CASH STRIKE - "Popular with termagants and harridans"

Now that Cash Strike is implemented in MPU3/4 we are able to survey near enough the full range of Empire's abilities. At one end of the scale we have "Unmitigated Disaster", or Ghost Train as it's also known. Somewhere in the middle we have "Pleasantly Inoffensive" in the form of Crazy Capers. And now, with Cash Strike, we have "Really Quite Good, Actually". (There could also be a "Very Good Indeed" if Money Monster were implemented yet. But it's not). 

Cash Strike is quite clearly founded in daylight robbery of the most barefaced kind (we're talking full Sky Digital subscription levels of wallet-mugging here). Barcrest had done rather well with Frenzy/Psycho Cash Beast and Empire obviously decided that this was the sort of action of which they wanted a big piece. However, having learnt that hastily cobbling together a feeble rip-off with anodyne gameplay, sub-normal sound and offensively poor artwork wasn't winning them anything at the "Fruity Of The Year" awards (except the squashed melon trophy for "Most Predictable Mystery Square"), they finally set about producing a machine that could succeed on its own merits.

Empire's designers spent many weeks holed up in their sinister castle atop a mysterious mountain shrouded in dank mist, and finally, Cash Strike was born. Early rumours that it was the lovechild of Barry Barcrest and Geri "too scrawny now" Halliwell, who had a new single out that week, were soon dismissed as pointless filler material in a review desperately short of ideas.

First impressions are not overwhelming, the original cabinet design was fairly derivative, but it was also clear, well-designed, and excitingly "busy" looking. The basic game design is nothing to get overly excited about either, entry to the feature is via the usual trail, bonus is at five (which makes holding numbers to get it a bit awkward), feature entry is at ten, with a Bonus, Extra Life and Move Up awarded at eleven, twelve and thirteen respectively.

Once on the feature, the player travels around a wraparound trail collecting knockouts, nudges, and bonuses. The knockouts can be used to select features and prizes on the five levels, nudges can be used to bring a win to the winline, or improve the outcome of a collected feature. The bonuses can be used to improve the player's position on the board, add the same square again, award a skillstop and so on. If the bonus ladder is filled (which it won't be, believe me), a jackpot repeater is awarded.

To climb the levels you need to land on the "Move Up" squares on the wraparound trail, or knockout the "Move Up" value on the current level.

So far, so Frenzy, although this is no bad thing in itself, as Frenzy was (and is) a great machine. But what is it that makes Cash Strike worth playing in its own right? What have Empire done to elevate it to the status of "well worth a dabble"? Is this being hyped a bit too much? After all, it's only a fruit machine.

There are some things that Empire have traditionally been good at, but up until Cash Strike, the things they were bad at largely negated them. They've traditionally been good at high feature and win frequency, giving a decent run of the board once on the feature, fair hi/lo gambles, mysteries that aren't overly psychotic and fairly entertaining gameplay. However, these had previously been rendered largely pointless due to tediously predictable patterns, a lack of any real opportunities for the player to use their skill, derivative and dull design, and a real feeling of everything being scripted, a shortcoming that became increasingly apparent with prolonged play.

Happily, (and the more astute of you will have seen this one coming), Cash Strike has all the good things and hardly any of the bad things! Did you guess?

The bonus comes up regularly and often puts you up, there are wide variety of bonuses on offer, including a genuinely tricky skillstop (which cancel doesn't slow down). Once on the feature you'll generally get a few loops of the board and the opportunity to collect something at least half-decent (something worth £3 or over) before perishing. The Mystery has clearly had some calming therapy following its release from Mystery Square Academy, of course, it will kill you off when it needs to, but you'll usually survive at least a couple. The basic gameplay is solid, too. You can't go far wrong with the Frenzy model, and Cash Strike doesn't. You're given the opportunities to use the bonuses properly, tactical use for the right thing can make the difference between a £4 offer then death board, and a canny jackpot repeater board.

That's not to say that Cash Strike doesn't have a few sneaky tricks up its sleeve to help string things out, but they're quite clever, so the player isn't left seething with terrible rage, wondering if anyone would notice if he were to tip his pint down the back of the machine. For a start, it does the typical Empire trick of having nothing much worth collecting at the lower levels (it's all £1 to £5 sort of stuff) so it can afford to give you a bit of a run-around before sticking the knife in. However, it doesn't always give rubbish should you collect one of the low features, reel blasts will sometimes offer a high win, Mix N Match will sometimes give 3-of-a-kind sevens, that sort of thing. Another ploy is to offer all the rubbish on a certain level, and then give a Move Up when only the couple of things actually worth collecting are left. Yes, it sounds annoying, but in reality it works well, because it's giving you a reward in the form of the Move Up, you tend not to notice it also now has a new pool of only slightly better rubbish to offer. (Compare with Frenzy which allows you to knock out on previously passed zones, this means that if there's only feature left in a zone and it gives you an Extra Zone, you can use a knockout to get the one decent feature that's left in the previous zone). The mystery can give a wide range of "neutral" awards, an extra knockout or two, maybe taking a couple of nudges away, an extra bonus; nothing that really changes your position much for better or worse, but does help prolong the feature.

The net result of this is that Cash Strike is a lot less kill-happy that Frenzy/PCB, gives you a much more satisfying run of the feature *and* manages to offer a reasonable selection of decent features and prizes. The Skill Continues, true skill YES/NO continues and the like on the mystery generate a real feeling of being able to use your abilities to progress; along with the tactical gameplay, and clever use of nudges and bonuses to make headway, it all makes for a very entertaining, involving machine to play. 

All of this is wrapped up with some great sounds and music (a few of the little ditties are so endearingly tuneful I used to let them play for a while before pressing the buttons), fast, sturdy gameplay (can gameplay be sturdy? I think it can. So there) and an overall sense of actually playing a game, rather than just hopelessly shovelling money into an unforgiving pile of satanic circuitry.

Empire seemed to enjoy a reasonable degree of success with Cash Strike, it certainly turned up in a few pubs round my neck of the woods, and it was a machine I used to actively seek out. Not only did it offer the skilful player a chance to win a bit of cash, the enjoyment factor was such that even if you walked away a few quid down, the chances are that you would have had a decent game for your money and not feel cheated. A good indication of a machine's playability is how much casual punters play it (the "change from the round brigade"), and Cash Strike always proved very popular with them, although this was not always a good thing......

There was a mad woman who used to play it in my local and she swore blind that there was a better chance of getting a repeat if you left the YES-NO flashing for about a minute or so before you pressed it. So she'd collect some paltry amount (such as £2+repeat chance), wait for the YES-NO to start flashing on the repeat chance, then saunter to the bar, take a swig of her drink, slowly wander back to the machine with her back to it, then spin round and tap the Start button with a look on her face resembling that of an Olympic athlete throwing a discus. I prayed every time for it not to repeat (whilst wishing I could just brutally murder her and be done with it), when it didn't she'd bang the machine muttering witch-like incantations under her breath as if she'd just been cheated out of a dead cert win, when it did she flashed me a self-satisfied look that had "Ha ha, my termagant powers are strong today!" written all over it. Stupid old hag.

The good bit was when she'd finally lost all her benefit money for the week and I hopped on, forcing out a £45 Cash Strike streak (the top feature) within a tenner. If I was a nice chap I'd have bought her a consolation half of witches' brew, but I'm not, so I didn't.

24th August 2001