ROLLER COASTER & CLUB ROYAL FLUSH

Not proper reviews, just the write-up notes that accompanied the releases - but I'm trying to get more of this sort of thing archived out properly rather than buried in the news archive. So here it is.

Of all the DX layouts yet released (for MPU3/4 or JPeMu) Roller Coaster DX is definitely the one that's got my juices flowing most freely - indeed, the mess was terrible, and of the kind more usually associated with the lengthy perusal of pictures of naked ladies. Not that I ever do that sort of thing. Of course.

First and foremost Roller Coaster is undoubtedly one of the finest fruit machines ever made - for my money it's right up there with Indiana Jones (the best fruit machine ever made), which is high praise indeed. Second, we've got a different chip emulated here, the classic layout used the latest and nastiest £15 chip, the DX uses the £8 token jackpot ROMs, which makes a very positive difference to the gameplay. Finally, Andy's done an immensely accomplished job with the DX, tidying up the base images wonderfully well and using Mike's "omni-light" technique to stunning effect.

Roller Coaster's got the lot; high win and feature frequency, great music and sound (apart from the hugely irritating feature tune), loads of features, a long and involved trail, and most importantly of all, it responds very well to an accomplished, skilful player. It may well have a jackpot or jackpot feature in it, but quite often you're going to have to be able to hit skill stops and roll ups and know exactly what you're doing to squeeze it out.

The earlier £8 chip emulated here means far fewer dead patches than you'll be accustomed to with the £15 jackpot version, and you'll be offered the JP features (Test Your Strength and higher) much more frequently - on top of that it plays a more skilful game, as it doesn't have to block the good stuff so hard - so get practising your roll ups. Some people argue that the £10 all cash version of Roller Coaster is the best, and it certainly does have a mental streak in it (£70 off the top Roller Coaster feature) - you won't see that from this £8 version, but you will get a more involved and entertaining gameplay experience - you'll also get to see The Nemesis go all the way to the top, which I have yet to see the £15 chip ever do.

Special mention must go out to Andy for the superlative DX - the images he had to work from were good, but they were far from perfect (digital camera pics taken from an angle in a gloomy arcade). He's done a tremendous job of cleaning the images up and combining them into a single layout backdrop - and the lamps are fantastic, the Photoshop "omni-light" effect gives them a real glow. But why not find out for yourselves? Download and enjoy....

Club Royal Flush is the first JPM club machine to be emulated, but that's about its only claim to fame. The layout's a real doozy, fine image quality, excellent work on the lamps, lovely reels - some of the text is a little hard to read but basically, it's all there. But as for game.....

 It is, give or take a bonus or two, a straight club "upgrade" (such as it isn't) of Casino Crazy. Reel wins can be gambled and exchanged to the feature, but only if you're in the "exchange zone" (£2.40 to £25). Overlaid numbers add to a cash ladder entry trail, and once in amongst the wins you can gamble as you would a reel win. There's a bonus at four, which is patently stupid because you need ten numbers to make it onto the cash trail. Would someone please like to explain to me how you can EVER get a win from the "add again" bonus? (And the respin is a hairy old pile of wank for the same reason).

This really is just a pub machine in club clothes. I put over £100 through it and was never offered more than a tenner; the four pots (knockouts, win spins, features and nudges) could be straight from a pub machine, and the way you get dicked about on the feature, repeatedly being given an extra life only to have it taken off you before you've added anything worthwhile to any of the pots is pointlessness defined. On top of that the win gamble is awful, the regularity with which it kills you before you get to an exchange point is most disheartening, and when you finally do get a decent amount of numbers to climb a way up the cash trail (to £3 or so) it goes and puts the exchange point further up than usual and kills you on a good number to stop you getting there. Like, yeah, thanks motherfucker.

Maybe it needs a good chunk of cash putting through it before settling down to a more agreeable play style, and I'll certainly be returning to it again; the layout is excellent, the music and effects are both perfectly competent, and it's going to have to start offering high wins and features sooner or later - but you wouldn't want to be the first person to play a real one after a factory reset......

I'd always had my doubts about how well a JPM club machine would play (having never played one for real), as what makes their lower jackpot pub/arcade machines enjoyable is the manner in which a player can use their skill to get the jackpot or high wins. Obviously this has to be curtailed for club machines, after all, you couldn't have a skilful player getting the jackpot off a certain low feature every time. As such, my fear was that a JPM clubber would be rather nasty and frustrating. And as always, I was completely right.

Arrogance and self-righteousness? Wrote the fucking book on that I did.

12th May 2002.