Classic of the Month - White Water

Manufacturer:	Williams Electronic Games
Genre:	Pinball
Board:	Williams WPC (Fliptronics II)
Year:	1993

For the first quarter of this year I've talked about shoot 'em ups and while I could talk about them all year, I realise that would be a bit boring for everyone else. So I've decided to completely shift tact and do a classic pinball machine for this month's CotM.

I've not played nearly as many real pinball tables as I would like, but of the dozen or so tables I have played, the one that sticks in my mind the most is White Water by Williams. As the name suggests, this table is about white water rafting, specifically the antic of one crazy old geezer called Wet Willy. As such the tables objectives and goals all have names like Insanity Falls, Disaster Drop and Boulder Garden, as well as a whirlpool that will claim the ball. The main objective is of course to get down the river, which is represented by some of the most insane ramps I've ever seen in a pinball table, to get to Wet Willy's River Ranch. Along the way you'll go through Big Foot's cave, complete with a tiny mechanical sasquatch who will claw at the ball as it passes. The table has several ways of achieving multi-ball, so combined with the wild ramps things can soon get pretty hectic. It was a blast.

And it isn't just me who remembers White Water fondly.  It has a user score of 8.2 on the Internet Pinball Database, so even those that know what's what with pinball like it - which is reassuring, but I had wondered if only stuck out because of how flashy it was.

Here's a video of it in action:

MTW

What does tilt mean?

Following on from last month's 'What's a pin game?' post, I thought I would follow up with term that is synonymous with pinball, tilt.

Early pin games did not have flippers, instead players jostled the table to get the ball to go into scoring holes. As pin games became increasingly more mechanized, triggers we added to limit how much players could move or "tilt" the table. Often the tilt mechanism comprised of a plumb bob hanging from a bracket inside the cabinet. When the machine was jostled too much, the plumb would bang against the inside of a ring that surrounded it and the game would lock out things like flippers and anything that added to the player's score, allowing the ball to fall out of play. This was known as "tilting", because you had tilted the plumb bob.

When electronic displays were added to pinball machines, they were programmed to display "TILT" when the player had gone too far with jostling the machine. Nonetheless, it remains a legitimate tactic when playing pinball, with top players knowing just when and where to jostle a table to keep the ball in play or activate high-scores.

Incidentally, next time you are on Google, try searching for "tilt". You'll find some interesting results.

MTW

Burger Time returns to home consoles this summer

There was a surprising number of arcade games based on food and drink.  Food Fight, Root Beer Tapper and my favbourite, Burger Time.  It seems I'm not the only one to think Burger Time was awesome, because the boys and girls at Frozen Codebase and Monkey Paw have gone and remade it for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation 3 PSN.

Due for release this summer, Burger Time HD appears to retain all of the game play from the original and liven things up with a rotating worl to explore (a la the Commadore 64 classic Nebulous) and gorgeous hi res 3D graphics.  It also looks like you can play as your Xbox Avatar, instead of the original Peter Pepper - although that wouldn't make sense for PS3 owners, so maybe that's my imagination.  For now, here's some screenshots:

Darius Burst 48

Today on Taito's Japanese website, they annouced a major update of their latest shmup, Darius Burst: Another Chronicle.  And there's nothing I can say that this promo photo can't say with great impact (although you'll probably want to click on it for a bigger view):

According to AndriaSang.com: "The cabinet measures 19,290 x 1575 x 1885 mm and weights 4,080kg. Taito says that it's currently seeking a Guiness World Record for the screen width.

Forty-eight players can play Darius Burst Another Chronicle 48 together. Taito notes that, regardless of player, when your ship is destroyed, it will regenerate at the far left. The player in the far right seat will have to wait about a minute for his ship to arrive in his area of play."

What a shame this annoucement came out on the 1st of April.

MTW