Fruit Machine Chat

I was recently in the departure lounge of gatwick airport, in which they STILL have fireball/supercharged/kebab/invaders/R2R (same selection as they've had for a few years lol!), and it reminded me how machines used to be somewhat interesting and more of a challenge, rather than blindly ploughing coins at a stupid rate into a 50p mega spin red (not that I'm against that concept, speeds the process up) with the same procedure ie.

Step 1: How far off is it, if <20 then proceed to step 3 (unless you know it's refilled and was done the previous day etc. if so proceed to step 2) If not go to step 2

Step 2: Try a couple of boards, is it red or does it offer numberrunner/£15/10 in steps, if yes goto step 3, if not take what you can and leave

Step 3: Plough for top, see if red after top if so replough if not leave. Hopefully you've made money by this point, although its rather hit and miss, especially if it weren't red to start with/cheap.

END OF: There is so little skill in this process it is unbelievable, perhaps the only bit of skill involved is on the GADD etc. clones where you need to know the reels, but this is easy to learn. Number runner is piss easy, and besides most 50p mega spins negate even this!

The problem with this is that not only is it fucking DULL, going from pub to pub doing this same procedure, it means that any tom dick or harry can play these reds and kill them off, I've seen countless old men playing out reds in spoons, indeed in my local one, 2 guys sit there all day and you can garentee they will have played out all 3 reds every day, leaving the rovers flying of course. (Rovers is one of few exceptions, as it does involve some thinking/skill) When machines were much more skill based mugs could not kill the machines, and as such, given no player has been in the area recently, you knew that the machines are 95% sure to be ready.

PS: The fireball had 4 in it, KK was £40 profit, ready to rock was a very new program (killed first hilo most boards!?!) but got a jp from it, invaders did £30 for £10 in, supercharged was £25 for £25.

BRINK BACK SKILL MACHINES PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE

I personally think reds are fine, its where all of the value is, true most of the time all you do is just a straight force from hopefully the right point but your average punter in a normal local doesnt generally like 'forcing' a machine?

no but they mostly take the value out unless theres some1 clueless,much more satisfying batterin a fruit by skill,even number runners are 2 easy on 50p mega spins,half the players out there wouldnt be playing if machines were based on skill

Your right there. It was so satisfactory playing machines like Red Alert Where there was so many ways of dropping it. Firemans lift was always a good challenge after you'd sunk 5 or 6 pints

roman reels fast on a caesers and stop n step on cashbuster was a good way of getting jp too, used too love the skill features like this.

I missed super RR once I don't remember ever missing firemans lift, or the equivalent on beer guide though!

beer guide was easier because the numbers were in order, i think the order on red alert was 7, 2, 11, and it did repeat a fair bit too

Yes 7,2,11 it was.
I used to enjoy On the buses too. Can't remember the feature name but it was 2nd up. Same thing as turnabout.

Impulse, which was a previous version of Red Alert was also brilliant. Especially on £10 JP. 11th Heaven was a simple JP. Most of the Red-bar features were very much skill based on that too, such as Fireball, Pandemonium, or Hot Shot.

Palace would have to be one of my favourite machines of all time, with Roman Reels and Up Pompei both being JP features on normal as well as super. The Golden Hold and Gladiators features also giving JP off of Mystery on Super (on earlier chips). One of our first expeiences of Number Runner too...

One thing I could never work out on CP though - Colliseum Cash would always only give a couple of quid on Super, pretty much the same as non-super. Was there a technique to this one? It was a sort of 'cash falls' feature, whereby you then 'shot' at the remaining unlit values to fill the trail up.

Nowadays, most 'skill' features are capped at a few quid...

There was a free win on early programs colliseum cash I believe. Got chipped pretty quick and blocks before the value.

No trick to it, and i never expereinced a JP off gladiators mystery either; think that was chipped out v early.

one thing i never got, was why golden hold super, SOMETIMES gave mixed 7s off the mystery and NOT jp? had it at least 3 times in my life. watched a pro on this back when I was starting out and he ALWAYS chose super RR off the barcode instead of golden hold, presumably for this reason?

What was the feature called on Kung Fu off the barcodes where it would spin the reels and drop in a number which advanced you up the stack? and when it was super you just held the 1st number that landed in.

cant remember but there are equivalents on a few JPMs (eg: wild thing/do you feel lucky etc) WHY IS RAISE THE ROOF YOUR AVATAR?! AWFUL MACHINE!

theoak wrote:No trick to it, and i never expereinced a JP off gladiators mystery either]i[/b] never got, was why golden hold super, SOMETIMES gave mixed 7s off the mystery and NOT jp? had it at least 3 times in my life. watched a pro on this back when I was starting out and he ALWAYS chose super RR off the barcode instead of golden hold, presumably for this reason?

they had too be numbering [1 or 12] or golden hold super would give mixed 7's.