Play Meter

self. "
" Thank - puff-puff - YO ll, Mord,
sir . "
" How about those coin micro-
switches that fail to give th e player
proper credit for a quarter? Has
your department remedied that?"
The Colonel mumbled somethi nn
unintelligible, obscene, and negd
tive .
" Da Fonz is taking shape, men,"
Mord beamed , basking his com-
rades in a fatherly grin , " and I, for
my part , will be out signing our star,
Henry Winkler , to be a personal
endorsement and appearance con-
tract .
This pinball machine, I
predict, will be the biggest seller
since The Wizard . About the only
thing that co uld go wrong is if Henry
Winkler would co me out in the
middle of our promotion campaign
and co nfess to being a bi-sexual or
something .
" And how likely is that? . . .
Dismissed , men ."
YOU HA VE INPUT. " Mailbox" is
the part of Play Meter that is most
truly yours . If you like something , let
us know . If you don 't , let us know . '
If you don ' t talk . We can't listen.
Critic's Corner
(continued from page 34 )
that if you ' re good at something ,
keep doing it because you'll only get
better and better . Well , welcome to
yet another drop target heaven (or
should I say haven?) with this
one-player entry that should cause
quite a 'racket' if you 're ' courting '
some 'net' gains in play . (Don't
mind the previous line, it's a
throwback to an era when I was an
advertising copywriter filled with
punishing remarks.) Anyway back
to the matter at hand, Volley, wh ich
does serve up a great deal of action .
Fifteen, count 'eml Fifteen drop
targets in a splendid array of blue,
green and yellow dot the center of
the playfield . And this is the action
of the game although everything
here pulls together nicely. The most
important aspect of the game is that
Gottlieb hasn' t forgotten the single-
player. And this I think is important
only because the play action can be
different than what it is for
mUlti-player games . Plus Gottlieb
has a way with feeling very
comfortable with this type of game;
they've proven it in the past and
show no sign of letting up . (I've
seen three other single-player
models yet to be released which are
truly good games for their own
genre .)
The top of Volley is difficult, but
the challenge to beat it may rest
more with how the location has
'tightened' or ' loosened' the lanes .
There's three of them, interestingly
(from left to right) colored blue,
yellow and green . Three thumper
bumpers spread the top for some
good upward mobility although the
placement makes for a hard return-
to-the-top shot from the flippers .
Skill. Remember that word for this
game, because a player can 't get by
on good looks alone . (I know .)
The drop targets, which I men-
tioned earlier, are placed at the
center in such a way that the blue
targets (five in all) are placed at the
left at a rather perpendicular angle
to the flippers . The same holds true
for the green drop targets at the
right . While at the top middle facing
head on are the yellow targets .
Side lanes at either edge behind
the plastic of the drop targets can
be dead man' s land if the ball drains
down the side. The Gottlieb bottom
harkens back to Bank Shot and
Sure Shot with those annoying little