Story Line: 1983 Classic Game Spy Hunter
Driver's License to Kill
Ah, 1983. Reaganomics. Junior high (for some of us). Theaters full of moviegoers
unable to decide which was more shocking: the fact that Luke had been making goo-goo
eyes at Leia or the fact that the Ewoks won.
Back then, few games at the local arcade were more addictive than Spy Hunter, a simple
top-down driving game that added something new to the still-young racing genre: guns!
As the Spy Hunter, you shot your way through streets filled with enemies of the free
world, conveniently color-coded for identification.
The original Spy Hunter, created by George Gomez, remains a legend-an innovative,
addictive game that rose to the top during an era when anything and everything
was being tried in the arcades. Like many racing games before and since, the cabinet
featured a built-in steering wheel, gas, brake pedals, and a gearshift. The steering
wheel came with a few special features, however: buttons for offensive weapons, like
machine guns and missiles, and defensive tricks, like a rear-projecting oil slick.
The game also featured another innovation in its licensed soundtrack (the Theme
from Peter Gunn), which remained wedged in your brain for hours.
Back in 1983, arcades would be jam-packed with kids who wanted to play the shoot
'em up racing game Spy Hunter. During this time, game companies released games
that were aimed at specific audiences to become popular and eventually (and hopefully)
become classics. Spy Hunter was one of these games. And as we all know, Spy Hunter
sports the most popular theme song in history, Theme from Peter Gunn. And if you
didn't know the title of that song before hand, most people would just refer to
it as the "Spy Hunter theme".
Breaking News Archive Link
Way Back Machine Twin Galaxies Archive Link
8/19/2003 Phillyburbs.com reports on Spy hunter World Record
Thanks to his Spy Hunter skills, Mark Little appeared in last Sunday's edition
of the Doylestown Intelligencer, a daily suburban newspaper published near
Philadelphia, PA. As the Intelligencer points out, Little's accomplishment broke
a 18-year-old record and the feat is slated for world-record treatment in the
forthcoming edition of Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World
Records. Doylestown Intelligencer, August 18, 2003
Twin Galaxies in the News
Link
Way Back Machine: Twin Galaxies in the New - Phillyburbs.com Spy Hunter Article
Link
8/18/2003 His passion? It's hunting down a record
Doylestown Intelligencer, Doylestown, Pennsylvania
His passion? It's hunting down a record
By JESSE ABRAMS-MORLEY, The Intelligencer
The new world champion doesn't live in a mansion.
He doesn't wear a championship belt.
And he's not likely to be spotted on a red carpet anytime soon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little can be spotted - sometimes for several hours at a time - is
in his basement, playing arcade games that haven't been popular since the 1980s.
Now, Little has something to show for his hard work.
The 25-year-old electronics technician from New Britain this summer broke a
19-year-old world record for the highest documented score in the arcade game
"Spy Hunter."
After totaling more than 800,000 points while playing the car-chase game in late
June, Little sent a videotape of his performance to Twin Galaxies, the organization
responsible for maintaining high-score records for video games.
Twin Galaxies verified Little's score and will include him in its next book of world
records, due out later this year.
"It's kind of an exciting moment," Little says.
It was a moment a long time in the works.
Born and raised in Doylestown, Little says he started playing video games before
he entered kindergarten.
He liked Atari, the most popular game system at the time. But he always had more
appreciation for arcade games, which he played every chance he got.
"Every time we'd go to the store, I used to mooch quarters off my mom and grandma,"
Little says.
He played classic titles, such as "Donkey Kong," "Pacman," "Ms. Pacman" and
"Spy Hunter."
It wasn't the plot or graphics, but the opportunity to compete directly against
others that drew the youngster to the arcades.
"Basically it was a chance ... to get out and pit your skills against everybody
else in your local neighborhood and local arcade for the chance to get your name
on top of the scoreboard," he says. "It was kind of a high when you would see
that you knocked down everybody that was best in your neighborhood."
The arcade became the place to go for many children of the 1980s looking to make
a name for themselves and gain respect.
"The age of video-game arcades was a seriously big phenomenon," says Walter Day,
who edits Twin Galaxies' book of world records. "I'll bet a million people across
the world was vying for the world record in 'Spy Hunter' and other games."
Gamers formed their own subculture, trading secrets and codes that were helpful
in beating games.
Tricks and tips "would proliferate like osmosis," Day says.
Even with all the competition and cooperation, the world record in "Spy Hunter"
stalled at 794,495, a mark Brian McDowell, then of Harrell's, N.C., set in June 1984.
Note: Brian McDowell Statistics:
Spy Hunter 1984 High Score:
Name: Brian McDowell
High Score: 794,495
Brian McDowell
Birth Date 03/01/68 Harrell's, NC
Day says he doesn't keep in contact with McDowell and doesn't know where the former
record holder lives. Most people gave up trying to beat his mark a long time ago.
But not Little.
He bought the game about three and a half years ago and started playing it in his
basement. Around the beginning of April, he began a regimen of playing for at least
an hour and a half each night, hoping to earn second place on the all-time high-score list.
"I would basically just lock myself away from everybody, really try to focus on
the game and really take a shot at it," Little says.
After about a month and a half, the longtime video-game player captured second-place
honors, but he decided to keep up his intensive playing.
And almost 19 years to the day after McDowell set his seemingly unbreakable record,
Little broke it.
The big game started with Little dodging enemies and scoring more points early on
than most "Spy Hunter" aficionados total in an entire game.
Little cruised until he lost his second-to-last car at the 758,000-point mark.
Less than 40,000 points shy of the world record, he drove onward, while
computer-animated helicopters and cars tried to derail his moment of glory.
"When you're that far ahead in the game, the game pretty much has no mercy on
you," Little says. "The original designers of this game never wanted somebody
to be able to play this game for over an hour and a half on one quarter."
But Little defied their wishes and dodged just enough enemies to score 832,620
points and set a world record.
"This is quite an accomplishment," says Robert Mruczek, who verified Little's
score for Twin Galaxies. "He has mastered an extremely difficult game, and he
currently has no viable competition."
Except himself.
Little says he eventually wants to score more than 1 million points, though he
is going to take some time off from "Spy Hunter."
He will still be playing video games, however.
With 12 other titles in his basement, including pinball machines, Little has
more than enough games to keep himself occupied.
He started collecting games about seven years ago by purchasing a machine from
a bowling alley. After buying the games, he restores them to their original
form, sometimes spending as much as 100 hours in the rehabbing process.
Little says the time is well spent and believes video games can have a therapeutic
effect.
"It's a great way to just escape from the daily stress," he says.
Day agrees that the games have an upside, but he worries about their harmful
effects as well.
Too many children grow up playing too many hours of games with too much violence,
he says.
"It simply can't be good to be ingesting that many rays from a screen," Day says.
"I don't believe that a person should just be playing video games."
Little says he understands the games have to be viewed in the proper perspective.
But that won't stop him from playing.
"Where else for a quarter could you throw the winning touchdown in a football game?"
he says. "Or play basketball with some of the NBA stars? Or drive down a road going
200 mph without having to worry about a ticket?
"As with anything else, you do realize that once your game's over, you go back
into reality. But it's nice to escape every once in a while."
Jesse Abrams-Morley can be contacted via e-mail at jmorley@phillyburbs.com.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spy Hunter - ANOTHER New World Record !!
Link
Twin Galaxies Forums Forum Index -> Coin-Op Video Games
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Author Message
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 1:25 am Post subject: Spy Hunter -
ANOTHER New World Record !!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello fellow gamers:
A very determined Mark Little, who hails from Pennsylvania in the USA, has finally
taken down a VERY tough score to beat...the 794,495 on "Spy Hunter" by Brian
McDowell this past June 20th.
Playing at home in his private arcade, an eclectic collection of his personal
favorite pinball and arcade titles, Mark captured an incredible performance
on video camera of 832,620 points, lasting almost 90 minutes and beating his
previous verified personal best by almost 400K.
"Spy Hunter" is a very memorable title from the 1980's largely due to the way-cool
"Peter Gunn" theme song from the classic TV show of the 1950's which was also
used as background music for some of the scenes in the movie "Blues Brothers"
with Jim Belushi & Don Aykroyd.
One of the little known facts about "Spy Hunter" is that it is rarity among
arcade titles in that its sit-down equivalent has the controls in a totally
different layout than the upright ("Star Trek" being one of the few other titles
bearing this peculiarity)
Okay, onto his score. As I viewed his performance, I started to notice that
the game IS a pattern as far as the roads go, as far into the game as I was
able to recall. Further, when I logged his performance in terms of how often
he entered or exited from the water, there was a fair amount of consistency
between each "set", with a few notable exceptions as detailed below. I am
hoping that Mark and other interested players can comment on what I've noticed...
it could be that since no one else has been documented achieving this high of
a score that no one has thus far caught onto these observations. So, without
further ado...
****************************
THE PATH TO GREATNESS
Opening Time Allotment - "Spy Hunter" starts you off with a timer that counts
down, and during this period, you can crash as many times as possible without
losing a life, though the goal is of course to stay alive. Under Twin Galaxies
Tournament Settings (TGTS), it is possible to earn one or more extra lives
during this period depending on your score by the time the timer expires.
Mark finished the initial timer period with a hair over 18K thus earning the
maximum amount of bonus cars (2). Now the real game begins !!
30,000 - Mark needed just 3:15 to reach the 1st extra car threshold
51,850 - enters the water for the 1st time
At this point, since the scores are ever-accruing, I am ball-parking his scores
to the nearest whole thousand, except when he loses a life, and of course
the final score.
61K - enters 2nd land (meaning exits 1st water sequence)
106K - enters 2nd water (meaning 2nd water sequence) - approx 5:20
115K - enters 3rd land
136K - enters 3rd water - approx 13:00
145K - enters 4th land
163K - enters 4th water - approx 15:44
Oh no !!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little loses his 1st car at 164,600 points at approx 15:50 - Mark was
squeezed between a roadside barrier and a copter bomb dropped on the ground,
and accidentally ran over the bomb. Not bad, as this beats most gamer's entire
game score...sometimes 5x over !!
172K - enters 5th land
190K - enters 5th water - approx 18:40
199K - enters 6th land
217K - enters 6th water - approx 21:29
Notice what I see thus far ? Approx every 2:45 a complete "sequence" occurs. Of
course this is relative to Mark's overall speed and decision-making, but so
far this is consistent. However, the major info I noticed comes later...read on...
225K - enters 7th land
244K - enters 7th water - approx 24:30
253K - enters 8th land
290K - enters 8th water - approx 29:47
However, at 274,790 points
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Lost his 2nd car. he was run off the road by
"Switch Blade", one of the three major opponent cars, while dodging a copter
attack. This loss really started at 270K when he narrowly missed a weapons van
due to a copter bomb in front of it, and though he fought valiantly for several
turns, quite a few actually, the next van didn't come quickly enough.
299K - enters 9th land
321K - enters 9th water - approx 32:40
330K - enters 10th land
370K - enters 10th water - approx 37:50
Uh oh...trouble happened in the 10th sequence. At 352,875 points Mark was on
a winding icy road and grazed "Switch Blade" and crashed just as the stage
turned from normal road to ice. That's the 3rd car lost.
Disaster at 355,480 as he loses yet another car (the 4th), a very disheartening
crash occurred. Right off the change from icy to regular road he was about to
enter the weapons van when the car was hit...I'm not 100% sure but I think an
"Enforcer" vehicle shot him, although it could have been a copter bomb right
underneath the ramp going into the weapons van. Either way, Mark said "Oh MAN !!",
obviously disappointed at the veritable unfairness of the situation. I was
watching it and know what must have been going thru his mind.
377K - enters 11th land
398K - enters 11th water - approx 40:50
405K - enters 12th land
425K - enters 12th water - approx 43:48
434K - enters 13th land
488K - enters 13th water - approx 49:53
Aha !! My key observation starts now. The 13th "sequence" is more than twice
the duration in between the previous sequences...unlucky 13, I suppose, but no
one to date has mentioned or pointed this fact out. What it means, I have no
clue...but keep reading as I've annotated where else these extended sequences
take place. You never know how important (or not) this observation will be. At
the very least it would be interesting to know if other "Spy Hunter" games played
to this duration behave the same, sequence-by-sequence.
497K - enters 14th land
550K - enters 14th water - approx 55:59
Another "long sequence".
And, sadly, another car was lost, the 5th, at 541,350 points. Mark carefully shot
a "Switch Blade" car well in front of him, but accidentally ran into its wreck
while avoiding a copter bomb.
556K - enters 15th land
577K - enters 15th water - approx 58:50
The duration between the sequences is back to what would be called "normal"...off
that only after the 13th and 14th stages (thus far) the sequence duration was
longer than all the others.
587,500 points - the timer passes the one hour mark !!
585K - enters 16th land
604K - enters 16th water - approx 1:01.45
I have to tell you that the 16th water sequence was THE TOUGHEST in the game for
Mark. the copter was relentless in pursuing him, and he almost was bombed the
instant he left the water and reached dry land.
614K - enters 17th land
636K - enters 17th water - approx 1:04.54
A cry of "Yikes...yikes...get over !!" is heard from Mark right before the 17th
water sequence began. A very precarious situation unwound...the roads were icy,
and he had to escape certain death by getting into a weapons van. Unfortunately,
as it coasted towards the right, the break to the water section ("Bridge is Out")
came up, and he was this close to not being able to get safely into the corridor
leading to the water. I think he made it with less than an inch to spare !!
641K - enters 18th land
664K - enters 18th water - approx 1:07.57
671K - enters 19th land
717K - enters 19th water - approx 1:13.19)
Another long duration between the sequences...so that's stages 13, 14 and 19
thus far. No discernible pattern yet, but an interesting fact.
At the 697-700K thresholds, Mark was in a tight bind. he had three (3) "Bullet
Proof Bomb" vehicles in front of him, a copter dropping bombs from above, and
at least one very determined "Switch Blade" trying to get him from the bottom of
the screen. This chase kept going for quite a nerve-wracking while, until 711K
when the weapons van came and was probably the best sight that Mark had seen in
a very long time !!
726K - enters 20th land
746K - enters 20th water - approx 1:16.16
Hey...the 20th sequence set !! Thus far only one (1) other individual on record
reached this lofty mark...and I'm guessing he did because in "Spy Hunter", shooting
certain opponents temporarily disables point scoring, and whether you travel from
point "A" to "B" fast or slow, the same point value is awarded overall. So, I am
reasonably certain that unless Mark's competitor was ultra aggressive with the
point-based enemy vehicles and the copter, he probably also lived to tell up
to this point.
755K - enters 21st land
773K - enters 21st water - approx 1:19.25
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Loses his 6th car at 758K in another tough spot. Coming into ice, an "Enforcer"
and "Switch Blade" vehicle are each right next to him on one side, and where the road
is, his only viable escape route in these tight quarters, an "Enforcer" vehicle was
on the side of the road. Mark didn't even have a chance on this one, folks, so he
did the only possible alternative...brake, and see what happens. Well, that shook
off the enemies on the road, but before he could react the "Enforcer" parked on the
side let him have it with a bullet. Virtually no way out of this one...and so very
close to a new world record.
782K - enters 22nd land
800,100 points exactly - enters 22nd water - approx 1:22.25
A few things to comment on here...
At approx 795,300 points, a dirty little "Enforcer" car was parked on the side of
the road as Mark zoomed ahead to avoid a copter, and just BARELY missed Mark's ca
with a shot !! Now, Mark didn't say a word that I could hear, but if I was in his
shoes, I would have though to myself "You dirty BUM !!", or at least something to
that effect. But knowing myself the way I do, I am sure I'd have shared my thoughts
audibly with anyone within earshot.
As mark passed the 794K barrier, I should have mentioned, he was so pre-occupied
with the action at hand that he didn't distract himself by calling out to anyone
present that he has just broken the world record. But I lived through his climb,
on tape at least, and know he must have felt quite proud at this point...and
rightly so.
At the 800K barrier, Mark just entered the 22nd water sequence and shouted out
"800,000 !! WOW !! Hah !!" as he exulted in not just passing the world record
less than a minute ago, but also the 800K barrier, which his now 2nd place
competitor just missed years back. Mark was now in uncharted territory, both
for himself and "Spy Hunter" in general.
His next comments were understandably concerned as he blurted out "Hope that
camera's recording !!". Trust me, Mark, it was.
807K - enters 23rd land
828K - enters 23rd water - approx 1:25.10
Mark is playing very quietly now, past the excitement phase and concentrating
on his game play...knowing that every decision, and every second he lasts, means
a higher score. He cruises through the next sequence with moderate enemy opposition,
but comes thru unscathed.
Just 16 seconds into the 23rd water sequence, he is trapped by a very aggressive
sea vehicle that catches him with a missile...one of the banes of the previous
400K+ game that he submitted for verification several weeks ago.
Time of game is 1:25.26 and final score...832,620 points, a new world record !!
Mark takes the time for the game demo graphics to keep playing until the high
score screen is eventually reached. "Almost...there you have it...832,620 !!"
he proudly says. And fellow gamers, the best part here was seeing the legacy on
this machine....every single score below this one was 500K and up, each and every
one good enough for 2nd place before this breakaway attempt, the highest being a
587K he opted not to submit as he kept refining his game. He told me that he was
getting better, but I had no idea as to what extent, until now.
Mark continued to record as he pulled up the admin settings screen and showed
difficulty setting of three (3), which is TGTS for the title. the bonus vehicle
thresholds were also displayed here, but then again they come up in the demo
screen at some point.
Mark spent the last few minutes of the tape proudly showing me his private
collection of his favorite classic titles....some pinball ("No Fear, "Black
Knight 2000" and his holy grail, as he calls it, "Haunted House", an interesting
3-tiered game with eight flippers !! His arcade collection included "Spy Hunter"
(of course), "Street Fighter 2 CE", "Sega Outrun", "Dig Dug", a recent "Galaga/Ms
Pacman" anniversary combo machine (which he says has a hidden "Pacman" game inside),
and hidden in the garage is a rare title, "720 Degrees".
Hmmm...wonder if he knows the trick to cause a game crash by jumping your skater
off the playfield ? Saw that one at NYC's "Station Break" arcade many years back.
But I digress...
He finished the "tour" with his private game room area that was a work in progress...
lots of outlets just awaiting proper usage. Definitely something he can look forward
The video camera now indicated 6:45pm and the tour was over. Mark said "Goodnight !!"
and the taping ended there.
****************************
FINAL COMMENTARY
Congratulations to Mark Little on behalf of Walter Day, myself, and all of my
fellow Twin Galaxies staff members, for an incredible achievement on a prestigious
title like "Spy Hunter". When I think about it, the most popular "driving-based"
titles rarely last longer than 10-15 minutes, at most, and technically this is a
driving based title. Except for the modern title "Crazy Taxi", I cannot think of
any other title off the top of my head in which someone kept the game going for
so long, assuming the game allowed infinite play. I'm sure I might have forgotten
a title or two that allows for this, but regardless, this is an impressive
achievement indeed.
Well done !!
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek(at)doremus. (work E-MAIL)
******************************
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twin Galaxies in the News Link
8/18/2003 His passion? It's hunting down a record
Doylestown Intelligencer, Doylestown, Pennsylvania
His passion? It's hunting down a record
By JESSE ABRAMS-MORLEY, The Intelligencer
The new world champion doesn't live in a mansion.
He doesn't wear a championship belt.
And he's not likely to be spotted on a red carpet anytime soon.
Where Mark Little can be spotted - sometimes for several hours at a time - is
in his basement, playing arcade games that haven't been popular since the 1980s.
Now, Little has something to show for his hard work.
The 25-year-old electronics technician from New Britain this summer broke a
19-year-old world record for the highest documented score in the arcade game
"Spy Hunter."
After totaling more than 800,000 points while playing the car-chase game in late
June, Little sent a videotape of his performance to Twin Galaxies, the organization
responsible for maintaining high-score records for video games.
Twin Galaxies verified Little's score and will include him in its next book of
world records, due out later this year.
"It's kind of an exciting moment," Little says.
It was a moment a long time in the works.
Born and raised in Doylestown, Little says he started playing video games before
he entered kindergarten.
He liked Atari, the most popular game system at the time. But he always had more
appreciation for arcade games, which he played every chance he got.
"Every time we'd go to the store, I used to mooch quarters off my mom and grandma,"
Little says.
He played classic titles, such as "Donkey Kong," "Pacman," "Ms. Pacman" and
"Spy Hunter."
It wasn't the plot or graphics, but the opportunity to compete directly against
others that drew the youngster to the arcades.
"Basically it was a chance ... to get out and pit your skills against everybody
else in your local neighborhood and local arcade for the chance to get your name
on top of the scoreboard," he says. "It was kind of a high when you would see that
you knocked down everybody that was best in your neighborhood."
The arcade became the place to go for many children of the 1980s looking to make
a name for themselves and gain respect.
"The age of video-game arcades was a seriously big phenomenon," says Walter Day,
who edits Twin Galaxies' book of world records. "I'll bet a million people across
the world were vying for the world record in 'Spy Hunter' and other games."
Gamers formed their own subculture, trading secrets and codes that were helpful
in beating games.
Tricks and tips "would proliferate like osmosis," Day says.
Even with all the competition and cooperation, the world record in "Spy Hunter"
stalled at 794,495, a mark Brian McDowell, then of Harrell's, N.C., set in June 1984.
Day says he doesn't keep in contact with McDowell and doesn't know where the
former record holder lives. Most people gave up trying to beat his mark a long
time ago.
But not Little.
He bought the game about three and a half years ago and started playing it in
his basement. Around the beginning of April, he began a regimen of playing for
at least an hour and a half each night, hoping to earn second place on the all-time
high-score list.
"I would basically just lock myself away from everybody, really try to focus on
the game and really take a shot at it," Little says.
After about a month and a half, the longtime video-game player captured
second-place honors, but he decided to keep up his intensive playing.
And almost 19 years to the day after McDowell set his seemingly unbreakable
record, Little broke it.
The big game started with Little dodging enemies and scoring more points early
on than most "Spy Hunter" aficionados total in an entire game.
Little cruised until he lost his second-to-last car at the 758,000-point mark.
Less than 40,000 points shy of the world record, he drove onward, while
computer-animated helicopters and cars tried to derail his moment of glory.
"When you're that far ahead in the game, the game pretty much has no mercy on
you," Little says. "The original designers of this game never wanted somebody
to be able to play this game for over an hour and a half on one quarter."
But Little defied their wishes and dodged just enough enemies to score 832,620
points and set a world record.
"This is quite an accomplishment," says Robert Mruczek, who verified Little's
score for Twin Galaxies. "He has mastered an extremely difficult game, and he
currently has no viable competition."
Except himself.
Little says he eventually wants to score more than 1 million points, though he
is going to take some time off from "Spy Hunter."
He will still be playing video games, however.
With 12 other titles in his basement, including pinball machines, Little has
more than enough games to keep himself occupied.
He started collecting games about seven years ago by purchasing a machine from
a bowling alley. After buying the games, he restores them to their original form,
sometimes spending as much as 100 hours in the rehabbing process.
Little says the time is well spent and believes video games can have a therapeutic
effect.
"It's a great way to just escape from the daily stress," he says.
Day agrees that the games have an upside, but he worries about their harmful
effects as well.
Too many children grow up playing too many hours of games with too much violence,
"It simply can't be good to be ingesting that many rays from a screen," Day says.
"I don't believe that a person should just be playing video games."
Little says he understands the games have to be viewed in the proper perspective.
But that won't stop him from playing.
"Where else for a quarter could you throw the winning touchdown in a football
game?" he says. "Or play basketball with some of the NBA stars? Or drive down
a road going 200 mph without having to worry about a ticket?
"As with anything else, you do realize that once your game's over, you go back
into reality. But it's nice to escape every once in a while."
Jesse Abrams-Morley can be contacted via e-mail at jmorley@phillyburbs.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
permafrostrick
Referee
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 3:05 am Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, I remember the typical "loop" taking about 3 minutes....
18k sounds right after the timer expires as well. I remember driving like a
bat out of hell those first 90 seconds. he he
I also vaguely remember that after so many loops you do get thrown for a loop(hehe
) where there were odd/unexpected loops. Given I had only done that a couple games
and wasn't recording it I never got to objectively watch it to see those kinds
of details like #loops before you get the odd ones and how often they occurred etc.
oh man, he has a Haunted House pinball!!!!! I am envious. I loved that pinball
game...although it was rare to find one where all targets and flippers etc. were
all in working order.
...and he is near Philly?!? I just might have to pay him a visit....
Robert, all Galaga machines have a "hidden pacman" inside. You do a certain control
sequence(can't remember the sequence offhand..was something like up-down-up-down-right
-left-right-left player-1-player-2
etc. but I can't remember
it so I'm sure that example is not correct.) and it resets to pacman. Didn't you
know that? It's interesting to hear the 20th anniv galaga/mspac also still has it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
artz
Location: Spring, TX USA
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 6:01 am Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
permafrostrick wrote:
Robert, all Galaga machines have a "hidden pacman" inside. You do a certain
control sequence(can't remember the sequence offhand..was something like
up-down-up-down-
right-left-
right-left player-1-player-2
etc. but I can't remember
it so I'm sure that example is not correct.) and it resets to pacman. Didn't you
know that? It's interesting to hear the 20th anniv galaga/mspac also still has it.
Rick,
I was under the impression that only the 20th anniversary game has Pac-Man, not
the original classic from the early 80's. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JoeyL21988
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 8:15 am Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yea, I believe it is only the 20th Anniversary machines. The original Galaga
machines didn't allow movement for up and down. ^_^
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mandm785@juno.com
Location: Doylestown, PA
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 11:57 am Post subject:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert,
Thanks for the awesome write up on my game! You truly write an amazing report of
the game play you view! I guess my next goal, will be to break a million! I plan
on looking further into the "patterns" that exist for this game. The road is
predictable, but the enemies are not. (At least not for me) The 13th area is you
observed, is kind of bizarre, and I will see if I can find further insight or
information on it.
As far as Pac-Man in the 20th Anniversary, it's hidden at the game select screen.
UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT unlocks it. You hear hear a noise, and then
if you choose Ms. Pac Man, you'll be playing Pac-Man!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little
PS- Did you guys know they have Spy Hunter motion picture movie, in the works
as we speak?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
permafrostrick
Referee
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 12:19 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
oh well...I stand corrected. For some reason I thought I was told about that
years ago...before the 20th anniversary game was out...but perhaps it was only
a couple years ago right when it first came out.
You can also find the correct sequence by a simple Google search for galaga
easter egg.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bondo
Location: weare,nh
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 3:23 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NICE JOB MARK!!! Shawn and Jason cram congratulate you also, a very long played
game indeed. Hopefully we will be able to see you play at one of the tournaments
sometime. Are you going to CGE in august? Anyway GREAT JOB!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mandm785@juno.com
Location: Doylestown, PA
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 3:42 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the compliments, but unfortunately, I cannot go to the CGE. I am going
to try to attend next years TG Funspot tournament next year. I have never been
to Funspot, and I really want to make a trip up there! My jaw nearly hit the
ground when I saw the list of games, they have posted on their website.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2003 6:12 pm Post subject: Always 2004...or Later in '03
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark:
So you know, the annual event at Funspot will most likely be next May 2004.
However, at some point between Sep-Dec of this year, I will be at Funspot
along with Mark Longridge, so maybe we can see you then ? And there is a
stand-up "Spy Hunter" there as well !!
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
******************************
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mandm785@juno.com
Location: Doylestown, PA
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2003 9:22 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A quick update on this thread-
Not to toot my own my horn, but---
I just received an email from George Gomez- the original designer of Spy Hunter!
He said that he just read the story of my Spy Hunter new world record, and
offered his congratulations. He simply stated it as "Awesome". I found it truly
an honor, to receive recognition, on a game, by the designer himself!! This was
the best recognition, I could ask for!! George has helped create many others
classics, such as Tron, and Satan's Hollow. He was also the man behind many
of Williams best pinball machines.
_________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little
Spy Hunter arcade world record
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bondo
Location: weare,nh
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 3:31 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark, that's great!! maybe you can get him to sign something for you(or sign
your game?) and if he does attach it to your spy hunter game. There may be an
opportunity for you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 6:51 pm Post subject: Contact
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Greg:
Mr. Gomez contacted me as well...asked for information as follows...
"As the designer of Spy hunter I read your article with great interest, but
something perplexes me...controls, they were the same, what do you mean different?"
I'll re-read my article later to figure out what he meant and then will reply
with the info.
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
******************************
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
arcadenut
TG Board of Directors
Location: Glendale, AZ
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 8:08 pm Post subject: Re: Contact
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK wrote:
Hello Greg:
Mr. Gomez contacted me as well...asked for information as follows...
"As the designer of Spy hunter I read your article with great interest, but
something perplexes me...controls, they were the same, what do you mean different?"
I'll re-read my article later to figure out what he meant and then will reply
with the info.
Robert
Robert,
I believe that Mr. Gomez was commenting on your statement that the control layout
between the standup and the sit down version were different.
Looking at the manual (found at the bottom of this page):
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=S&game_id=9742
It appears that the controls ARE different, but in the same layout. What is odd,
is that the Sit-down only appears to have a single button on it. However, the
manual may be incorrect as I seem to recall that you needed two buttons, one
for firing and one for your special weapons.
I believe this is where the confusion comes in.
_________________
Brien King
spammehere@arcaderestoration.com
http://www.arcaderestoration.com
Home of Cart Commander, The Ultimate Cartridge Collecting Utility!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
permafrostrick - Rick Carter
Referee
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 9:10 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bondo wrote:
Mark, that's great!! maybe you can get him to sign something for you(or sign your
game?) and if he does attach it to your spy hunter game. There may be an opportunity
for you.
I agree here. I'm sure he still has many flyers/posters for this game.
Perhaps he can send you an autographed copy saying congratulations on the record...
and have the score and date too.
That would be a cool thing to have and put in a nice frame and put on the wall in
your personal arcade.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MKM
TG Advisor
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 9:36 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I used to play this game all the time in a 7-11. Never got scores like that though.
Great score!
_________________
Please send me a Private Message to get my email for TG/game questions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spy Hunter - ANOTHER New World Record !! Link
Twin Galaxies Forums Forum Index -> Coin-Op Video Games
View previous topic :: View next topic
Author Message
Krayd
Location: Surrey, BC
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 9:53 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great work Mark! That is a difficult game. I've played the shockwave version.
My highest score was 20,005 points (which just beats the score of the default
#1 high score of 20,000). Is there a score you are working to get to? Like a
million points. Is there a score that you would retire from the game after
getting?
_________________
GTA: Vice City WR Completion Time - 3 hours 59 min 3 sec ( 03:59:03 ).
Fastest GTA III Completion Time - 1 hour 51 min 48 sec ( 01:51:48 ).
Currently working on: BOUNTIES!GTA III
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2003 10:15 pm Post subject: Info from the Designer !!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello fellow gamers:
Enjoy...George Gomez sent me some cool info.
Robert
******************************
FIRST E-MAIL
The games may have been modified but my original design for both upright and
sit-down were identical. And they were produced that way if only because of
the economies of manufacturing. Which means: why make different parts, since
it will cost less to make more of one design.
Spy hunter 2 which I had nothing to do with was different.
On my game both left and right grips should each have a trigger and a thumb
button, in addition to the center button (call weapons van). The shifter was
a 2 position device, low and high. Of course there was the gas pedal and a
series of dashboard weapons lights for machine guns, missiles, oil slick and
smoke. After the first few thousand games the grips were retooled in plastic
and they went on to be used in hundreds of different games. They were licensed
to Happ controls in the late 80's and they have been on almost every manufacturer's
games at one point or another.
The original sand cast aluminum grips(painted black) were actually molded directly
from patterns that I carved and they had softer contours and were more comfortable
but they were also very expensive. So to cost reduce them the company took the
grips and retooled them to be injection molded plastic. However the patterns for
the plastic grips were made off the engineering drawings and the drawings of that
era were not as representative of the actual parts I carved, since they were made
after my patterns instead of before.
I have the original wood patterns along with some other stuff from development
of the game in a box somewhere. When I have time I'll dig it out and send you
photos. The guys working on the current game were asking for that stuff also.
GG
SECOND E-MAIL
Oh I see what you are referring to , I just looked at the manual schematics.
That drawing is incorrect. It is merely representative. Actually the control
grip assembly that is illustrated is from a game made prior to SH. The name
escapes memory but it was a black and white game that had a knock off of the
Death Star trench scene with Tie Fighters coming at you. It was designed by a
guy named Dave Needles and miraculously the company never got sued by Lucas.
The grips that are drawn were merely bicycle hand grips with a Radio Shack
thumb pushbutton switch.
No Spy hunters were ever produced with those grips.
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
******************************
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MRX
Location: Ny Tx CA
Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 2:43 am Post subject: yes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know
_________________
It was a joy to play
In the 10 year span
From 75 to 84
When I was still a young man
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
squarefishx2
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 9:01 pm Post subject: Re: Spy Hunter - ANOTHER New
World Record !!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK wrote:
Hello fellow gamers:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A very determined Mark Little, who hails from Pennsylvania in the USA, has finally
taken down a VERY tough score to beat...the 794,495 on "Spy Hunter" by Brian McDowell
this past June 20th.
Playing at home in his private arcade, an eclectic collection of his personal
favorite pinball and arcade titles, Mark captured an incredible performance
on video camera of 832,620 points, lasting almost 90 minutes and beating his
previous verified personal best by almost 400K.
Robert
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little's Second Place World Record Results by Robert Mruczek: Link
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spy Hunter - 2nd Highest Score Verified !!
Twin Galaxies Forums Forum Index -> Coin-Op Video Games
View previous topic :: View next topic
Author Message
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Mon May 05, 2003 11:02 pm Post subject: Spy Hunter -
2nd Highest Score Verified !!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello fellow gamers:
I just finished verifying the 2nd highest score in the world on arcade
"Spy Hunter" achieved April 20th, 2003 by Mark Little of Pennsylvania in the USA.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark reached a score of 435,465 points playing at TG settings in this most
exciting classic arcade title. Game fans well appreciate the "Peter Gunn music
chosen for the game and it often makes the list of gamers' top ten favorite
titles of all time to play.
The score took roughly 44 minutes to accomplish as Mark averaged 100K per
10-10.50 minutes of game play, and we believe that this is the first arcade
submission captured on videotape for this title.
Mark started off with a bang...he didn't even die until 109,500 or so, and
that was on an icy road, one of the tougher aspects of the game to negotiate.
He mentally regrouped and hung onto the second life until 237,095 points when
a sudden appearance of a helicopter's bomb on the main road caught him off guard.
He kept going again until he reached a little over 311K and encountered a
devastating combination of a helicopter on an icy road with "Enforcer" cars
right by the weapons van during a turn...the copter bomb got him again.
Mark sounded surprised when he died not more than a few seconds later at 311,805
points...while trying to start his next vehicle he ran right into an "Enforcer"
car's wheels and skidded right off the road into a crash.
At the 329,850 mark encountered a very unexpected missile attack that was
launched from behind. Being that this was the first time I witnessed a score
so high, I was surprised myself !! This happened of course in the water.
He continued up to 380,100 or in a most non-non, non-non heinous way (guess
who saw "Bill and Ted" like 75+ times ?)...he was this close to the weapons
van when an "Enforcer" vehicle parked on the side of the road shot him, just
like that, perhaps a half inch from entering the van. That was SO bogus !!
The final death occurred once again in the water, actually the 12th time he
entered the water. He was a few seconds from reaching the end of that sequence
when yet another missile snuck up from behind, as equally unexpected as the
first occurrence.
So there you have it...and Mark is now trying to score even higher before the
2nd Book is released. According to Mark, he has already reached a slightly
higher score, just 7K more, but is trying for even higher before sending me
another official submission.
Congratulations, Mark, for a most excellent performance on one of the best
games ever made in the 1980's !! (Well, in my opinion, at least)
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
******************************
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bondo
Location: weare,nh
Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 5:09 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark, are you planning on attending the funspot classic at the end of may
(may 29-june 1) I'm sure many people would enjoy watching a game of that kind
of score. That's an AWESOME GAME, fun to watch NICE JOB KEEP PRACTICING.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 6:39 pm Post subject: Let's See
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Greg:
I'll ask Mark if he can attend...I believe he is an east-coast player...oh
yeah, dummy, I mentioned Pennsylvania in my article !!
Anyway, I'll ask him.
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
******************************
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
permafrostrick - Rick Carter
Referee
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 10:43 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not sure how factory settings compare to TG settings, but I had turned over Spy
Hunter back in the 80s. It was so easy to do I never bothered to even submit it
thinking odds were many had accomplished it.
Unfortunately in mame the game doesn't play all that well....but I do need to
play with the analog controls more...but still doesn't have anywhere near the
control the arcade game has.
I haven't seen one of the arcade ones since the 80s.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 11:10 pm Post subject: Factory
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Rick:
Not exactly sure what "factory" settings are...does MacMAME allow you to
reset to defaults ?
Worse comes to worse, ask an owner on the www.vaps.org site what the defaults are.
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
******************************
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mandm785
Guest: Mark Little
Posted: Wed May 07, 2003 7:42 am Post subject: Spy Hunter Scores
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello,
Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the Funspot tournament this year.
I REALLY hope to make it up there, as I have never been there. I've heard and
read so much about the place, it's got to be worth the trip!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Wed May 07, 2003 2:05 pm Post subject: One More Possibility
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Mandm785 Mark Little:
There are two (2) more possibilities to play at a live TG event. The first is
the upcoming "Mall of America" festival in Minnesota, but you need to check with
Walter Day first to ensure that the title is available.
A second event is in the works down the road. No specifics yet, but when we know
all the facts, we'll post the details here. This one's awhile off so for now this
is a heads-up well in advance.
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
******************************
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.cubeman.org/dru/?q=node/view/3
Paul Dean's Spy Hunter Record: Link
Submitted by cubex on Thu, 05/20/2004 - 01:14.
In Classic Arcade news Paul Dean's 1985 World Record on the game Spy Hunter
has once again become a hot topic for discussion. Paul reports that the game
took 11.5 hours. Check out all the details at Paul's Web Site
http://www.spyhunter007.com/
I just read here about Paul Dean's Spy Hunter Record set in 1986 of 9,512,590
-- And checked the Twin Galaxy scoreboard which confirms the high score. So which
is correct? (and I would love to see Mark play Spy Hunter at some point.)
_________________
"Photography with a Vision"
www.cooganphoto.com
www.cooganphoto.com/gravitar
- dedicated to the 1982 Atari classic video arcade game Gravitar.
Hints and playing tips with screen captures, etc. included...
Gravitar 3,652,700
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 9, 2004
BELOW ARTICLE FROM: PINBALL NEWS Link
www.pinballnews.com
Reports and comments from the U.K.
PINBALL EXPO 2004
We've reached the third part of our Pinball Expo - the fireside chats and the
final seminar.
The name of the fireside chat reveals its origin - a cozy, intimate discussion
between the guest and the audience held in Expo organizer Rob Berk's hotel suite.
Over the years these chats have become increasingly popular, which resulted in a
crowded hotel room with some people unable to see or hear the guest, like in this
chat with Larry DeMar last year. Below are the results of the George Gomez Chat.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GEORGE GOMEZ BIOGRAPHY BELOW: Link
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Gomez
George Gomez (born June 1, 1955) is a video game, toy, and pinball machine designer.
He was educated as an industrial designer at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
The name of the spy hunteer car, the G-6155, C.I.A. Prototype Interceptor is a clever
tribute to designer George Gomez as the the numbers on of the car stand for his birthdate.
Additionally, the car in the game was modeled after a 1983 Z28, which is featured in the
brochure for the game.
George has a special place in the heart of Pinball Expo attendees. It was he who
spoke at a seminar in 1999 about Pinball 2000 and told the audience how he feared the
platform would never get the chance it deserved to fully develop. He was very downbeat
about Williams pinball division's future - a sentiment borne out a few days later when
its closure was announced.
So, we can trust George to tell it like it is.
George Gomez - Pinball Expo 2004
i.e. Fireside Chat
The audience had been primed by Steve Ritchie and Ray Tanzer to fire rubber bands at
George as he began to speak. In retaliation, George showed this cartoon by Pat McMahon
of Steve as a slot machine designer.
When he left college George got a job working for Midway, originally in the mechanical
engineering department making control interfaces and cabinets and later working on
video game design. He worked on the Spy Hunter video game developing software and
designing controls. At night, he used to head over to the pinball division and play
their Firepower 2.
He spent seven years in the video game department but wanted to make something more
tangible and real, so he left to become a toy designer.
George played a slideshow of some of the toys he designed including Crash & Bash
(trucks that would crash into each other with various parts flying off) and Wearable
Warriors (a range of hi-tech watches and other jewelry with built-in gimmicks and
characters).
He said this work was fun and paved the way for this later work designing pinball
as he could understand how mechanisms worked and put things together.
How George's toy design skills complemented his pinball design
329KB MP3 Link
Later, Incredible Technologies hired George as an independent contractor to design
Battle Tech centers - arcades where you could play games against fellow players -
for a client of theirs.
George Gomez Developed Battle Tech Player Pods
He came up with this concept for the player pod which was installed in their locations
for six months until the client company's constant late or non-payments caused George
to leave.
He then designed a number of novelty games for Bromley, one of which was noticed by Pat
Lawlor and Larry DeMar at an AMOA trade show. That recognition was to prove valuable a
couple of years later when a position opened up at Williams for a novelty game designer.
Also while making novelty games for Bromley, George was at an arcade when they brought
in a Terminator 2 pinball on test. He was getting frustrated with the restricted number
of features he could put in his games so when this new pinball showed up he tried it and
realized he could design these games too.
How George started making pinball games
447KB MP3 Link
One of George's early design ideas was a 3D version of Steve Ritchie's Hyperball game,
where small plastic balls could be shot through the air at a series of targets, either
as a single player or head-to-head game.
When designing, whether it is a single part or an entire game, George likes to sketch
his plans as a way of trying out concepts. He said he doesn't always know where he's
going with an idea but sketching it usually helps clarify matters.
As an example, he showed this preliminary sketch of Lord Of The Rings.
There are some obvious differences to the final game with the ring in the centre of the
playfield and no Paths Of The Dead upper level but the sword lock and falling tower
were included.
There was also no Balrog guarding the centre ramp. His part is taken by a cave troll
hiding behind some rocks.
George talks about his early Lord Of The Rings design
409KB MP3 Link
Before he started designing Lord Of The Rings, George wasn't a fan of the books but
was working with several people who were exceptionally familiar with the theme. George
read the books and watched the movies to familiarize himself with the subject of his game.
The trouble working with Lord Of The Rings fanatics
409KB MP3 Link
Turning to internet reviews of his games, George said that despite not wanting to be
influenced by the online comments, he usually found it impossible not to read what people
are saying about his games when they go out on test. Sometimes, he said, those comments
are right on the money but other times he has to just roll his eyes.
One comment that particularly infuriated him was a suggestion that Monster Bash - his
personal favorite - was a rip-off of Attack From Mars. Saying that he had been waiting
since 1999 to do this, he showed the AutoCAD drawings of the two games side by side to
illustrate the lack of similarity.
Monster Bash vs. Attack From Mars
Looking at the Pinball 2000 platform, George said he didn't know how it could have
developed because there were many ways for it to move forward. As one of the originators
of Pinball 2000, he said they completely redesigned everything in a pinball game except
the flippers in just nine months and he thought it could have gone way beyond what the
first two games did.
Interestingly, he said that he didn't intend Pinball 2000 to replace the traditional
style of pinball but to run alongside it, giving Williams two product lines.
Describing the product launch at ATEI in London in 1999, George admitted that the team
wasn't ready and there were still a large number of bugs in the game which caused it to
crash on the show floor despite spending days and nights working on the system in the
days running up to the show. He said the operating system was completely new and many
of the programmers were not used to thinking in the certain way the system demanded.
The company sold a large number of Revenge From Mars games and George mused if they had
sold more Star Wars Episode One games the company may have taken a different view and
not shut down the division.
Turning to Monster Bash, George said it was one of those situations - and you can't
plan it - where you have the right team, the right energy and everything just comes
together. The team decided early on not to try to make the monsters scary because
they just weren't anymore, so they would make them funny instead and put them in a
situation to tie in with the music in the game. Hence, they put them in a rock band
and sent them on tour.
George loved the way he could play with the characters, despite them already being
established, and give them personality traits to fit in with the game.
George talks about the Monster Bash design process
369KB MP3 Link
Playing with the characters in this way required a cooperative licensor, and George
described Universal Studios as very forgiving. Roger Sharpe (in charge of licensing
at Williams) spoke from the audience and explained how Universal were in the process
of re-launching the monsters and wanted to keep them pure to the original concepts when
along came Williams wanting to put them in a rock band. There was a division of opinion
at Universal, some wanting to stay true to their origins while others wanted to go with
the rock band idea as a way to re-energize the brand. After seeing the games and getting
approval from other licensees, they gave their permission.
George described the amount of engineering time spent trying to get the best from the
phantom flip feature. This was one of Lyman Sheat's pet projects and he had George try
numerous different inlane switch combinations to get the most reliable results. He
estimated a third of the engineering time was spent on this one feature.
Moving to more recent events, George said he was approached by Stern and asked if he
would do a game for them. He agreed if it was on his terms, meaning he couldn't work
at Stern full time because he already has a full-time job leading a video game design
team for Midway, so would have less involvement in the overall project. They agreed
and Playboy was the result, followed by Lord Of The Rings.
It means that George delivers the playfield sketch and other information about the
layout and three weeks later Stern guys call him and invite him back to look at the
result. He says he misses the team spirit, the hanging out and the practical jokes
because he's not there very often. It's almost like a hobby for him now although it
remains fun.
Finally, there was a gathering of all the people in the audience who had worked with
George at Midway, Williams or Stern.
George Gomez, in Middle with Midway, Williams and Stern Employees
So that concludes our report from the two fireside chats. It's clear that they have
outgrown the confines of Rob's hotel room but in moving to the Grand Ballroom they have
also lost much of the intimacy and become more like seminars which is a shame because
part of the attraction of the format was the informality, most of which has been lost.
But that said, this year's guests provided some excellent entertainment and some
interesting insights into the design processes and methodology from some of pinball's
greatest designers of recent years. But that wasn't the end of the talks because squeezed
into the schedule on Saturday afternoon was a late seminar by another great pinball
artist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
lead designer George Gomez talk about their iced out one-on-one basketball game.
NBA Ballers: George Gomez Interview Link
March 10th, 2004
George Gomez, Lead Designer, of Midway spoke to us about NBA Ballers and
gave us an inside look at the game so we could bring those details directly
to you. "The thing I am most proud of is that it this game is not like any
of the other basketball games," said Gomez. "This is the most developed
version of an NBA athlete in a virtual format on the shelf today. I want
you to pick this game up...It's way more than attributes that's determining
whether Shaquille takes a three or not." Link
Although a lot of people are trying to relax and catch their breath,
there is clearly a lot of tension in and around Midway's Chicago office.
Lead designer George Gomez just got back from a week of skiing in Aspen
and wasn't in the office for five minutes before phone calls began pouring
in from the NBA, asking us to change or fix issues that they had with the
strategy guide we've been editing for our buddies over at Brady Games. Link
The NBA Fastbreak design team
Mechanical Designer Tom Kopera, Software Engineer
Tom Uban, and Game Designer George Gomez
tip off at the ASI '97 show in Las Vegas. Link
George Gomez, Lead Designer, of Midway spoke to us about NBA Ballers and gave us
an inside look at the game so we could bring those details directly to you.
Postal Mail:
WMS Industries: Link
3401 N California Avenue
Chicago, IL 60618
WMS via telephone at 773-961-1000.
Links to other Manufacturers: Link
For the readers who are unaware of your many contributions to the video game
industry, please provide a little background information on some of your more
notable work before NBA Ballers.
tron
George Gomez: I worked on TRON and the original Spy hunter back in the '80s. I
designed toys for 5 years and I designed Pinball machines for 6 years.
NBA Ballers plays like much more than a one-on-one basketball game. Describe
the elements which make Ballers as much about the lifestyle as it is about the
on-court action.
George Gomez: Well what we wanted to do was to create a level of character
distinction similar to a fighting game. Where there was much more than just
attributes to differentiate players. We did this with the Specials and the
move sets. The lifestyle elements were a natural component. The lifestyle
elements made it easy for us to distinguish our game from all of the other
basketball games out there. We have the rides, the cribs, the crews, the ice,
tats, kicks, and fashion to really set your ballers apart from all the rest.
Link
George Gomez who spoke about the T.V. Tournament and Rags 2 Riches game modes.
Once George finished, he handed it off to Mark Turmell whom addressed the press
and said (in a nutshell) "You were all so skeptical that we couldn't pull it off.
I'm here to tell you that we did and this game kicks ass." He is right. Link
Slam 'N' Jam and Dunk That Punk - NBA Ballers is Blasting Onto the Court
by Louis Bedigian
"From the outset we wanted to make sure that the single player experience in NBA
Ballers supplied at least 30 hours worth of valuable game play for the average
player."
NBA Jam is out. Not out of style, but out of the race for the best basketball
game. Where has the series gone? To gaming Heaven, we hope not. Surely it has
to be revisited someday.
But until that day comes, Midway has a new b-ball game that's set to shake things
up: NBA Ballers. It's not an NBA Jam clone, nor is it an NBA Street-wannabe.
NBA Ballers is a unique, one-on-one basketball game that hopes to take stylish
game play to a whole new level.
"From the outset we wanted to make sure that the single player experience in NBA
Ballers supplied at least 30 hours worth of valuable game play for the average
player," said John Vignocchi, game designer for NBA Ballers. "With that said
there are well over 300 different matches in NBA Ballers, all with varying rules
and objectives. In one match you might find yourself playing against TWO opponents,
while in another only 3-pointers count towards a score. Mixing up the game play like
this provides lots of fun and challenge and keeps things fresh as you go along.
Not only do we constantly change up the rules in between matches but we also "theme"
the various challenge ladders. Certain ladders are comprised of only centers, while
others feature speedy guards. These various challenge ladder themes mixed with the
rules and objective matches make character selection key and bring a lot of depth
to the overall game."
Anxious to jam, we sat down with John Vignocchi and lead designer George Gomez
to get the full story on Midway's latest evolution in sports gaming.
Nearly every basketball game on the market is a sequel. They all have some
groundwork to base their game on, but you guys don't have that luxury. How
do you start a game of this stature from scratch? Where do you begin?
George Gomez, Lead Designer: Well that's one of the reasons that it has taken
so long to do this game. You start by trying to come up with an idea with substantial
points of difference from what everyone else is doing. Then you need a game engine
to allow you to build your game on, and then you can begin to develop and implement.
It's not easy because the engine is being developed concurrently with the game. And
the longer you work on the game the more ideas you get and the more the concept
evolves and this requires more and more assets, etc.
NBA Ballers: George Gomez Interview Link
By: Dale Nardozzi - "Legba"
March 10th, 2004
NBA Ballers
You have been involved in the video game industry long enough to see many
advancements in both development software and console hardware. How do these
advancements make your job easier? In what ways do they make your job more difficult?
George Gomez: Well the magic of things like database driven components allows
the designers more control than ever. Things that used to take a long time to
implement are now very easy to do. In addition this allows us to experiment and
tweak things which in the old days were strictly the province of the programmer.
Our job is tougher because of the sheer amount of content that is required to
compete in today's market. NBA Ballers has 3 single player game modes, 2 head to
head modes, a practice mode, 2 complete create a baller modes, 50 live action movies,
a currency system, the first story mode in a video sports game, a mini game, codes,
un-lockables, music, and the list goes on. In the old days just one game mode was
all you needed.
------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
05-29-2004 Update on the Twin Galaxies Spy Hunter score 'reinstatement'
Link
It seems that this situation has become a saga, of sorts. Apparently, Rob
Mruczek jumped the gun, and announced to Paul Dean (and, myself, in an e-mail
carbon-copy) that his score was reinstated, before actually getting a final
'thumbs-up' from Walter Day. Because of that, my news story of the 18th (and
a Funspot post the next day) was apparently a surprise to the listed record
holder for the game
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little, who made 832,620 points in June of 2003),
who not so happily announced the news himself on the TG forums, here.
As you can see from the various replies, this is an interesting story, and
one that may serve to help everyone decide on a fair way of dealing with
questioned scores from the 'Golden Era'. A number of great ideas have been
thrown out (including some thought-provoking ones from Darren Harris), but
one thing that someone pointed out to me makes for a curious situation -
according to TG's own challenge rules (see section 8.6, 4), a player whose
score is being questioned must (of course) be located for the challenge to
be issued. One must presume that if the player isn't located (as in most all
of the cases of the infamous 'pulled' scores), then the challenge, and the
possible take-down of the score, cannot proceed. Yet, it did.
Now, with the background in place, I'll move on to the reason for my news
item today. On his web site, Paul posted an important development that
detailed a conference call between him, Mark Little, and Walter Day. The
gist of it is that Paul will have time to recover from a back injury that
he is currently suffering, and then he will have to beat Mark's score in
order to 'prove' his abilities. If he does not, then his score will be
moved to a newly developed high score list that will serve to separate
modern scores (with their more stringent proof), and classic era scores,
where the proof was lesser. Only time will tell the result of this situation,
but, you can be sure that it will be reported right here, as soon as things
are resolved. Good luck to Paul, and, I hope that everyone is ultimately
satisfied with the outcome of this important scoring issue.
05-18-2004 Twin Galaxies reinstates 'pulled' Spy Hunter score
I think this is a first - today, after a long-term effort by Paul Dean,
Twin Galaxies has reinstated his 1985 Spy Hunter score of 9,512,590,
which was accomplished on 06-28-1985 at the Upland Family Fun Center in
Upland, California, during the 1985 Video Game Masters Tournament. The
score was originally 'pulled' (even after appearing in print in Walter
Day's 1998 record book) a few years back, along with a number of others
from the VGMT contests of the mid-80's (namely: Star Wars, Joust, and
Robotron). I'll have more on the removal of all these scores, in a future
article.
Well, due to the effort on Paul's part, and thanks also to time spent by
Rob Mruczek, and apparently Walter Day himself, the Spy Hunter score is
back where it belongs - as a recognized true world record. An even bigger
thanks goes out to none other than a very famous CAG HoF'er, Phil Britt,
for his verbal confirmation of the veracity of Paul's score, and his play,
on that day in 1985. The full story on this accomplishment (both the original
game, and the efforts to gain reinstatement) will be appearing on CAG very
soon, so be sure to check back to get fully informed on Paul's once-in-a-lifetime
game ! In the meantime, you can check out a lot of gaming information on
Paul's web site, at www.spyhunter007.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on Mon, Mar. 22, 2004 Link
Females take controls, too, at video-game expo
By Natalie Pompilio
Inquirer Staff Writer
And couples who play together stay together.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little, 26, and Miriam Mellor, 24,
of Doylestown, took on a two-player version of Marble Madness yesterday. He holds the
world's highest score in the arcade game Spy Hunter: "832,000 and change, and I'm going
for a million." She's his long-suffering girlfriend who likes puzzle games, who gamely
attends expos like yesterdays, and who'll play a game or two in the spirit of
togetherness.
"Sometimes, he begs me, 'Come downstairs and play,' " Mellor said.
"She's getting better," Little said.
Little said that most of the world-record holders are men, but that he'd like to see
more women step up.
That might happen if the next generation has its way. Glued to a game of Donkey Kong
Country were 14-year-olds Jessica "Kari" Johnson of Hamilton, N.J., and Bianca Rodriguez
of Blue Bell, Montgomery County.
"A-cha!" Johnson said as her gorilla hopped from tire to platform, grabbing bananas
from the air.
The girls, friends since kindergarten, said they were visiting the show while their
parents looked at computers next door. They love video games and play almost every day,
as do the other girls they know.
"I have no life," Rodriguez said.
"Me neither, but who cares?" Johnson said.
Asked whether they had noticed they were greatly outnumbered as females in attendance
yesterday, they looked around, surprised.
"I was oblivious," Rodriguez said. "All I saw were the games."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, March 31, 2004 Link
Click here to visit the Philly Classic 5 site
Media coverage & pictures from past Philly Classic events
More Legends
I got some interesting news from Tom about the Philly Classic "Meet the
Legends" reunion. It seems that there are going to be some world record
holders present, too:
Bryan Wagner - Burger Time champion Greg Bond - Mappy champion Shawn Cram -
Donkey Kong 3 AND Zookeeper champion Jason Cram - Congo Bongo champion Mark
Little - Spy Hunter champion
Very impressive! Thanks a lot Tom :) -KC-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spy Hunter Link
Variation: default settings
Platform: Arcade
Rules: Difficulty = 3, First extra base awarded at 30K, Extra base every 30K
(maximum 3), Starting timer - 1.5 minutes of play (90 seconds). Technically,
based on speed of completing the initial time allotment, it is possible to get
an extra car at 14K and another at 18K if you reach these thresholds before
the starting timer expires.
Date Final
Rank Score Name Verification
1 100.00 % 9,512,590 Paul Dean 05/27/2004
2 8.75 % 832,620 Mark E Little 05/05/2003
3 8.35 % 794,495 Brent McDowell 06/30/1984
3 8.35 % 794,495 Brian McDowell 06/11/2004
4 4.35 % 413,510 Sal Luiso 06/11/2004
5 3.98 % 378,335 Ryan Coulter 06/05/2004
6 3.65 % 346,980 Phil Britt 06/11/2004
7 3.03 % 288,535 Pat Laffaye 05/09/2001
8 2.37 % 224,980 David Nelson 06/27/2002
9 1.65 % 156,770 Jason Wilson 05/09/2001
Mark E Little
New Britain, PA
United States
Choose a platform
(all) Arcade
Arcade Spy Hunter default settings 832,620 Place: 2nd
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Dean's Spy Hunter score has been re-accepted!? Link
Twin Galaxies Forums Forum Index -> Coin-Op Video Games
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Author Message
mandm785@juno.com
Mark Little
Joined: 06 May 2003
Posts: 37
Location: Doylestown, PA
Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 5:27 pm
Post subject: Paul Dean's Spy Hunter score has been re-accepted!?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello all,
I can't believe I'm the one who is announcing this... Paul Dean's score for Spy
Hunter has been re-accepted by Twin Galaxies. I love how this one was swept
under the carpet last week, with no-one saying boo about this. I personally
believe this is Bull****. How can you re-instate a score that was removed? I
PERSONALLY want to see PROOF, that this score was sustained, legally. I can
believe someone could beat my score, but by 10 times? I want to challenge this
score, and hope Paul is ready to defend it. If he does not, his score should
not be valid. I know there is a 100% policy, but heck I'd settle for 75%. I
think I have some pretty good ideas about how this score came to be, and I
will be doing some research on my end. I have gone through all the verification
processes, and have my own video of it, I even showed up at Philly classic.
I can back my score up, can Paul?
_________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little
Spy Hunter arcade world record
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defenderman
Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 183
Location: Grand Junction, CO, USA
Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 6:44 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is usually many reasons for a removed score to be re-accepted.
One of reasons for Paul's Spy Hunter case is because of the Arcade Referee
making a verification error which at first appears the video tape had a banned
glitch performed, when in fact the player was very close to accidentally performing
that glitch.
Another reason is because Paul actually performed his high score again, only this
time, he did it without using any of the cheat codes or glitches that plagued
his initial run.
Those are some of the reasons for a removed score to be re-accepted.
However, I wish that Twin Galaxies would let it's users view the tape to prove
that he didn't use any cheat and/or glitches.
_________________
You Spoony Bard!
Tellah, Final Fantasy II/IV Jpn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mandm785@juno.com
Location: Doylestown, PA
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 6:05 am Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello All,
Last night I performed a little known trick on my Spy Hunter, and my machine is
well over 5 million points and counting as I write this. I have this on tape,
and would like everybody to know that there are other ways to get huge scores
on Spy Hunter, and they should be banned. I never seen or heard this trick
talked about, so referees need to know and consider this. Again I have this
on video as PROOF.
_________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little
Spy Hunter arcade world record
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
artz
Location: Spring, TX USA
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 9:15 am Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's currently a 16 message thread over at www.funspotnh.com on the
re-instatement of the record.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WalterDay
Founder
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 1:27 pm
Post subject: Decision is Made By only me and There IS More research to Do
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpyHunter?? Still more phone calls required -- and one more interesting conference
call placed before this is decided either way. This was announced by Mark Alpiger
not Twin Galaxies. I didn't tell Robert Mruczek I was unfinished with my research
and my decision and he mentioned it to Mark Alpiger - who wanted a newshook in
order to increase web traffic at his site.
So, we will see what these remaining phone calls bring to the surface.
Walter Day
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Weehawk
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 3:34 pm Post subject:
Re: Decision is Made By only me and There IS More research to Do
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WalterDay wrote:
This was announced by Mark Alpiger not Twin Galaxies.
Uh...it was also announced on the page of a Twin Galaxies referee.
And put back on the Twin Galaxies scoreboard on this site for the world to
see if they bothered to look.
Last edited by Weehawk on Wed May 26, 2004 1:09 am; edited 1 time in total
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
squarefishx2
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 4:37 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.funspotnh.com/discus/messages/10/636.html?1085411949
Here is the direct link to the thread on Funspot
_________________
"Photography with a Vision"
www.cooganphoto.com
www.cooganphoto.com/gravitar
- dedicated to the 1982 Atari classic video arcade game Gravitar.
Hints and playing tips with screen captures, etc. included...
Gravitar 3,652,700
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cubeman
MAME Editor
Location: Oshawa Ontario Canada
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 5:28 pm Post subject: Spy Hunter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me just make a comment of remarks.
I posted news about Paul Dean's score prematurely because I went with my gut
instincts on it. When I looked at Paul Dean's web site it appeared to me that
he supplied sufficient details to convince me that the score was genuine, however
I was not present when Paul Dean got his record. My confidence was based on the
email messages I received from Jeff Peters who _has_ seen Paul Dean play.
Let me also say that it will ultimately be up to Walter to come to a decision
on the matter. After all, Twin Galaxies is his creation and it's his name on
the front of the book. I'll abide by Walter's decision.
Really _I_ can't be 100% positive unless I'm right there watching the player,
but like many players I like to express my 2 cents.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Longridge
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Weehawk
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 5:49 pm Post subject: Re: Spy Hunter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cubeman wrote:
Let me just make a comment of remarks.
I posted news about Paul Dean's score prematurely because I went with my
gut instincts on it. When I looked at Paul Dean's web site it appeared to
me that he supplied sufficient details to convince me that the score was
genuine, however I was not present when Paul Dean got his record. My confidence
was based on the email messages I received from Jeff Peters who _has_ seen
Paul Dean play.
Let me also say that it will ultimately be up to Walter to come to a decision
on the matter. After all, Twin Galaxies is his creation and it's his name on
the front of the book. I'll abide by Walter's decision.
Really _I_ can't be 100% positive unless I'm right there watching the player,
but like many players I like to express my 2 cents.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Longridge
Your reputation for promoting score verification is well documented.
And I apologize for throwing you into this (though I didn't mention you by
name), but it seemed really unfair that Mr. Day was laying it all on Mark
Alpiger when a TG ref had announced it as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WalterDay
Founder
Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 11:17 am Post subject: Spy Hunter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I didnt know Mark had posted this information. However, Mark Alpiger learned
of this process directly from Robert Mruczek, not from Longridge.
walter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 9:06 pm Post subject: Agreed
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello fellow gamers:
The problem here is that a TG referee (myself) jumped the gun on revealing
a score reinstatement. Fact remains, we so rarely since I've been on board had
any that I did not wait for a final thumbs up from Mr. Walter Day before sharing
news of the change in status. Had I done so, the score would not have been on
the TG database (again) and no problems would exist.
I will not shirk from my responsibility here. The damage was done, and I am
fully to blame. My apologies to all, especially Mark Little and also Paul
Dean for having them come into the limelight in this fashion.
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great time at Phillyclassic Link
Twin Galaxies Forums Forum Index -> Coin-Op Video Games
View previous topic :: View next topic
Author Message
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little:
mandm785@juno.com
Location: Doylestown, PA
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 11:14 pm Post subject: Great time at Phillyclassic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello All,
Hope everyone who attended this last weekend had a great time- I know I sure
did! I really enjoyed meeting the many "legends" of the arcade. It was great
to finally be able to meet and chat with the people who own the records on these
classics, and watch them in action. Everyone in the Twin Galaxies "group" was
very friendly and cordial. Hope everyone had a safe trip back home! I now have
quite a bit of work ahead of me, as Bryan Wagner destroyed some of my high scores
in my gameroom during his visit!!
_________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Little
Spy Hunter arcade world record
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RMRUCZEK
TG Board of Directors
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 4:24 pm Post subject: Great to Meet You !!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Mark:
It as thrilling to meet the world champion at "Spy Hunter" for the first time in
person !! Often I never meet the record holders face to face except in rare
occassions, so this was special.
Hoping that we will see you at Funspot this year where "Spy Hunter" awaits, and
maybe a new world record !!
Robert
_________________
Robert T Mruczek
Twin Galaxies - Editor and Chief referee
Star Wars classic arcade marathon champion
rmruczek@doremus.com (work E-MAIL)
******************************
Spy Hunter Marquee
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bondo
Location: weare,nh
Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 5:55 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OH MAN!!!! does he crank on that game. Very nice meeting you mark, hopefully
we'll see you in june at funspot, keep up the good work.
GREG
mappy champ
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bryguy
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 12:12 pm Post subject: Marks place
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark,
Your a great guy. Very hospitable. I really enjoyed your arcade. I love the
Burgertime cocktail! The hi on his Spy Hunter was 832,000!!!
Amazing. Thanks for helping me up my hi on the game. And playing the immaculate
Haunted House pinball you have was great!
Hope tp make another trip to your place!
As for my scores, - it gives you something to shoot for.
Take care,
Bryan Wagner
_________________
Arcade Burgertime WR 8,417,500
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Gomez was the lead programmer for spy hunter: Link
Klov
Link
George Gomez (creator of Spy Hunter, Tron, more classic pinball than you
can shake a stick at):
While we are on the subject of George Gomez. . .
Question: You mention that George Gomez was a designer on the original
arcade Spy Hunter. Do you know who else worked on it? I have
always loved that game.
Answer: Uncle Willy often hums the Peter Gunn tune to himself, while
searching for the oil-drum button on his steering wheel. If only
commuting were like Spy Hunter, it might be more bearable.
(DISCLAIMER: any implied endorsement of "road rage" driving
techniques is not intended!)
Uncle Willy managed to find a few names of the original design
team: Tom Leon was the programmer and co-designer with George
Gomez. Bob Libby created the algorithmic jazz riffs that segue
between the Peter Gunn excerpts. Lots of folks contributed that
great video art, including Steve Ulstad, Sharon Barr, Brian
Colin, and Kevin O'Conner. Doug Watson and Tony Ramunni did the
art for the cabinet. Uncle Willy does not own a Playstation, but
he hears that there is a "Midway Arcade Classics" game available
for that platform which includes the definitive listing of
credits, and interviews with some of the designers.
More on George Gomez and Pinball:
Message 7 in thread
From: Steve Lane (smlane@unity.ncsu.edu)
Subject: Re: So who designed J. Mnemonic?
View this article only
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Date: 1995/08/28
Kingndi (kingndi@aol.com) wrote:
" George Gomez is indeed the designer of Corvette and Johnny
" Mnemonic. George has been in the coin-op game biz a long
" time, and has done many things: Rockin' Bowl, parts of the Battletech
" System, Spy Hunter, and Tron to name just a few. He rarely gets credit
" for his work, mostly because he is quiet and easy-going and as
" often happens in our business, some other clown is always
" waiting to take the credit.
I'm not surprised to hear this; that loud people get more
credit than quiet people, independent of their actual
contributions. I was hesitant to believe that Corvette
was Gomez' first game, as it's so terrific.
" George also works very hard and long hours, and is totally immersed
" in whatever he's working on. His first pinballs have done very well,
" and no one deserves success more. Expect more great things
" from him--he's got plenty of imagination and energy to spare.
Awarded for the cheesiest quote of the year so far must go to George Gomez for
this classic:"The game recreates the excitement and glamour of the magazine
within the fiction of the game." Err, right George.
Here's the press release:
Playboy Pinball Display - George Gomez
Playboy, the most popular men's magazine in history, is now the pinball machine
that everyone's talking about. Brought to you by Stern Pinball, Inc. and Playboy
Enterprises International, Inc., the Playboy pinball machine is the work of George
Gomez (designer of Monster Bash™), Dwight Sullivan (programmer of T2® and Star
Trek: TNG®), and the incredible team of pinball experts at Stern Pinball. Steeped
in Playboy's rich 50-year tradition, this pinball machine brings you the world's
most beautiful women in a glamorous lifestyle that only can be called Playboy.
This is one pinball machine you have to see to believe, and play to experience.
The Playboy pinball machine challenges you to collect Playboy Rabbit Heads, to
complete a calendar year of Playmates, and experience "Mansion Mania" in a way
you never have before. The Playboy pinball machine also features a mechanical
Centerfold that opens and closes, along with several other unique playfield mechanisms
that reveal the many beautiful women of Playboy. (Important note: photo inserts
for the playfield mechanisms are interchangeable, allowing for appropriately rated
images to be applied to various environments.)
The Playboy pinball machine also features an incredible art package by Kevin O'Connor
(artist of Star Wars: Episode One® and PLAYBOY: 35th Anniversary), great sounds and
music, and a sexy lady's voice talking to you the whole way.
Item 7500 Stern Playboy Pinball - was $4495 now On Sale for
Retail Price: $4995 Our Price: $SOLD OUT
George Gomez says, "This is the first Playboy pinball that truly highlights the
beautiful women of Playboy. The game recreates the excitement and glamour of the
magazine within the fiction of the game."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXTRA... EXTRA...
Story dated 8th March 2002.
Link
Stern Pinball Inc has produced its latest newsletter and predictably it is mostly
about their newest pinball game - Playboy.
The original plan was to send out these newsletters once a month but those ambitions
have been scaled back to just three newsletters a year to coincide with the production
of each new game.
This edition features a chat with Playboy designer George Gomez.
Hello again and welcome to The Second Stern Pinball Newsletter
Everyone at Stern Pinball would like to thank you for the amazing response to our
last game, Monopoly™. The Monopoly™ pinball machine not only reached the top spot
on both the RePlay and Play Meter Polls, it is now one of Stern's best selling game
to date! Thanks again and keep flipping!
Further, Gary Stern was so excited with the success of working with Pat Lawlor and
his team on the Monopoly™ pinball machine that he invited some more former WMS
superstars, along with Stern's own incredible team of pinball designers, to create
Stern's newest game, Playboy. We hope that you welcome these pinball greats back,
and more so, we hope that you like the Playboy pinball machine as much as we do.
Playboy
Playboy Pinball Game
---
Stern & Playboy join to bring you the new Playboy Pinball, based on the world's
NO.1 male magazine Playboy. This new Playboy pinball machine is brought to you
by George Gomez (designer of Monster Bash™), Dwight Sullivan (programmer of T2®
and Star Trek: TNG), and the team of pinball experts at Stern Pinball.
Stern has managed to cover Playboy's rich 50-year tradition, by bringing you the
world's most beautiful women in a glamorous lifestyle.
The pinball features the Rabbit Heads challenge, where the player needs to collect
12 rabbit heads to complete a calendar year of Playmates, which unlocks "Mansion
Mania". The machine also features a mechanical Centerfold that opens and closes,
along with several other unique playfield mechanisms that reveal the many beautiful
women of Playboy. Of course Playboy being Playboy some of the images are on the
adult side of things, likely Stern has thought of this and has included, different
interchangeable photo inserts for the playfield mechanisms, allowing for
appropriately rated images for the venue in question.
The Playboy pinball machine also features an art package by Kevin O'Connor
(artist of Star Wars: Episode One® and PLAYBOY: 35th Anniversary), great sounds
and music, and a sexy lady's voice talking to you the whole way.
Gomez- Monster Bash Pinball Playfield Display
Williams Flipper - 1998, Playfield Designer: George Gomez
---
Designed by George Gomez (Monster Bash™), Stern employee Dwight Sullivan (WhoDunnit™),
and artist Kevin O'Connor (Star Wars: Episode One®, Playboy: 35th Anniversary),
the Playboy pinball machine brings you the world's most beautiful women in the
lifestyle that can only be known as Playboy.
So recently, Stern News sat down with game designer George Gomez and asked him a
few questions about the Playboy pinball machine, as well as a little of his own
pinball history. Now let's hear what's on George's mind these days.
Stern News: Welcome George, and thank you for taking the time to talk to us. You
just finished designing Stern Pinball's new Playboy pinball machine. Could you tell
us a little about it?
George Gomez: Playboy and pinball have always been a powerful combination and I think
that this game is the most exciting version to date.
SN: Could you please explain in more detail the 'Interchangeable Photo Inserts' that
go on the playfield.
George Gomez: Each target has the ability to reveal a beautiful girl. The girls are
represented in photo quality removable inserts that are made from translite material
and illuminated. The game is shipped with several sets of photo inserts. The sets
vary in how much of the girls they reveal. In one set the photos are very conservative
and in the next the girls reveal a bit more and of course there is a nude set. All
of the inserts are taken from actual Playboy photography so they are very high quality
and consistent with Playboy's high standards. This variety allows the operator to swap
inserts in order to adjust the game to the location and the customer base.
(Editor's note: photo inserts for the playfield mechanisms are interchangeable,
allowing for appropriately rated images to be applied to various environments.)
SN: How did you come up with the concept?
George Gomez: I used to play the original Bally game years ago. There was a bar downtown that
had one and I remember thinking that it would be fun to make the game as close to
the actual magazine as possible. When we were at WMS, my partner in this game,
Dwight Sullivan, wanted to do it on the Pinball 2000™ platform but it was deemed
too difficult at the time.
SN: Could you tell us the names of your favorite pinball machines and what elements
you like in them?
George Gomez: In no particular order.Firepower 2™, Black Knight™, Terminator 2®, Playboy,
Medieval Madness™, Attack From Mars™, Whirlwind™, Party Zone™, Monster Bash™,
RFM™, and Star Trek. I love games that build in intensity and games that make
me work at mastering them. I like smooth shooting, hook a lot of shots together
and feel like a hero, take a breather & bring on the next thing, collect cool
stuff kinds of games. I also love it when a game theme is thoroughly executed.
By that I mean that all of the elements: art, sounds, choreography, fiction, and
play mechanic need to be consistent and well thought out. I never could get into
those old games where the art was applied as an after thought and the theme may
have been space but the play mechanic was a card game. I didn't play pinball in
that era and that's probably why. When I was a kid I loved Marvel comics because
the stories and the art and the cover were all tied together, I despised D.C. comics
in the era when the stuff on the book cover had nothing to do with the story inside.
SN: You're best known in the pinball community for designing the Williams/Bally
hit Monster Bash™. Tell us why you think that pinball machine was such a
monster hit?
George Gomez: I think it represents what I described above. We made the Monster toys
compelling, the ball had fun kinetics in things like bashing Frank and Drac, it had
some smooth ramps like the Bride ramp. The game had a lot of humor, which was a
trademark of the most successful games of that time. And of course the pacing did
what I referred to previously; it built the game tension throughout the whole game. Every
person on that team stepped up and gave me their best stuff. It was a complete package.
SN: You are also generally credited with the idea for WMS' Pinball 2000™. What led
you to come up with that concept?
George Gomez: Desperation, in a word. If the player base had disappeared, it had to
do with the fact that we were no longer entertaining them. When you've designed a
thousand ramps and created all manners of game rules, you have to do something new.
It was simply an attempt to create a compelling new medium that would include elements
that were familiar and yet provide new ways to play. By the way I always felt that we
should retain both the traditional and the 2000 lines of product. But that proved
economically unfeasible.
SN: Let's go back to the Playboy pinball machine. How would you characterize this
particular Playboy pinball machine with the first two (Bally's Playboy; Data East's
Playboy: 35th Anniversary)? Is this a much more exciting game for the year 2002?
George Gomez: I think this is the ultimate application of the theme. The entire Playboy
mystique revolves around these incredibly beautiful and interesting women. We
have made this game consistent with that. We have for the first time focused on
portraying the very essence of Playboy. The previous games hinted at it but stopped
short of delivering on the promise. This game has all of it.
SN: Last question. What was the first pinball machine you ever played?
George Gomez: I don't remember what it was called but it would have been something from the
sixties. I think it was a space theme, and I think once I got beyond the concept
that I had to keep the ball in play, I focused on turning the lights on and trying
to get the ball to make its way everywhere on the playfield. It was in a rec. room
at an Air Force base somewhere out west. I was on a cross-country trip with the
Boy Scouts. I never imagined then that this game would become such a significant
part of my life.
SN: Well thanks George for all of your insight. And we wish you continued success,
and much success with the new Playboy pinball machine.
George Gomez: Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to design this game. It has been a
privilege to work with all of the talent in your company.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One thing that I think pinball has lost in recent years is the sheer entertainment
factor in games. Elvis restores this in a big, BIG way. The last game I can
remember being this fun just to hear and watch was the George Gomez classic
Monster Bash. From the sounds of See See Rider playing as the first ball is put
into play to the numerous musical game modes, this game hits the bull's-eye.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pin Game Journal - Interview with George Gomez Link
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July, 2002. This issue of the PinGame Journal Issue features a very special story.
Told by former pinball designer John Popadiuk, it highlights the innovation and
style of the 1960's French pinball manufacturer Rally Play. Also in this issue
is a photo story of the 2002 edition of the industry ASI show and Tim Arnold's
Fun Night. Stern showed it's latest game, Playboy, at that show and the PGJ presents
an in depth look at the origin of this George Gomez game along with an interview
with George on his life Between Pinballs. Also in this issue readers will find an
exclusive chance to purchase a long out of print and unavailable book by Dick Buschel,
Show Shopping by Trent Augenstein, Guessing Game from Jonathan Schelberg, The New
Zoo Review, an intro to Visual Pinball, a bingo story from Jeffrey Lawton, the first
installment of Norm's Nest, reviews of the Pinball Compendium from Bruce Clark and
the newest This Old Pinball tapes. Other odds and ends including color art from
Playboy you've not seen before round out this issue. Don't miss it!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spy Hunter © 12/1983 Bally Midway. Link
Spy Hunter is an action/driving game. It places the player as the driver of
a 'spy' vehicle. The object of the game is to travel the freeways and hunt
down and destroy as many enemy vehicles as possible, all the while protecting
and not harming innocent civilian vehicles.
This game runs on the Bally Midway MCR 3 hardware.
Originally the James Bond theme was planned as the background music for the
game. The inability to obtain the rights to use the music, however, forced
Midway to change the theme on shipping models. In the end, the Peter Gunn
theme music was a large part of the game's appeal.
The James Bond theme was originally sought after and programmed into the
prototype machine until it was determined that licensing costs for this
music would be too expensive. A person from marketing suggested they use
the Peter Gunn theme instead.
A boat driving sequence and a helicopter sequence was also planned. Shortage
of memory, however, did not allow for this feature. The game has no end and
at no time does the player ever leave the car but it was RUMORED to have a
graveyard sequence, an actual end and a sequence where the player exited the
car for on-foot action.
The car was based on one of the designer's own Nissan 280z.
Like in the original Spy Hunter, the car is called the G-6155 Interceptor.
The designation comes from creator George Gomez's birthday (6/1/1955).
Here's A Great Cheat That Does Several Things At Once :
1) You need to have a supply truck available, and a be at a bridge-out level.
When the detour appears, don't take it - instead, call up your truck.
2) Wait until the road has straightened out into the bridge and drive into
the truck. When the truck pulls over and lets you out, stay on the side of
the road, and SLOWLY drive up until you reach the gap in the bridge.
3) Drive on until you car is about half-way over the edge, and wait until
the Enforcer comes along. He will try and get you, but he'll be unable to
drive far enough to do so. At this point, I would get a friend to mind the
game, while I went for a break. When I returned, I just drove across the
bridge, flying mysteriously across the bridge out, until I reached the other
side.
4) You will notice several differences to the game after this happens. The
Enforcer no longer appears, the game gets no harder, and Dr. Torpedo no
longer appears on water sections!
1. Spy Hunter (1983)
2. Spy Hunter II (1987)
Spy Hunter (1983) 2. Spy Hunter II (1987) - STAFF: Designed and programmed
by Bill Adams, George Gomez and Tom Leon. Music by Henry Mancini
Designed and programmed by : Tom Leon, Jeff Nauman
Art : Kevin OConnor, Brian Colin, Steve Ulstad, Sharon Perry
Music by : Henry Mancini
Group Manager : Bill Adams
Cabinet guru : George Gomez
Cabinet assistant : John Kubik
Spy Hunter II Flyer - Information Sheet
Spy Hunter II Flyer - Front side
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Many Faces of . . . Spy Hunter Link
By Alan Hewston
This review was created while the Spy Hunter theme, "Peter Gunn" played continuously
in my mind. Spy Hunter was one of, if not the first games to combine the driving
and shooting genres and did well enough at the arcades in '83 that it eventually
spawned off a not-so-well-known sequel Spy Hunter II, in '87. As you know, there
were official classic home versions released for the Atari 2600, Colecovision,
Commodore 64, and the Apple and Atari home computers. A handful of more recent
platforms also saw Spy Hunter as a port as well.
Spy Hunter
The name James Bond never appeared in Bally Midways Spy Hunter, but the 007
influence was unmistakable in this 1983 arcade classic. Game designer George
Gomez was an avowed fan of the British secret agent with a license to kill,
and Spy Hunter allowed him (and the rest of the world) to live out a d...
As secret agent 007 . . . oops, they couldn't come out and say that. This game
is based upon secret agents like James Bond and their various super cars that
came heavily equipped to fight the bad guys on the highway. In your ultra-equipped
turbo-charged spy mobile, your mission is to use your unlimited supply of machine
guns to shoot up the bad guys or run them off the road, namely, the Road Lord,
Switchblade, the Enforcer, the Copter (called the Mad Bomber in the arcade), Barrel
Dumper and Doctor Torpedo. You should avoid the innocent drivers on the road, who
can cost you points if you shoot them, but then again, they can also cause you to
crash as well. In this vertical scrolling shooter game, your primary fire button
shoots your unlimited supply of machine guns in the direction you are headed.
This will eliminate 90% of the traffic. For vehicles behind you, armored vehicles,
and those in the air, a second fire button (or set of controls on the CV) activates
the special weapons - only available from your weapons van. Always be on the lookout
for your Weapons Van - let that big rig get ahead of you on the road and then drive
up the ramps into it. You are rewarded with a limited supply (usage) of: oil slicks,
smoke screens, or anti-helicopter missiles.
Besides driving on the road, Spy Hunter also had a boathouse and a speedboat for
chasing the enemy agents on the water. You may be forced to use the waterways -
warned via a text message to detour left, as the bridge is out ahead. But there
are also some chances to enter the waterways on your own. Once past the boat house
you come out on the other side in your Spy Hunter speedboat. The waterways are
somewhat more dangerous and require slower speeds due to the many small islands
that must be avoided. Another change in pace can be found when the road conditions
change to icy (I've not seen any other type of condition alerts).
You begin each game with only one life, but you have 999 counts on a timer
(about 90 seconds) where you get unlimited lives - that is, the weapons van
will pull up and give you another spy mobile as long as time remains on the
counter. Points were earned primarily for your driving distance but also when
you "rubbed off" the enemy agents. Extra lives are earned for scoring 10k, 18k,
30k and every 30,000 up to 120k.
Search Result 3
From: Wil (wb@subdural.com)
Subject: Re: old wives tales
View: Complete Thread (21 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Date: 2003-09-30 20:38:13 PST
I heard tales of the mob having a hand in the coin op business for years.....
The tale I heard was about a video game - spy hunter. I heard that if you
were good enough, there was a car to helicopter transformation - ie, like car to
boat. When I first started following some of the pinball groups (irc and here) -
when Williams was still in business, I was able to get a hold of the creator of spy
hunter - George Gomez. I emailed him about it, and his reply was that there was
going to be an air transformation stage, but it was never done, due to memory
issues, rom sizes, and schedules, so it never made it. Now if someone knows more
about this - let me know! I also believe on the Midway Classics collection (one
with spy hunter) there are interviews with the games creators, and there is a
little something mentioned about this....
Wish it were true, or that it had been at least prototyped :)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Gomez by Moby Games:
Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Midway Collection 2 Link
Released: 1997 (complete release info)
Published By: GT Interactive
Developed By: Midway Games
Ported By: Digital Eclipse Software, Inc.
MobyScore: 3.0 (out of 5)
Platforms: Windows, PlayStation
Genre: Action
Perspective: 1st-Person Perspective, Platform, Side-Scrolling, Top-Down
Non-Sport: Arcade, Fighting, Sci-Fi / Futuristic, Shooter
Misc: Coin-Op Conversion, Compilation / Shovelware, Emulator, Licensed Title
Description:
An emulation-based compilation of 7 classic arcade games. Joust 2: Survival of
the Fittest (a... well... joust), Splat! (food fighting), Blaster (3D space
shooter), Moon Patrol (side scrolling space shooter; licensed from Irem),
Root Beer Tapper (the non-alcoholic version of the Tapper games- a quasi-shooter),
Spy Hunter (overhead scrolling shooter), and Burger Time (platform/puzzler;
licensed from Data East.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Gomez by Moby Games: Link
Sno-Cross Championship Racing
Released: Aug 01, 2000 (complete release info)
Published By: Crave Entertainment, Inc.
Developed By: UDS
MobyScore: 3.8 (out of 5)
Platforms: PlayStation, Dreamcast
Genre: Racing / Driving, Sports
Perspective: 1st-Person Perspective, 3rd-Person Perspective
Description:
Strap on your goggles and helmet, choose your favorite Yamaha sled, and hit the
courses. Gain experience day and night, sun rain or snow, racing on the icy flats
of Vladivostok, the slopes of Aspen, and the tunnels of Nagano.
But, the real challenge starts when you enter the race circuit. Start with the
500cc sleds, win races, upgrade your snowmobile, and unlock higher end sleds and
new courses.. And, if you're looking for even more challenges, race head-to-head
with your friends, go vertical on hill-climbing tracks, or create your own courses!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description:
Link
Spy Hunter is the ultimate driving game if you happen to be a James Bond fan.
This game puts you in control of a high-tech sports car that's initially armed
with machine guns. Your goal: drive on an endless series of roads, avoiding civilian
vehicles and destroying enemy vehicles whenever possible. At regular intervals
along the way, you'll encounter Weapons Vans, which you can drive into to augment
your offensive and defensive armament. Available weapons include a smoke screen,
an oil slick, and a battery of missiles (which are the only weapons that you can
use to deal with the helicopters you'll encounter later in the game). You can even
drive off the main road and into a boathouse, whereupon your car is replaced by a
flame-spewing speedboat.
This game is extremely fast-paced, and isn't really suitable for more casual players.
The sheer number of controls--two triGeorge Gomezers, three buttons, a gear shift, a steering
wheel, and a gas pedal--gives you an awful lot to think about. Add that to the rather
unforgiving driving model (you die if you hit another car at the wrong speed and
when you accidentally drive off the road onto the grass) and you get a game that's
really tough to master.
Spy Hunter makes up for this by being extremely compelling. The spy theme is unique
in driving games (both then and now), the graphics were pretty good for the time,
and the music--an ever-present electronic arrangement of the Peter Gunn theme--combine
to make this one of the most fondly remembered games of its time.
Two versions of the machine were produced--an upright version and a slightly
less-common full-cockpit sit-down version.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PSA-LIST: Whatever Happened To George Gomez? Link
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Multiple recipients of list psa-list
Subject: PSA-LIST: Whatever Happened To George Gomez?
From: "Warren Smith"
Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 22:07:32 -0700
Importance: Normal
In-Reply-To: <3ACDD548.99E433CA@laplaza.org>
Sender: owner-psa-list@philmont.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.fortunecity.de/gourmet/montblanc/152/new_making_of_pin2000.htm
When I was Rayado Ranger in 1978, George Gomez was
our boss, our ACR. After leaving Philmont, George got into the video game
business and made his reputation early by working on the design team that
made the early video game success Galaga. My guess is that more of you than
care to admit it wasted hours in front of that game. For a while, Galaga
and Pac-Man were about all there were....
Today, he is still designing video games, and he recently scored another
"cult" success with by leading the design team of Pinball 2000. The link
above takes you to a recent photo of George and a transcript of a speech he
gave at a video game designers' conference.
Cheers.
Warren
1997-2003 Link
Gareth Knight
"Holopin" Pinball 2000
Developer: Williams
Year: 1993
Gomez - Holopin 2000 pinball was developed in 1993
The Holopin was the original inspiration for William's renowned Pinball 2000 series.
Pinball 2000 was an unusual product as it used an actual computer monitor to display
graphics while the user was playing a game. These graphics would be triggered by the
position of the ball on the pinball table. In a 1999 interview in Pinball Player ,
George Gomez, co-creator, described the origins of the machine:
"We're in this garage and we're talking about Williams and we're talking about pinball
and we're cutting wood and we're putting that thing together. We're doing monitor
weight lifting. There's an old 80s monitor in there left over from when I used to
try to develop 80s video games. That's the reason there's an Amiga hooked to it.
In the 80s, there was a period in my life, in which I was trying to pinch game
ideas. I had images loaded on it from that time. I was trying to fire it up today
but the Amiga was as cantankerous today as it was when we were working on it in
the garage.
We brought this thing into this conference room and everybody from engineering was
there and everybody's got something to say about it. This is the shift in gears
that sends us in this direction. John was a little upset. He's six months into a
game and he's got a playfield, he's got video, he's got things happening. And
eventually John comes around and one of the very first things that happens, once
we get going on this project, is that John's team actually brings up the very
first true interactive video image on a playfield that reacts to a pinball.
Pinball Player Volume 19, Issue 7
In this article, Gomez describes the haphazard design of the original machine.
The mockup, created by George Gomez and Pat Lawlor consisted of an undefined
Amiga and 'No Good Gofers' whitewood. Fortunately, the machine attracted a great
deal of attention at Williams, resulting in several spin-off designs, including
the Star Wars Episode 1 pinball machine. A simulation of these boards can also
be found in the Visual MAME emulation.
Relevant References
Pinball 2000.de
Pinball 2000 official site
Last Update: 14/8/2002
Some members of the Pinball 2000 design team
with their first creation
Left to right: Larry DeMar, Lyman F Sheats, George Gomez
Arcade Game Designed in 1983 by: Bally Midway George Gomez & Tom Leon.
Authors:
George Gomez (design), Tom Leon (program)
Question: Who is Jorge Alfredo Gomez Y Marth, and is he/she one or
two people?
Answer: Jorge Alfredo Gomez Y Marth is the full name of the designer
of the Corvette pinball by Bally. His family comes from Cuba;
Gomez is his father's name, Marth is his mother's. In order
to make it easier on the mainlanders, Jorge usually goes by
the name of George Gomez.
While George is a fairly recent addition to the Williams/Bally
pinball game design team, he is an industry veteran. Some
of his past projects include the Tron video game, Hawk Avenger
novelty, Spy Hunter video, Midway Big Bat baseball.
PSA-LIST: Whatever Happened To George Gomez? Link
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Multiple recipients of list psa-list
Subject: PSA-LIST: Whatever Happened To George Gomez?
From: "Warren Smith"
Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 22:07:32 -0700
Importance: Normal
In-Reply-To: <3ACDD548.99E433CA@laplaza.org>
Sender: owner-psa-list@philmont.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.fortunecity.de/gourmet/montblanc/152/new_making_of_pin2000.htm
When I was Rayado Ranger in 1978, George Gomez was
our boss, our ACR. After leaving Philmont, George got into the video game
business and made his reputation early by working on the design team that
made the early video game success Galaga. My guess is that more of you than
care to admit it wasted hours in front of that game. For a while, Galaga
and Pac-Man were about all there were....
Today, he is still designing video games, and he recently scored another
"cult" success with by leading the design team of Pinball 2000. The link
above takes you to a recent photo of George and a transcript of a speech he
gave at a video game designers' conference.
Cheers.
Warren
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Pinball Facts by George Gomez: Year 2000
george gomez - video game and pinball programmer and designer
George Gomez launching
Pinball 2000 at ATEI 99 in London
George Gomez and Eugene Jarvis had a hand in several pins from Williams.
(Video presentation.)
George Gomez: I want to tell you the story and I want to tell you the story
first hand. What you're going to hear are my opinions, not the opinions of
Williams Electronics Games or WMS Industries. It doesn't mean you can ask me
how many games we made. If I try answering that question there's a WMS Ninja
strike team that propels in from the ceiling.
In order to really understand where you are at any given point in time I truly
believe that you need to fully realise where you've been. I think that's really
key to anything we do.
Does anybody remember a really bad 80s movie called Brainstorm? In this movie,
for those that haven't seen it, there's a device with these really cool transducers,
its a helmet and you put it on and it records your brainwaves and it manages to
interpret them such that you can wear the helmet and you will feel everything
I've felt, see everything I've seen, and it feels like you're living my experience.
I really wish that technology was true because right now I'd make you all put
on the helmets and feel what I've felt over the last two years.
It's really important that you feel a part of my story because the thing about
Pinball 2000 is it's about passion. It's about a bunch of guys trying to make
something happen. And it's in an arena that isn't particularly conducive at
this particular point in time.
So I'm gonna take you through the really good stuff and then I'm gonna take you
through the really bad stuff. And then we'll talk about it and it'll be like
therapy.
A Culture
I want to say a word about one of the most powerful cultures in the history of
pinball. You need to know a bit about that culture so that you know where this
comes from and why it happened. That culture I'm talking about is the Williams
engineering department.
A thousand years from now when an archaeologist digs over 3401 N California
Avenue and finds all the toxic waste from the 1930's transformer production,
what they're gonna find is a clan of pinball. In this clan is this living
breathing organism made up of all these different guys.
I've been really fortunate to work in some of the most challenging creative
environments in the world, I think. I worked as an inventor of toys and that
was a highly challenging creative environment. In order to sell three items a
year I had to invent 52 things and I had to take those 52 things to protoype
and show them to toy companies.
Williams Electronics Games has in some ways raised the bar above that. It has
been more challenging to work there as a designer, even morethan it was to work
at Marvin Glass inventing toys.
The reason I went to Williams was not what you might think. I didn't go there
with this dying need to design pinball machines. I went there, not necessarily
for the love of the game, I went there to challenge myself, because I looked at
the toys I was designing and I said you know I get a little LED and a little 9
volt motor and I've gotta make this thing cost $14.95 at Toys R Us.
Now, I'm looking at pinball and Pat Lawlor is putting $100 mechanisms on a playfield
and I'm thinking that looks pretty fun to me. I wanna spend $4000 making the coolest
toy I can make. That drove me there and the personal challenge of finding this
environment that would challenge me again. Every 6 years I get bored and I do
something else.
I worked at Midway in the early 80's on video games. I did pixel graphics, you know
one pixel at a time and I designed these really cool controls and I worked on games
and I got bored with that and I moved on.
Williams was this place where the lure of guys like Steve Ritchie design 15,000
pinball machines for a title and live life completely. I wanted to see if I could
swim with the sharks.
That's what drove me there and once I got in there I started working on pinball
and pinball saturated me and became a part of me. I think the way that it is a
part of you. It's something that's taken me by surprise, I really did not expect
that. I expected it to be another cool design job and I thought I was gonna get
my jollies by playing with cool toys and cool tools. I thought this company was
gonna make me a star.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Gomez and his Pinball Legacy: Link
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date Name Units
Sold Players
1994-08 Corvette Midway SS 5,001 4p
1995-08 Johnny Mnemonic Williams SS 2,756 4p
1998-07 Monster Bash Williams SS 3,361 4p
1997-03 NBA Fastbreak Midway SS 4,414 4p
2002-01 Playboy Stern SS unknown 4p
1999-01 Revenge From Mars Midway SS 6,878 4p
2003-12 The Lord of the Rings Stern SS 4,017 4p
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Corvette / IPD No. 570 / August, 1994 / 4 Players
[ Update Game Information ]
Average Fun Rating: Keep Rating!
Manufacturer: Midway Mfg. Co., a subsidiary of WMS Industries,
Inc. (1988-1999) [Trade Name: Bally]
Model Number: 50036
MPU: Williams WPC Security (WPC-S)
Type: Solid State Electronic (SS)
Production: 5,001 units (confirmed)
Notable Features: Flippers(3), Ramps(2)
Toys: Matchbox car racetrack, Engine-shaped ball shaker
Concept by: George Gomez
Design by: George Gomez
Art by: Dan Hughes
Dots/Animation by: Eugene Geer, Scott Slomiany
Mechanics by: Thomas M. Kopera
Music by: Paul Heitsch
Sound by: Paul Heitsch
Software by: Tom Uban, Bill Grupp
Marketing Slogans: "One Great American Legend Deserves Another."
"There's a new breed of dream machine loose on the streets. CORVETTE from Bally."
"CORVETTE is a tour de force for pinball and Corvette fans alike."
"Test drive it at the showroom nearest you. But be prepared. You don't
take this CORVETTE for a spin. It takes you."
"With this dream machine, there's no limit to the fun."
"A pinball worthy of the name CORVETTE."
Gomez Corvette Pinball Flyer Front
Photos in: Corvette Quarterly 8(4), Winter 1995, pp. 34-6.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Ritchie IRC conference Link
September 13th, 1995
(This document originally came from Greg Dunlap. I've copied it over to my
server without any editing beyond this line. sao@mit.edu)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Ritchie: I personally am ready to compete with any of these young
whippersnappers.
At the same time, I encourage and welcome their competitive advances. Certainly
nothing can be better for pinball. Popadiuk looks hot, so does Brian Eddy.
George Gomez is a strong designer. But he's much younger than me. :) Whoops,
NOT much younger than me, I mean. I believe that right now, I should concentrate
more on design and less on managing the teams. During No Fear, it was incredibly
difficult to design the game and watch over other's designs. No Fear became a
rushed project and probably suffered a little for it. My thoughts are that it
takes about a year to make a truly excellent game.
D6jvb: You have a favorite game by any *other* designer?
Link
Steve: John Trudeau: Hollywood Heat. Pat Lawlor: Earthshaker. Barry Oursler:
Comet. Mark Ritchie: Indiana Jones. John Norris: Cue Ball Wizard. Greg Kmiec:
Captain Fantastic. Jim Patla: Centaur. Brian Eddy: His new game (which shall
remain nameless). Dennis Nordman: Elvira. Steve Kordek: Space Mission. John
Popadiuk: Theatre of Magic. George Gomez: Johnny Mnemonic. Harry Williams:
Flight 2000. Norm Clark: (George Isaseda) 8-Ball. Steve Kirk: Meteor. Joe
Kaminkow: Time Machine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 25 Jan 2004 20:54:01 Link
From: Aron Boag
Subject: Re: LOTR - What is the story behind George Gomez's Design?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 1/25/04 7:53 PM, in article Link
2f5fdabc.0401251653.7fdc4957@posting.google.com, "Brett B"
wrote:
> I was thinking tonight that I really haven't heard much of anything
> regarding George Gomez, and specifically his involvement with the Lord
> Of The Rings project.
Nor has he been vocal himself on the newsgroup. Keith has been, and answers
questions and such. He's going to get more, uh, "press" that way, if you
want to call it that.
> It's widely understood the George Gomez did the bulk of the playfield design for
> LOTR, yet why has his name and involvement seemed to be so
> "background?"
See above. Also, his track record isn't necessarily the steadiest. Playboy
was *not* a hit by anyone's standards, and they're not exactly going to want
to affiliate LOTR as being "From the guy who brought you Playboy!"
> Was George a hired gun/consultant to the LOTR project (ala Pat Lawlor
> and his PLD company in terms of what they did with RCT and Monopoly),
> or does George work officially for Stern? Will George be doing more
> pins in the future at Stern?
To my knowledge, he's an employee of Stern, as opposed to PLD or SRD.
> I sure as hell hope so - I think this playfield design is the best
> he's come up with in a long time, much better than MB or FT IMHO. Sure
> it's a little derivative, but what game isn't? That twisty little left
> ramp shot just kills me...WOW.
Okay, first item of business: Fish Tales was Mark Ritchie, not George
Gomez. George's first pin was Corvette, followed by Johnny Mnemonic, NBA:
Fast Break, Monster Bash, Revenge From Mars, Playboy, and Lord of the Rings.
FT was well before he ever got into Williams, and I'll thank you for not
attributing some darned nice work by Mark Ritchie to the wrong person.
As for the playfield being derivative, it most certainly is, but I like it
anyway. I mean, let's face it: Pat Lawlor's been getting a bit derivative
in his last few titles, so it's not like calling LOTR's playfield design
derivative is singling George out as the only offender.
And yes, I enjoy the left ramp, too. :)
> I would really appreciate knowing "behind the scenes" what George Gomez
> involvement was if anyone knows the scoop on this. We give big and
> well deserved kudos to KJ, but George deserves his applause as well.
Well, it's hard to really get a swell of applause going when the design is
very AFM/MM-esque. I get your point, but in terms of playfield design, I
like TSPP far better, especially with an upper playfield. That game really
pushed things to a better level, design-wise. Not sure I can say the same
for LOTR, but I do like the design, even if there are some issues like ball
traps and such. It still pleases me, so I tip my hat to George.
Feel better now? ;)
Aron
> BRETT B
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Corvette Pinball Game Link
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Question: I have a question regarding some mystery switches which appear on
the switch matrix for Bally's Corvette, but aren't anywhere on
the game.
The switch matrix lists switches for "1st gear (optional)", "2nd
gear (optional)", etc. There is also a mystery switch for "Skid
Route Exit".
Was there actually going to be some kind of gearshift option for
the game? What was the other switch for and why was it removed?
Answer: Uncle Willy had a little chat with George Gomez and found the
answers to these questions...and some other tidbits as well. In
fact, Uncle Willy had to excuse himself from George's office when
George started launching into conspiracy theories about why
pinballs are exactly 1 1/16" in diameter. (Sometimes when you
get George going, it's hard to shut him up...) For instance,
Uncle Willy learned that two of the cars in the artwork have
license plates to match those on Corvettes owned by George Gomez
and Pat Lawlor.
But on to your original question... When Corvette was nearing
production, an error was discovered in the cost calculations for
the game. Turns out the cost of materials was way over budget
and George was forced to delete things left and right to try to
bring the cost down. Cost reduction is a normal part of the
design process, but it's not usually done all at once and in a
hurry like that.
All kinds of subtle things were removed: rebound switches,
flashers, general illumination lamps, etc. There were also a
couple of redundant switches removed, such as the one at the end
of the Skid Pad/Route 66 wireform ramp. It would have been nice
for the software to have another data point about where the ball
was, but it wasn't crucial to the game.
There was also going to be a 4-speed shifter mounted to the right
side of the cabinet. During drag strip mode, you could give the
car gas with the left flipper, and shift up through the gears
with the right flipper or with the gearshift. The code for these
4 switches is still in the game, and if you somehow attached your
own shifter unit there it would work. About 15 games are
believed to exist with this shifter unit installed from the
factory, and they are largely in the hands of the game's design
team.
Believe it or not, the left side standup targets were originally
going to be drop targets. The art for the stickers had "Feel The
Power" and "B2K" written across the 3 targets. (The latter is a
reference to the factory option code used for Calloway
Corvettes.) The latest ROM revision for Corvette (Version 2.1,
available from the Williams web site at http://www.wms.com/)
actually has the code to handle either the stand-ups or the drop
targets, much like the Firepower drop target retrofit discussed a
few years ago. Only one game with drop targets is currently
believed to exist, and it is in the hands of one of the design
team members. If Uncle Willy can come up with the technical
details of retrofitting drop targets to a Corvette, he will post
that in a separate article to rec.games.pinball.
While we are on the subject of George Gomez. . .
Question: You mention that George Gomez was a designer on the original
arcade Spy Hunter. Do you know who else worked on it? I have
always loved that game.
Answer: Uncle Willy often hums the Peter Gunn tune to himself, while
searching for the oil-drum button on his steering wheel. If only
commuting were like Spy Hunter, it might be more bearable.
(DISCLAIMER: any implied endorsement of "road rage" driving
techniques is not intended!)
Uncle Willy managed to find a few names of the original design
team: Tom Leon was the programmer and co-designer with George
Gomez. Bob Libby created the algorithmic jazz riffs that segue
between the Peter Gunn excerpts. Lots of folks contributed that
great video art, including Steve Ulstad, Sharon Barr, Brian
Colin, and Kevin O'Conner. Doug Watson and Tony Ramunni did the
art for the cabinet. Uncle Willy does not own a Playstation, but
he hears that there is a "Midway Arcade Classics" game available
for that platform which includes the definitive listing of
credits, and interviews with some of the designers.
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Greg Maletic - The Demise Of Williams Pinball Link
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Greg started by showing a graph of pinball sales since 1990 and it illustrated
a peak around 1992 followed by a steady decline in the number of games sold
between then and the point at which they withdrew from pinball design and
manufacturing.
Greg is producing a documentary showing how that decline led first to the development
of Pinball 2000 and ultimately to the division's closure. He showed a two minute
clip from that documentary illustrating the launch of Pinball 2000.
Greg lives in San Francisco and after starting a software company he was looking
for his next project and decided to look into building a conversion kit for Pinball
2000 games. Williams were not keen on the idea, but Greg went to the factory to talk
to George Gomez about it, or the possibility of working at Williams. George explained
how it was not a good time to get into pinball. That was around a month before
Williams announced their decision to close.
Revenge From Mars - Link
Notes: According to George Gomez, Attack from Mars was *not* originally
inspired by the movie 'Mars Attacks' as is commonly suggested. According
to Gomez, Brian Eddy had the concept long before the movie and it is mere
coincidence that they emerged on the market within a year of each other.
Doug Watson, who wrote the script for what they should say, is also the
voice of the Martians.
Greg bought a Revenge From Mars for his company's office and saw how everyone
enjoyed playing it but was intrigued why Williams got out of the business when
they had such a good product. He thought it would make a good subject for a
documentary. Greg Dunlap was also making a documentary on the same subject,
so for a while they collaborated but eventually he had to move onto other projects
and Greg Maletic took it over.
He didn't want to cover the history of pinball but instead wanted to look at
the pinball market, the culture at Williams and how a game is designed. For
this he examined the first Pinball 2000 game - Revenge From Mars which sold
7000 units, far more than any Williams game for the past two years. It was
developed alongside the other Pinball 2000 game, Star Wars - Episode 1 with
that game originally intended to be released first but held back to coincide
with the release of the film.
Greg then showed a clip from the documentary about the build-up to the release
of Star Wars - Episode 1. There were problems when the game started shipping.
For a start, the price was higher than Revenge From Mars. RFM was itself more
expensive than previous games but many distributors absorbed that increase because
it sold so well, but there was also an accounting error which led to the game
being under priced. For SW-E1 they tried to rectify that mistake and so the price
rose again.
Also, the movie didn't receive the acclaim it was expecting. Initial games were
sent to Europe and games didn't start appearing in the US until much later when
the film's hype had worn off.
In the end, the game sold 5000 units which, while good, was not as many as expected
and would have led to a gap in production of a couple of months before the next
Pinball 2000 game - Wizard Blocks - would have been ready to hit the line.
Another problem was the much higher profit being generated by WMS's gaming
division. With much easier returns coming from slot machines it was hard to
justify continuing with the low-profit pinball division.
Another clip from the documentary showed various people's thoughts and speculation
about the closure and the reasoning behind it.
The documentary should be completed around March or April of 2004 and available
to purchase on DVD. We will, of course, be reviewing it when it is completed,
but you can keep up with the latest information at Greg's web site
www.futureofpinball.com
----------------
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1a. Getting Started: What is Pinball 2000? Link
Pinball 2000 has a 19 inch video game monitor which has been integrated with a
traditional pinball playfield. Virtual images are projected onto the playfield,
allowing the ball to interact with video targets as well as traditional "hardwired"
targets. Images on the video monitor can be moved and animated in respect to the
playfield architecture, creating 3-D video targets. With a hardwire target behind
the animated 3-D video target, the computer knows when the ball "hits" the animated
3-D video target. It can then project a 3-D explosion of the target, or any other
computer generated affect, seemingly right on the playfield!
Unfortunately there were only *two* pinball 2000 game titles manufactured: Revenge
from Mars (aka RFM), and Star Wars Episode 1 (aka SWE1). Game number three, titled
Wizard Blocks (designer Pat Lawlor) was never produced. Likewise for game number
four, Playboy (designer George Gomez). The existing two Pinball 2000 games (RFM
and SWE1) were rushed to market while the pinball 2000 system itself was being
developed. Because of this, the first two games aren't as "deep" as they could
have been. Games three and later addressed many of the criticisms of Pinball 2000
("too reliant on the video", "shoot up the middle only" and "I can't see the ball
at the top of the playfield"). But unfortunately we will never see the full potential
of this new and unique pinball system.
The big advantage to this style of pinball is playfield "toys" no longer need to be
physical. They can be projected onto the playfield. This means no maintenance of
broken mechanical "toys", more flexibility in the design of video "toys", and lower
manufacturing costs. Also pinball design is now expanded to another level. Before,
limits were in place as to what a pinball designer could do. With Pinball 2000,
these limits are largely gone. Mechanical toys can still be used, but the designer
now has a choice and can use video "toys" (instead of, or in addition). And video
toys can interact with the ball easily.
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Pinball Player Online Link
Link
The Making of Pinball 2000
A transcript of the Pinball Expo 99 seminar given by George Gomez
Published in Pinball Player Volume 19, Issue 7
The magazine of the Pinball Owners Association
Introduction
Billed as the highlight of this year's Pinball Expo, George Gomez (lead designer
on Williams' Pinball 2000 range) presented an illuminating seminar. In his eagerly
awaited discourse, he discussed the design and some of the thinking behind the
project as well as giving an insight into the company's future plans.
Little did we know at the time that Williams Electronics Games would be closed for
good on the very next working day? It makes this verbatim account of the seminar
all the more relevant, and poignant.
The seminar
George Gomez launching
Pinball 2000 at ATEI 99 in London
Rob Berk: Our next presenter began his career inventing and designing toys, but
he got bored with that quickly. In 1993 he began his designing career at Williams.
His games include Corvette, Johnny Mnemonic, NBA Fastbreak, Monster Bash and Revenge
from Mars. It's our pleasure to introduce as a first time speaker, head speaker at
the Expo, George Gomez.
George Gomez: I want to tell you the story and I want to tell you the story first
hand. What you're going to hear are my opinions, not the opinions of Williams
Electronics Games or WMS Industries. It doesn't mean you can ask me how many games
we made. If I try answering that question there's a WMS Ninja strike team that
propels in from the ceiling.
In order to really understand where you are at any given point in time I truly
believe that you need to fully realise where you've been. I think that's really
key to anything we do.
Does anybody remember a really bad 80s movie called Brainstorm? In this movie,
for those that haven't seen it, there's a device with these really cool transducers,
its a helmet and you put it on and it records your brainwaves and it manages to
interpret them such that you can wear the helmet and you will feel everything I've
felt, see everything I've seen, and it feels like you're living my experience. I
really wish that technology was true because right now I'd make you all put on
the helmets and feel what I've felt over the last two years.
It's really important that you feel a part of my story because the thing about
Pinball 2000 is it's about passion. It's about a bunch of guys trying to make
something happen. And it's in an arena that isn't particularly conducive at this
particular point in time.
So I'm gonna take you through the really good stuff and then I'm gonna take you
through the really bad stuff. And then we'll talk about it and it'll be like therapy.
A Culture
I want to say a word about one of the most powerful cultures in the history of
pinball. You need to know a bit about that culture so that you know where this
comes from and why it happened. That culture I'm talking about is the Williams
engineering department.
A thousand years from now when an archaeologist digs over 3401 N California Avenue
and finds all the toxic waste from the 1930's transformer production, what they're
gonna find is a clan of pinball. In this clan is this living breathing organism made
up of all these different guys.
I've been really fortunate to work in some of the most challenging creative environments
in the world, I think. I worked as an inventor of toys and that was a highly challenging
creative environment. In order to sell three items a year I had to invent 52 things and
I had to take those 52 things to protoype and show them to toy companies.
Williams Electronics Games has in some ways raised the bar above that. It has been
more challenging to work there as a designer, even morethan it was to work at Marvin
Glass inventing toys.
The reason I went to Williams was not what you might think. I didn't go there with
this dying need to design pinball machines. I went there, not necessarily for the
love of the game, I went there to challenge myself, because I looked at the toys
I was designing and I said you know I get a little LED and a little 9 volt motor
and I've gotta make this thing cost $14.95 at Toys R Us.
Now, I'm looking at pinball and Pat Lawlor is putting $100 mechanisms on a playfield
and I'm thinking that looks pretty fun to me. I wanna spend $4000 making the coolest
toy I can make. That drove me there and the personal challenge of finding this
environment that would challenge me again. Every 6 years I get bored and I do
something else.
I worked at Midway in the early 80's on video games. I did pixel graphics, you know
one pixel at a time and I designed these really cool controls and I worked on games
and I got bored with that and I moved on.
Williams was this place where the lure of guys like Steve Ritchie design 15,000
pinball machines for a title and live life completely. I wanted to see if I could
swim with the sharks.
That's what drove me there and once I got in there I started working on pinball
and pinball saturated me and became a part of me. I think the way that it is a
part of you. It's something that's taken me by surprise, I really did not expect
that. I expected it to be another cool design job and I thought I was gonna get
my jollies by playing with cool toys and cool tools. I thought this company was
gonna make me a star.
At Williams Electronics spiritual leaders walk the halls. We're talking about
passionate men with insane visions and bullet-proof demeanors that insist that
they're right. You have never seen grown men screaming and yelling at the top of
their lungs in the hallway over a multiball rule. You would think we were talking
about nuclear proliferation, the amount of passion that goes into the product we
make. The nuance of the return, off the right ball guide to the right flipper on
that loop shot, is it too high on the flipper, you know. These discussions are
endless.
You're talking about the most brutal critics in pinball. They make you guys look
easy. The reason I say that is that the guys at Williams that design pinball machines
not only criticize you, but they know what the answer is. You guys criticize me but
sometimes you don't know what the answer is. There is such pride in this engineering
department that we have never once reverse engineered the competition's product. We
have never brought in a machine to find out what made it tick. I have to tell you
that Ferrari reverse engineers Lamborghini's product. There is an element of pride
here that says competition is down the hall, not down the street. This is a flavor
for this culture, this environment.
At night, John Popadiuk says, the ghosts of the great designers walk the halls.
When you're in your office at 2 o'clock in the morning; all day long you were sure
that ball guide was in the right place, and then at 3 o'clock in the morning for
some unknown reason, you decide to move it a sixteenth of an inch. That's I
think the inspiration of those guys, I hope.
The Birth of Pinball 2000
It was this passionate group that was repeatedly challenged to step up and try
to fix the business of pinball. Management said we need to make it profitable.
The world has changed, nobody wants what you guys are doing, and you're boring everybody.
Invent something new. We just cannot continue to repeat ourselves. We have put
umpteen million heads on a playfield, we have created layer upon layer of ramps,
we have convoluted rule sets, we have video modes, and we have all this stuff and guess
what; it's not making a difference. We're just rehashing ourselves. And management
says this has got to stop, you have got to come up with something or we're done!
Our company's a business; you've heard that in this forum a lot. That business has
to make sense. Make it fun. That was the criteria. I have been doing leisure
entertainment products for 20 years now and I have to tell you the other day I played
RFM in mental preparation for this; I spent an hour on the game, and I came away
thinking "this is fun". This product is fun. It's entertaining me. I drained my
third ball and my bonus got me the extra ball. I was jazzed. I mean, you can't plan
on that, but I was jazzed. It was fun.
I'm not so sure that it's enough to make it fun, anymore. And this is a personal
thing, and it's one of the things that is discussed constantly. I think I made a
fun game and we haven't set the world on fire, but more about that later.
Management's call to action on this was first answered by John Popadiuk with his
version of Pinball 2000. His version of Pinball 2000 had a 27 inch monitor mounted
in the back of the back box where the translite is.
I have to tell you that engineering as a whole believed in this and followed this
vision for about six months. I was somehow troubled; I was troubled because I was
around in the 80s working at Midway. I saw Caveman, I played Caveman. Granny and
the Gators was gnawing at me. These things were bothering me. The lack of interactivity.
We really need to put the video some place where we can do something with it. But
we went in this direction.
This business of interaction between the ball and the video was troublesome because
there wasn't an easy way to do it. There was a lot of conversation but it wasn't....
you know, you see it, you see the after effect and you think oh clever, awesome,
ominous. But it wasn't that way at that particular moment in time.
Neil Nicastro, then chairman of the company, calls me up in engineering. At this
meeting are basically the key elements of game design, the designers and programmers,
maybe a few other people. Larry (De Mar) is running the meeting and he wants to
know what's going on with Pinball 2000. Every day that goes on is essentially a
day we're spending their money.
During the course of this meeting, Larry reports on progress and then Neil says,
"Who here, does not believe this is the best direction that we need to be taking?"
And three hands went up, and there's this silence, and the three hands, Mark Weyna,
Pat Lawlor, George Gomez, absolute known trouble makers! "What's your problem?"
Well, it's not interactive. We're playing up there, we're playing down here and
then we're playing up there. We're already doing that with the dot matrix. This is
not going to set anybody on fire.
Now, Neil has a way with words. "Well boys, this is the direction the company is
going in and basically there are three choices. Those choices are you jump on the
bandwagon and you help these guys out as best you can and follow this vision of the
company, you invent something better, or you get the hell out! There is no room for
dissention at this point in time. We have to be together, we have to make this work."
At the time I was dating this woman in Boston and the day of the meeting I was
going to San Fransisco for one of those girlfriend, romantic weekend things. She
sets it up and you just go along. "No problem, I'll meet you at the airport and
we'll catch a plane." The meeting's at 1 o'clock and I've got a 3 o'clock flight
out and I called her and said, "Look, I may have to meet you in San Fransisco
because this is not looking good".
It was a terrible weekend. I took my briefcase and it was full of drawings and
God forbid that some psychoanalyst should get hold of my notebook from that weekend!
I was totally distracted and like I said, it wasn't a good weekend.
So I got back from the weekend and Pat comes to see me and he says, "You know, that
meeting was about gauging our commitment". Our commitment to this product, and I
don't think he walked away feeling real warm and fuzzy about this. We're in danger.
We have lived under this danger for a while now in engineering, but every time it
gets really close it's very scary, you know. They're gonna yank the plug!
We start talking about trying to make this video interactive. We have experience
with this mirror technology from the 80s; in the 80s video games could not afford
the massive amounts of memory that you have in video games today. Video games are
made up of tiny little things, like 32 pixels by 32 pixels big, called sprites or
picture blocks. You could move a lot of them but you couldn't draw scenery. I
couldn't draw a planet or a city, etc.
What we would do is we would make the video move and take plastic or cardboard and
create the scenery and blend the two things with something called a combining mirror.
It's a see through mirror which reflects the two objects together so that to the
eye they appear to be together. Now, I did not invent the combining mirror. Some guy
at Disney invented the combining mirror. What I invented is the interaction between
this virtual object on the playfield and the pinball. Our eureka deals with that
little bit of technology.
That meeting was a troublesome meeting; it basically splintered engineering. It
splintered this group, which is why I wanted to talk to you about the culture of
that group. When we came out of that meeting Dwight Sullivan said to me you guys
don't have a better idea, you're just being assholes, you know. You're just causing'
trouble. There's no better idea here, just shut up and get on the bandwagon. John
(Popaduik) is mad at me because it's his thing and I'd basically said it's not good
enough. Coming out of that meeting, it wasn't great.
We started talking about doing something and Pat says, "I've got all these shiny new
tools set up in my garage. We really ought to do it offsite because Dwight might come
in your room and say something about the thing that we're building and then you're
gonna feel bad."
Eureka
Let me talk to you about eureka. If you've played Monster Bash you know that eureka
does not happen when Dr Frankenstein decides that he's gonna animate a guy made from
parts from a bunch of dead guys. Eureka happens when he throws the switch and the
electrodes energize Frankenstein and the table comes down and Frankenstein comes to
life, at which point he screams, "It's alive!" That's his version of eureka and that
is eureka. Now I'm gonna describe eureka to you as it happened the first time in
Pinball 2000.
The wonderful thing about Pinball 2000 is that eureka blessed us throughout the
process. If everyone hadn't stepped up and been an inventor at some point in time,
you wouldn't be seeing Pinball 2000. Pinball 2000 would not have happened.
It's a Friday night and it's about 9 o'clock, it's late, during the development of
Monster Bash and engineering is pretty much deserted except for Lyman Sheats,
programmer extraordinaire, working away on the finishing touches to Monster Bash.
I'm in my office with my hot glue gun, my Exacto knife, and the things I use to do
what I do. I start building that model that you saw [in the video presentation].
I made this thing and I started screwing around with it. I put this thing together
and I take my flash lamp and I go, "Oh my God, eureka!" It's 9 o'clock and the phone
rings at Pat Lawlor's. And Pat picks up the phone and I say, "Pat, this thing's going
to work, man. This thing, it's got video on the playfield."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're coming over tomorrow, right?"
I go running down the hallway to see Mr. Sheats and I say, "Lyman, look at this".
Lyman looks up and he says, "Look at that display, will you". He's working on Monster
Bash and to Lyman getting rid of the (glitches) in the display is what separates the
men from the boys as far as programming goes. "Lyman, look at this. This is our future."
The following day, and off to Marengo. Pat's way out there. I don't know what you
know about the local geography, but it's out there! The only cool thing is I've got
this brand new M3 and these roads are deserted. It became a ritual that the very
first time, this thing was about a month old, and I got it up to 130 mph before I
ran out of nerves and then rolled into Pat's garage. This became my adrenalin rush
at the end of every day, I'm out of here at Pat's.
We're in this garage and we're talking about Williams and we're talking about pinball
and we're cutting wood and we're putting that thing together. We're doing monitor
weight lifting. There's an old 80s monitor in there left over from when I used to
try to develop 80s video games. That's the reason there's an Amiga hooked to it. In
the 80s, there was a period in my life, in which I was trying to pinch game ideas.
I had images loaded on it from that time. I was trying to fire it up today but the
Amiga was as cantankerous today as it was when we were working on it in the garage.
We built that thing and we did monitor weight lifting. "Hold the monitor up, Pat.
What do you think?" "Oh yeah, yeah, that's it" "Okay, quick, get a pencil!" That's
how that thing came about. We didn't make any drawings. We just kind of measured
this, and I'm measuring and Pat's sawing. The place is a mess, there's sawdust all
over us. Patricia, Pat's wife, is bringing out food.
We did this for about three weeks, mostly at nights and weekends. I was still
working on Monster Bash and Mr. Sheats wasn't too interested in Pinball 2000. His
attitude was, "Whatever, dude. That's nonsense." During that time he was engrossed
in Monster Bash and so we built this thing and we brought it in and basically
everybody was jazzed.
We brought this thing into this conference room and everybody from engineering
was there and everybody's got something to say about it. This is the shift in gears
that sends us in this direction. John was a little upset. He's six months into a
game and he's got a playfield, he's got video, he's got things happening. And
eventually John comes around and one of the very first things that happens, once
we get going on this project, is that John's team actually brings up the very first
true interactive video image on a playfield that reacts to a pinball.
Further Developments
Cameron Silver programs this thing that looks like a Tie fighter because even
back then their theme was Star Wars, and it's an old Tie fighter because they
haven't got any material on the new movie yet. So this Tie fighter hovers around
and drops to the centre of the playfield and it kind of hangs around there. And you
hit it with the ball and it explodes, and man, that was another eureka. The whole
process is full of these things. These are the things that made it all happen.
During that time, one of the problems was, when it was determined that Star Wars
was so far out, management decided that's too far. You guys have got to do something
before then. So, they didn't want to change the schedule, even though we'd essentially
abandoned the platform and picked up a new platform. They wanted the old schedule to
fit the new design.
John's team got relegated to second game and they began searching for volunteers for
first game. Lyman wasn't real happy, you know, when I went in and said, "Lyman, we
really ought to do this". He is still up to his ears in Phantom Flip, you know. We
volunteered and now the fun really starts. We're done making mock ups and now we've
got to make this thing real.
We do have this list that we talked about, in attempting to address what we thought
were problems; the business side of pinball, the functionality, etc. (These) are
just as important in some respects as (asking) "is this fun?" They are equally vital
to the process.
We begin this process with Larry running these weekly meetings in which all the
problems that were currently pending were addressed. Slowly but surely ideas emerged
from the collective 45 to 50 people that we had working on this thing to solve every
problem. It was an environment unlike any I'd ever worked in. Literally, we invented
new things every week. The skid rails for the bottom of the playfield, so you could
get the playfield out quickly, the connector buss at the back, the concept of
transporting these playfields easily. A thousand details that if you ever have the
opportunity to dive into a Pin 2000 and analyze you will discover. In the midst of
this, management is still very impatient.
So, there's a chapter, when I write the book on Pinball 2000, the title's gonna say
"Pinball 2000, A Game Designers View", or some such. There's gonna be a chapter called
'Inventors All', and it will talk about those thousands of inventions that happened
in the nick of time, miraculously, to make this thing work.
We go to London (for the ATEI show), this thing is unstable, but the reception in
London... And to the company's credit they totally supported us, they threw one hell
of a party at the Museum of Natural History; black tie, killer food, pretty girls,
the works, and it was great. We've got these games on the floor and we're up against
our sister company. They've got some heavy hitters like "Hydro Thunder" and video
games of note.
When those people got out of the presentation at which the themed tapes were shown;
this is a normal procedure for us, we show these tapes to our customers, to our
distributors and operators, and then we let them at the games. When the doors opened
to this room that the pinballs were in, there was a couple of islands of RFM's back
to back, in a circle, and they were mobbed. There's photographs and video tape of
this, and it was an amazing thing, this hunger for a product that did something.
And at that particular point in time, that was the product. London came and went,
games went on test.
The coolest thing about the Internet at this time was that I really enjoyed all the
messages that people sent in. It was really exciting to go to work every day, fifteen
to twenty messages, "This is so cool", "I can't believe this", "My favorite of all
time". Some day I'm gonna have the Pinball 2000 framed and right underneath it's
gonna say; the guy who sent me the message, maybe he's in this room, all it said
was, "You've blown my f**king mind!" I had to deal with the guys who were criticizing
it and hadn't seen it yet, too. That never ceases to amaze me, I'd get a critique
like the guy had played it for an hour, and he hasn't seen it yet!
Pinball 2000 In Practice
I just want to talk briefly about production. If you got one of the early games,
you probably didn't get a perfect game. You have to understand that one of the
things about doing this game was that everything was going on concurrently. Typically,
that's not the case. You've got an operating system that the game runs on being
written at the same time as the game is being written. And you've got the cabinet
going together at the same time as I'm designing playfields.
Yesterday, the playfield was 46 inches long; today the playfield's 43 inches long.
All of these things are happening concurrently. We have new artists, we've never
designed a video game in pinball and we have new artists with new tools, and these
guys are teaching themselves 3-D video art overnight.
If you get a chance to come up and have a look at the drawings you'll see the tops
of the backboxes are called 'Test Fixture no 1' and 'Test Fixture no 2'. In an effort
to maintain security about what we were doing, because we were so excited about it,
we used two cabinet vendors. We sent the tops to one guy, and we called them 'test
fixtures', and we sent the bottoms to the other guy. Now, the guy who gets the bottom,
he knows what that is, right? It looks like a pinball machine, it might be 3" shorter,
but it looks like a pinball machine! But you'd never know what 'Test Fixture no 1' is.
If you talk to the guys that worked on Star Wars they have a story like mine about
their product. The story I've told you doesn't include every little nuance, because
I want you to buy my book! You want a happy ending, don't you? You want to see our
heroes struggling to overcome incredible odds and succeed. I get the girl and ride
off into the sunset.
I designed Pinball 2000 with all my heart and all my skills, but these are dark
times. Remember, these are my opinions, this is not an official statement from
anyone at WMS. My spider senses sting me, my spider sense has been on fire this
last month. Pinball will survive, I'm here to tell you that. I fear that our company
may have lost the ability to make it make economic sense. If that's the case, being
as it's a business, they might choose not to be in the pinball business.
The engineering department that I so lovingly spoke of, is in danger and the brands
that we recognize are in danger. And Gary Stern might just be the last man standing.
Please remember that I tried to elevate the art. Williams has been very good to me.
The flood of memories is indeed a brainstorm. If Black Friday comes, my brothers
and I, in pinball, will live to fight another day.
I have one more tape and then we will do questions.
Questions
[In the following section some items have been omitted as they were considered not
directly relevant to the issues under discussion. Some questions and answers have
been omitted because the questions were not clearly audible on the audio tape.]
Question: (about elements of playfield design in Pinball 2000; question not clear
on audio tape.)
George Gomez: You've only begun to see what we can do with Pinball 2000. To me that's
what's sad. If Pinball 2000 goes away and doesn't make it... Think of the first dot
matrix games that you saw and think of the things we didn't do in that first game.
I wasn't even around for that first game, and think of what a dot matrix game was
like at the state of the art, like Monster Bash. You've seen two (Pinball 2000) games
that were built under duress. They were built in a very short period of time under
a lot of stress to get something done, and get it working and let's go.
I've seen Pat's game; Pat Lawlor is doing game number three. Pat and Louis Koziarz
have a game going that really departs from what John did, and it departs from what
I did. The video is in the same place but their targets look like video targets that
are actually integrated into the three-dimensional architecture of the playfield.
They've worked the ramp into it and it's a different approach. It's the approach that
Pat and I talked about a long time ago, and he's doing it. He's had a lot more time
to pay attention to lighting. The things that you've complained about in the first
two games are things that I think can be improved substantially. We don't think of
it as limitations. If all you've seen is the first two games, you're going to feel
that way. Forgive us, we didn't get it perfect.
Question: After RFM first came out there were reports on the Internet about how
the pinball division finally turned a profit for the first time in a long time...
George Gomez: We did!
Question (continued): Can you comment on management's opinion of the potential
that would seem to bring?
George Gomez: We made a million bucks in the quarter that we sold RFM. If you could
make a million bucks every quarter with pinball, I think we'd be in the game. I
think that some of it has to do with (the fact that) our inconsistency, if you will,
affects us. And also, the amount of money it takes to develop a pinball machine, as
opposed to the other things that you can do with the money, given the return. That's
as much of an answer as I can give you. Don't get me wrong, Williams has been a
wonderful, tremendous place. This company has allowed me to walk in with a hair-brained
scheme like this and turn it into a product. It's a business, and they have to make
business decisions. I'm a designer and I have to design stuff. Maybe it's pinball,
it's been toys, it's been pinball, it's been video games, and it's been whatever. But we
do what we've got to do.
Question: Before Revenge from Mars came out there was a lot of speculation about what
the end product would look like. Were you and your team influenced by any of this?
George Gomez: I guess you could say that. We (did) read it and it really amused us!
Question: Why did you not include the replay feature and were there meetings (where
that was discussed)?
George Gomez: Oh yes. Here's the deal. My opinion today is that we made a mistake.
On replays and on ball saves, we made a mistake. At the time I did not have a strong
enough opinion, and some of us did. It's an opportune time to change the play mechanics
when you're introducing a new platform. If you're ever going to screw around with that
kind of stuff, that's the time to do it.
I guess I was a little surprised at the backlash. We were trying to balance (the coolness
of our product) against the need for it to make money. Maybe it's cool enough that if
you take this away it's not going to make a difference. The replay thing has been talked
about for so many years. I know Roger (Sharpe's) opinion very well. You can talk to Roger
and he'll tell you, "Look at Steve Epstein's operation in New York. Operated for years
without replays. Successfully. Best location in the country." I know Larry felt very
strongly about the replay situation, and he drove that. It's like all pinball, it's
something that's discussed and discussed and discussed. And sometimes we take a shot,
you know. You've got to do that, we have to try stuff.
Question: So what's your feeling now?
George Gomez: Well, I feel you've got to have it in. We got such a backlash on it.
I've tried it twice, I tried it on NBA Fastbreak. I quickly had to back-pedal.
Question: You have here a great vision, which I hope is the first of many, but when
you were putting the first Pin2000 together, what were you most proud of and what are
you most disappointed in?
George Gomez: I'm incredibly proud of (the thing that) Pin2000 (has become). [Exact
words not clear on audio tape.] As I mentioned, I fear for it and I don't know what
kind of life it has. I fear that all of these cool ideas that all of us have about what
we can do with it next, won't see the light of day. That's a disappointment to me. It's
not my best game.
My personal feeling is that the best two games I've ever done were Monster Bash and
Corvette. Those are my favorites. When you do a game if you're illuminated by that
game, if you live it and feel it, the game will be a lot better. It's not that I
didn't do that with this game but the reality of it is that the platform consumed
some part of my creative energies. I proudly tell you that my fingerprint is on every
piece of a Pinball 2000. There isn't a box, screw, bracket, thing that I didn't
influence in one way or another. And I'm proud of that, I'm very, very proud of that.
Question: You were going to talk about some of the engineering changes that were made,
like the smaller playfield and all that.
George Gomez: In an attempt to make the game make sense, the business side is important.
Every dollar means something. Somewhere in here there's a drawing, and I brought it
specifically for that reason, of the nested cabinet panels. You have a 4' by 8' sheet
of plywood and if I can get all four sides of the game, top and bottom, out of that
sheet of plywood I save a substantial amount of money. The problem with doing that,
in order to get all that stuff to fit, was to go to a 43 inch playfield. It didn't
scare me because I remember High Speed and Black Knight, and I said, "Well, they're
42 inch". We're used to seeing these 46 inches and they're nice, but I'm going to
go 43. It's the most I can stuff into the thing and still make the cabinet make sense
monetarily. We fought the cost thing every inch of the way. I promise you, that given
more time, it would cost even less. You do what you can inside of what you have.
Question: (What has been done to make Pinball 2000 appeal to new players?) [Exact
wording not clear on audio tape]
George Gomez: One of the reasons to do Pinball 2000 in the way that we did it, was
to try to attract a new player. I'm not sure that we've done that yet. I don't think
it's unnatural for a product to take some time to take. If it takes it's not going
to be because I ran ads; maybe $10,000,000 of advertising would help me. I think it
has to happen because people are standing in front of it having fun. The problem that
we face is a universal coin-op problem, it's not just a pinball problem. Our brothers
across the street, at Midway, their arcade stuff isn't doing any better than our arcade
stuff. They have this wonderful cushion called Sega Nintendo. They make way more money
selling a CD-ROM with Hydro Thunder on it than they do making a $4000 standalone Hydro
Thunder. The entire coin-operated game business is hurting. It's so hurting! Go to the
arcades, stand there, who's in there? It's like a ghost town and I fear for the business.
Question: Related to that, were there any discussions about changing the marketing
model to give more of a push to the operators?
George Gomez: All of these things are talked about. There's problems with that too.
Question: I can easily put $10 into a quarter (play) machine, but I'll think twice
about putting four quarters into one machine. It's just a mental thing for me.
George Gomez: You're not the only one that needs to be re-educated on that. I really
feel that every other form of entertainment doesn't cost what it did twenty years ago.
I'm not certain why it is that ours has to. Perhaps it's a cultural thing that I can't
change, but a movie doesn't cost what it used to, popcorn doesn't, pop doesn't, and
comic books don't. Here's your entertainment dollar; you're fifteen years old and you're
at the mall and you're standing around. Gee! Why does a pinball machine still cost 50
cents? I'm giving you a lot more for your money.
Comment from audience: For the lack of a dollar coin!
George Gomez: That would help.
Question: Your competitors probably buy your products and reverse engineer (them)
and take all the good ideas and incorporate in their machines. Why wouldn't you want
to do something similar, if you liked say a feature, in somebody else's machine?
George Gomez: Maybe we're too proud, I don't know. It doesn't mean that we don't play
their games. We have a certain standard and we try to design to it.
Question: It sounds like you may be disappointed in the way that scores are displayed
within your graphics. Would you like to have a dot matrix display or something that
would hold the constant scores?
George Gomez: No, I just think there's an elegant way to display information inside
the platform and in some ways we discovered it late and didn't have a chance to implement
it. In other ways, even what we discovered will evolve. I don't want another display.
The magic of the combining mirror is that I've got you looking where I want you to look.
As the games get better and the virtual targets get used more as a virtual target than
as a movie screen, you'll find it will feel very natural. The proportions take some
getting used to, but now I look at it and I think it's pretty cool.
Question: Do you think it will reach a point where you have more continuity in
the play?
George Gomez: I am absolutely convinced. And I'm not telling you that pinball as we
knew it will cease to exist. I'm not telling you that at all. Both games can and will
co-exist, and if a miracle happens and we continue to grow and make money, I think
you will see 2000 grow and reach the same sort of level of polish that our old
product did.
Thank you very much, George.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Gomez and Tron
Link
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** GEORGE GOMEZ ***
Many of you know George as the talented designer of games like CORVETTE,
JOHNNY MNEMONIC and the new NBA FASTBREAK... but his career as a game
designer goes way back to the early '80s with his work on the TRON and SPY
HUNTER video games for Midway. In between these adventures were numerous
other games, toys and even Redemption pieces that George has brought to the
Coin-Op field. The Industry is blessed to have his talent and experience on
board now, more than ever as Pinball attempts the great rebound to it's
former glory!
Link
George Gomez as Tron Video Game Programmer 1982:
For obvious reasons TRON the game was a natural licensing property. In December of
'81 it was announced that an agreement was reached for Bally/Midway to design and
manufacture the coin-op version. The primary objective for the game designers was
to have it ready for the July '82 release of the film. Only a short time earlier
it was common industry practice for but a few key people to be involved with the
development of a game. In many cases one person would design and program, with
another doing the hardware engineering, while the art department worked
independently. However with TRON, over 15 creative minds plus interdepartmental
coordination would quickly bring it from concept to finished product. Under
team leaders John Pasierb (VP Engineering), Atish Ghosh (Hardware), Bill Adams
(Software) and George Gomez (Art/Cabinet Design), TRON turned out to be a success
on every level.
From its fantastic 3-D molded monitor bezel/backboard and blue-illuminated control
panel, to the full-color photographic side-art, TRON was breathtaking. Two separate
teams alone worked on this aspect of design: one for controls/design and a second
for the cabinet artwork. George Gomez (the lead for this first team) along with
production engineer A. Ryan created the control panel configuration, devices (like
the rotary knob and unforgettable translucent blue throttle), bezel/backboard and
cabinet (a unique modified-polygon paneled design for the upright version). The
other team was led by Paul Faris (Art Director) working with R. Scafidi and
(once more) Gomez. Richard Taylor of Triple-I (one of the key computer graphics
firms working on the film) and representing Disney, worked with the team, presumably
to insure the consistency of the overall look and use of imagery from the film.
Taylor was not only the computer effect supervisor on the film, but greatly
responsible for its legendary visual 'look'. This attention to detail by the Midway
team, in contrast to inferior slipshod cabinets of lesser manufacturers made the
relatively conservative $2500 price tag a bargain.
As this was a direct tie-in, game play had to relate to its big screen counterpart.
Several teams worked hard to keep the translation faithful. With only a script and
some effects footage, the video team lead by Gomez with Sharon Barr and Marsh Taylor,
storyboarded the game (much like a film) to get a sense of how it would look, play
and feel. One challenge was deciding on how to approach this. In the film, the
fictional arcade game Space Paranoids (a TRON-like game created by lead character
Flynn - Jeff Bridges) depicts two game sequences: an adrenaline inducing computer
generated light cycle tour-de-force and a hyped-up Battlezone-like vector sequence.
Achieving the look of these film effects-produced "games" was impossible (though
by today's hardware/software capabilities it wouldn't) so they worked around pivotal
storyline moments. The designers reportedly wanted six different game sequences but
had to settle on four due to existing hardware limitations. One however, the deadly
disc throw, would see the light of day as the separate follow-up game Discs of TRON.
TRON is essentially four distinct games in one, a concept used previously on
Bally/Midway's own Gorf and later with its Journey. When game play starts, the
player may choose (in any order) from four different quadrants on the 'deadly
game grid,' but must complete each before progressing onto another level. This
tracery grid design was effective in visually tying all the games together and
to the film. Interestingly, each level of play is named after a computer language
/phrase, starting with RPG through COBOL and BASIC up to the final level USER.
It was now in the hands of the software team under the direction of Bill Adams
with John Marcus and Tom Leon, to create what us gamers would actually see
and play.
---------------------
Link
Tron was originally slated to be a color vector game. It was designed using an
early script of the movie. Basically, the team took various challenges Flynn had
to go through and made them into four separate games-within-a-game. Three of the
four scenes were either changed or removed from the final cut of the movie, but
it still made one hell of an awesome game.
A Tron unit appears in the 1983 movie 'WarGames', in the 1986 movie 'The Color
of Money' and in the 1987 movie 'Death Wish 4 - The Crackdown'.
- TIPS AND TRICKS -
* General Tips :
1) TANKS : hide behind corners and use them for cover when you shoot. Also, use
the transporter in the center as cover. You can shoot clear through the transporter
and out the other side and zap the computer. Don't use the transporter except for a
desperation tactic. It will more than likely dump you right in the computer's
gunsight(s).
2) SPIDERS : Fire in a constant spread and just hose 'em down from side to side.
Gradually move in a constant arc up to the entrance. Stay just outside the
entrance and hose the spiders above and below until time runs out. Enjoy the
music.
3) MCP CONE : Move up so you're just underneath the rotating cone and on the
right side. Shoot the blocks nearest to you. This gives you another shot more
quickly than shooting blocks farther away. When you get a gap, move up and fire
away due left. Above all, don't hang around and get caught : if the going gets
tough, move on up and into the cone. Don't forget to twirl the knob as you rise.
(You'll see if you do it)
4) LIGHT CYCLES : Use a question mark type shape for the first board. The
Computer'll run right into it. For the harder boards, try to trap them either
near the center tracks or against the wall. This is, by far, the hardest thing
to do.
5) On the 3rd Light Cycle screen, travel at high speed up & then turn left JUST
ABOVE the 3rd black grid line, then down when you reach the wall at which point
you can slow down. All 3 cars will crash at virtually the same time.
6) On the 4th Light Cycle screen, simply turn left AT THE VERY BEGINNING at
slow speed & all 3 cars will crash around you at virtually the same time.
* This is an interesting bug. On the MCP Cone levels, if you go all the way
to the right or the left and keep moving, you can move the whole playfield to
the side. This doesn't seem to have any other affect, but it is kind of fun to see.
* Here's an odd Tron bug : On the Recognizer Tank levels, make your way to one
of the little alcoves in either the top right, or bottom left corners. The tanks
cannot shoot, and will not go down an alcove, so therefore cannot kill you. Then,
wait approximately 9 to 10 minutes without moving your tank. You can fire, but do
not kill all the recognizers. After the time (9-10 mins), the sound system will
go berzerk, starting with a very high pitch tone, which falls to a low tone that
vibrates the cabinet. The sound also goes berzerk if you enter the tower at 0099
units on the bug screen.
- SERIES -
1. Tron (1982)
2. Discs of Tron (1983)
3. Tron 2.0 (Startup)
- STAFF -
VP Engineering : John Pasierb (JP)
Software : Bill Adams (BA)
Hardware : Atish Ghosh (AG)
Art / Cabinet designer : George Gomez (CG)
With support from : Tom Leon (TL)
- PORTS -
* Computers :
Oric I (1984, "Light Cycle")
Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1984, "Light Cycle")
* Others :
LCD handheld game (1982) released by Tomy : Cool game, the entire case is made
of a smoked clear plastic so you can see the inside of the game (and it has
some large, simulated circuitry in the back, to make it look even cooler...)
---------------------
TRON:
SERIES: designed by Bill Adams and Tom Leon
cabinet and controls by George Gomez
1. Tron (1982)
2. Discs of Tron (1983)
Discs Of Tron
Mfg.
_Bally
_Midway
-
Year
_1983
-
Format
_Raster
_Horizontal
bio
Designed and programmed
by John Pasierb, Bill Adams,
George Gomez, Atish Ghosh,
and Earl Vickers
Discs of Tron was originally
designed to be a part of the
original Tron coin-op, but
was cut out at the end, and
set aside for refinement and
release as a stand-alone
coin-op in its own right.
PLAY INSTRUCTIONS:
- You are TRON in blue. SARK is out to defeat you! Throw discs and hit him.
- Position aiming target on wall with knob and throw with trigger.
- To deflect discs: Hold in deflect button. Hit SARK 2 times to advance.
Grazing SARK is not a hit. Hit chasers 2 times to destroy them.
- When the ring platforms move up and down... change target level by moving
the knob up and down.
- 1000 points for hit SARK, 200 for graze SHARK, 100 for hit a SARK disc,
200 for Enery Pellets, 400 for Chasers and 800 for Super Chasers. Super
Chasers and Enery Pellets cannot be deflected!
Movie: Tron
Genre: Computer Hi-Tek
Year: USA 1982
Director: Steven Lisberger
Studio: Walt Disney
Cast: Jeff Bridges, David Warner, Bruce Boxleitner, Barnard Hughes, Cindy Morgan,
Peter Jurasik
Discs of Tron (1983) - STAFF - Designed and programmed
by John Pasierb, Bill Adams, George Gomez, Atish Ghosh and Earl Vickers
Disc of Tron the Video Game:
MT> You created the graphics for the exceptional Discs of Tron. Impressively
the sit-down casing design melded seamlessly with the on-screen graphics.
What was it like creating graphic images that mimicked such a highly graphical
stylized movie, and were there discussions concerning the booth and your work?
Brian Colin: Don't give me too much credit here. While I did do most of the
video graphics and animation for Discs of Tron, the project was well defined
before I arrived on the scene. Much of the credit for the overall look of
that "seamless" package goes to mechanical designer George Gomez; currently
a pinball designer for WMS. Link
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers Link
Last Updated April 19, 1999
Please send new information and corrections
to James Hague, jhague@dadgum.com
This is a Who's Who of classic game programmers, where "classic"
generally refers to "8-bit" (Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 800,
Commodore 64, etc).
Gomez, George (George Gomez)
[G] Group effort TRON (1982, COIN, Bally/Midway)
[D] Designer only Spy Hunter (1983?, COIN, Bally/Midway)
[D] Designer only Corvette (PIN)
[D] Designer only Johnny Mnemonic (PIN)
[D] Designer only NBA Fast Break (PIN)
[D] Designer only Monster Bash (PIN)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PS2 - One Stop for Gaming and Entertainment Link
June 30, 2004
OPM Inside: Disk # 82
-Robert Schawinski
Welcome, Playstation fans, to another exciting review of this month's Official
US Playstation Magazine™ demo disk. Ziff Davis has included a ton of information
and playable versions of the upcoming games of 2004, that should have any serious
gamer just drooling at the mouth. There is something here for fans of every genre;
whether you prefer to scream down a racetrack at 200 MPH, or creep through the
bushes at a snail's pace. Since I'm not one who is big on the chitchat, I'll
dispense with the pleasantries and get to the heart of the matter.
This is not the only part of the disk with in-depth interviews. Selecting the
Inside the Game area gives players the unique chance to see and hear some of the
historic figures in the industry, talking about their personal contributions to
the gaming community. Fans of the past will be astounded by these interviews with
the creators of some of the most classic games known to mankind. Midway opens the
doors and allows us a look at two of the biggest historical figures, George Gomez
(Spy hunter) and Mark Turmell (Smash TV), as they talk about the 20 game compilation
Midway Arcade Treasures. Having the opportunity to hear these two men speak about
their accomplishments is an extreme honor, and worthy of the purchase of the magazine
in itself. However, this is just the beginning of the quality interviews.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adomboys.com - The Canadian in Chicago Link
Adam & Friends do Vegas - Pt. 1
by John Vignocci, Designer for NBA Ballers
The crowd erupts into laughter as Midway San Diego's creative director Tom Hall
explains how "Weed Time" works in Midway's latest arcade revival, "NARC". George
Gomez and I approach the 'ready area' where we are mic-ed up for the presentation.
Over walks Phil Marineau, product manager for NBA Ballers…
-------
NBA Ballers
Developer Diary Entry #6, by John G. Vignocchi (Game Designer)
In the latest of our ongoing diary entries for Midway's NBA Ballers, John Vignocchi
discusses how not to win over the ESRB with fruit baskets, tells how they got the
rating they wanted, and drops some hints on forthcoming MTV coverage of the game.
There will be a "making of" special feature airing over there, which is rare for
games that are not from Electronic Arts. We only know of one for Enter The Matrix.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1up.com
Chapter 6 Link
I am totally freaking' exhausted. In the past 72 hours I've driven over 300 miles,
flown to NY and back and slept a grand total of about 12 hours. I've almost reached
"core meltdown" status. So what's up with all the jet setting in the 11th hour?
Let me explain...
Like I said in a previous design journal, everything that goes in our game has
to be approved by a number of different people. From the bosses upstairs to the
lawyers across the street, the NBA to the ESRB, everyone gets a final say in what
goes in (and subsequently comes out of) NBA Ballers.
So last week we ran into a little predicament. You see every video game that
carries the NBA moniker is required to have an "E" for "Everyone" rating by
the Electronic Software Ratings Board. Not only does it have to be "E," but
it must also not have any exceptions -- i.e. NFL Street has an "E" rating with
the exception of "mild violence" since you can grab players and slam them up
against walls and none of the players have helmets on while playing a full
contact sport.
Since we must adhere to the NBA's video game licensee rules and regulations,
we have been submitting NBA Ballers to the ESRB and receiving back ratings
with exceptions such as "mild violence" and "cartoon mischief." The problem
was we didn't know why we kept getting a rating that was above the "E" with
no exceptions status -- when we would ask the ESRB why we were getting the "E"
with qualifiers they would play cool and inform us that they don't want to say
because it is their job to rate a game, not censor it -- a very valid point.
So Thursday rolls around and the entire team is in a mad rush to get the game
out the door and into submission. Everyone has their nose to the grindstone
fixing bugs, play testing the game, editing text descriptions, reviewing the
manual, etc. etc. when Matt Booty, the executive vice president of product
development, rolls into the cave and says that word has come back from the ESRB
and once again we've received an "E" rating with an exception.
"It's time to scramble the fighters!" Matt says in his military tone. "We need
to get 'eyes on' and put some people on the ground. President Zucker demands
that this situation be under control in 24 hours and we will not fail him!
Right?!"
(You have to understand, Booty talks in military metaphors.)
General Booty quickly glances at me with determined eyes. I return the look
with an, "Oh Christ, please not me" face in hopes that the general will decide
to send someone else.
"Gomez!" he says, turning a sharp eye over to George, "You and Johnny must
catch the next flight out of Chicago and meet with the people at the ESRB.
Use any means necessary -- shock and awe fellas! Shock and awe! Don't come
home until the conflict has been resolved!"
A small smile rolls across my face as I begin to think about how wonderful
spending a few days in New York on the company's cash just might be.
"Now get the hell out of here!" General Booty exclaims, "Go home and pack
your bags, your flight leaves at 7:00PM!" I quickly glance at my watch to
check the time -- 3:49PM. I power down my computer and quickly run out the door.
I jump in my car and zoom to the highway in hopes of making the fast 22.7 mile
run home. As soon as I turn onto the highway all I can see is a sea of red
break lights. Every time it &^#%@! snows here it's like the entire population
of Chicago forgets how to drive. In the end, I managed to make it home and pack
my bags and drive out to O'Hare airport in time for my flight.
Once on the plane and situated I finally breathe a sigh of relief as I sit nestled
into my cramped coach class seat, my cell phone and Game Boy powered down and
pretending that I have my seat belt fastened for the stewardess prowling the isles.
We land in New York two hours later and grab a cab to our hotel. About halfway
through the cab ride, George decides to call Matt Booty's personal assistant,
Samuel, and confirm the location and time of the meeting with our friends at
the ESRB. Samuel tells him that it will be at 2:00 and gives him the address,
but sounds rather flustered on the phone...
"What's wrong, Samuel?" George says.
Someone had the brilliant idea that George Gomez and John Vignocchi should
arrive at the ESRB with a fruit basket bribe to increase their chances of
getting the correct rating.
"Oh nothing...I'm just in a rush to get a fruit basket created and delivered
to your hotel in time for the meeting tomorrow," Samuel responds.
"What? Why?" George asks.
"Well, I thought that it would be good to have you and Johnny arrive at the
ESRB with a fruit basket!" Samuel gleefully responds.
"Are you out of your mind?!" George exclaims. "Do you really think Johnny
and I are going to walk into the ESRB with a big fruit basket?! What do you
think that will look like to the people at the ESRB?!"
I quickly play out the scene in my head. Two men dressed in black over-coats
waltz into the ESRB's office. The first man is a 5'11" 160-pound Cuban with
long black hair. The other, trailing close behind the first man, is a 6'3 280
pound gorilla carrying a large basket of fruit. It's like Midway sent the
consigliore and a capo to the ESRB.
George looks at the ESRB representative and says, "Hey der, how 'u doin'?
My name is "G" and this is my associate, Johnny V. Say hi to the man 'der,
Johnny..."
"'Ey...how 'u 'doin?" I say.
"We just came in from Chicago. I understand dat 'der seems to be, shall we
say, "a situation" with this rating for our new basketball game, eh? We were
sent out to personally deal with this "situation" and kind of put the "nail in
the coffin" figuratively speaking. You know, settle this issue face to face
behind closed doors; you do understand what I'm saying'? Johnny, ask the kind
man if he would like an orange. Would you like an orange? John, give the man
an orange" George demands.
"Right boss. Here, have an orange" I say, handing the ESRB rep an orange while
he picks his jaw up off of the floor.
Back to reality.
"You've got to be out of your mind!" George exclaims. "You want us to show up
at the ESRB with a &^$#(@& fruit basket bribe?!"
George snaps his phone closed and gives me that you've-got-to-be-kidding
look.
The next day we go to the ESRB and show them the game. They were very nice
and we got our rating without having to resort to...the fruit basket.
It's time for me to run -- we've got the NBA All-Star game this weekend and
I've got to get all of my work done before I go. I'm so psyched for the trip,
mainly because we are having a huge party on Friday night in conjunction with
Magic Johnson. "NBA Ballers presents: A Night Of Magic." It should be huge!
After that we've got MTV coming in to do a "Making of the video game" piece...
It'll be nice to finally see a non-EA game highlighted on MTV, y'know? We are
also in the process of putting together a piece for that Video Mods show that
features J. Williams performing Snoop's "Murder Was The Case" song.
Just kidding.
Previous Entry:
Diary #5: Top Ten Lists
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1982 Discs of Tron:
- STAFF:
Manufacturer : Bally Midway
Year : 1982
STAFF -
VP Engineering : John Pasierb (JP)
Software : Bill Adams (BA)
Hardware : Atish Ghosh (AG)
Art / Cabinet designer : George Gomez (CG)
With support from : Tom Leon (TL)
Designed and programmed by John Pasierb, Bill Adams, George Gomez, Atish Ghosh,
and Earl Vickers.
Discs of Tron, the project was well defined before I arrived on the scene.
Much of the credit for the overall look of that "seamless" package goes to
mechanical designer George Gomez; currently a pinball designer for WMS.
Search Result 1
From: Louis Koziarz (koziarz@MCS.COM)
Subject: Re: Midway designer questions
View: Complete Thread (4 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.arcade.collecting
Date: 1996/08/22
In article , Russell Willoughby wrote:
>I know that George Gomez worked on Tron and Satan's Hollow. I didn't know
>about Spy Hunter, but it wouldn't surprise me, since that was another
>"in-house" Midway game from the same time period.
>
>BTW, Gomez's first pinball design was 1994's Corvette. I'm not sure what
>he was doing in the ten years before that.
>George Gomez: Link
Yes, I'm the same guy. However, I did not program the game, Tron
was programmed by Bill Adams with help from Tom Leon. Tom was also
the main programmer of Spy Hunter and Bill was the main programmer
on Satan's Hollow. The work that I did on Tron was primarily
development of the storyboards and all of the industrial design for
the cabinet and controls. I also was in charge of the video game art at
Midway at the time. The glowing joystick is also mine. On Spy
Hunter, I brought the concept in-house, in storyboard form. I came
up with the name and the concept of having music when you have weapons,
and I designed the control system. The grips have been used throughout
the arcade game business since that time on various games. I left
Midway in 1984 and I went to work at a toy development company called
Marvin Glass and Associates, where I invented toys for five years.
Some of the stuff that I came up with were an outdoor toy for Tonka
called Splash Darts, a truck demolition derby toy for Galoob called
Crash 'n' Bash, and I also did work on the Voltron Robot line and the
Rambo Action Figure line and too many other things to mention.
During the next five-year period, I had a consulting business selling
design services to a variety of companies, including BattleTech
(for which I did the original first 8 pods used at the BattleTech
Center in Chicago). I also did things like cabinets and controls for
Sega USA, probably the most well-known being the driving game cabinet
for Virtua Racing Upright. I also did novelty pieces including a game
called Big Bat for Midway and a game called Hawk Avenger which was
a pretty cool helicopter attack game for a company called Bromley.
During that time, I took on a lot of consulting work, I did the control
system for F-15 Strike Eagle, the MicroProse arcade piece, and things
like development work on games like Rock 'n' Bowl. I started at Williams
in August 1993, and I guess that's what I've been doing during that 10 years!
George Gomez
Williams/Bally-Midway
(posting via Louis Koziarz)
--
Louis Koziarz
koziarz@mcs.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction to Spy Hunter Link
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The name James Bond never appeared in Bally Midways Spy Hunter, but the 007
influence was unmistakable in this 1983 arcade classic. Game designer George
Gomez was an avowed fan of the British secret agent with a license to kill,
and Spy Hunter allowed him (and the rest of the world) to live out a dangerous,
Bond-esque mission over land and sea.
Spy Hunter was actually a fusion of two popular genres: driving and shooting.
The secret agents car came equipped with grill-mounted machine guns, the better
to blow away the nasty vehicles that cluttered the road. Switch Blades were the
most common bad cars black sedans with tire-puncturing knives that extended out
from their tires. These baddies could either be blown away or forced off the
road, but other cars wouldn't go down so easily. Road Lords were impervious to
your guns, and their bulky size made it difficult to run them into the side
of the road. As the game went on, players also ran across The Enforcer, a black
limo with a gun-toting passenger.
Not every vehicle on the road was evil, and that only made the spy hunters
life trickier. With its two-speed shifter, your car could move extremely fast,
and swerving to avoid innocent cars and motorcycles often meant a quick skid
out to your doom. Luckily, the game didnt end with crashes, because most gamers
caused several. Spy Hunter was a timed game, with points and extra time awarded
for distance covered as well as for enemies killed. If your vehicle crashed,
a supply truck simply dropped off another one, and the game picked up where
you left off.
The trucks served more purposes than simply dumping off new cars, however.
At certain points along the road, your car passed parked big rigs with special
icons on the trailers. By pressing the Weapons Van button on the front of your
steering yoke, those trucks pulled up in front of you, allowing you to drive
right up into the trailer.
Once docked, your car was outfitted with one of three special weapons: smoke
screens, oil slicks or missiles. The first two took care of enemy vehicles
on your tail, while the latter was needed to take out The Mad Bomber, a
helicopter that dropped pothole-making bombs later in the game. Separate
buttons controlled each weapon, allowing skilled players to deck out their
vehicles with a complete arsenal.
Every once in a while, Spy Hunters vertically-scrolling road branched off
in two directions, giving players a greater freedom of choice than many
driving games of the time. At some junctures, separate paths actually gave
your spy hunter a new vehicle. By driving into a boathouse at the side of
the road, your secret agent emerged in a shiny speedboat, taking to the
waterways. The Mad Bomber was still in hot pursuit, and evil Barrel Dumpers
and Dr. Torpedo menaced your watercraft as well. At a certain point, the
ship ran back to the ground, and your speedy car resumed its spy hunting.
The driving/action combination was a winner for Spy Hunter, one of the most
popular games of 1983. With its James Bond attitude and catchy Peter Gunn
theme (the Bond music was too pricey), the game caught fire in arcades
everywhere.
Bally Midway released a sequel, the little-seen Spy Hunter II, in 1987. It lacks
a high score table. The new version allowed two secret agents to play at once,
driving in a mock 3-D perspective from above and behind the car. The sequel was
a disappointment for the company, but that did nothing to dim the popularity
of the original Spy Hunter, which maintains a large fan following even today.
Spy Hunter 2 Stand Up Video Game
Spy Hunter 2 Video Game Display
Spy Hunter 2 Marquee
Release History - Coin-Operated Game
1983 - Spy Hunter
1983
Spy Hunter in Stereo:
Another of the first stereo sound games, Spy Hunter has one channel dedicated
solely to the familiar Peter Gunn spy caper theme and the other dedicated to
activated game sounds--machine guns, helicopter blades, and other in-game
action noises. It's a classic game, and Spy Hunter's reputation is marred
only by the fact that it produced--in the words of the Simpson's' comic book
guy--the "worst sequel ever." - which was Spy Hunter II in 1987. Link
1987 - Spy Hunter II
2001 - New Spy Hunter
In 2001, Midway resurrected the game, this time using full 3D graphics. Midway
published this consumer version for most major systems: Windows, PlayStation 2,
Xbox, Game Boy Advance and GameCube.
- Xbox
The New 3D Spy Hunter!!!
first released in September 2001, has sold in excess of 1.6 million units
Spy hunter in Development for Xbox!! For Year 2001 Link
The great Spy hunter now is confirmed for development on the Xbox.
This is great news for all Spy hunter fans. Look for special features
and more detailed graphics for the Xbox Version.
"SpyHunter was hugely popular on the PlayStation 2 and we expect it will
be just as big of a hit on the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube," said Helene
Sheeler, vice president of marketing, Midway. "Using all of the original
game elements, including villains, weapons vans and theme music - combined
with the power of these great new consoles - SpyHunter creates an electrifying
gaming experience."
With a next-generation 3D design, incredible high-tech weaponry and a sleek
new vehicle (the G-6155 Interceptor) the SpyHunter player is on a mission to
save the world and must make split-second decisions while engaging in offensive
attacks and defensive counterattacks. The SpyHunter player can never relax while
maneuvering through 14 high-adrenaline missions, which play out in a variety of
exotic worldwide locations.
The reconnaissance missions lead the SpyHunter player around the globe to exotic
locations (Panama, Key West, England, Germany, France, the Middle East and Venice).
New SpyHunter Game in 21st Century Playstation 2 version: Link
Xbox1 New SpyHunter: Link
Xbox2 New SpyHunter: Link
New Spy Hunter
This release of SpyHunter is a remake of George Gomez's arcade hit from 1983.
This game was extraordinarily popular, integrating a new steering wheel interface
and a classic soundtrack that is still known among many gamers. Changes that have
been made from the 1983 version to the present version include more offensive
and defensive weapons, and a change from top-down view to 3D perspective.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trivia for Spy Hunter (1983) (VG) Link
The James Bond theme was originally sought after and programmed into the
prototype machine until it was determined that licensing costs for this music
would be too expensive. A person from marketing suggested they use the Peter
Gunn theme instead.
The car in Spy Hunter, the G-6155 CIA prototype Interceptor was modeled after
a 1983 Z-28, the car that George Gomez owned at the time. The numbers stand
for designer George Gomez's birthday (6155)
A third Spy Hunter chase sequence, a helicopter chase, was deleted from the
game due to lack of time and memory.
The game was to have a helicopter stage but the designers ran out of
resources. They also wanted the James Bond theme to play, but settled
for the Peter Gunn theme instead.
Inception of Original Spy Hunter
Spy Hunter - This exciting arcade video game was inspired by the
childhood memories of its lead programmer: Link
"Well, when I was a kid, my dad would drag me to these grown up cocktail
parties because my folks were divorced and he wouldn't be able to get a
sitter. So after being bored for several hours, my dad would finally take
me home tanked to the gills. I mean very, very drunk. It was a different
time then. Then we'd get stuck behind an 18-wheeler and he'd just get furious
and just start ramming the car into the back of the truck. Wham! Wham! Jesus,
he scared the sh-- out of me the first couple of times. Later, I would escape
into fantasy, thinking, what if we could drive the car into the back of the
truck? And what if there were guys in the truck who would put stuff on our
car, spy stuff, like oil sprayers and rockets, and my dad was a spy instead
of a drunk, wouldn't that be cool?"
-name withheld upon request
Spy Hunter Team 1983 Lead Programmer: Tom Leon
Designed and programmed by : Tom Leon, Jeff Nauman
Art : Kevin OConnor, Brian Colin, Steve Ulstad, Sharon Perry
Music by : Henry Mancini
Group Manager : Bill Adams
Cabinet guru : George Gomez
Cabinet assistant : John Kubik
Tom Leon worked on the following games:
Game Year Manufacturer STAFF
Blasted 1988 Bally Midway Support : Tom Leon
Max RPM 1986 Bally Midway Lead Programmer: Tom Leon
Spy Hunter 1983 Bally Midway Designed and programmed by : Tom Leon
Spy Hunter II 1987 Bally Midway Game Design : Tom Leon
Group Leader : Tom Leon
Tron 1982 Bally Midway With support from : Tom Leon (TL)
Xenophobe 1987 Bally Midway Development : Tom Leon
Spy Hunter II Team 1987
Spy Hunter II 03/1987 Bally Midway.
This game runs on the Bally Midway MCR 68k hardware.
Game Design : Gary Oglesby, Tom Leon, Brian Colin
Lead Programmer : Gary Oglesby
Artist / Animator : Brian Colin
Group Leader : Tom Leon
- TIPS AND TRICKS -
According to Supercade, the car in the game is called the G-6155 Interceptor,
was modeled on designer George Gomez' 1983 Camero Z-28.
George Gomez Link
E-mail Address: ggcoolkidaol.com
Contributor Information
Full Name: George Gomez
E-mail Address: ggcoolkidaol.com
Contributed Codes
Genesis
Lotus Turbo Challenge Super Lotus (1)
Saturn
NBA Jam Tournament Edition Secret Players (1)
Xbox
NBA Street Vol. 2 Misc. Codes (1)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 Cheat Codes (1)
-----------
Ask Uncle Willy #15: June 4, 1998
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have questions about fixing, restoring, or purchasing an older game,
Uncle Willy would like to refer you to:
Ask Uncle Willy #10
Uncle Willy would like to start off this edition of Ask Uncle Willy with a
few housekeeping items. First of all, whatever rumors you may have heard
about why it has been so long since the last installment of Ask Uncle Willy
are completely false. (Uncle Willy does not now, nor has he ever had an
alcohol or drug problem. Uncle Willy did not run off to join the Peace
Corps. And she most certainly was too over 18.)
Next, Uncle Willy's mailbox is straining under the weight of questions that
don't belong there. Either they have been covered already in previous Ask
Uncle Willy articles, or they are in the FAQ, or they are beyond the scope of
what Uncle Willy can do, or they are not of widespread interest. Uncle Willy
cannot tell you how much your old pinball machine is worth and would prefer
not to have to tell you how old it is, when there are so many other good
resources out there for that sort of thing. Uncle Willy cannot find you
parts for your machine, other than to point you, once again, to authorized
distributors (for newer machines), and any of the various "other resources"
listed on the web site (for older machines.) Uncle Willy cannot fix your
broken game, nor can he help you troubleshoot it long distance. Uncle Willy
does not know everything, as hard as that is to believe, so not every
question can be answered. Also, keep in mind that half the fun of owning a
pinball machine is learning to fix it and track down parts to restore it
yourself. If you have a question that might fall into one of the above
categories, but you still think it might have some larger relevance or
interest to others, by all means send it to Uncle Willy but Uncle Willy makes
the final decision about what questions to answer.
Here are a couple of examples --
Question: I have a Wizard back glass that is in perfect condition, my
question is... How much is it worth? And I have a Bally Elektra
that's in good working condition, how much is it worth???
Answer: Uncle Willy would dearly love to answer such questions like so:
"They are both utterly valueless. Please send them directly to
Uncle Willy for proper manufacturer-certified disposal."
Uncle Willy resists that urge, as that would be an abuse of the
immense power that comes with being such a respected cultural
icon.
Then there are the questions like these (Uncle Willy swears he is
not making this up):
Question: I would like to know how to get rid of my very old bally's [sic]
pinball game and not come out a looser [sic], also I don't know
the name of the game, I know it has a Mexican chick and some
snakes on it and most of it is red.
Answer: Even if Uncle Willy were in the business of appraising old games
(which he stresses again, he most certainly is not), he is amazed
at someone who cannot even spend the time to go copy down all the
alphabetical characters appearing on the back glass in the area
usually used for what industry insiders commonly refer to as "the
name of the game." And yet Uncle Willy is supposed to go spend
hours researching the game's value, and using his psychic
abilities to determine the game's condition. Uncle Willy wishes
he could say this was the only mail he received like that, but
they are all too common.
Uncle Willy couldn't resist giving snappy answers to a few other
inappropriate questions, and they are sprinkled throughout the rest of this
article. See if you can spot them.
Question: I have a question regarding some mystery switches which appear on
the switch matrix for Bally's Corvette, but aren't anywhere on
the game.
The switch matrix lists switches for "1st gear (optional)", "2nd
gear (optional)", etc. There is also a mystery switch for "Skid
Route Exit".
Was there actually going to be some kind of gearshift option for
the game? What was the other switch for and why was it removed?
Answer: Uncle Willy had a little chat with George Gomez and found the
answers to these questions...and some other tidbits as well. In
fact, Uncle Willy had to excuse himself from George's office when
George started launching into conspiracy theories about why
pinballs are exactly 1 1/16" in diameter. (Sometimes when you
get George going, it's hard to shut him up...) For instance,
Uncle Willy learned that two of the cars in the artwork have
license plates to match those on Corvettes owned by George Gomez
and Pat Lawlor.
But on to your original question... When Corvette was nearing
production, an error was discovered in the cost calculations for
the game. Turns out the cost of materials was way over budget
and George was forced to delete things left and right to try to
bring the cost down. Cost reduction is a normal part of the
design process, but it's not usually done all at once and in a
hurry like that.
All kinds of subtle things were removed: rebound switches,
flashers, general illumination lamps, etc. There were also a
couple of redundant switches removed, such as the one at the end
of the Skid Pad/Route 66 wireform ramp. It would have been nice
for the software to have another data point about where the ball
was, but it wasn't crucial to the game.
There was also going to be a 4-speed shifter mounted to the right
side of the cabinet. During drag strip mode, you could give the
car gas with the left flipper, and shift up through the gears
with the right flipper or with the gearshift. The code for these
4 switches is still in the game, and if you somehow attached your
own shifter unit there it would work. About 15 games are
believed to exist with this shifter unit installed from the
factory, and they are largely in the hands of the game's design
team.
Believe it or not, the left side standup targets were originally
going to be drop targets. The art for the stickers had "Feel The
Power" and "B2K" written across the 3 targets. (The latter is a
reference to the factory option code used for Calloway
Corvettes.) The latest ROM revision for Corvette (Version 2.1,
available from the Williams web site at http://www.wms.com/)
actually has the code to handle either the stand-ups or the drop
targets, much like the Firepower drop target retrofit discussed a
few years ago. Only one game with drop targets is currently
believed to exist, and it is in the hands of one of the design
team members. If Uncle Willy can come up with the technical
details of retrofitting drop targets to a Corvette, he will post
that in a separate article to rec.games.pinball.
While we are on the subject of George Gomez. . .
Question: You mention that George Gomez was a designer on the original
arcade Spy Hunter. Do you know who else worked on it? I have
always loved that game.
Answer: Uncle Willy often hums the Peter Gunn tune to himself, while
searching for the oil-drum button on his steering wheel. If only
commuting were like Spy Hunter, it might be more bearable.
(DISCLAIMER: any implied endorsement of "road rage" driving
techniques is not intended!)
Uncle Willy managed to find a few names of the original design
team: Tom Leon was the programmer and co-designer with George
Gomez. Bob Libby created the algorithmic jazz riffs that segue
between the Peter Gunn excerpts. Lots of folks contributed that
great video art, including Steve Ulstad, Sharon Barr, Brian
Colin, and Kevin O'Conner. Doug Watson and Tony Ramunni did the
art for the cabinet. Uncle Willy does not own a Playstation, but
he hears that there is a "Midway Arcade Classics" game available
for that platform which includes the definitive listing of
credits, and interviews with some of the designers.
While we are on the subject of video games...
Question: I see that you have a ROM Library but it apparently only has
Pinball ROMs. I have a Robotron with a bad ROM 1 chip. Can I
get ROM images for my Robotron from you?
Answer: Uncle Willy feels your pain. Robotron is one of the way-coolest
video games of all time. Unfortunately, there is no move afoot
to add video game ROMs to our web site. The ROM archives have
slowly been created through the spare-time effort of employees in
the pinball engineering group, and Uncle Willy hasn't heard of
any of them working on compiling the video ROM information.
While Uncle Willy can't provide you with the ROMs, he does know
that you might be able to repair your game by asking your
question on the rec.games.video.arcade.collecting newsgroup.
Surely some kind soul there will be able to help you. (I know,
and "stop calling you Shirley" right?)
While we are on the subject of Eugene Jarvis games...
Question: I am from Germany, and in a recent interview here a well-known
software programmer with the initials DPH [ed: name omitted to
avoid embarrassment] claimed that when he was 12 years old he
programmed the game "Defender" for Williams Electronics. Is this
true?
Answer: Uncle Willy couldn't find anyone here who had ever heard of a
"DPH." If he helped write the Williams coin-op version of
Defender then he did it via supernatural mind control, since the
people who did write it don't remember him! Perhaps he meant
that he wrote a Defender-like game for his Amiga or something?
Or perhaps you made the whole thing up just to see your question
in an Ask Uncle Willy article! (Oops, Uncle Willy spent too much
time talking to George and is developing conspiracy theories of
his own.)
Question: I recently bought a Williams '4 Star' pinball machine and I am
interested in getting a rough idea of its age. Are there some
general rules of thumb that can be used to date old machines?
(Scoring techniques? Glass art? Type of wood used in its
construction?)
Answer: For dating pinball machines, Uncle Willy frequently uses the
Internet Pinball Database. (For dating women, Uncle Willy uses
his little black book, but we won't delve into that right now.)
The IPD can be accessed at http://lysator.liu.se/pinball/IPD.
Uncle Willy just happens to know that "4 Star" was made in 1958.
There are several good books on the history of pinball, and Uncle
Willy can't hope to explain things as well as they have, but here
is a very rough chart of some major components of pinball that
have changed over time, from oldest to newest:
-- Field of pins, no electricity
-- Electricity, lit-number scoring, and bumpers
-- Flippers!
-- Score reels instead of lit numbers
-- Metal side rails and legs instead of wood
-- Automatic ball serving instead of manual ball lifter
-- Longer flippers
-- Solid-state electronics instead of electromechanical relays
-- Alphanumeric displays instead of basic seven-segment displays
-- Dot-matrix displays with animated graphics
-- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX with XXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXXXXX to XXXXXXXXX.
(Uncle Willy hopes that last one, a peek into the future of
pinball, makes it past the corporate lawyers. They like to X
stuff out if it's too exciting...)
Question: How does one become a distributor?
Answer: Very carefully.
Question: I'm just wondering if there will be any more wide-body machines
from Bally/Williams. I'm also curious if you are considering any
other types of display technology in the future.
Answer: As he has mentioned before, Uncle Willy can't talk about future
technologies or designs that might be under development at
Williams. Even if Uncle Willy were to admit that a designer was
currently building a machine with an actual full-sized 2-door
Yugo in the backbox, that game might not ever be produced, or the
Yugo might be removed (but not for cost reasons!) before the game
goes into production...and you would be upset with Uncle Willy
for having misled you. Uncle Willy wants to be your friend, not
someone who gets you upset.
Question: How do you decide which game is manufactured under the Bally
label or which one under the Williams label?
Answer: This has been one of the industry's most closely guarded secrets.
Unfortunately Pat Lawlor let his guard down at the last Pinball
Expo, and revealed the precise formula: "First we make a
Williams. Then we make a Bally. Then we make a Williams. Then
we make a Bally..."
Uncle Willy can't think of any way to explain it better than that!
Question: We want to know if there are pinball versions to play on the PC.
Answer: Yes.
Question: Any reason why the Cirqus Voltaire's at IAAPA didn't have the
green trim around the backbox? The trim makes the game look
great, and I was surprised that it was removed.
Answer: Green trim? There is an optional head trim kit for Cirqus
Voltaire that is made of purple plastic, perhaps this is what you
are referring to. While the trim was part of the original design
of the game, and is the "look" envisioned by the designer (John
Popadiuk), it was decided to make it an optional accessory.
(Many pinball operators don't like things sticking out from a
game, things that will get torn from the game as it is
transported through doorways and in and out of trucks. They just
take them off anyway.) If you have a Cirqus Voltaire and would
like the optional kit, the part number is A-22029. This includes
the trim pieces and everything needed to install them. As there
is such low demand for this trim kit, Uncle Willy cannot
guarantee that you will receive it promptly (or ever) when you
order it, unless a very large number of people, slavishly following
every command from Uncle Willy, rush to their distributors and order
the kit. (If that does happen, Uncle Willy has a few more
commands he'll have to try out on you!)
Question: Several friends and I play Whirlwind at lunch time at a local
shop. We cannot figure out how to increase the multiplier.
Answer: To answer this question, Uncle Willy had to dig deep into the
arcane-rules filing cabinet here at Williams. Brushing aside
some worthless pieces of paper concerning secret modes on Star
Trek: The Next Generation, Uncle Willy came upon the answer you
seek: Locking a ball increases the multiplier.
Question: I'm writing to you because I have to write a final paper of
roughly 10 pages for that class and I want to write it on the
medium of Pinball. What is the history of Pinball? What are the
greatest works in the history of pinball? Who are the greatest
pinball designers? [and so on]
The last thing I ask is that if you are going to reply could you
please do it before the end of the week because the paper is due
on Monday.
Answer: Uncle Willy needs to consider making some cash on the side ghost-
writing term papers for people who wait until the last minute and
then want someone else to do the hard part. However, since Uncle
Willy wasn't prepared in time for your request, looks like you'll
get an F. Sorry.
Question: I have a Jokerz Flipper from Williams. I want to set it to 5
balls per game, but in the menu there is no setting for 5 ball
game. How can I do this?
Answer: Uncle Willy found some information on this. Apparently you need
to be running at least L-4 software (L-6 is on the Williams
website in the ROM archives), and you need to cut jumper "W7" on
the CPU board. This will expand the menus to include a setting
for 5-ball play, and an "install 5 ball" option. From the notes
he found, Uncle Willy can't quite tell if upgrading the sound
ROMs at the same time is Mandatory or whether it is just A Really
Good Idea, but if the ones on the web site are newer than yours,
perhaps you should upgrade to the newer ones.
Question: I am looking for information on this Williams game called
"Diamond Score Pool". I would like to know how to play it or get
a copy of the instructions. I would also like to know what year
it was made.
Answer: Uncle Willy dug deep into the Williams archives and determined
that Diamond Score Pool was a coin-operated novelty pool machine
made around 1956, one of a seemingly endless series of pool
variations manufactured by Williams that year. After a little
more digging, Uncle Willy discovered that Diamond Score Pool was
the highlight of the bunch! Most of the games were little more
than coin-operated bumper pool tables, but Diamond Score Pool was
much, much more.
Two players each play from behind the foul line on the same side
of the table. The spot the ball is placed on for the shot lets
the machine know who is shooting (left side for player 1, right
side for player 2.) The players take turns using a short pool
cue to shoot the cue ball around a single lit bumper and against
the back wall of the playfield, trying to land the ball in one of
6 holes, which award varying point values. There are two
diamond-shaped rollover buttons on the playfield which double or
triple the value of any shot that crosses over them and then
lands in a hole. (Uncle Willy determined the above by reading a
February, 1956 trade newspaper description of the game, and
inferring some things from an old publicity shot of the game.
Please don't hold Uncle Willy's feet to the coals over any minor
inaccuracies, OK?)
Uncle Willy congratulates you on your ownership of an obscure but
quite interesting little piece of coin-op history. Anyone else
trying to find one of these should also look for a variant called
"Senior Diamond Score Pool" which was the same game but with a
playfield that was 18 inches longer.
Question: In the game "Doctor WHO", the prototypes had a motor to move the
Dalek robot at the top of the back glass, but this feature did not
make it into production games. Is there, laying around Williams
somewhere, a schematic for the motor assembly used in this
moving-Dalek feature? Can I get a copy of it? I someday will
get a Doctor WHO game, and want to restore the moving Dalek...
Answer: Uncle Willy was only able to find out the simplest of details on
this. Apparently the support for the moving Dalek head is still
in the production software, with an adjustment to enable it. The
motor and gear assembly must have had some sort of cam
arrangement to turn the single-direction motor movements into
reciprocating head movements, but Uncle Willy couldn't find out
much more about that (other than to note that the part number was
14-7976). The motor was driven like a flasher, with its voltage
coming from J107-5,6 and its drive coming from Q26/J122-1
(Blu-Brn wire, solenoid number 25). There was an optical switch,
presumably to detect the "home" position of the head, that was
connected as switch 81 (Column8/U20-11/J206-0/Grn-Gry;
Row1/U18-11/J208-1/Wht-Brn).
A scan of the prototype instruction manual page that shows this
whole assembly is available at:
http://www.wms.com/williams/ww/gallery.
Question: Recently I've bought a 'Safe Cracker' pin in my hometown, Madrid,
and I found that the messages were translated into Spanish, but
very poorly. I wanted to know how I'm supposed to change it back
to English (if there's a way to do it).
Answer: There is a setting under standard adjustments for translations in
English, if that would work better for you. As you might
imagine, the pinball engineering staff at Williams is not always
fluent in the languages needed for other countries, so this work
is generally contracted out. Uncle Willy did a bit of research
and discovered that the company that performed the Spanish
translations for Safecracker is located in...Madrid, Spain! If
their translations aren't correct for their own city, Uncle Willy
is not sure what to think!
Question: Can you tell me anything about a United Skippy or United
Manufacturing (now possibly Williams) shuffleboard bowling alley
game. It is a 6 player, coin operated bowling game that uses a
puck to knock down the pins on this 12' long table. I have been
searching for some information on this such as the year and
value.
Answer: Shuffle Alleys and Bowling Alleys were a strong suit for United
Manufacturing (which became part of Williams Electronics in
1965). Uncle Willy doesn't have much resource material kicking
around for pre-Williams United Products, and what he does have
makes no mention of a game called "Skippy." (Though there
certainly were a large number of other odd names!) Uncle Willy
is not sure what to tell you - there is no "Internet Shuffle
Alley And Bowler Database" site to do a search on. Perhaps a
letter to one of the various game collector magazines could turn
up someone with more knowledge of this game.
Question: Were there any pins other than Xenon and Space Invaders that had
that 'infinity' look with the lights in the backbox?
Answer: Uncle Willy remembers that Gottlieb's "Mars, God of War" had a
similar lamp arrangement in the backbox, using red bulbs. Uncle
Willy isn't sure if there were others, but certainly doesn't know
of any other Bally games made like that. Uncle Willy did notice
a recent slot machine from WMS Gaming (yay!) called "Winning
Streak," that used infinity lights in its top box for quite a
stunning effect.
Question: How about making a pinball that is related to the history of
jukeboxes - which may include some classic sound bites of music
related to the date of the box.
Answer: Uncle Willy suggests you look for the pins "Jukebox" and "Sound
Stage" made by Chicago Coin in the mid 70's. As far as Williams
making a new pin with a jukebox theme, consider this: Chicago
Coin was out of business within a few years of making a pin with
a jukebox theme. Scary, eh?
Question: Can you tell me if there is going to be a new Kiss pinball
machine??? If so, when???
Answer: Uncle Willy cannot tell you that, ever.
Question: It is becoming increasingly difficult to find people to work on
the old electro-mechanical machines like my FunFest, Big Top and
Pit Stop. The distributors in my area have been somewhat helpful
in locating people to fix them, but they are all older folks. I
am concerned how an un-mechanical man as myself, will be able to
get by when these older repairmen are gone. Also, is there
collectors site that talks of machine value trading, etc.
Answer: Uncle Willy is picturing Mad Mort, The Last of the EM Repairmen,
driving through the Australian desert on his pin dolly, fighting
off young thugs who are trying to steal his dwindling reserves of
flex stones and contact bending tools...
While there is certainly an art and science to the repair of EM
pins, Uncle Willy takes comfort in the fact that they are fairly
straightforward implementations of basic electronics and
mechanics. There will always be someone who can figure it out if
they try. Uncle Willy is more concerned about anyone in the year
3006 having the equipment to program something as ancient as an 8
megabit EPROM...
As for mingling with others who share your passion for all things
pinball, Uncle Willy recommends lurking on the internet newsgroup
rec.games.pinball for a while. There are plenty of pin lovers
there, and there are always references to web sites that cater to
some specific part or another of the pinball collecting hobby.
Question: I own two T2 machines. One of these is outfitted with white
rubber parts and stainless legs on the cabinet and the other is
set up with all black rubber parts and black painted legs. Do
you know if these are both factory issue setups and if not, which
was the "stock" configuration?
Answer: The original scheme for all T2 pins was chrome legs and white
rubber rings.
Question: What games has Steve Kordek designed?
Answer: Oh my. Uncle Willy isn't sure there are enough megabytes on your
hard drive to save that list - it's quite extensive! Uncle Willy
decided to keep things to a manageable size by limiting the list
to just those games Steve Kordek has designed while at Williams
(where, by the way, he's still going strong!) If we were to go
back to games he designed while at Genco, it would probably
double the size of the list.
Most of these are pins, some of them are novelty or arcade
pieces, some of these he co-designed with others, they are in
rough date order, ready, set, here we go: Space Glider, Bobo,
Highways, Hollywood, Ten Spot, Double Barrel, Skill Ball,
Reserve, Space Ship, Kismet, Metro, Jolly Jokers, 3 Coins,
Coquette, Trade Winds, Friendship 7, Valiant, Vagabond, Mardi
Gras, 4 Roses, Tom Tom, Big Deal, Jumpin' Jacks, Swing Time,
Skill Pool, El Toro, Big Daddy, Merry Widow, Beat The Clock, Oh
Boy, San Francisco, Palooka, Heat Wave, Whoopee, Zig Zag, Wing
Ding, Pretty Baby, Alpine Club, Ski Club, Pot 'O' Gold, Big
Chief, Teacher's Pet, Hot Line, Big Strike, Casanova, Shangri-La,
Beat Time, Touchdown, Kickoff, Derby Day, Daffie, Doozie, Student
Prince, Hayburners II, Cabaret, Set Up, Seven Up, Gay 90's, 4
Aces, Aces & Kings, Planets, Zodiac, Olympic Hockey, Winner,
Honey, Super Star, Big Star, Match Race, Jubilee, Darling, Star
Action, Triple Action, Spacelab, Skylab, Star Pool, Big Ben,
Triple Strike, Little Chief, Black Gold, Space Mission, Space
Odyssey, Grand Prix, Liberty Bell, Big Deal, Contact, Pokerino,
Ticket Tac Toe.
Whew! Uncle Willy needs to go rest his typing fingers now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spy Hunter Platforms:
Classic Platforms: Atari 2600 (Sega), 8 bit (Sega), Colecovision, Apple II
and Commodore 64 (Sega). No luck with any programmer credits.
Categories: Game play, Addictiveness, Graphics, Sound & Controls
More info on Spy Hunter can be found at: http://147.208.187.
Gomez did spy hunter video as well as spy hunter pinball.
spy hunter pinball back glass
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Other Spy Hunter News: Link
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PRESS RELEASE
Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Volume I Brings Home Arcade Classics
For Nintendo 64
CHICAGO - November 14, 2000 - Midway Games Inc. (NYSE: MWY), a leading
software industry publisher and developer, announced that the classic
arcade game compilation Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Volume 1 for Nintendo® 64
will ship to retail today.
Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Volume 1 takes gamers back in time with six
popular arcade titles including Spy Hunter®, Joust®, Sinistar®, Defender®,
Root Beer Tapper™ and Robotron 2084®. This one to two player game features
easy set-up and classic game play that will appeal to a wide audience of gamers,
old and new.
"Gamers will enjoy playing the classic, 'old school' arcade greats that endeared
them to videogames," said Helene Sheeler, vice president of marketing, Midway.
"Midway's library is vast, and we plan to continue bringing back the classic
titles, and memories, for today's home console systems."
In Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Volume I, gamers use smokescreens, missiles
and oil slicks to run spies off the road in Spy Hunter; take to the air on a
winged bird of prey as they battle opponents over the lava pits in Joust; race
the clock to destroy the ultimate evil in Sinistar; protect the earth's inhabitants
from alien abductors in Defender; keep a thirsty crowd supplied with drinks in
Root Beer Tapper and fight mutant robots in Robotron 2084.
Midway Games Inc. is a leading interactive entertainment industry developer,
publisher and marketer of software for both the coin-operated and home markets.
Midway games are available for play on all major dedicated home game platforms,
including Nintendo® 64 and Game Boy® Color, PlayStation® game console and
Sega Dreamcast™.
MIDWAY, SPY HUNTER, JOUST, DEFENDER, ROBOTRON 2084, TAPPER and SINISTAR are
trademarks of Midway Amusement Games, LLC. Nintendo, Nintendo 64 and are
registered trademarks of Nintendo of America Inc. ©1996 Nintendo of America Inc.
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Thank you,
Paul Dean spy hunter champion June 28, 1985
Target Online
George Gomez NBA Fastbreak Pinball Field Display High Score Content Originally From:
