CASH LINES - "Cocaine lines, more like."

This was a machine I hated when I used to play it in the pubs and arcades so it wasn't one I was particularly looking forward to playing again on the emulator. However, it soon became clear that this machine needs to be set a high %age to give a decent game. Doubtless the Cash Lines I used to play were set to a derisory 70odd%. I've found that 84% is enough to give an good game, but it's set to 90% in the ROM you'll download. You can change that as you wish, of course, but at 90% it's a thoroughly entertaining machine.

Barcrest machines are usually better than most at giving a good game, even when set to low %ages, but this isn't one of them. There must be thousands of people across the UK who have been put off playing fruit machines because of greedy arcade owners and operators who insist on setting their machines to low %ages, of course, the punter doesn't realise this, and blames the machine or the manufacturer, vowing never to play them again.

Anyway, rant over, back to Cash Lines :) The first thing you'll notice is the HUGE trail you have to complete, just to get to the nudges! Uniquely, there's a bonus at 4 and another at 10. 1 nudge is awarded at 15, each subsequent space awards an extra nudge, with the jackpot repeater awarded after 12 nudges. To compensate you for the l...o...n...g... trail the overlaid numbers on the reels are higher than usual, there's a 10 on the single bar on the middle reel.

The bonuses are the usual selection, although considering the length of the trail the machine does seem overly keen on pointless boosts and stoppers. However, once you've made it to the nudge trail you will usually be able to gamble to enough for a win. If there's no win available you can shuffle the reels with the "Shuffle" button (at the cost of a nudge) and hope that something will be offered from the new reel position (this can often yield good results).

Once you've managed to nudge in a win, a feature is automatically selected from the choice in the middle of the board. You now have several choices. If the feature's good, you can collect it. You can gamble your cash win or you can take a free shuffle to select a different feature, the next shuffle will drop you one step down the cash values, you then might get another free shuffle (depending on what sort of moods it's in). Take the feature or shuffle again, and so on. You can try to gamble back up the cash ladder to get more chances to shuffle, and at any point you can simply collect the cash. Once you've lost a cash gamble you can only shuffle or collect, you can't try to gamble back up the cash values.

Keep an eye on the "Gold Run" circle, some features and cash amounts on the board give a repeat chance, the more lights that are lit, the greater the chance of a repeat (sort of, if it doesn't want to give you a repeat it'll stop the one unlit light over the repeat point). Also, keep listening, sometimes you'll hear a funny noise when a seemingly poor feature or cash amount is highlighted, this means that the feature or cash amount will award a jackpot or better. (A £1 win, for example, will repeat at least 14 times). The "Mr B" light also flashes to let you know about this.

You'll sometimes get true skill gambles on the nudge trail, on cash wins, and on feature select (you'll hear a noise and the display will show "TRUE SKILL"). Also, you can get a true skill gamble on the cash trail but not been informed of the fact, keep an ear out for different music on the cash gamble, one particular tune means you have a true skill gamble..... The "Cancel" button can sometimes be used to slow down various features, bonuses and gambles, look and listen carefully!

A genuinely entertaining machine, with some great music and solid, if occasionally frustrating, gameplay.

August 2001