Slam23
Active member
- Jul 21, 2012
- 1,279
- 2
Hi guys,
Although some tables are so straightforward that they don't need this thread, I thought it would be nice for newcomers to not have to sift through the other threads to get some idea where the points are in this table. I'll primarily sum up what's already said in the thread about the video mode. Also, I think a discussion about control vs. flow would be nice for this table, especially with all those 4 ball MB's.
Limited EB's
The one thing that defines this table in terms of length of play and therefore point total is the fact that you max out on EB's: you can earn up to 3 of them in one game. Sources are: getting to 120M, video mode (perfect completion) and extra balls at city 4, 8 and 14. To be complete: if you play poorly on your first 2 balls, 2 extra balls get lit in the outlanes. It's a bit of a toss-up how you get those 3 EB's, but for purpose of points it's crucial to learn to complete video mode every time you play it. To be very clear: perfect completion is hitting all the 16 pedestrians. This is not the most tasteful video mode I know of and it would be interesting to know if this caused any controversy at the time? I know games like Carmageddon which essentially have the same premise (and GTA in a way also) raised hell when they got released. Those pedestrians sure know how to dodge cars in any case....But anyway, after you max out on EB's, video mode yields approximately 6.5 million for completion, and another 35M for perfect completion, 41.5M total. It's not unusual to have a game in which you get to play the video mode at least 15-20 times, without actually aiming for the 4 standup targets that light it at the stoplight. Completing 10 of those yields 400M+. To put the 35M bonus in another perspective: getting this from any Multiball on the table is quite a fair score, especially if you don't get the super jackpot, and with considerably less risk of draining those 2 last balls simultaneously....
Also, getting back to video mode doesn't get harder through the game, unlike the requirements for lighting those Multiballs again. I usually get my 3 EB's from an early video mode, 120M and then from another video mode or the 4th city. This also means that although the extra ball timer (8 seconds) starts for the 8th and 14th city, it doesn't actually yield the EB. It would have been nice to get an alternative reward for this, quite the let-down now.
Starting reward, cities and MB's
When plunging a new ball, you get to choose a reward: 10M, Speed Pops (3 miles per bumper hit), (light) Next City, and Harley Letter. I can't think of a reason not to select next City every time. In an ideal game you get 6 cities for free, making progress towards Milwaukee Multiball much easier. When I'm on my last ball and I'm one Harley Letter away from starting the MB, and there is not to be gained much anymore from a city (you just played Milwaukee MB for example), I'll go for the letter, but that's the only situation I can think of. Selecting light next city has a few catches though. First off, cities require a progressive number of miles to "ride" before you reach them. You do that by hitting targets, loops, ramps. The bumper area is an especially good place (shoot right orbit to get 3 mile hits instead of 1) although risky for popping of stray balls. Requirements start off just shy of 100 miles and I believe this gets up to nearly 400 miles for later cities. Because Next City is worth more with every city you reach, there can be some strategy involved. For the first cities, I try not to shoot immediately for the lit Next City at the Mystery Rider hole, but try to collect the city by regular play. Because multiballs are started very easily early in the game, I go for them instead in the hope that I can get anywhere from 1 to 3 cities while in MB. Speedometer and Red Light MB are especially good for this, the first because with every jackpot you get an Add-a-ball (if you are not already on 4) and the left and right orbit shots are used to quickly ramp up the required speed for jackpot. Both shots go to the bumper area which yields miles very quickly, especially combined with Speed Pops. Red Light MB gets you those hits also because of what you have to shoot. Another plus in playing MB's is that collecting patches often happens automatically by stray balls. If you happen to have balls in the bumper area at the same time, the hurry-up countdown is stopped, giving you even more time to shoot for the patch. You can shoot Mystery Rider without any problem during MB, because collect next city is disabled when a MB is running. Worst case scenario is hitting Mystery Rider in single ball play when you are down to 10 miles or less for a next city, this essentially squanders your starting reward. Also, having a Next City lit at Mystery Rider can cause trouble when you have a patch hurry-up running. If you accidentally shoot for Mystery Rider in that time, the patch hurry-up is collected for the next city and you may miss out on one patch (I'll still have to confirm this, fortunately it does not happen very often!). It does collect the 2 cities I believe.
Safe shots, control or flow
This table can get pretty wild at times, especially for those 4 ball MB's. I haven't found a way to effectively incorporate the "Electro Up Post" in my play style yet, most of the times I'm too busy nudging to even think of smashing that button. The table is pretty bouncy and fast, and therefore ball control is quite difficult. I have some safe combo shots that I use often. Whenever a ball is fed to the right flipper, I go for the Mystery Rider (taking lit for next city situations in account offcourse), this spits out the ball to the right flipper and I let that dead-pass to the left. Ball goes up the left inlane and gives a rolling ball that can be one-timed to the Stoplight (patch, videomode, Red Light MB), rinse/repeat. Or I go for the right ramp or orbit. I find that missed shots from the left flipper have a good chance of returning to the left flipper for a cradle/dead pass or new rolling shot but be prepared to nudge. I haven't found a safe, controlled way to shoot for the "LIVE" and "RIDE" targets, so I don't often get cities from those. Another, but more difficult one-timed shot from the right flipper is the Harley target. A hit can be a SDTM drain hazard, but the ball loses momentum after hitting the target and with one timely nudge you're safe again. A clean left orbit shot from the right is also possible and can be stopped on the right flipper in cradle position but this is risky when it's not clean, this will feed the ball into the bumpers with stray balls as result. A cradled ball at the right can be backhanded easily into the Stoplight or a straight shot to the Harley. Flipper passing is not very safe (even when the balls seems to have enough speed), and often requires a quick "afterhit" from the flipper from which the ball just left. I had my share of balls that just miss crossing the middle gap or just trickle over the tip of the first flipper, leading to a drain.
Now the big question for me is playing style for this table. My natural tendency on most tables is playing in flow (not stopping or controlling balls), but I have discovered that in the end my best scores come with a controlled style. This table just beckons you to go for flow because it's fast, bouncy and has 4 balls MB's. I now play a mixture: I try to control single ball play with a minimum of flow play, only when it's shots I know very well. Then on MB play I usually just go wild and flail away essentially. I have had some progress towards sending a few balls into the orbits to "park" them in the bumpers and concentrating on the remaining balls to actually aim a bit, but results vary wildy from MB to MB. I know a lot of players just let any excess balls drain above 2 on many tables with 2+ MB's, but to me it seems safer to have the insurance of those 2 extra balls vs. the difficulty of controlling 2 balls. During MB be prepared to do a lot of flipper passing/dead passing, aiming balls at STDM balls, and saving potentially draining balls with the tips of the flippers.
In conclusion I think I can honestly say that this table has grown on me. It's not super deep but the maxed EB's prevent daylong games (I shudder to think what would happen if you could get unlimited EB's from video mode), later play is challenging: reaching Milwaukee is not a walk in the park by far and getting the MB's for a third or fourth time takes a lot of shots and precise shooting. And there is something very satifying in keeping those 4 ball MB's going for a long time! At the time of this posting I'm just shy of 900M but it feels like I'm just on the cusp of breaking a scoring barrier. Anybody with different views or additional ideas?
Although some tables are so straightforward that they don't need this thread, I thought it would be nice for newcomers to not have to sift through the other threads to get some idea where the points are in this table. I'll primarily sum up what's already said in the thread about the video mode. Also, I think a discussion about control vs. flow would be nice for this table, especially with all those 4 ball MB's.
Limited EB's
The one thing that defines this table in terms of length of play and therefore point total is the fact that you max out on EB's: you can earn up to 3 of them in one game. Sources are: getting to 120M, video mode (perfect completion) and extra balls at city 4, 8 and 14. To be complete: if you play poorly on your first 2 balls, 2 extra balls get lit in the outlanes. It's a bit of a toss-up how you get those 3 EB's, but for purpose of points it's crucial to learn to complete video mode every time you play it. To be very clear: perfect completion is hitting all the 16 pedestrians. This is not the most tasteful video mode I know of and it would be interesting to know if this caused any controversy at the time? I know games like Carmageddon which essentially have the same premise (and GTA in a way also) raised hell when they got released. Those pedestrians sure know how to dodge cars in any case....But anyway, after you max out on EB's, video mode yields approximately 6.5 million for completion, and another 35M for perfect completion, 41.5M total. It's not unusual to have a game in which you get to play the video mode at least 15-20 times, without actually aiming for the 4 standup targets that light it at the stoplight. Completing 10 of those yields 400M+. To put the 35M bonus in another perspective: getting this from any Multiball on the table is quite a fair score, especially if you don't get the super jackpot, and with considerably less risk of draining those 2 last balls simultaneously....
Also, getting back to video mode doesn't get harder through the game, unlike the requirements for lighting those Multiballs again. I usually get my 3 EB's from an early video mode, 120M and then from another video mode or the 4th city. This also means that although the extra ball timer (8 seconds) starts for the 8th and 14th city, it doesn't actually yield the EB. It would have been nice to get an alternative reward for this, quite the let-down now.Starting reward, cities and MB's
When plunging a new ball, you get to choose a reward: 10M, Speed Pops (3 miles per bumper hit), (light) Next City, and Harley Letter. I can't think of a reason not to select next City every time. In an ideal game you get 6 cities for free, making progress towards Milwaukee Multiball much easier. When I'm on my last ball and I'm one Harley Letter away from starting the MB, and there is not to be gained much anymore from a city (you just played Milwaukee MB for example), I'll go for the letter, but that's the only situation I can think of. Selecting light next city has a few catches though. First off, cities require a progressive number of miles to "ride" before you reach them. You do that by hitting targets, loops, ramps. The bumper area is an especially good place (shoot right orbit to get 3 mile hits instead of 1) although risky for popping of stray balls. Requirements start off just shy of 100 miles and I believe this gets up to nearly 400 miles for later cities. Because Next City is worth more with every city you reach, there can be some strategy involved. For the first cities, I try not to shoot immediately for the lit Next City at the Mystery Rider hole, but try to collect the city by regular play. Because multiballs are started very easily early in the game, I go for them instead in the hope that I can get anywhere from 1 to 3 cities while in MB. Speedometer and Red Light MB are especially good for this, the first because with every jackpot you get an Add-a-ball (if you are not already on 4) and the left and right orbit shots are used to quickly ramp up the required speed for jackpot. Both shots go to the bumper area which yields miles very quickly, especially combined with Speed Pops. Red Light MB gets you those hits also because of what you have to shoot. Another plus in playing MB's is that collecting patches often happens automatically by stray balls. If you happen to have balls in the bumper area at the same time, the hurry-up countdown is stopped, giving you even more time to shoot for the patch. You can shoot Mystery Rider without any problem during MB, because collect next city is disabled when a MB is running. Worst case scenario is hitting Mystery Rider in single ball play when you are down to 10 miles or less for a next city, this essentially squanders your starting reward. Also, having a Next City lit at Mystery Rider can cause trouble when you have a patch hurry-up running. If you accidentally shoot for Mystery Rider in that time, the patch hurry-up is collected for the next city and you may miss out on one patch (I'll still have to confirm this, fortunately it does not happen very often!). It does collect the 2 cities I believe.
Safe shots, control or flow
This table can get pretty wild at times, especially for those 4 ball MB's. I haven't found a way to effectively incorporate the "Electro Up Post" in my play style yet, most of the times I'm too busy nudging to even think of smashing that button. The table is pretty bouncy and fast, and therefore ball control is quite difficult. I have some safe combo shots that I use often. Whenever a ball is fed to the right flipper, I go for the Mystery Rider (taking lit for next city situations in account offcourse), this spits out the ball to the right flipper and I let that dead-pass to the left. Ball goes up the left inlane and gives a rolling ball that can be one-timed to the Stoplight (patch, videomode, Red Light MB), rinse/repeat. Or I go for the right ramp or orbit. I find that missed shots from the left flipper have a good chance of returning to the left flipper for a cradle/dead pass or new rolling shot but be prepared to nudge. I haven't found a safe, controlled way to shoot for the "LIVE" and "RIDE" targets, so I don't often get cities from those. Another, but more difficult one-timed shot from the right flipper is the Harley target. A hit can be a SDTM drain hazard, but the ball loses momentum after hitting the target and with one timely nudge you're safe again. A clean left orbit shot from the right is also possible and can be stopped on the right flipper in cradle position but this is risky when it's not clean, this will feed the ball into the bumpers with stray balls as result. A cradled ball at the right can be backhanded easily into the Stoplight or a straight shot to the Harley. Flipper passing is not very safe (even when the balls seems to have enough speed), and often requires a quick "afterhit" from the flipper from which the ball just left. I had my share of balls that just miss crossing the middle gap or just trickle over the tip of the first flipper, leading to a drain.
Now the big question for me is playing style for this table. My natural tendency on most tables is playing in flow (not stopping or controlling balls), but I have discovered that in the end my best scores come with a controlled style. This table just beckons you to go for flow because it's fast, bouncy and has 4 balls MB's. I now play a mixture: I try to control single ball play with a minimum of flow play, only when it's shots I know very well. Then on MB play I usually just go wild and flail away essentially. I have had some progress towards sending a few balls into the orbits to "park" them in the bumpers and concentrating on the remaining balls to actually aim a bit, but results vary wildy from MB to MB. I know a lot of players just let any excess balls drain above 2 on many tables with 2+ MB's, but to me it seems safer to have the insurance of those 2 extra balls vs. the difficulty of controlling 2 balls. During MB be prepared to do a lot of flipper passing/dead passing, aiming balls at STDM balls, and saving potentially draining balls with the tips of the flippers.
In conclusion I think I can honestly say that this table has grown on me. It's not super deep but the maxed EB's prevent daylong games (I shudder to think what would happen if you could get unlimited EB's from video mode), later play is challenging: reaching Milwaukee is not a walk in the park by far and getting the MB's for a third or fourth time takes a lot of shots and precise shooting. And there is something very satifying in keeping those 4 ball MB's going for a long time! At the time of this posting I'm just shy of 900M but it feels like I'm just on the cusp of breaking a scoring barrier. Anybody with different views or additional ideas?
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