HOT CASH - Rather like a Volvo, but less box-like.
Manufacturer - Empire. Year of release - 1996(?). Layout - Gary Pearson.

Hot Cash is one of Empire's earlier efforts, and it shows, but not in a wholly bad way. The real machine has a distinctly low-rent feel, with highly suspect artwork and a general sort of cheapness about it, rather like a dodgy Indian takeaway with awful pictures of the Taj Mahal on the wall. In fact, Gary's classic layout, whilst somewhat greyer, arguably looks better than the real thing.

The game however, isn't too bad. Pushing aside the horrible memories of a couple of nasty beatings it gave me a few years ago (you know you're in a dodgy pub when you change £40 down at the bar, lose the lot over an hour or so, storing up a big piss in the process because you don't trust the locals not to nick your credits, go to the toilet in a very bad mood, and when you come out the landlord's jumped on the machine without even having the decency to wait until you'd left his dirty little hole of a pub). Anyway, so, forgetting all about that and dealing with Hot Cash purely on its merits, it's a decent little old-fashioned sort of a game. And after the ructions of the last couple of days, I'm in the mood to be nice. It doesn't happen very often, so let's all make the most of it while we can.

1-6 entry trail, bonus at 4, actually, let me rephrase that, crappy spawn of the devil bonus at 4. Entry to the feature trail at 7, any extra numbers above that pushing you further up the features. On paper, having a shorter than usual entry trail is a Good Thing. In practice of course, it simply means that the bonuses have to be even more overtly nasty than usual. Yeah, thanks. Reel wins start you at the appropriate place on the cash column, so no faffing about with exchanges or any of that other modern fangled nonsense. Hi-lo your way up the columns, exchanging across them at the indicated points if you wish to do so.

Now, there isn't really a great deal to help you on your way. There are no bonuses. Not a single one. Not a fucking sausage. Not even a "Lucky 7", (and let's face it, even a small shrivelled sausage would be more use than your average Lucky 7). The only way you can get a different number is by switching columns at the exchange points. Hold down cancel as you press start ("start" being the button you press to exchange columns) and you'll get a different number to gamble on. Not necessarily a better one, mind; a 4 will change to an 8 if it feels like it. A 7 might go to a 3, but it'll still kill you on the 3 if it feels like it. On top of that, you often find yourself faced with gambling on a dodgy number to stay on the column you want to be on, or exchanging to get a different number but winding up on the wrong column. And Gordon Brown thinks he's got it tough having to work the budget out. Pah!

There's also a "snap" award, if you gamble hi/lo and the same number comes up again, after you've remembered that you're not playing a dodgy ACE rechip (Caesar's Palace anyone?.....), you'll have a cute little "snap" thing going on. The light will move up, down, and across the columns, you can slow it down with cancel (but not quite slow enough to guarantee you won't still mess it up) and jab at start when you're where you want to be. Be warned that gambling on after a "snap" (especially if you stuff it up and end up back where you started, or, even worse, lower down) tends to be fatal.

There's also a cashpot, and it's the most horrendously evil cashpot I've ever seen. To get it, you have to light the numbers 5,6,7 and 8. The only way you can get these numbers is by having them come up on the hi/lo gamble once you're on the feature. Remember, there are no bonuses to help you, you're just going to have to face up to gambling on some seriously dodgy numbers if you want the cashpot. It's not an endeavour for the faint-hearted, or, for that matter, the intelligent. If the machine's in a good mood it will give you the numbers on the column exchange number swap thingy, but it's still not ideal; and on this £15 upgrade, the cashpot only goes up to a tenner, which makes all that hard work and suffering rather pointless. (The original machine used bulbs instead of an LED display to indicate the cashpot value, in a "Final Frontier hi/lo gamble" money saving sort of a scheme, so changing it to anything above £10 is obviously somewhat tricky).

The features are a reasonably varied bunch, and can be divided into two very clearly defined camps. The good and the bad. The worthwhile and the pointless. The Barcrest and the Mazooma. The bottom four features are, and there's no nice way to say this, awful. Heat Wave is a crappy win spin (why not just call it "Cherries, ha ha, and what did you expect collecting this feature anyway?"), Flash Cash is typical Flash Cash (i.e. very poor), Trail Blaze is money belt (£2.40 - woohh! Nice sample though), Cash Inferno is a copy of the Log Flume from Roller Coaster, where it wasn't very good either.

Above that all the features are pretty much the same, in that they can all pay jackpots and higher when they feel so inclined. Heat Seeker spins the reels to a win (but doesn't award it), you then stop the hi/lo reel (and I have now finally been able to find out for sure that it cheats, just as I always suspected, EVIL BASTARD) and it steps that number of spaces, awarding the win that it lands on. This could of course just be cherries, but it will then give as many "bonus steps" as necessary until it's paid what it wants to. Red Hot Roll is a Waltzers style feature, the reels spin very fast, you stop them, win is awarded, repeat chance. Doesn't cheat as far as I can tell and can go big (I used to be quite good at this on the real machine, and was dead chuffed when I hit the JP first time on MPU3/4). Fireball is a skill cash on the Fireball lights, usually good for at least £6, but will repeat on and on when ready. Hot Steps spins the reels to win, awards it, and you get a yes/no repeat chance on further steps. Hot Cash is the rather dull top feature, it's a simple win series on the feature board's cash values. Goes in increments of £15.

There are a couple of nice touches, the "quick cancel flash" super feature start (seen on many other Empires of this era) is present, keep an eye on cancel in normal play. If you're pressing start too fast you'll miss it, not so serious a thing in MPU3/4, but should you ever do it on the real thing, a severe kicking of oneself is in order. Mixed bars awards a little win series on a dedicated bank of £1-£4 lights. Nearly always gives £3 or £4, which spoils it somewhat, but still, nice idea.

Most importantly of all, it all hangs together as a playable, challenging game. There's nothing singularly wonderful about it, it's just reassuringly solid. A bit like a Volvo, but less box-like, and with fewer airbags. Rewards are on offer for the bold player, and there's actually a fair chance to use real skill to get higher wins (something that's all too rare these days). Its limitations do become apparent quite quickly (can't use extra nudges to get more numbers after a bonus, similarity of top features somewhat negates the point of gambling higher, bonuses get too good when the machine's happy and so on), but this is definitely one of the better games currently implemented in MPU3/4.

Gary's classic layout is crisp, clear, very well laid out and a good approximation of the real machine into the bargain, although a little more detail on the cashpot lights would have been welcome. This layout might work better at 1024x768, freeing up room for more of an authentic interpretation of the Fireball and Cash Inferno features. But in all fairness to Gary, classic layouts are very restricted as to what's available in the way of shapes and effects. Hopefully, future versions of MPU3/4 will give designers the chance to use more than the current basic selection of shapes and colouring effects.

All told though, a solid enough machine is brought back to life with a great classic layout, the release of which brings to an end the terrible drought of releases from Gary. I for one am very much looking forward to his next release, and many more to follow.

17th January 2002.