Bally Midway manufacturing company 1983 -1988 have 0 tables in TPA

karl

New member
May 10, 2012
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Fun fact:

If you look up dates and companies on IPDB, there is a time period from 1983-1988 that Bally goes under Bally Midway manufacturing company

We have yet to see any Bally games from this time period (except EBD and Centaur but those are re-releases and not the original tables that Farsights versions are based upon)

Not many of them that I have played, so I would love to hear if anyone here has favorites.

Anyone of these that we absolutely should have in TPA? We all know that this is the dark chapter(regarding sales) in pinball history for bally, especially but some of them look pretty ok. Lots of cheese involved, though ;)

Here is the complete list of pinball machines that Bally did in this time period, before Williams bought them in 1988

1983-01 Grand Slam
1983-10 Gold Ball
1984-01 Granny and the Gators
1984-02 X's & O's
1984-03 Kings of Steel
1984-07 Black Pyramid
1984-10 Spy Hunter
1985-02 Fireball Classic
1985-05 Cybernaut
1985-08 Eight Ball Champ
1985-11 Beat the Clock
1986-03 Lady Luck
1986-06 Black Belt
1986-06 Motordome
1986-09 Special Force
1986-11 Strange Science
1987-03 City Slicker
1987-04 Hardbody
1987-05 Party Animal
1987-08 Heavy Metal Meltdown
1987-10 Dungeons & Dragons
1988-01 Escape from the Lost World
1988-03 Blackwater 100
 
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Kolchak357

Senior Pigeon
May 31, 2012
8,102
2
I've played the majority of these at some time. None are must haves for me. Of course, others might feel differently. My favorites of the bunch are Grand Slam, X's & O's, Black Pyramid, Kings of Steel, Special Forces, and Blackwater 100. But I wouldn't lose any sleep over any of them. ;)
 

Fungi

Active member
Feb 20, 2012
4,888
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Spy Hunter is especially atrocious.
Fireball Classic is Fireball without the flipperzippers, so why bother.
 

Dedpop

Active member
Jun 3, 2014
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I wouldn't mind Strange Science, Escape from the Lost World or Heavy Metal Meltdown.
Not really interested in the others...
 

Crawley

Member
Mar 25, 2013
706
4
Played most of these and they were not too good. The only ones I would be semi-interested in is Cybernaut and Dungeon and Dragons.

Cybernaut I got to play last year and it was decent enough I went back to play multiple times. It has the pop-up drop-targets which I like and the reverse Xenon tube. I don't recall there being a lot to do. Mainly knocking down the pop-up targets and trying to hit the targets in back of them to raise your score. But I had fun with it - and it's pretty rare.

D&D's neat gimmick is the Magic Save outlanes. It works similar to BMX where you have an extra flipper button to turn outlanes in to inlanes. But with D&D you only have so many Magic Saves you can use. So if you're out and the ball is head anywhere but directly at the flippers its going to drain. So the challenge level is high with it. And for those reasons I wouldn't mind it.
 

HotHamBoy

New member
Aug 2, 2014
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Of the games you listed these are the ones I've played:

X's and O's
Spy Hunter
Hardbody
Party Animal
Heavy Metal Meltdown
Blackwater 100

Party Animal is okay. Not remarkable. Blackwater 100 has an interesting layout, it's pretty cool. But the rest? Not very good. I do want to try a D&D.
 

Kolchak357

Senior Pigeon
May 31, 2012
8,102
2
Someone here actually likes Kings of Right Target??!?!

Yeah, I do. I don't usually play it that way though. Sure it's the best way to get a high score, but it's no fun to play that way. Like constantly shooting the ramp on Star Wars. The rules are flawed, but I like the shots.
 

karl

New member
May 10, 2012
1,809
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Thanks for all your comments.

So, nobody likes Eight Ball Champ? It looks a bit like the ugly step child of EBD(theme) and Fathom,(upper left side) but I still find it a little interesting (without having played it, mind you)

Maybe it is because it has some aspects that remind me of the golden bally period (like the sounds and some of the layout)

I guess it would have been a better idea to bring up this subject after we have had 5-6 more System 11 games :)

None of these would ever win a fight against tables like Banzai Run, Mousin' around, Swords of Fury etc..... No chance in hell there. And rightfully so :)

I would rather have many of these than more premiers, though :(
 
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