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Video modes - the good, the bad and the ugly ...discuss

Sgt GrizZ

Sgt GrizZ

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Been thinking about video modes in pins - mainly because I just got BSD and I LOVE shooting the werewolves.

A few years a go I did my Top 5 best and worst vid modes for the Pinball Blog (RIP) so some of this might be familiar to anyone who read it then, and has a ridiculously good memory :rolleyes: Still I thought I'd do it again just to spark some discussion on vid modes - love em or hate em that is the question !

Heres my 5 best and 5 worst ......

My TOP 5 VID MODES

1. Fish Tales

Just damn good fun blowing the cr*p out of the boats and waterskiers. Throw in the 'Jaws' music, some great sound effects and cool animations and its a winner. You need to concentrate to maximise points by nailing every one without wasting a shot, and not forgetting to get that Extra Ball as it floats past. Apparently shooting more of the rear boats triggers the EB to come out, but I'm not always convinced by this theory. Still - its great !


2. Bram Stokers Dracula

Ahhh the creatures of the night ! Shooting ever increasing numbers of snarling Werewolves with silver bullets. BOOM ! Whats not to like ? Wait to the last moment to fire to maximise points. First wave is not too tricky, but the 2nd and subsequent waves are insane :D


3. Attack From Mars

I just love the Missile Command retro stylings of this , spraying the sky with bullets to take down the saucers. And judging just the right moment to drop a bomb on their martian asses :cool:


4. Guns N Roses

Screaming down the freeway on yr roaring, ozone destroying, chrome and leather freak machine whilst mowing down pedestrians ! GNR blaring ! F*ck yeah, where do I sign up ? :cool: OK - so I have prob made it sound more exciting than it actually is within the confines of a bunch of orange dots....but I still love it ...and its a pretty tough vid mode to master.


5. Indiana Jones (Williams)

Hold on to yr potatoes Dr Jones ! Hey why settle for one video mode when you can have three ! And they are all pretty good - 'mine cart chase' is best (complete with Frog eater egg), the 'bar room shootout' has some cool gun noises, and the' choosing the chalice' is .....well ok it's a bit lame but the other 2 make up for it :)



My 5 WORST Video modes

1. Tommy

It pains me to put this here as it is one of my favourite pinball machines but ......:( ...the question remains .....just how in the hell did Data East make blowing the bejeezus out of buildings and enemy planes so pitifully unexciting !?!

To make matters worse the scoring is so low that it makes little difference if you try to play it or just let yr plane drift along whilst you crack open another cold beer (I recommend this course of action) . After about 30 seconds it all just sort of ends, its like the designers started it and then just went ......meh ! this will do. Shame.


2. Theatre Of Magic

As if the worlds most annoying pinball machine wasn't painful enough :rolleyes: .....they then decide to put in a lame digital pinball game. This is a REAL pinball machine ...why ? why ? why ? would they think the player wants to play a crappy dot matrix version that has no relation to the magic theme and has the sort of ball physics you would expect on a low gravity planet. Use the magic ...no thanks, use the off switch. Cr*p.


3. Dr.Who

Remember playing games on your ZX Spectrum in the early 80s ?? Yeah ...well most of them were better than this joke of a video mode. Badly animated Doc spazs along jumping over piles of rubbish whilst a Dalek tries to wee on him. Oh dear god, exterminate me .



4. Johnny Mnemonic

Talking of early 80s computer games , JM vid mode is straight out of the mid 70s....what the hell is this ?!? A bunch of dots bounce around and you try to bounce a square thingy cack handedly around after them. The graphics are beyond sh*t, the controls are pathetic, this makes me angry to even think about it. I'm not even gonna post a vid of it. Just imagine the worst arcade game ever. This is worse.:mad:

5 . Any Video Mode that just involves flailing at the flipper buttons like a hopped up monkey on a banana promise.

I'm looking at you Creature From The Black Lagoon, Lethal Weapon 3, Baywatch and prob some others that the designers just couldn't be ****d with. All stupidly easy, maybe if you had no arms you might not complete them but even then I'm not sure. I always hated Track N Field in the arcade.

 
Totally agree on BSD, IJ and FT in the best list. I also like the HS2 one where you shift up the gears to do if faster for more points and the I500 one where you have to avoid stuff on the racetrack :)

For the worst, what about that one in CV where it's like a game of simon says.....that's f*cking awful!!!!
 
Yep, got to agree with Fish Tales, BSD. But I think Getaway is way better than GnR (same dodge the road) Now what's not been mentioned is Black Rose with its three video mode's. I have never seen so much fun when people are trying to get away from the shark for the first time at a league meet. Its frickin awesome , also I thought the video mode on JM was pretty good and quite an achievement to get the extra ball.
 
I love video modes, I miss them, what with only having alphanumeric games. My fave is Fishtales and going against the grain I really enjoyed outrunning the Daleks on DW!
 
Run from Spike on JY always raises a smile.

Most pointless? Congo? Or maybe Psychic Test on SST. Took bloody ages trying to match the card (1 in 52 chance I guess). Eventually did and and...... well it gave me a bloody free game. Most pointless reward ever on a home pin bah:mad:
 
I like the punching one on Creech, probably as it was my first home owned video mode and it doesn't get aimed for all that much. I also don't always get a knockout and guests rarely get close but do find it funny.
The Mine Cart game in IJ is good fun and did rather make the punching game on Creech look weak, I still haven't completed it. Choosing the Chalice seemed impossible the first time and then dead easy every other go.
 
on FT I believe the EB is after 14 or 15 consecutive hits, it can also be set to show BS (=Big Score) instead. Don't ask me how to set it though as I looked and couldn't find it... BSD is lame for the first level so we just set it to max and no one waits for the to get closer any more...! :D

AFM, I can't believe they didn't get to the mother ship in that video. :rolleyes: JY also has the AFM ship battle but no mothership.

JM video mode is cool and very challenging :p

Another vote for Spitoon on CP.

Don't forget the shadow one.

Shame they didn't do a video mode on Tron! :cool:
 
Sooo true about that TOM "video" pinball. *Even* my non-pinhead brother said "what's the point?" The only good point was that you could get an extra ball off it.
On IJ what is the Easter egg associated with the mine-train one?
 
A cameo appearance from Looney Toons short character, Michigan J Frog

Here it is:

Hold flipper buttons when starting game, then crashout via the 4th barrier that appears on the right tunnel during Mine Cart.

Hello mah baby, hello mah hon-ey...
 
Cool - got to try that. So, you hold both flipper buttons while pressing "start" at the same time?:confused:
 
Surely Star Wars has the worst video mode. Just watch the speeders, cos hitting any buttons has no effect whatsoever.
 
ronsplooter said:
For the worst, what about that one in CV where it's like a game of simon says.....that's f*cking awful!!!!
Click to expand...

The one in CV? You mean 'The Amazing Roonie'?

I quite like that one - seems in keeping with the game and they pitched the difficulty about right.
 
I have just been playing an Elvis on location. After having owned one of these games in the past I had forgotten how dire the video mode is on this game. Just tap the flipper buttons as arrows slide over a line on the display. Boring!
 
The Shadow video mode is nice enough but I wish they had done something with the gun. That's my only criticism of the pin to be honest, the gun is under used.
 
I know it's not a lot, but firing the gun in video mode clears all dropping purbhas. Useful if you get trapped.
 
pinballmania said:
I know it's not a lot, but firing the gun in video mode clears all dropping purbhas. Useful if you get trapped.
Click to expand...

It's also very rewarding shooting a Mongol for 3m when you realise your ball is lost. This is what makes me think it could have been used very well in a video mode.
 
Carl Spiby said:
Bit more explanation on this please?
Click to expand...

If you are in Mongol hurry up ( 30m counting down ) and you pull the trigger it ends the mode and you get 3m so worth doing if the hurry up timer is about to run out and you are struggling to make the loop or your ball is heading down the drain.
 
the gun is also used for the secret laugh mode - click the trigger in each of the three places (mode start, battlefield popper, side saucer) to get the quote 'anyone for Peking duck?' said by three different voices, then the next visit to the mode start hole awards secret laugh mode. it's a frenzy mode with Tim Curry guffawing for every switch hit
 
cooldan said:
the gun is also used for the secret laugh mode - click the trigger in each of the three places (mode start, battlefield popper, side saucer) to get the quote 'anyone for Peking duck?' said by three different voices, then the next visit to the mode start hole awards secret laugh mode. it's a frenzy mode with Tim Curry guffawing for every switch hit
Click to expand...

I did this the other day, good fun.
 
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