Monaco

March 23, 2005

Made in Spain with Williams parts, this is a slight reconfiguration of "Space Odyssey". It has many unique features, in particular, the cabinet artwork is silk-screened, not stenciled and it is the cleanest machine in the place. I bought this from Michael Scott and one of the best deals I ever got on a machine. It is flawless and has beautiful artwork themed on the yachting life of the rich and famous in the magnificent Bay of Monaco.The nautical theme is continued as the center motif shares the familiar ships wheel in the center(Gottlieb’s Buccaneer) and serves as the bonus indicator advancing, oddly enough, counter clockwise.One of the fastest and crisper machines it has a spinner, extra ball, special, bonus, double bonus, collect bonus and a moving target. Once again, the spinner serves as the money shot to rack up that bonus. The center moving target can give points, lite double bonus, extra ball, and specials with all three A,B and C lit. If you go up the right side to the saucer, you will collect and drain your bonus. The saucer does not give double bonus, which can only be had by draining the ball so if you have your double bonus lit, you might think twice about collecting it up there. This is an extremely quick machine and if you are not on your toes constantly, it will be a major disappointment. Not for beginners, leave this game to the professionals.A side note on Pinball Inflation: As game manufacturers got more and more competitive, they started making machines with a static first digit so they could brag, "On this machine, the Minimum you can make is 10 points!" Of course, the score needed to win a game went up by a factor of 10 also so from a players perspective, it was all nil. The Italians and Spanish really got into it, adding another score reel and requiring 1/2 million points to pop a credit. Then the Solid State era came, and with digital readouts, scores are now in the Billions. Just like Basketball...

Produced by Segasa, 1977. 4 players. 9.7 out of 10 on the Play-O-Meter

High Score 1,550,360 by JCN on November 20, 2004

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