Electronic Reviewer

Extreme Pinball

They were once the premier shareware games you could download from your favorite bulletin board or online service. If you wanted to progress up the level of difficulty to a more challenging game, you would have to spring the bucks to get the company's full version. These pinball games were so popular they soon became available from various retail game producers.

Epic MegaGames was the originator of the computer pinball game genre. They produced the Epic Pinball game along with The Ultimate PC Shooter, Radix Beyond the Void, One Must Fall 2097, Jazz Jackrabbit, Tyrian, Xargon, Jill of the Jungle, Brix, Castle of the Winds, and Solar Winds. Epic MegaGames now has a new pinball standard called Extreme Pinball.

Extreme Pinball has four new table layouts called "Urban Chaos," "Monkey Mayhem," "Medieval Knights," and "Rock Fantasy." The tables include 3-D, and SGI-rendered dotmation animated sequences. You can use up to five balls at a time on the multilevel playfields. You will find the table rules equal to those of real arcade pinball machines. This new pinball product includes all of Epic MegaGames' previous features plus diverter gates, animated playfield items, and a fully functional ball cannon.

The "Urban Chaos" table is designed around a future city Telvox 203, which is teetering on the brink of urban chaos. Since the network is everything in this future creation, your task is to use your skills to keep the communications system open and flowing. If you fail, there will be crime and suffering due to infrastructure breakdowns.

In "Monkey Mayhem", you become the astronaut Binford T. Dremmel, who has crash-landed his Earth vehicle into the "Monkey Planet." Dremmel has been captured by the ruling chimpanzees and placed in a zoo cage. Dremmel, who is almost never allowed out of his small cage, must escape to his spaceship and return to the Earth. Dremmel's only friends are the hamsters and he must use their help and his ability to raise money by collecting and selling bananas to reach his goal.

The realm of Medieval Knights is where you must battle trolls, dragons, bats, and the deadly terrors of a dark castle. Your goal is to ascend valiantly to the throne room where you can be knighted. You must, however, beware of traps along the way. Any one of these seemingly harmless diversions can sentence you to death's dungeon.

In Rock Fantasy, you are the mythical era manager of the legendary Rock Makers band. You must assemble the talent, instruments, and sound stage necessary to cut a master that will catapult the band to fame, and to you, untold wealth. You need to sign the lead singer Jerry K, the guitarist Pete, the bassist Lyle, and the drummer Mad Dog D. You must earn the bread to buy the instruments, get the songs written, and rent the stage. You know your fame will not be complete until you have assembled the necessary groupies.

The Extreme Pinball package is being distributed through traditional retail channels by Electronic Arts. Limited shareware versions have also been released, and should be available on most boards by the time this review is on the web. Epic MegaGames world wide web site is http://www.epicgames.com.

The Epic MegaGames Extreme Pinball requires a 25 MHZ (33 MHz recommended) 80486 or better CPU, 4 Mb of RAM, DOS 5.0 or higher, a double-speed CD-ROM drive for the CD-Rom version, a VGA video card, 1 Mb of free hard disk space, and a keyboard. Also supported are Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, Gravis Ultrasound, and Pro Audio Spectrum sound cards. The CD-ROM version is an autorun product under Windows 95. The instruction manual includes special instruction for creating dual boot systems where available is a problem for the system due to the use of device drivers.

Contributed by C. W. Mann, who also writes the syndicated computer column, BuzzBytes. Please direct your personal computer questions to him at cybercast@bigfoot.com.

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