Doctor Who pinball

 Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

Subject: DR. WHO- lots of stuff on what it is.

From: blowfish@carina.unm.edu (rON.)

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 07:33:24 GMT

Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Lines: 99

In article <Oct20.174525.97905@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> bg083052@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Ben Guggenheimer) writes:

> I played the new Dr. Who game the other day and was thouroughly

>impressesed with the games feel and play. I couldn't wait to look in r.g.p. too

>catch some tips, special tricks etc. and there has been nothing.  Is it because

>no one has played it?  If you get the chance definently give it a shot.

Its OK. Scoring is way to unbalanced, I think. I went from 60,000 to opening

the time thingy to jackpot in very little time- a 50 mil jackpot which made

my score all of 51 million. I was not impressed, though after the first

multiball is out of the way, the game does become more playable in an overall

fashion.

The game play is fairly easy, though the details of the rules are, like all

new games nowadays, somewhat difficult to decipher. Some play things:

Multiball is established by locking two balls in two locks that are very

similar to the eyeballs of pinbot. Once two balls are locked, you get a third

ball into play, and your goal is to hit targets (again, very similar to the

pinbot setup). The targets are something I've never seen before- they are not

flat, but rounded- like part of a ping-pong ball. Means you can hit multiple

targets much easier this way. Anyways, hitting the 15 spots (5 targets, 3 times

each), the two locked balls are released, and multi-ball starts. The back area

(where the ball locks and target stuff is) raises another level (looks like a

mechanical nightmare to me :) and you are presented with 3 big openings to

shoot at. If you've played (or looked at) a mechanical baseball game, these

targets are similar to those. (openings with flap targets hinged on top in

front of them.) Anyways- shoot one of the balls through an opening. This will

establish your multiball jackpot level (40-50 mil on the machine I played).

You then have a limited time to shoot a ball through all three holes. If you

do that, you collect the jackpot. The targets then come out again, but I never

finished the target sequence, so I don't know what happens after that- it

sets up superjackpot, I believe.

The rest of the time, you have to hit a target on the top middle, between the

two locks, in order to light a lock for subsequent multiballs.

Hitting that target is also how you credit a ball lock if your playing more

than one player, and somebody has a ball locked already.

Other stuff.

There are 7 doctors- each doctor is worth a special bonus or another. When you

start a ball, you can choose a doctor to play. Each doctor makes certain

sequences worth more, or gives you more time to complete them, etc. You score

a doctor by finishing its associated sequence, then hitting a target on the

right side on the playfield. I don't know what all 7 doctors gives, nor do 

I know which doctor does what. More on that in a bit.

There are several target sequences (one spelling 'repair', one spelling

'escape'.), a pop bumper sequence (hitting the bumpers a set number of

times- this activates video mode once that doctor is obtained), a ramp

sequence to spell W-H-O (doing that twice gives an extra ball), another ramp

sequence from a middle left flipper which, when looped, gives unlimited

millions, and some other small things which I didn't figure out.

some details:

Spelling 'repair' makes each target in that sequence worth 1million for a

time period. Don't know what spelling 'escape' does. The Video mode is a

mario brothers thing- jump over objects. Pressing 1 flipper makes you jump

short, both flippers makes you jump longer. The key to VM is to watch the

right side of the screen. Once you have the (fairly easy) timing down, its

easy to tell if your obstacle is a long one or short one, and you can time

your jumps appropriately. Finishing VM results in an amusing animated sequence,

btw, and gives you an extra ball (but you have to go through 4 waves of VM

in order to collect this :) Spelling W-H-O twice gives you an extra ball.

Sending it up one of the ramps (the lower one) I believe lights a target

(very similar to pinbot, once again) worth a varying number of points, like

the, hell, its not the solar value....I forget- the pinbot target that is

under the ramp? That one. Same thing here, though this one is activated by

whopping it up a ramp.

More on the doctors- They seem to be valuable to get- the thing to watch for

is an unobtrusive little target on the right side of the playfield. When it

is lit- go for it- hitting that will score a doctor. Thats worth some bonus 

or another, in addition to a 2 mil bonus for each doctor compleated at the

end of the game. There are 7 doctors. Like I said above, each doctor has

an associated sequence, and choosing a particular doctor at the start of

a ball makes certain things worth more, or makes times sequences last longer,

etc. Knowing what each doctor does can help your game play- choosing the

doctor that increase multiball jackpot time if you are heading towards

starting multiball, for example, makes that easier. You get the idea.

OK- the general play of the game. Sometimes smooth, sometimes not so

smooth. Flippers are hard to control- Opponents to the Solid State flipper

will find no relief here (and I thought Balley had it right with TAF. Oh

well). The game is also going to be quite prone to operator mis-leveling

and stuff- I had balls flying right down the pipes in situation where it

was clear that balls shouldn't be flying right down the pipes. The ball

locks didn't always work, but given the power of the flippers, that was not

surprising. I also had problems with sending the ball around to the pop

bumpers, and hitting it too hard and having it some straight back out the

way it came in (and then right down the drain). Also the ball return to the

right inlane would drop the ball to high up, so it would then bounce right

down the side. Not happy. I think a lot of these little bugs were due to

the fact that it was a brand new machine- don't often get the chance to play

on a new pin :) Also- no plunger. Solinoid thingy. no biggie- there is no

skill shot at the beginning anyways.

Its an interesting game. It'll have its big fans. If you're a Dr. Who fan,

you absolutely have to play this, or buy one for yourself- the artwork and

noises and stuff will send you into Dr. Who heaven. Keep you playing 

incarnation after incarnation, as it were :)

r.