
also amazing.  Pinball is much, much more than a flying silver ball, to
me, it's the entire experience.

|Anyway, even though FunHouse was before the dot matrix generation, it is
|still the best game around at the moment.

Again, I'd have to ask for your definition of "at the moment".  FunHouse
was what, 1990?  We're on the latter half of 1992.  To me, FunHouse is
one of the most spectacular games to date, on the other hand, I don't
date back that far ... 1986 at best, pinball-wise.  I still think that
HIGH SPEED had some of the best effects on a non-dot-matrix display I've
ever seen (in attract mode, mostly), CYCLONE did too, but also during
play-mode.

Bill Ung
  ung@filenet.com