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Corvette |
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Rules for Bally's Corvette (4 ball game) by: Cameron Silver Version L-3 [10/October/1994] Send all corrections/additions to me. Multiball, Lane Change, and Video Mode are trade marks of WMS inc. Corvette is probably registered by someone too. You may do anything you want with this rule sheet, but just don't forget about the Kindness to Rulesheets Association!
It's a weird one! The lockdown bar and exposed metal is all black and feels very much like a Data East machine. I hope Corvette is the only game like this. It's not that I'm having a go at DE, it's just that I like the fact that the two companies produce machines that are different in as many ways possible. The sound is disappointing. The main play music is far too repetitive. Just one short guitar riff over-and-over again. There are however, lots of beefy roaring engine noises that I quite like. The game over music is terrific! The display is great. Lots of really nice animation. For example, the Bonus X, Replay, Extra Ball, Quadra Jets and Car Awarded from Route 66. The test features are great for the Engine and Race .. well done here. This game also features lamp Row and Column tests .. well done once again [I hope this test will become a new standard]. The outlanes didn't give me a lot of problems, but the centre drain seemed to be a real trendy destination for balls.. The game takes getting used to. Stick with it as it's a very good game once you get familiar with it. It has some fresh new ideas, and the gimmicks are cool. Congrats go to the designer of the Engine (I assume that is Tomas M. Kopera). This could have been a complicated nightmare, but it's so simple even a Lyle could fix it! The game has a MANUAL PLUNGER!!! Yey! I'll start from the bottom left, and go around in a clockwise direction.
Like the Flintstones. The plunged ball bounces around the LT1 rollovers, and you must steer the flashing light to the lane that the ball will go through. First time is 5 Mil, then 10 Mil then 15 etc.. There does not appear to be an upper limit on the skill shot value. The skill shot is available for all plunged balls except ball saver ones. There is also a Super Skill Shot, explained below. See the Bugs/Easter Eggs section for the skill shot bugs. If you hit LLRLL before plunging, the control gate near the LT1 roll-over lanes will open, allowing the plunged ball to go to the upper flipper for a shot at the side ramp, or loop. Hit RRLRR to close the gate again. The initial values for the loop and ramp are 10 and 15 million, which increases by 5 million for each successful shot. The super skill shot is available for all plunged balls except ball saver ones. See the Bugs/Easter Eggs section for the skill shot bugs. Not modes as such, more like awards. Shoot the right ramp once and it will tell you what the next award will be. Shoot it again and the ball will be diverted to a kicker at the back of the playfield. The mode will start, and the ball will be kicked to the left inlane. The diverter on our machine was broken (that stupid spring-link). So I fixed it, but the new one broke too! This would normally be OK, but there was NO COMPENSATION for it! The ball would not be diverted, and it wouldn't start the mode. The modes are:
Left orbit lights lock in the engine. For the first multiball it'll light all three locks, for other multiballs it will only light one lock (and in even LATER multiballs, the lock times out.). Shoot the engine to lock balls. Each locked ball will award a car for the first multiball only. This is not true of prototype ROMs. When the third ball is shot into the engine, you start Rev Mode. This was stupid. Hit the flippers to keep the revs up, and keep the engine shaking. The longer it takes for the ball to fall in the lock, the more points you get; the most is 50 million. As soon as the ball falls into lock, multiball begins. All three balls will be kicked out to the upper flipper. Both of these methods have been discovered! Increase the jackpot by shooting the Side Ramp->Unlit Engine. This adds 20 Million, and usually happens during one of the 2-ball multiballs when the engine is not lit for anything. OR: Increase the jackpots by shooting the engine when lock is not lit. Every third or fourth shot will increase the jackpot. The initial value of the Horse Power (Side Loop) is 50 Million, plus what it was raised before hand. The Torque (side ramp) jackpot seems to start at 30 million. There is also a Super Jackpot for the Side Loop->Side Ramp combo. This can be shot while one or both of the regular jackpots are lit. This is worth double the Torque (Side Ramp) jackpot. The Horse Power jackpot seems to max at 100 Million, which means you can get 80 Million for Torque, and 200 Million for Super. As soon as you have the 2 regular jackpots, they both relite for 20 Million more. Jackpot animation is really nice. If two balls drain and no jackpots have been scored, you have 10 seconds to shoot the engine to restart it. Restarted multiballs are two ball only. You can get a jackpot in the grace period, and still restart multiball. Is this a bug? Cars is the object of this game. There are 9 cars to collect, then the wizard bonus. The cars are displayed in the centre of the playfield in a small honeycomb layout. Lit cars have been awarded, blank cars haven't, and the flashing one will be awarded next. (Note: No cars will flash unless the Pit is lit to challenge). Cars can be collected by:
The cars are:
When all cars are completed, you start a puzzle mode. This was quite good. All shots are lit, and each one adds a piece to the Jigsaw Puzzle on the screen. There are 9 pieces. When the puzzle is complete, it shows a 1997 Corvette! Four ball multiball will start with the left ramp (Engine Jackpot) being worth 25M * balls-in-play, for a range of 50-100M. The cars reset after puzzle mode. (On older ROMs, they remain lit, and you can no longer get any. However, the drag race keeps getting harder.) This is lit at the pit by shooting all of the flashing Speed Parts. They are the blue inlays that flash when need to be hit.
The pit (when not lit for Challenge) will spot a Blue light, and light Challenge if necessary. The actual challenge is really cool. The machine is the red car, and the player has the blue car. The red car will start moving forward slowly (the more times you race, the faster the red car gets..), as does the blue car. To advance the blue car, shot anything [the flashing arrow shots will advance the most]. The whole thing is played out on the display too, which is good for when (err .. I mean if!) the hardware breaks. If you win you get heaps of points (not sure how it's worked out) and a great animation. If you loose you only get a few points, and the condescending message "Better luck next time". If you shoot the Pit during the Challenge, the display shows a pit crew working on your car, complete with appropriate sounds. If you keep hitting the flipper buttons, your car will catch up to the red car. If you're in front of the red car, nothing will happen. It also seems that whenever you flip, the blue car will be advanced a bit, this means that if you flip like a madman, you only need a few shots to win. After the first few Challenges, you need to hit so many shots that flipping a win is almost impossible anyway. Light this by completing the Three bank on the left of the playfield. The spinner will be lit for 500k per spin. The sound is very much like Super Spinner in Star Trek. There is a Turbo Boost part of the end of ball Bonus, but it is NOT the total of this mode. It must have something to do with the targets. Going through the right inlane lights the left orbit for Qualify. It is worth 15 million initially, then 5 million more each time. An upper limit is not known at this point. Complete the LT1 lanes above the bumpers to increase the Bonus X. It goes from 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x and light extra ball. After 8x, completing LT1 awards 10 Million, then 15 Million, then 20 Million and so on. All shots (except the Pit) have an arrow. Shooting lit shots count up Spark Plugs. Every 8 Spark Plugs alternates between: Points, and Light Race Today. There is an extra ball in there that reflexes around 9ish. The spark plugs in the animation, are actually AC/Delco plugs. I'm sure this info is usefull for somebody. There are plenty of Track Combos in the game, awarded for making certain shots. Each ball has a new total for all combos, ie: when a combo is awarded, you get (all combo values)+(value of this combo). See the values below: Two shot Tracks:
Three shot Tracks:
End of ball bonus is added up fast ... very fast. It is made up of:
This all adds up to: As well as the usual Grand Champ and four best scores, we also have:
Credits are awarded for all of these, but only a max of 2 credits for High scores will be awarded. So if you get GC, you will not get any more credits. I like this arrangement. So far we we know of the following:
The match animation is fantastic. It is far too good to describe here! I had a quick look at the manual today. Here is a very rough ascii drawing of how the solenoids fit in.... [It is NOT a drawing of the engine, just a guide as to how the solenoids tilt it.] Note:
--------------------X--------------------
| |
| Shaft | Shaft
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------- -------
| | | |
| | | |
| | Solenoid A | | Solenoid C
| | | |
---------- ----------
Solenoids A and B are controlled by two separate transistors, but the two transistors seem to receive the same signals. The same applies for solenoids C and D. To tilt the Engine left, solenoids A and B are energized fully, and to tilt the engine right, solenoids C and D are energized fully. The 128 different positions are achieved 'dimming' the solenoids, so that (for example) solenoids A amd B will have 1/4 or the voltage, and at the same time, solenoids C and D have 3/4 of the voltage. This would result in a half tilt right. The board that controls all of this is connected via a ribbon cable to some junk in the backbox. There are no (that I could tell) regular solenoid driver transistor connected to this board. The machine can only "tell" the Engine where in the 128 range to go, but if the engine jams, the machine won't know. There are optos to indicate when the engine is fully left, or right. The whole thing is calibrated after a slam tilt, or powercycle. It takes about 10 seconds, and really shows the power and flexibility of the system. Now remember, all this was derived by a 20 second peek at the manual (I was hungry!), so please forgive the errors. You may be thinking "Wow, why such a complex design to tilt a plastic engine". Well it's actually really simple. No Motor or Gears which is the biggest cause of problems with things like the Path Of Adventure (Indiana Jones) and the Guns in Star Trek. Also, most techs are familiar with solenoids (and the ones used here are very common) so they should have no difficulty when it comes to fixing it. Editor's Notes
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