New version of Battleships

[Nil Satis]

Spotted today on the new Paragon 3. It seems in fact to be a hybrid, the result of some careful interbreeding between the existing Battleships 3 and Bullseye.

The game has been split into two rounds - the first being very similar in look and feel to Battleships 3, but with the familiar bonus structure from Bullseye - 2 Try Agains plus 0-2 Passes and Reveal Answers. There is also a Sonar Bonus which shows you the location of the remaining ship(s) in true Bully's Bonus style.

Once you have found all the ships, there is then a Prize Round which involves hitting targets using a rotating 'Sonar'. For each miss you have to answer a question, using any bonuses left over from the first round. On my highly scientific survey of two games, I would say the difference here is that the higher prizes don't seem to be harder in the way that they are on Bullseye - I hit £3 both times but can never get more than £1 on Bullseye.

Not a classic perhaps but better than some (particularly on the Paragons!) and for any Bully aficionados it may be an exciting addition to the portfolio.

[cool]

ITS FIXED LIKE BULLSEYE , THOUGH AT LEAST WHEN THERE IS MONEY IN IT YOU CAN WIN £5

[WaterGate]

Blinkin' heck Nil, you don't want to make it too obvious how much you seem to like this game. Haven't seen it yet. Cross between Battleships 3 and bullseye? What Battleships and dart thrownin'? Sounds like a wierd combo, hopefully not another poor attempt to rip off games and bastardise them together I hope? Gonna go out today and see if I can find, , a paragoon.

[Nil Satis]

Good luck with tracking one down and, when you do, I'm sure you'll then agree with my description of the game - the ghost of Bullseye hangs heavy over this one.

As for whether I like it or not, my three word summary would be

Not a classic

but that is relatively high praise from me compared to what I think of some modern games! For a three word summary of Bedazzled or Trivia for Dummies for example, at least two of the three words would be unrepeatable on a polite forum like this!

[WaterGate]

I only found 2 machines and it wasnt on either. Must be a very newbie. Where did you see it then?

[Nil Satis]

On a Paragon 3 in a pub called Coopers in Reading - the details are in the recent I-Spy thread. This is the only place I have seen the new game so far but I'm sure it will be appearing elsewhere pretty soon.

[QuizMaster]

Hmmm. I came across one of these the other day. The higher prizes are not easier to get than on Bullseye, it's just new so punters have graciously been mugged to allow us to profit. Once the easy money has gone, it'll play far more like your average game of Bully, I suspect.

[Nil Satis]

Hi QM

This isn't really what I meant:

The higher prizes are not easier to get than on Bullseye

What I meant was that the higher prizes don't seem (from my limited number of games admittedly) to be any harder to get than the lower prizes on this game. The main reason I don't give much time to Bullseye is that it is set so that the £1 prizes are suspiciously easier to attain that the higher prizes, even though the areas on the dartboard are the same size and the speed of the rotation seems constant. This to me is a con in that it makes something which looks like skill into pseudo-skill (if that's the right word!).

I may of course be proved wrong about this point on the new Battleships, and given the similarities to Bullseye it has presumably been developed by the same people; hence that does seem probable.

[tka]

There is also a Sonar Bonus which shows you the location of the remaining ship(s) in true Bully's Bonus style.

Cheers NS, I hadn't noticed that but went for it earlier and once I'd worked out how the endgame worked I got a nice little profit.

[Nil Satis]

A few more games over the weekend have confirmed my first impression, namely that the prizes on the end game seem to be all as easy/difficult to get as each other, which as I said contrasts markedly with Bullseye (for me at least).

The same cabinet included the new Cops and Robbers game, and I can only confirm what others have said about this - you seem to get to £2 reasonably quickly (£3 in my case as I got a £1 bonus move) but then there doesn't seem to be anything other than the Safe Bonuses over and over again. What it seems to want to do is catch you out by making the bonuses slightly harder as you go along until you choose the wrong one and it's instantly game over. I had built up about 250 moves and was 80 or so ahead of the copper but as that one game had already taken about 15 minutes and there was no sign of the next 'Swag' I bailed out.

Oh, and there were at least two sightings of the 'Demmerz iz God' graffiti as well - I'll know I have truly made it when a reference to Nil Satis appears in a game!