Ooooooooooooh TAXI. (Pic heavy)

[Spandangler]

Hey gang

I was out in the man cave earlier turning the old spanners, when it occurred to me just how frickin awesome Taxi is.

It's not a game you see around often and certainly doesn't appear for sale regularly.
There was clearly something about it which grabbed me and inspired me to seek it out and make a real nice one.

Not sure what this thread is about really, I'm just bored as my wife is in hospital.
I think it's just to showcase a great game and raise awareness for the unsung heroes of pinball, by which I mean the system 11 era.

Sure they have recognition for being awesome games but are often in the shadows of the early 90's big hitters like TaF, AFM, MM, WH20 etc..
They absolutely deserve their recognition as awesome games but they allude me at this stage in life due to their sky high price tags.

I think it's fair to say that the system 11 era paved the way to enable the success of the 90's DMD games.

Taxi for me opitimises 80's pinball. It's down and dirty 1980's NYC. With a light hearted twist.
It's the most basic of basic games, yet it kicks my ass more than any other game... ever. Literally, I am sh1te at this game, I haven't even cracked 5 million. I think the fully accumulated jackpot is almost that.

Its simplistic rules, awesome art package and perfectly entwined music and sounds make this my favourite pinball machine of all time.

So to follow, in a @Sgt GrizZ Popeye stylee are my thoughts and opinions of this classic game with some pics of the awesome art and run down of the rules

In no way as detailed as Grizz's awesome Popeye review, firstly I'm not that thorough (just read my school reports) and secondly, taxi simply doesn't have the depth of rules as Popeye.

I appreciate to the sweats this may be like sucking eggs but there is a definite influx of new blood into the hobby who may only have there sights set on a nineties dmd game. Take it as you wish.







History. Taxi was designed by Mark Ritchie with art by Python Angelo released by Williams in 1988 with a production run of 7303 units. It was initially produced with Marylin Monroe pictured on the backglass and playfield. Marylins estate quickly cottoned on and demanded that Williams either pay Royalties to the Marylin estate for using her image or change it......... so they changed it. They changed her hair colour from blonde to brown and called her Lola. I've heard conflicting stories on production numbers. Some say it's an almost fifty fifty split of Marylins vs Lola's, others say it was only the first couple of hundred off the production line. To be fair, they're so uncommon I've only ever seen Lola's over here but I don't think it affects value at all.
I believe a lot of taxi machines found there way too Germany. So German eBay is always a good source for parts and machines (or it was a few years ago when I was looking)

Around 2013 CPR announced they would be reproducing the playfield. Taxi playfields are almost always trashed. It must be a Mark Ritchie thing as Fishtales is the same. In conjunction with this, they also released a plastic set and limited edition mirrored backglass picturing Marylin. This was a smooth move by CPR as all the new playfields were Marylin, so anyone ordering who had a Lola translite was going to need the correct glass. I mean, you want the carpet to match the curtains.... right

The glass was nice but if I'm honest, the colours are a little off and it almost looks a bit "soft focus".



Firstly the Art. Well it's bright yellow for starters. Naturally as it's NY Taxi themed. It has Santa on the side of the cab, so I'm sold. I frickin love xmas.







The backglass has a Highspeed esque feel to it, like a first person rear seat passenger. The glass has an actual mirror as the rear view mirror which is nice effect.



It pictures all your passengers waiting in a taxi queue with a cheeky advert for recent Williams games on the bill board outside.
As the backglass does not mention the games name on it, Taxi has a topper in the form of a Taxi roof sign which illuminates with the GI and also has flash lamps during various modes

There are some awesome quirks in the artwork. There are cpu controlled lamps which toggle through the traffic light sequence on the backglass, illuminating the different coloured traffic lights.
The start button is green and hidden in the traffic lights. They even put a sticker on the coin door to indicate where the button is (omitted on mine)



The Iluminated playfield. Taxi lacks gi in the lower half of the playfield in my opinion, a bit dark down there but otherwise it's a beautiful looking game when lit



That's all for now folks. I'll update as and when

So what do you have to do?

Basically you have to pick up 5 passengers and drop them off at the airport! Namely: Pinbot, Dracula, Marylin (or Lola depending on your version), Gorbie and Santa. I'll update another time

 

[Spandangler]

As has been discussed. The first thing you do when getting a new machine.......
Source a key ring of course!



I was round my sister in laws and my niece (who was probably about 4 at the time) had this key ring on a bunch of play keys (not Rudi, the taxi ) She probably never even knew she had it amongst the hundreds of key rings.
Of course as soon as I expressed an interest, it became her favourite possession in the whole world. Despite my finest negotiation skills, she wouldn't relent.
Que a trip to toys r us and £20 later on a playmobil advent Calander and I seal the deal.
The things you do hey!!!

Right then. Rules.

Starting with the plunge. The correct spring and plunger alignment is key on taxi as the skill shot is actually what it says on the tin. It actually has a strategy!! Launching the ball sends it spinning into the spin out ramp.
Plunge too soft and you won't even make the ramp and the ball will be diverted to the right inlane.
Make it beyond the gate and you're into the spin out bowl. Here points are awarded from 1000 to 100,000 depending how many rotations the ball makes in the bowl. The amount is multiplied by the ball you're playing eg, spin to 100,000 on ball 2 and get awarded 200,000.



If you manage to spin up to 25,000, half way up the scale, you are awarded a passenger pickup as well. You are awarded the most difficult passenger currently lit at the time of plunging.

This is a good strategy on ball one as it usually awards pinbot and he's a ******* to get.
Spinning up to 100,000 isn't worth doing on ball one. Ball 3 however, I personally try and aim for that as 300,000 points on Taxi is a nice haul.

It is possible with a strong spring and correctly aligned plunger to spin out past 100,000 leaving you with a measly 1000. The most I've ever managed to spin over too is 10,000 I think.

So that's the skill shot. I love a good skill shot and that is my favourite.


Right then. Once the ball drops through the bowl it is kicked in to play above the 3 C A B rollovers. Pretty standard, use the flippers to control the lit letter to try and spell CAB. (Nerd fact: Taxi uses micro switches on the flipper buttons to activate the lane change feature as opposed to whatever witchcraft they use on modern era games) Once completed it lights the jackpot timer for 10 seconds where every subsequent switch activated adds 2000 points to the accumulating jackpot (displayed on the backglass in taxi meter)
This increases from 500k up to 4 million and can be claimed by either player. You could have an awesome ball building your jackpot only to drain and have player 2 snatch it.



So now you've got the ball in play. Assuming you made the skill shot, the ball will feed to the 3 central pops. With luck, you can bounce around up there for a while and activate the CAB rollovers. If you manage to complete CAB 3 times in one ball, you light extra ball at the Drac catapult. This dies as the ball drains though and is not carried over to the next ball.

If you manage to complete the CAB lanes, it's best to get the ball back in the pops ASAP as you have 10 seconds to add to your jackpot and it's 2k a hit.

Right, maybe now the ball is heading south to the flippers!! (Funny hey, that all of the above happens in about 15 seconds, all of these sub conscious decisions you're making)

Get the ball trapped and see what's lit.
The objective of the game is to pick up all 5 passengers to light jackpot. Claim the jackpot to collect your passengers and head to the airport.
Complete them all again in a different order, claim the jackpot and drop them off at the airport to light one special at the outlanes.
Simples!! If only it was.
Unless you hit the carry passengers target, you have to do all this in one ball.
The carry passengers target is a fiddler little bugger to hit.



So, you've got the ball trapped. Assuming you didn't collect a passenger at the skill shot, you will have Gorbie and Pinbot lit. Gorbie is the right lane shot and is also the jackpot shot. Hit the switch on the way round to open the gate at the top left corner and land in the scoop for a reassuring clunk and the smile worthy Russian music and hear Gorbie shout "HEY". And as Bucci says, you WILL shout "HEY" when you pick him up. You'll collect 20k points for the privilege and add 20k points to your end of ball bonus.



Gorbies face will now remain lit in the centre and Drac will now be flashing. It's worthy of note that those passengers awaiting collection will be calling for you in their given accents. "Taxi Taxi Taxi"" "Hey Taxi" etc.. quite amusing.




So now it's either Pinbot or Drac.

Cont....


So we've chalked up Gorbie and shouted HEY. It's either Pinbot or Drac.



Pinbot is a *******. It really is more by luck than judgment if you drop those targets. It's acknowledged in the software too, as you get 15 seconds before they reset as opposed to 10 on Marylin.
I usually get a lucky rebound off the slings to drop the right target as it's uber tight if not impossible to hit from the left flipper.
Once you have collected Pinbot, you also carry passengers target at the top left corner for a chance to carry your collected passengers over to the next ball should you drain. In my opinion it's always worth shooting for that target.



Next up is Drac. A relatively simple shot into the catapult similar to the lock shot on Space Shuttle. Queue a nice little piece of spooky Dracula music and it's on to either Marylin or Santa.



Ho ho ho Taxi taxi taxi is the chant!!! A tight shot up the left lane will claim Santa. This is also the same shot required for the Random awards when lit.



Last up is Marylin. She is collected by dropping the 3 drop targets in front of the pops. Once you have hit the first target, you must hit the other two within ten seconds before they reset. There is no specific order to hit them. Collecting her also lights the carry passengers target. Note, the target is only lit for approx 15 seconds. To relight you need to either complete the Marylin or Pinbot targets, which needn't be lit.



Once the last passenger is collected some panic inducing music ensues and the Jackpot is lit at the Gorbie shot. You must complete this shot within 10 seconds. Failing to do so means Marylin legs it outta the taxi effectively Making off without payment. You must pick her up again to relight the jackpot.
Once the jackpot is collected you get an awesome light show and music together with a mega ring from the bell inside the cabinet.

The jackpot is then reset to 500k.

Complete the entire set of passengers again to light special at the outlines.

So that's Taxi in a nutshell. Simple but effective and very challenging.

Let's have a look at some of the other features.

Multiball.

Taxi has one, two ball multiball mode. The lock is lit from the start and a ball is locked on the right side above the Pinbot targets and is a mirror of the Drac shot a la space shuttle.
Once locked multiball is started by shooting the left ramp to release the locked ball.
A cool feature (probably due to the limitations of the programming and memory at the time) once ball one is locked and you drain, player 2 can steal the lock and start multiball by shooting the left ramp.

Once multiball has started any passengers collected are worth double points (40k). Relock a ball in the right lock, to start a hurry up timer (10 seconds I think) to lock a second ball in the left lock (Drac) this is worth 300k. Once this is completed some cool sound effects and bell ringing go off and now the lit ramps are worth 100k a hit (airport ride).

When multiball is over, the lock is relit after the next passenger is collected.



Joyride.

Joyride is similar to fish finder on fishtales. Light joyride by rolling over the right inlane switch. To claim shoot the Santa shot to claim which ever award is lit on the speaker panel.



Other bits

Million shot. Shoot alternate lit left and right ramps to advance value on the 6th ramp million will be lit at the Santa/ joyride hole. This does not carry over to the next ball.

Extra Balls

3 ways to earn extra balls. Complete CAB rollovers 3 times in one ball to light at Drac.
Awarded at Joyride. (Awarded immediately)
Special (if you have elected extra ball as award). Collected at Outlane when lit.




In summary, Taxi is simplistic perfection in pinball. It strikes a perfect balance of simplicity, great art, challenging game play and awesome music and sounds which keeps you going back for more.

I've probably missed a couple of things but hope you enjoyed it. If you're ever passing my way, look me up for a game.

If anyone has any old spares or memorabilia for Taxi, I'd love to hear from you. I'm not sure if they did a large promo poster but I'd love to get one if they did.
Gary Flower gave me a pad of Williams Taxi post it notes which he swiped away from the Williams factory way back when.

Thanks for reading

 

[steve brum]

TaXi is awesome. Both mark ritchie follow on games diner and police force have similiar game rules but taxi is more fun and fast paced. Marilyn more common in Europe as we got games first. Most I've seen here are Marilyn including a prototype with screened glass instead of translite which I owned for a while. Haven't seen one for sale in a long time. Once folks get them they become keepers. Ramp shots are tight so full flipper rebuild a must.

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

Awesome !

I have only played Taxi casually ....would love to spend some proper time on it. Give it to me

 

[replicas]

A thing of beauty Gaz, you're a lucky guy owning such a beautiful machine like that.
You forget how stunning they looked back in the day when they were brand new. I'm only used to seeing well worn ones, so to see a stunner like yours is a pleasure and a honour .
Thanks for the pics.

 

[Spandangler]

Thanks Daz. Very kind of you to say

 

[Replay]

It's nice to see games that are more off the radar getting the attention they deserve. It's usually the same usual suspects.

I might even do one of these threads ......for an em.... hmmmmm, that might be pushing it

 

[DRD]

If you are pumping and dumping, I would be interested

 

[Spandangler]

If you are pumping and dumping, I would be interested

Lol. No way man. I'm getting buried in this

 

[cooldan]

nice writeup Gaz, there is a Taxi rulesheet at PAPA archives - http://pinball.org/rules/taxi.html - but it's pretty dry and could use some pictures, so maybe you can make a rulesheet for them? just copy paste it all into word and plonk the pictures in there; right click on a pic and select text-wrapping tight, then move them around and resize them to make it all look nice. good fun to do and very rewarding to see published. i've now done a few (Sopranos, Batman Dark Knight, Avatar and Godzilla) so i'd offer to do it for you, but i think you're less of a muppet than @Sgt GrizZ so you can probably do it yourself.

 

[Wiredworm]

Really love playing Taxi. The whole style of the machine is just so retro and it has a massive amount of humour to it.

Definitely on my wish list at some point in the future.

Great write-up too. Nice work.

 

[Spandangler]

Added a little write up on skill shot and Gorbie

 

[Spandangler]

Finished with the rules.
Thanks for reading y'all

 

[Dex-Jay]

Looks fun to play and yours looks a fantastic example! Tell us more about your pin? (Or is it in a resto thread somewhere?)

The cool topper, mirror and the nods to other games in the Williams stable are really well executed!

 

[Spandangler]

Looks fun to play and yours looks a fantastic example! Tell us more about your pin? (Or is it in a resto thread somewhere?)

The cool topper, mirror and the nods to other games in the Williams stable are really well executed!

Thanks mate

Here is a link to the resto although it's a little sparse

http://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/taxi-refurb.11898/page-1

 

[Robotech]

Wow seeing this has made me want one even more now what a beautifull machine

 

[James]

Great post OP took my time to get to it

 

[Jay Walker]

If this thread is the place for thoughts about Taxi, I'll contribute;

The difficulty of the left hand ramp means that the r/h flipper has to be really good to obtain multi-ball - the catapult will make the shot (and prevent a Test Report) but only shooting from the flipper will begin multiball. And I have a notion that the flipper units have a sweet spot, performing best when the arc which the paddle moves through is directly above the baseplate. Unfortunately, Taxi doesn't conform to this

The sticker on the door is the obvious casualty of changing the door, whether through damage or an 'upgrade' to an electronic acceptor door. And if that replacement is a generic door, rather than the size used for pinball games, the front of the cabinet ends up cut out to accommodate it

I was asked to look at a Taxi belonging to a friend of the boss at work (i.e it was 'work' but not works' work) which would reset when a ball was locked in the r/h eject. At first I thought a switch matrix fault was slam-tilting it, but in fact the loud sound effect that occurs on making the lock was pulling down the 12v line below the threshold for a reset. Caused by a failing bridge rectifier

Taxi's one of the games made while Williams were altering the Lane Change hardware. Earlier games (right back to FirePower) had used switches tacked on to the end-of-stroke switches, but Taxi has them on the cabinet buttons instead. The following game, Jokerz, introduced an opto-coupler Solid State Lane Change

Taxi also saw the introduction of a new power supply pcb, tasked solely with producing Logic and Display voltages, a revised Auxiliary Power pcb, the BackBox Interconnect pcb (I think) and a new fully alpha-numeric display pcb. Though it isn't actually used as such in this case; the circuits for the additional 'starburst' segments of the lower display are sacrificed to drive the external jackpot display

 

[Joyride]

Lol. No way man. I'm getting buried in this

lol - great comment. I feel the same way about my Taxi. I found it around 7 years ago on Ebay.de for just €500. The seller was in Berlin, so I jumped into my Jeep with my 19yr old son and headed out from Sevenoaks on what turned out to be a great road trip. Berlin is pretty much a straight line east from Dutch friends that live an hour from the German border, so we took Eurotunnel and then drove 4.5hrs up through France and Belgium to Holland and stayed overnight in Heerde. My friends couldn’t believe I’d come all this way and would then do another 6 hours the next morning just to pick up a flipperkast.

I must admit, there were times during the journey where I questioned the sanity of it all, but the time with my son, the music, sights, and laughs that we enjoyed along the way, and an absolute bargain deal for a pin that I’d lost many hours (and much cash) to while in college all made it great fun.

Upon arrival in Berlin we quickly and easily found the seller’s apartment. It was on the second floor, no lift, just a typically narrow staircase. Was glad I’d brought the stair-climbing sack barrow.

When I saw Taxi sitting there, in amazing condition, I could not believe my luck. It had been in the seller’s flat for 18 years. He had inherited it from his dad and hardly ever played it in all that time. He was actually quite ambivalent about this machine, and seemingly the whole topic of pinball, and was genuinely glad to be getting rid of the machine because it was preventing him from installing a bookshelf in the space that Taxi had occupied for all these years!

The moment of truth then came... turning it on. It fired up immediately, no errors, a few bulbs out, and the flippers needing work. The display was also flickering, so I knew I was going to have to spend some cash on it. I was so ok with that though. The cab was in great nick, and the play field had only minor wear in the usual places. €500 was truly a bargain, and I was thrilled that my first pin was now in the back of my car.

We shook hands and then headed off to find the apartment that I’d rented for the night. We ended up up going for a couple of beers and decided to go into the first bar that had some decent music on. That turned out to be a gay bar, which we didn’t realise until we got downstairs and in the front door. I got a few “look at this guy with his teenage boyfriend” looks, so we decided this wasn’t the bar for us and went further down the road to another bar and ended up having a great laugh about it with some ice hockey fans that had been to see the Eisbären.

Leaving my Jeep parked overnight, although in a private residents car park, with the pin in the back covered in blankets, made me a little nervous. Not that anyone could’ve easily yanked a pinball machine out of the boot, but I had visions of the car getting nicked for its cargo and us getting stranded, sans pin, 660 miles from home. I was therefore massively relieved, when I nipped downstairs in the morning, to find my car and it’s contents intact.

The return journey was even more fun than the outward journey. My son and I were throwing down game play challenges for when we got it home and fixed the few things that needed work. Who would hit the jackpot first? Who would hit the million shot first? And multiball, of course.

I was hugely surprised that coming through UK customs with a massive box of circuit boards and wires in the back of my car that nobody batted an eyelid. Not a single question re what was in the back covered in blankets?! Are pins transported this way more frequently than I realised and customs recognise them as not being a suspicious device that needs further inspection?

When we did get it home we fell about laughing that the machine was in German and I was going to need English ROMs. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that this would need replacement chips rather than being a software setting! That was easily sorted, as were the new flipper coils, bulbs, and PinLED display. I got a new set of plastics for it, and rubbers. And within a month had it all set up and playing beautifully.

My son and I spent the rest of that year pushing our high scores higher and higher (mine still stands at just over 12m), and having a great laugh reminiscing about our Berlin adventure. I’d simultaneously lived out the dream of owning my own pin and introducing my son to the pleasures of pinball.

This pin has such a story attached to it that I can’t possibly sell it. I, too, may have to be buried in it.

Rob

ps: Spandangler, and any other Taxi owners/players - the most satisfying shot in the game? When you start multiball with a fast shot around the left ramp and it comes down the left return lane you can immediately put it up towards the right lock saucer and cannon into the just-released other ball to re-lock for shot 1 of airport mode. The remaining ball then comes back down to the right flipper and you can pop it into Drac to get shot 2, and thereby start airport mode. You can then hit both released balls for 100k each + a crossover if you get the timing right! You get a nice 450k points for this, but it’s bloody hard to get it all right. I’ve done this only three or four times since owning it, and it gets me jumping around the room whenever I’ve managed it. [emoji106]


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[Spandangler]

Great story Rob. Btw, it’s Gaz here. We used to communicate via the Yahoo group years ago about my dreams of restoring a Taxi . You’re right about those kriss kross ramps during multi ball. It’s a once in a blue moon occurance but euphoria when you do it!! Glad you’re still loving Taxi

 

[ronsplooter]

I was hugely surprised that coming through UK customs with a massive box of circuit boards and wires in the back of my car that nobody batted an eyelid

I had the exact same thing when I brought Transporter back from Belgium I was expecting loads of questions, get it out the car and open it up but nothing.....they didn't seem bothered at all. I could have stashed it full of coke and refugees after all

 

[Joyride]

Great story Rob. Btw, it’s Gaz here. We used to communicate via the Yahoo group years ago about my dreams of restoring a Taxi [emoji23][emoji23].

Hey Gaz! Your Taxi is looking sweet with that shiny clean play field! I suddenly feel like mine needs a tear down and clean. Cheers for that! [emoji2]


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