Um... a billion?

[Neverending Project]

So I am at best an average pinball player. I don't play very often, and when I do it is normally an average game. So this evening I was waiting for my pizza to be ready, and I noticed that there was a free credit sitting on the Attack from Mars game - so I played. Well, I started to play anyway...

I didn't play for more than 10 minutes, and on my first ball scored 1.69 billion points. And by the end of the ball my pizza was waiting for me, so I hurried it up. Now I know that with inflation these days the scores have been inflated too. But this is kinda ridiculous. I mean almost 2 billion points on my first ball? Talk about de-sensitivity. Sheesh.

Just an observation from a relatively clueless person. You can move along now if you wish.

[Zero_Hour]

It is rather amusing. I own an Attack from Mars and my current hi-score is 58 Billion. I don't know if it is the ultimate score inflation pin, but it's gotta be up there.

[pinballwizard79]

I dont like it because it costs so much ---smurfing--- money, other than that its damn cool.

[ChadTower]

OTOH, a billion is a serious achievement on Revenge From Mars.  I seem to be averaging around 100-200 mill these days.

[ChadTower]

I'm looking for a Video Pinball to put next to it.  Just so jim will be happy. 

[Xiaou2]

Not walking away from Revenge from Mars in the middle of a game is a serious achievement, too.

    

 I put some money into a RFM at a rest stop,  and in minutes I was
fighting the urge to leave mid game.   I just didnt want to waste my
money!  I walked away from it before finishing the last ball.   

 I dont like either  RFM or AFM.   Boring shots. Poor flow.

[Jeff AMN]

That's part of the humor for Attack From Mars. The scoring is intentionally inflated just to add to the whole silliness of the theme.

[shardian]

Now that I understand the absolute joys of old school playfield multipliers, I find them much more enjoyable than newer games that have you mindlessly shoot 1-2 ramps. Nothing beats maxing out the 5x PF multiplier and then just going to town on targets.

On my pin, 150 k is the usual outcome without getting significant bonus multipliers. The best I have done is just shy of 500k. Since I moved the pin to its permanent location, me or the wife can't score for crap. I need to adjust the playfield slope or something.


I assume the score inflations are to encourage non-pin players to dump more money.

[ChadTower]

Pretty much the only thing I like on those games that you can't get on the earlier SS games is a good lightshow.  That's fun.  It's not worth an extra $750, though.

[shardian]

Pretty much the only thing I like on those games that you can't get on the earlier SS games is a good lightshow.  That's fun.  It's not worth an extra $750, though.

Exactly. Good thing my aftermarket CPU maximizes the hell out of the light show possibilities of my 1st gen SS to take care of that problem.

I still want a funhouse just for the visual experience - one of the best visual eye candy pins IMO.

[Neverending Project]

I assume the score inflations are to encourage non-pin players to dump more money.

This is what I assumed too, but (in my case anyway) it had the opposite effect. I was put off by the ridiculous scoring. Somewhere in between 10 points per drop target and 10 million must be the sweet spot.

[Zero_Hour]

I assume the score inflations are to encourage non-pin players to dump more money.

This is what I assumed too, but (in my case anyway) it had the opposite effect. I was put off by the ridiculous scoring. Somewhere in between 10 points per drop target and 10 million must be the sweet spot.

I always assumed (in the DMD era at least) it was mostly arbitrary. ON EM & even older SS machines it cost money to make a larger score possible - adding extra scoring reels, or larger numeric displays. One of the things a DMD would allow a programmer to do, is exactly what you see with AFM - ridiculously high scores. I can't think of any machines contemporary to AFM that took it to that extreme.

And it's hardly confined to pinball - just look at the way scoring has inflated in video games over the years. 

...all you do is make the same shots over and over just like you do on any pinball machine.

QFT

[Jeff AMN]

You guys are still not getting it. AFM's inflated numbers aren't to suck anybody in, they're part of the theme of the game. It's just a bit of humor.

Non-pinball players would say, "oh sweet, I got 2 billion!" ...and then the high scores would come across and they'd notice that 350 billion is a decent score. The gimmick is just a joke, not an actual attempt to pull one over on anybody.

[ChadTower]

We know

...and we still think it's stupid.

[Jeff AMN]

We know

...and yet you are still acting like you don't.

What's the big deal about scoring anyway? With arcade games you generally can't compare 1 million points to another game's 1 million points. Why should pinball be all that different? One thing that makes a lot of games different from one another is how they handle bonuses, multipliers, and jackpots. If scoring was more or less uniform, a lot of excitement from discovering the different game modes would be diminished.

[shardian]

We know

...and yet you are still acting like you don't.

What's the big deal about scoring anyway? With arcade games you generally can't compare 1 million points to another game's 1 million points. Why should pinball be all that different? One thing that makes a lot of games different from one another is how they handle bonuses, multipliers, and jackpots. If scoring was more or less uniform, a lot of excitement from discovering the different game modes would be diminished.

Off the top of my head, I can get multiple billion in Scared Stiff, and Whodunnit. A billion point game is a good day on scared stiff, but pretty much a guarantee if you get the wizard mode.

Attack from Mars leaves these games in the dust though.