~Psycho Pinball

Review obtained from the Internet.


[NOTE:  Though I'll probably regret it, this is being crossposted to 
both rec.games.pinball and comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action if you 
didn't notice.] 

Well, I've been playing Psycho Pinball for about a week now.  I must 
say that overall, it probably is the best game currently out there 
for the PC (barely edging out Pinball Fantasies).  Both of these 
games are far above anything else out at the moment that I've seen. 

Features of Psycho Pinball include Multiball, dot matrix animation 
(complete with 3 levels of orange like real DMDs :) ), a "hi-res" 
display almost exactly like PF's (table still scrolls, though, as in 
PF, but you can see significantly more and the DMD is better), >2 
flippers on every table, and fairly good rules with some exceptions.  
Also, there is 3-way nudging!  (Yea!)  This makes slap saves a very 
viable option if you can time it just right.  That's pretty cool.  
Oh, and I almost forgot - Video Modes!  (I know some of you will 
just love that.  :) ) 

Ball Physics:  Generally OK.  This game doesn't treat backhands very 
well either (like just about every game with the possible exception 
of Crystal Caliburn - one of its few good points).  Flippers are far 
more reliable than Epic flippers, probably about the same as PF, 
though I did once have a ball-go-through-the-flipper bug pop up 
(yes, it IS a bug) that is so common in Epic tables.  Out of a week 
of play, though, that's not bad.  During multiball, though, there 
are a couple problems.  One thing is that balls seem to mysteriously 
generate energy in such a way that if another ball touches it, no 
matter how fast/slow either is going, they'll both fly apart at 
breakneck speed.  It's quite disturbing to have a ball caught on a 
flipper and then have another one hit it and have it fly up the 
inlance...  Spin doesn't seem to be implemented very much (if at 
all) unlike in PF.  There are a couple other strange characteristics 
in the flippers:  One is that the flippers have as much force going 
down as they do going up.  This generally means that a ball will not 
get caught in an upper flipper like it might in real pins (and this 
can happen in PF, a plus for it), but rather gets smashed against 
the side of the table at great speed and flies SDTM quite a bit. 
Another that I've gotten to happen a couple of times is that when I 
try to dead-catch a ball, if I let the flipper go as soon as the 
ball gets to the topmost point, the ball flies up as if I had hit 
the flipper upward!  Weird.  Bounce passes work fine, though, and 
I've not gotten a dead catch yet (though I don't know if they're 
possible).  All 3 of these techniques work great in PF. 

I might also point out that any shot from about the middle of the 
flipper on is a fairly strong shot, and that any shot from the 
middle to the pivot is really really really weak.  (Part of the 
reason backhands don't work.) 

Anyway, lets move on to the tables...  Some general comments for all 
the tables:  Most of the time jackpots will outweigh most of the 
rest of the scoring.  This is unfortunate, because it generally 
leads to going for nothing BUT the jackpots.  There are exceptions, 
though (probably Wild West).  On a couple, Psycho and Abyss, they 
are fairly hard to light, so that makes up for it a bit.  The 4 
tables are littered with lots of shots and features that are really 
really hard to light, and then worth really lame amounts of points.  
Again, this is unfortunate, because certain scorings just throw any 
kind of balance out the window. 

All games have a ball-saver for every ball for varying lengths of 
time. It will always go off after being used except for a table 
played off of the Psycho board.  Wild West and Trick or Treat have 
them for multiball too. 

Each game seems to have an extra ball lit on the outlanes the first 
time you play them each session.  Why not leave them lit every time? 
Strange.  Also, they will light up on the 3 subtables when playing 
Psycho. 

~Wild West

Obviously, a western-themed board.  There's 5 major shots:  a loop 
(both sides), a ramp on the left (that feeds to the left) that is 
most easily hit from the right flipper (much less possible from the 
left), a ramp in the middle hittable from the upper left flipper 
(which resides just under the entrance to the left loop) and 
sometimes lucky bounces, and a lane just inside the right loop that 
feeds to pop bumpers. 

There's also scattered about lots of standup/drop target (they look 
like standups but behave like drop targets???).  A group of 4 on the 
left lights a hole in between the left loop and left ramp (Casino) 
for a random game (blackjack or hi-lo).  Blackjack seems 99.9% 
pointless (you only get something worthwhile if you get 21), but 
winning hi-lo (you can quit any time) lights a playfield multiplier 
(5x I think - there are other possibilities, 2x, 3x, and 5x).  There 
are 2 groups of 3 that you must hit to light the lock, and 1 more 
group of 3 on the right that lights the pop bumper shot for a value 
(increased beforehand by the bumpers and held between players).  
Just above the upper left flipper is a thing that catches balls and 
either shoots it around the left loop (if you shot the left side) or 
catches it and drops it slowly to the upper left flipper if you shot 
the right loop (or from launched balls (which are autoplunged, 
BTW)).  This makes for a nice combo, loop to middle ramp, which when 
made increases the value (up to 1M) and gives you a letter in 
Engine.  If you miss, the value of the ramp goes back down to the 
bottom.  That's pretty cool, but spelling Engine is quite a bit of 
work, and for your efforts you light a video mode in some undefined 
hole in the left side of the table which is bad in 2 ways:  A) it's 
the same EVERY SINGLE TIME and B) it's worth like 2.4M for finishing 
(0 otherwise), which is nothing.  (That's just an example of hard 
work going for lame points - one of many.) 

The jackpot is lit by shooting the left ramp which lights the right 
loop for you to shoot and light letters in REWARD.  Spell REWARD, 
shoot the right lane for jackpot.  (The jackpot starts at 3M, and 
goes up 237K for like every shot, so by the end of a 4-player game 
can easily go over 30M because it's held between players as well.  
Blah.)  It is easy to light once you know the trick to hitting the 
left ramp, but that right lane is quite difficult.  There's a timer 
on the jackpot, but the game doesn't tell you how long.  :( 

Multiball is no big deal - continuously shoot the right loop for 1, 
2, and 5M (like Hurricane).  Everything else is still active, 
though, including the middle ramp so more than likely you'll lose 
whatever value you had it built up to.  That sucks.  You can also 
relight multiball DURING multiball which is potentially pretty 
abusive. 

There is one bug in this board that I've seen so far:  Having lock 
lit and then draining leaves it lit for the next person as well, 
even though the arrow won't be flashing.  Weird. 


~Abyss

This game feels really weird.  Everything is pretty slow, and it 
feels really scrunched up.  There are 2 "halves" to the table with a 
pair of flippers at the bottom and halfway up.  There are 2 lanes 
you can shoot (though one has pop bumpers around it, so it's very 
hard to shoot up here) as well as a hole in the bottom of a 
"volcano" which takes up the middle of the playfield.  This hole 
also gives various awards and modes which you light by hitting LAVA 
targets (1 starts off lit) - there are 5 total.  Spelling LAVA also 
induces a volcanic effect of shaking the table left to right quite 
violently, often sending the ball down the right outlane.  :( 

There's lots of shots:  the bottom right ramp, 2 lanes up to the top 
(it's possible to get a lucky rebound as well and have the ball go 
up the side of the volacno), the volcano exit hole; on the upper 
half, there are 2 ramps (alternating like in T2), a left lane which 
you repeatedly shoot to start a mode (each of the major shots is 
worth 2.5M one time), a left ramp that feeds to the bottom half, an 
outside right lane which feeds to the bottom half via the volacno 
exit (and where you score the jackpot and get video mode), and an 
inside right lane that feeds to rollovers which you complete to 
light the Whale's mouth (same shot) where you get an award by 
hitting the spacebar to stop a box that cycles through 5 
possibilities. 

You get a jackpot by spelling WRECK, which you can do by shooting 
the bottom right ramp, the first volcano award, and by the Whale.  
It starts at 7M and goes up 4M each time afterward, but this too is 
held between players.  Bad bad bad. 

There's lots of other stuff to do as well, including a 
semi-interesting video mode (it's random, but still not worth much).  
There is a Dr*c*l*-like multiball where a ball flip-flops between 
"vents" and you must knock the ball out of its path to get a 2-ball 
multiball.  There doesn't seem to be anything special to do, though. 


~Trick or Treat

There's lots of shots in this game as well.  A left lane (get the 
jackpot) which shoots the ball around the back to the upper right 
flipper, a hole just to the right of the left lane which awards a 
video mode or random award (the video mode is a Simon-like game 
where you must repeat a sequence of 6 notes), a middle ramp easily 
repeatable by the right flipper, a middle ramp shootable only from 
the upper right flipper that feeds to rollovers which start a mode 
which you must hit 6 or so different shots for 2M (last is 5M) in 45 
or so seconds, a shot just above that which feeds to bumpers (and 
shot enought starts another mode where all major shots (except the 
middle ramp) are 1M), a ball lock near the top (shootable from the 
left flipper and a lucky right flipper flail), a right lane all the 
way at the top (which lights the jackpot during multiball), and a 
shot just above the right slingshot where the autoplunged balls come 
out. 

This was my favorite table because mostly I really like the jackpot 
sequence during multiball.  Shoot the right lane to light jackpot 
(shoot it again with 3 balls in play to double it) and shoot the 
left lane. However, I discovered that there's a really major rape in 
the game: When you get a jackpot, the jackpot-lighting ball(s) get 
kicked out down the right lane which you can let bounce over to the 
left flipper, catch it, and shoot again to light jackpot.  However, 
because the jackpot-scoring ball hasn't been kicked out yet, you are 
awarded the jackpot again immediately!!  Once I discovered this I 
got a rather amazing number of jackpots...  They start at 7M and go 
up 5M after each one, and I wound up getting it to like 162M.  My 
final score was 3.844B (I think, or 2.844 I'm not sure), but it 
rolls over at 1B!  That's really really lame.  There's not even a 
good reason to let it roll over at that number... 

The jackpot value is separate for each player, though.  :|

There's some other neat stuff in the game, like a reflex shooting- 
gallery like video mode (using left and right flippers and space 
bar). But once you know about the jackpot rape, it kind of loses the 
fun. 


~Psycho

This board is kind of neat on its own merits, but the cool thing 
(finally, a video pin that really takes advantage of being a 
computer game!) is that you can light each of 3 tents which 
represent the other 3 tables.  You then play a ball (with a very 
extended ball saver) on the table you shot.  It's certainly a neat 
concept, but again scoring will be dwarfed by the Trick or Treat 
rape.  

When you drain on the subtable, you continue on in the Psycho table.

There's a hit-the-flippers-as-much-as-possible video mode (our 
favorite!) which is really hard to light and is worth 2 or 3 million 
or something.  Ho-hum.  There's also 2 jackpots and a super jackpot 
which you light by hitting an easily-repeatable left ramp. 



A couple of final notes:  The multiball, jackpot, and extra ball 
animations are always the same for each table, but they are kind of 
neat.  In fact, the animation in general is very well done.  The 
sound is very good, changes depending on what you're doing (like PF 
but unlike Epic tables) complete with a ball-in-the-plunger-lane 
vamp.  :)  There's lots of sound bites, too, which is appreciated 
and adds a lot of spice. 

This would be a fantastic game if there was better balanced scoring, 
the things I noted were fixed, and the Trick or Treat jackpot 
problem were fixed (this is the absolute biggest problem).  If only 
companies would test their games better....... 

However, all things considered, it is generally very good and pretty 
fun.  It could've been a lot better.  Recommended. 

keith
-- 
Keith P. Johnson, keefer@rahul.net, keefer@access.digex.net