Moo! AFM, Cows and Video Mode

[netizen]

So I was doing so looking for some strategies on AFM and lookie what I found.

Occasionally after shooting the Big-O-Beam or Tractor Beam, you will see and/or hear a reference to a cow. When this happens, hit the launch button repeatedly to hear lots of mooing sounds. If you do this for both of the ramps, you are qualified to play Cow Video Mode. You must still start Video Mode in the regular way, by completing Super Jets and then shooting Stroke of Luck. But instead of saucers landing, it will be big mooing cows! There are no special points for playing with cows instead of saucers, but because they are larger than the saucers, the cows are much easier to hit.
...
Once, and only once, you may press the launch button to fire a 'Smart Bomb', which will destroy all the saucers on the screen. This has absolutely nothing to do with Martian bombs. Unlike with Martian Bombs, the launch button does not flash to let you know you have a Smart Bomb.
At 30 saucers, a percentaged Extra Ball will descend; shoot it to collect an Extra Ball immediately. If the game has been awarding too many extra balls recently, then it may not appear at all.
At 50 saucers (?), the Mothership will approach. The regular saucers stop landing (any ones that are still descending get zapped as if you have shot them), and the big Mothership starts descending. You must shoot the Mothership before it lands. It is a rather large ship, which zigs and zags quickly to make it more difficult to hit. It takes 80 hits to destroy it; the lower right corner of the display will tell you how many remaining hits are needed. Completing video mode in its entirety is worth a total of 635M points, and displays the message : 'You Have Won; The World Is Safe'.
You can use the Smart Bomb to kill the Mothership as well.
This same video mode is available in the game "Junk Yard", including the Smart Bomb and Mothership features.

* Bonus : At the end of the ball, bonus is awarded. Your bonus consists of some random point value based on how many shots you hit during play, with a base value of 5M, plus 250K for each Martian you've destroyed. This is all then multiplied by your bonus multiplier. It is possible to have very big bonuses, in the billions. The bonus multiplier maxes out at 250X; at that level, each Martian you hit is worth 62.5M.

I wonder if this will be as elusive as the Video Mode on MM?

Or if you are a fan of cows, enter the initials MOO in the HSTD for a surprise.

source

 

[Bowflex]

There is a website that has all the easter eggs and cows. You can link to it via ipdb.org. Cows are popular with Williams/Bally. A good dozen games or so have some sort of cow reference or secret.

 

[SKILL_SHOT]

Enter MOO on CV and MM, theres a cow on TOTAN from the bizzar.

 

[David Pannozzo]

Do any of you guys know about the story for the cow easter eggs, if not I will tell you the story I heard in November from one of the computer programers. Anyway I'm pretty sure everybody heard about the great fire in Chicago, that burnt down most of it. It was supposedly done by a Cow kicking a lantern, I forget the cows owners name. Well anyway in 1987 their was a pinball table called Fire! from Williams, it was based on tat fire in Chicago, also if you press start on the pinball machine it goes MOO!!!!. And the game starts, I heard as a joke a couple designers at Williams put a couple cow Easter eggs in the pinball machine as a joke, well that joke got out of control ad many other designers and sound editors just started putting cow Easter eggs in the games. You can look it up on the internet both the big fire and the pinball Machines, I couldn't belive it all I said is why do most pinball machines have cows in it, then became the story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9myMYUR7TRs

 

[netizen]

According to the mighty Interwebs there are an increasing amount of easter eggs to keep one distracted from game play if need be, lol

Having cows appearing in pinball games started as an internal joke for the people at Williams/Bally. The first game to include a cow was The Machine: Bride of Pinbot and the man responsible was programmer Brian Eddy (designer of The Shadow, Attack From Mars and Medieval Madness).
On the question why he replied: "Why breathe? Why Eat? Why live without cows in pinball machines?"

The story of the cow comes in many different versions. This is the "truth about the cow" according to Mark Penacho:

"The cow in Fire (gravy) had nothing to do with the cows that appeared all over later on. One person (who shall remain nameless, BRE) started putting
cows in the games he worked on, and eventually people started copying (there's also cow stuff all over his house). It kind of got out of hand after that. The fact that one person at the time (SS) did all the dot matrix effects for all games did nothing to curb that trend.
I did hear at one time that the Sega people assumed this was some kind of jab at pinball designer Joe Kaminkow (which it wasn't, talk about vanity)."

Source

 

[David Pannozzo]

http://www.thechicagofire.com/ Take a look and read this, it's not very long but it is very interesting. So what does everybody think, was it the Cow or was it something else like the wind. They say no one will ever know, but hey it got a great pinball machine out of it, I just feel sorry for the 300 people that lost their lives, and others that lost their houses and a great city back then I heard. Read the article and post what you think, one more thing we have to get this Pinball Machine on The Pinball Arcade it really has a pretty big history to it and must be made, on that subject what do you think should Fire! pinball Machine get put on The Pinball Arcade or not.

 

[an ox]

I am most definitely a fan of cows.

 

[Storm Chaser]

Has anyone tried this on tPA and made it work?

 

[netizen]

Has anyone tried this on tPA and made it work?

yes, for both the initials and video mode

 

[SKILL_SHOT]

FINALLY beat video mode! 1st attempt today I got to the mother ship and got it down to 8 hits before it landed NOOooooo! 2nd attempt was a joke so I gave it another go and got to the mother ship without using the BOMB so I used it on the mother ship BOOM! COMPLETED! just go right left right left over and over as fast as you can.

 

[netizen]

I beat the video mode the first time I got it, and haven't done it since, LOL

 

[ER777]

I actually was able to finish it on the real machine from the practice I got in TPA. I swear it felt like the gun moved faster on the real thing, even though I know that's impossible..

 

[phreaker47]

The trick to beating video mode pretty much every time is to just strafe side to side but NOT all the way, just so your shots are reaching the upper left and right corners. Just trust in that and don't deviate from it; but be ready to use the smart bomb in case one slips through. Since adopting this, I've beaten it many times in a row without losing once.

P.S. This method makes all others MOOt.

 

[netizen]

P.S. This method makes all others MOOt.

we need a good rimshot gif/emoticon

http://youtu.be/g-4-gLlF0uw