0
Revision History:
1.0: First version, 3/27/99
1.1: Added Skill Shots, Extra Balls, and Bonus, added more scoring
info, fixed some typos. 3/28/99, 3 AM :)
1.2: Lots of little fixes. Rewrote the Combos section. 3/28/99, 5:30
PM EST
1.3: More fixes including Super and Ultra City Bonuses. Rewrote some
sections to improve clarity. 4/1/99 (no, no April Fool's jokes here.)
1.4: Rewrote the Maneuvers section, though it's still missing a couple
bits of info. April 24, 1999.
1.45: Found the Dough Nut and Power Slide maneuvers. April 26 1999.
1.5: more minor updates & fixes, marked with **. May 20 1999.
Availability: On my homepage http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/~emooney ,
or by emailing me at emooney@attila.stevens-tech.edu or
erikmooney@altavista.net . Also, this guide should be available on Sam
Gabrielsson's excellent site The Tower of Pin at www.pcpinball.com .
Disclaimer: I do not guarantee the accuracy of any of the information
contained herein. I am not responsible for any physical, logical,
emotional, or brain damage incurred from this document or the
information contained herein. I only guarantee that it will take up
disk space (unless someone comes up with a revolutionary new
compression technique.) All trademarks contained in this document are
the property of their respective owners. I give permission to copy,
post, translate into HTML, and otherwise reproduce this document and
the information contained herein as long as credit is given to me.
Introduction:
As you probably know if you're reading this, Pro Pinball: Big Race USA
is the latest and greatest pinball simulator from the good folks at
Cunning Developments and published by Empire Interactive. The last
time I did a guide for a Pro Pinball game (The Web), two other people
used it to knock me out of the world Grand Champion spot. I'm still a
little miffed about that, but Ade and the boys have outdone themselves
with complexity this time around, and I've seen many many requests for
a rulesheet for Big Race USA, so I'll provide one. This is a "just
the facts" rulesheet; I'm not providing strategy or suggestions.
I've encrypted the spoilers with ROT-13. If whatever you're using to
view this doesn't have ROT-13 decoding, applets for it are available
on the Web: http://www.brookings.net/~darinaf/rot13.html (Javascript),
http://as.alliancestudio.com/tk/rot13.html (CGI),
http://www.rtg.se/~niclas/rot13.htm (VBscript), and other locations.
The information here applies to version 1.18 of the game. If you have
not updated your game, get the patch from Empire's site at
www.propinball.com . The site specifically for Big Race USA can be
found at http://www.empire-interactive.com/propinball/brusa if you
don't want to navigate through the Shockwave mess of the main site.
Also, I play on the Windows PC version; most of the info should still
apply to the DOS and Macintosh versions, though there may be small
differences (particularly bugs/glitches).
Please, give me feedback and corrections on this guide. Anything
marked with a (?) needs confirmation! If for some reason my email
addresses don't work (the stevens-tech one will expire in May 2001
when I graduate), I'll always be hanging out in rec.games.pinball as
long as it exists.
However, I cannot provide technical support for any Pro Pinball game!
I keep getting questions for both The Web and Big Race USA to the
effect of "the game won't work/behaves strangely/runs slowly on my
system, can you help?" The games run fine on my system; I can't help
with these issues. Go to Empire's site at www.propinball.com and
follow the links through to Tech Support. Similarly, I won't be able
to help with any other non-game questions like where to buy games.
This rulesheet doesn't cover Head to Head play at all. Mostly because
I'm not a big fan of that mode. I play a slow, control and strategy
oriented game... Head to Head is pretty much just whoever can make
shots the fastest. It's fun, much more intense than, well, anything
else, but it's not my type of game. Anyone wanna put together a head
to head rulesheet for me to include?
Also, translations of this rulesheet into other languages for European
players would be welcomed, particularly German and French. If anyone
wants to do that, please do so and let me know!
The Table:
Going clockwise from the drain, we encounter:
Air Bag: Acts as a stopper between the flippers, making it hard to
drain when this is up.
Left outlane: Lights the T in TRUNK.
Left outer inlane: Lights the R in TRUNK. If the MagnoCharger light
is lit, it lights the magnet on the right ramp for about 10 seconds.
Resets that 10-second timer if it is currently running.
Left inner inlane: Lights the U in TRUNK.
Open the Trunk saucer: Activates Open the Trunk when lit. Advances
the 3-2-1 lights in front of it during city play. When 1 is scored,
the Hot Rod raises for Drag Speedway Challenge.
Hot Rod: When the Hot Rod car is popped up, you can shoot a ball into
him here. Starts Drag Speedway Challenge during normal city play, and
is used in that mode and Hot Rod Duel.
Left Orbit: Has a spinner on it. It has a diverter to catch the ball
if any of the following conditions are met: Enters the next City if
lit to do so on the road. During city play, it enters Jay's Secret
Stash if that is open. Failing that, it starts Speedway Mania if it
is lit. Failing that, it starts Speedway Frenzy if that is lit. If
nothing is lit, the ball loops around to the upper right flipper.
Left ramp: Advances the 3-2-1 lights in front of it during city play.
When 1 is scored, the Sports Car raises for Oval Speedway Challenge.
Usually diverts to the lower left flipper.
W and N targets: Select destination while On the Road (more later.)
During City play, if it has been lit by the Nameless Scoop, it
unlights and scores $2000.
Sports Car: When it's popped up, shoot a ball into it. Starts Oval
Speedway Challenge during city play, and is used in that mode and
Sports Car Duel.
U-turn: Shooting multiple U-turns in a row relights Nitro Boost if it
is unlit: 3 shots for the first time, 5 for the second, then 7, etc.
Starts Speed Trap if lit to do so on the road. Advances the Bonus
Multiplier if lit to do so. Each shot in a row scores 250,000 more
than the previous.
Police Car Scoop: If the city mode for the current city has not been
played, it starts. If that mode has been played, it switches to road
play. On the Road, it starts a Duel if one is lit. Lit Extra Balls
may be collected here at any time.
MagnoLock: This is an under-playfield magnet, located a few inches
directly below the Police Car Scoop. Its purpose is to catch shots
exiting the left side of the U-turn, and sometimes fling them into the
scoop.
Mini-ramp: If this is popped up, it blocks shots to the Police Car
Scoop, making the ball strike the Police Car instead.
Compass target: Is involved with selecting a destination.
Mini-loop: Hittable from the upper right flipper, and loops back to
that same flipper. During city play, city modes, and Speedway Mania,
diverts to the Taxi and locks a Passenger lock if one is lit. Two
consecutive loops opens Jay's if it isn't. Shooting 3 loops in a row
lights Extra Ball, once per game. If that has been achieved, shooting
10 loops in a row lights an Extra Ball. I don't know what happens if
that has been achieved. :) Each shot in sequence scores 500,000 more
than the previous.
Upper left ramp: This is the blue ramp just to the left of the taxi.
Usually diverts to the upper left flipper, but sometimes (during Taxi
Rank Rampage and most speedway challenges) to the lower left flipper.
Relights the MagnoCharger light.
Taxi: If closed, hitting it during city play, a city mode, a speedway
challenge, Speedway Frenzy, or Speedway Mania advances towards a
Passenger lock. If open for the fourth Passenger lock during city
play, a city mode, or Speedway Mania, it starts Passenger Frenzy. On
the road, if Video Mode is lit, it starts Video Mode. Scores
quickshots if one is running, and is used in many other modes. Ejects
the ball from the Nameless Scoop on the bottom right towards the lower
left flipper.
Upper right ramp: Usually diverts to the upper right flipper, but
sometimes (usually during speedway challenges) to the lower right
flipper. Relights the MagnoCharger light. There is a very quick ball
saver activated when you hit this ramp. If the ball flies past the
upper right flipper and directly into the left outlane, the game will
give the ball back.
Big loop: Just above the upper right flipper, and loops back around
to the upper left flipper. Behaves the same way as the mini-loop for
Jay's, extra balls, and scoring.
Mystery target: Just below the upper right flipper. It is lit during
Speedway Challenges and Duels if you have the correct piece of
equipment from Jay's.
S and E targets: See W and N targets.
Right ramp: Advances the 3-2-1 lights in front of it during city
play. When 1 is scored, the Monster Truck raises for Stunt Speedway
Challenge. Usually diverts to the lower right flipper. However:
Magnocharger: A magnet somewhere under the right ramp. It grabs the
ball and flings it up the right ramp. See the Magnocharger section.
Monster Truck: When he is popped up, shoot a ball into him. Starts
Stunt Speedway Challenge during city play, and is used in that mode
and Monster Truck Duel. He won't pop up if the Magnocharger is
active.
Right orbit: Advances the 3-2-1 lights in front of it during city
play. When 1 is scored, the Mini Beetle raises for Street Speedway
Challenge. Loops around to the upper left flipper.
Mini Bug (aka Mini Beetle): When she is popped up, shoot a ball into
her. Starts Street Speedway Challenge during city play, and is used
in that mode and Mini Bug Duel.
Nameless scoop: Just ejects the ball after it enters the Taxi or
falls into this scoop. If a ball falls in here during any city play,
including challenges, Passenger Frenzy, Speedway Frenzy and Mania, and
even Victory Frenzies, it lights one of the WNSE targets. These
lightings carry over from city to city.
Right inlane: N in TRUNK.
Right outlane: K in TRUNK.
The Meter: On the bottom left of the table. If you are in a timed
mode, it shows the time remaining. If not, it shows your current
money total.
Nitro Boost: The light next to the plunger lane is lit when Nitro
Boost is available. If it's available, press the launch button to use
it, which completes all flashing shots on the table.
The Hot Rod, Sports Car, Monster Truck, and Mini Bug are collectively
known as the "racers", and their four shots (saucer, left and right
ramps, and right orbit) are known as the "racer shots". I use that
terminology quite a bit - sorry if anyone got confused.
Game Features:
There's a _lot_ of these. I'll try to tackle them in an orderly
fashion.
Skill Shots:
Hitting the upper-right ramp after launching the ball is a Skill Shot,
scoring the current skill shot value and $5000. Hitting the big loop
and then the right ramp in combo is a Super Skill Shot for 2X the
skill shot value and $10000. Holding both flippers for a couple
seconds before launching the ball activates an analog plunger. To
control the analog plunger, hold down the launch button to pull back
the plunger. (** you can deactivate the analog plunger by holding
both flippers for a couple seconds again.) Launching the ball to the
upper-right flipper and hitting the upper left ramp is a Secret Skill
Shot for 3X the skill shot value and $15000. Finally, using the
analog plunger and hitting the mini-loop (passenger lock must not be
lit) and then the upper left ramp is a Super Secret Skill Shot for 5X
the current skill shot value and $25000. The skill shot value starts
at 1M and increases by 1M each time you make any type of skill shot
apparently without limit - I've had it as high as 30M. Making any
skill shot causes the ball to divert to the lower flippers instead of
the upper.
City Modes:
First, you'll notice the map of the USA with 16 lights representing
various cities. It's arranged as follows (use fixed-width font to
view). Note that the designers took certain artistic liberties with
regards to the city arrangements :)
/Chicago\
/Salt Lake\ /Detroit\
/Seattle\ /Denver \ / Boston \
San Fran Las Vegas Memphis New York
\Los Ang/ \Dallas / \Washington/
\ Phoenix / \Atlanta/
\Orleans/
In any city, you can travel to any adjacent city in an adjacent
column. You can only travel from right to left unless you have the
Compass from Jay's.
In each city, there is a city mode. These rotate around from game to
game, but remain the same within one game. San Francisco's mode is
always the Big Race. Other than that, the cities are divided into two
'divisions':
East: New York, Boston, Washington, Detroit, Memphis, Atlanta, Denver,
Dallas
West: Seattle,Los Angeles, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Chicago,
New Orleans
Each division has a set of modes that are randomly assigned to the
cities in that division at the start of a game. Completing a
quickshot for _maximum_ value (10M) or any city mode awards a Big Race
Booster (BRB). Taxi quickshots start at 10M, where it stays for about
6 seconds, and counts down to 2.5M. After playing a city mode, hit
the Police Scoop again to go On the Road.
Passenger Frenzy may be started during any city mode, but not during a
taxi quickshot. Speedway modes may not be started during a city mode.
The East division modes are:
Bonus Bonanza quickshot: Make the quickshot to start Bonus Bonanza,
which lights the U-turn for 45 seconds. Hitting the U-turn during
that time increases your bonus X by 1 for the first hit, 2 for the
second, and 3 for the third and all later shots. This is allowed to
increase your bonus beyond the normal limit of 10X.
Bonus Held quickshot: Make it to hold your bonus X onto the next
ball.
Money Spinner quickshot: Make it to start Money Spinner, which lights
the spinner for 45 seconds. The first spin awards $50, and each spin
of the spinner awards $50 more than the previous spin.
Jay's Giveaway quickshot: Make it to play Jay's Giveaway (see Jay's
Junk for more info.)
Taxi Rank Rampage: You have 20 seconds to hit either lower ramp or
the upper left ramp, which will always divert to the lower left
flipper and give you a 3 second timer to hit the taxi. Do that 3
times to win the mode and a Big Race Booster; the third time, the taxi
will be open and you must get it _in_ the taxi to count. You get a
short airbag after each taxi hit.
Speed Humps: Timer is 30 seconds. All switches score 250,000. Hit
10 switches to raise the mini ramp. Hit the police car to add 250,000
to the all-switches value and 10 seconds to the timer. You can do
that a maximum of 3 times; doing it twice gets the BRB.
UFO attack: Timer is 20 seconds. One lit shot cycles between the
left orbit, left ramp, U-turn, right ramp, right orbit, and back
again. The base score is 5M. Hit the shot to add more time, score
the base, add 1M to the base, and randomly move the lit shot. Hit the
shot 3 times for a BRB. Before that, each shot resets the timer;
after that, each shot adds 10 seconds to a max of 20.
Mall Mayhem: Timer is 40 seconds. The Trunk saucer, Jay's, Police
scoop, and the Taxi are all lit for 10M each. Shoot them all in any
order to add an extra 5 seconds to the timer and light the U-turn. Hit
the lit U-turn to score 10M and the BRB. MagnoLock will catch the
ball after hitting the U-turn, but won't put it into the scoop.
The West division modes are:
Big Race Booster quickshot: Make it for a BRB. Note that if you hit
the quickshot for the maximum 10M, you'll get two BRBs.
Extra Ball quickshot: Make it for an EB. If it's made, later visits
to this city will have an Air Bag quickshot instead: make it to raise
the Air Bag for 30 seconds.
Nitro Boost quickshot: Make it to light Nitro Boost. Nitro Boosts
don't stack, so this is wasted if Nitro Boost was already lit.
Attack of the Creature (Tubby): You have 15 seconds on the timer. Each
spin of the spinner scores 1M (?) and adds 2 seconds to the timer.
Raise the timer above 35 (?) seconds to escape from Tubby and win a
BRB.
Car Park Calamity: The upper ramps and loops light. You start on
Floor 1. Shooting either loop scores 1M * floor and might open the
taxi if you're on a floor above 1. Shooting either upper ramp closes
the taxi if it was open, advances one floor, scores 1M * the new
floor, and adds some time to the timer. Shoot the taxi when it's open
to win the mode for a BRB.
Car Wash Chaos: Shoot the left ramp 4 times in 45 seconds for a BRB.
Grid Lock Lunacy: Timer starts with 30 seconds. The mini-ramp raises.
It lowers itself at about six-second intervals for about one second;
it won't lower if a flipper is being held. Hit the police car (above
the mini-ramp) to score 5M and add 10 seconds to the timer - you can
do that any number of times. Get the ball in the police car scoop to
score 30M and the BRB.
Big Race: Always happens in San Francisco, and has its own section.
Speedway Challenges:
3-2-1 lights can be advanced during any single-ball city play, but not
during Challenges. Shooting 3-2-1 scores 250K, 500K, and 750K for the
three shots. Complete the 3-2-1 lights in front of any racer to make
that racer raise. Hit that racer during city play to start its
Challenge. Each Challenge lights three shots: red, yellow, and green.
You have 30 seconds on the timer. Making any of those shots adds 10
seconds to the timer. Complete all three of those to raise the racer
again; hit it to win for a BRB and $10000.
If the shots are not completed in red-yellow-green order, each scores
5M and the racer scores 10M for a total of 25M. If they are completed
in order, they score 5M-10M-15M and the racer is 20M for a total of
50M. If you complete all four shots in order _fast_enough_, you get
an extra 10M for a total of 60M, and two BRBs instead of one. ** It
seems that the speed bonus is awarded if you take less than 20 seconds
total. Using a Nitro Boost will count as hitting the first three
shots in order, so it's pretty easy to hit the racer fast enough for
the speed bonus.
If you have the appropriate piece of equipment from Jay's, the Mystery
target will be lit during that Challenge. Hitting it spots the next
colored shot. See the Jay's section for more information.
If the big loop or upper right ramp is lit, shooting the left orbit
will make the Jay's saucer do a quick catch-and-release, setting up
a shot.
After a Speedway Challenge ends, whether by winning, losing, or
draining, its associated Speedway Frenzy becomes lit. Hit the left
orbit during city play when Jay's is not lit to start all lit Speedway
Frenzies.
Speedway Frenzies:
One ball is added for each Speedway Frenzy you just started. Shots
corresponding to the racers for the Speedway Frenzies you just started
are lit. The base jackpot value is 1M times the number of Frenzies
you started. Hitting an unlit racer shot scores the base jackpot
value. Hitting a lit shot scores the base jackpot and advances it to
Double Jackpot. Scoring Double advances it to Triple. Scoring Triple
lights Super, and the shot then stays at Single until the Super is
collected, when it can be advanced again. This sequence runs
independently for all lit shots. Scoring any Triple Jackpot gives you
about eight seconds of air bag.
Super Jackpots are collected by shooting either upper ramp, and a
single upper ramp shot will collect all lit Supers. A Super Jackpot
is worth 5X the base jackpot value. If you collect all four Super
Jackpots at once, you instead get an Ultra Jackpot, which is worth 5X
Super, or 25X the base value.
The _first_ time you collect a Super during any Speedway Frenzy, you
get one BRB for each Super, or 5 BRBs if it's an Ultra.
Nitro Boost will count as hitting the upper ramps first and then each
racer shot simultaneously. If Triple is lit on a shot, the Nitro will
collect that Triple but not the Super. If a Super is lit, the Nitro
will collect it and then the single (advancing that shot to Double.)
Confused yet? Here's an example. Suppose you win Stunt Speedway
Challenge, then lose Drag Speedway Challenge and Street Speedway
challenge. Then you hit the left orbit to start the Speedway Frenzy.
It's a four-ball multiball. The left saucer,right ramp, and right
orbit are lit. The base jackpot value is 3M. You hit the unlit left
ramp; it scores 3M. You hit the unlit left ramp again, it scores
another 3M. You hit the left saucer three times; it scores 3M, 6M,
and 9M. You hit the right ramp three times; it scores 3M, 6M, and 9M.
Two Super Jackpots are now lit. You hit the left saucer again, it
scores 3M and doesn't advance anything. You hit an upper ramp. That
scores two Super Jackpots for a score of 30M, and awards two BRBs. You
hit the left saucer four more times for 3M, 6M, 9M (Super is now lit),
and 3M. You hit an upper ramp for a 15M Super, but no BRB.
The highest Speedway Frenzy score is kept as the Speedway King high
score.
Speedway Mania:
Once all four Speedway Frenzies have been played (either all at once
or spread out), Speedway Mania is lit. Shoot the left orbit when
Jay's is not lit to start it. Speedway Mania gives you 60 seconds on
the clock, and that timer does not pause for anything. You get a
gratis ball saver for about the first 10 seconds.
You must make quickshots into all four racers to win Speedway Mania.
One racer will raise, and a quickshot starts counting down from 20M.
If you hit the racer, you score the quickshot value, 20M is added to
the base, and another quickshot starts with a racer that has not been
hit yet. Do that 4 times to win an Extra Ball and ** $20,000. A
quickshot expires after about 6 seconds: the racer drops and the
quickshot resets back to the base value with the same or a different
racer.
Nitro Boost doesn't work during Speedway Mania. Passenger Frenzy can
be started during Speedway Mania. (there was a bug in early versions
of the game that I don't think was ever fixed - occasionally, the game
tries to play the Passenger and Speedway Mania musics at the same
time, causing massive system slowdown. The workaround is to lower the
music volume to 0 until the modes end.) After Speedway Mania ends,
the 3-2-1 lights reset and you can begin the Speedway sequence again.
Speedway secret, ROT-13'd: Vs lbh pbzcyrgr nyy gur 3-2-1 yvtugf fb
gung nyy sbhe enpref ner envfrq ng bapr, naq gura uvg gur yrsg beovg
jura Wnl'f vfa'g yvg, vg tvirf lbh n serr OEO naq fgnegf n sbhe-jnl
Fcrrqjnl Seraml jvgubhg arrqvat gb cynl gur punyyratrf. Guvf fcrpvny
Fcrrqjnl Seraml tbrf njnl vs lbh fgneg n punyyratr orsber uvggvat gur
yrsg beovg.
Passenger Frenzy:
Hitting the Taxi advances towards Passenger locks. For the first PF,
you need to hit the taxi 1, 2, 3, and 4 times to light the first,
second, third, and fourth locks. Later PFs require 2, 3, 4, and 5
hits for each lock. (** on Extra Hard, it's 3, 4, 5, and 6.) Hitting
the Taxi towards a lock awards $1.
Passenger Frenzy can be a 2, 3, or 4 ball multiball. Passenger Frenzy
starts when you lock a ball in the last lit lock. So if two locks are
lit, and you lock the second ball, it starts; if four locks are lit
and you lock the third ball, it waits till the fourth ball is locked.
The first three locks are achieved by shooting the mini-loop (the taxi
door will open to admit the ball... cute) and the fourth goes in the
front of the taxi.
The Passenger Frenzy jackpot shots are the four racer shots, though
the racers stay down. One jackpot shot will be lit for each ball in
the multiball. The jackpot value is 5M plus $2000. After you make
all the jackpot shots (drop off all your passengers), the taxi opens
for a double, triple, or super jackpot of 5X jackpot (25M plus $10000)
depending on how many passengers you had, and reloads you with that
many passengers again, relighting that many jackpot shots.
Each Passenger Frenzy, the first Super Jackpot will also award a BRB.
Cow Jackpot, ROT-13: Vs lbh pbyyrpg sbhe erthyne wnpxcbgf va beqre
sebz yrsg gb evtug, fhcre wnpxcbg jvyy vafgrnq or n pbj wnpxcbg jbegu
gjvpr nf zhpu nf fhcre wnpxcbg. Avgeb obbfgvat gur sbhe
wnpxcbgf qbrf abg pbhag nf uvggvat gurz va beqre.
Magnocharger:
This is complicated enough to warrant its own section. Hitting either
upper ramp during any single ball play or any multiball except for Big
Race and Really Big Race lights the green Magnocharger light on the
left outer inlane.
When the ball trips the left outer inlane switch, and the Magnocharger
is lit, Magnocharger will activate on the right ramp for about 10
seconds. If you hit the inlane during this time, the timer resets. If
you do not hit the ramp before the timer expires, the green
Magnocharger light relights itself, and you must hit that inlane again
to use the Magnocharger.
When you hit the Magnocharger while it is active, the magnet will
fling the ball up the ramp at high speed for you. If this happens,
the ramp will divert back to the left flipper for another shot at the
Magnocharger, which will remain lit for about another three seconds.
Making a first Magnocharger shot raises the air bag for ** 20 seconds
on normal difficulty, different times for other difficulties; making a
sequence Magnocharger shot extends its time by a few seconds. Each
shot in sequence scores 1M more than the last, to a maximum of 5M.
The first and every fifth Magnocharger light video mode (or award 10M
Big Points if VM is already lit), except for the 10th and 100th
magnochargers which light Extra Ball.
The green Magnocharger light will not come on if the Monster Truck is
raised (but the game remembers it's lit and relights it when the Truck
goes down.) If the Magnocharger is active when the Monster Truck is
supposed to pop up, he will wait until it's inactive. However, during
Speedway Mania, the Monster Truck and Magnocharger ignore each other -
this will lead to a graphical glitch if the Truck is up and
Magnocharger is active at the same time.
I'll give a small hint here: if you want to shoot multiple
Magnochargers in a row, let the ball bounce off the airbag between
shots! Much easier :)
Open the Trunk:
Completing TRUNK lights the Open the Trunk saucer. It can be
collected both in the city and on the road. Lit Trunks do not stack.
The TRUNK lights are lane-changeable by the flipper buttons.
The trick here is that Open the Trunk is _not_random_.
There's four categories of trunk awards, small, normal, great, and
super. The category is dependent on which opponent it is, and what
the dollar amount is (only matters whether or not it's >1000.) Here's
your chart:
Dollars <1000 >1000
Hot Rod ? ?
Sports Car small ?
Monster Truck ? ?
Mini Bug ? ?
So if you open the Sports Car's trunk when the dollar amount is less
than 1000, you will get a small award. Have fun figuring them out, or
un-ROT this: fcbegf pne fznyy zbarl, zbafgre gehpx ynetr zbarl, naq
ubg ebq ynetr zbarl tvir fznyy njneqf. ubg ebq fznyy zbarl, zvav oht
fznyy zbarl, naq fcbegf pne ynetr zbarl tvir zrqvhz njneqf. zbafgre
gehpx fznyy zbarl naq zvav oht ynetr zbarl tvir terng njneqf.
Also, anytime you accept cash of less than 1000, the *next* Open the
Trunk award will be one category greater than it would otherwise be.
This is the only way to get Super awards.
Small awards are small points and small cash. Medium awards include:
Big Points, Big Cash, Bonus Boost, Jay's lit, Challenge lit (city
only), Duel lit (road only). Great awards include: Really Big Points,
Really Big Cash, immediate 4-ball Passenger (city only), immediate
Police Chase Frenzy (road only), Jay's Giveaway. Super awards are: EB
lit the first time in any game; every time after that will be a
90-second Really Big Air Bag.
If you just sit there and let Open the Trunk time out without choosing
anything, the trunk will be empty. If this happens, it does not give
you the category boost described above, but it _does_ seem (?) that
the category for the _dollars_ (greater or less than 1000) will be the
same for the next Open the Trunk. At least, I haven't seen anything
contrary to that in about ten tests.
Jay's Junk:
Probably the number one frequently asked question about the game.
Here goes.
To open Jay's, shoot either loop twice in a row. It's also lit for
you at the start of each ball (** except for Hard and Extra Hard.) To
enter Jay's, shoot the left orbit in city play.
The tires, spoilers, engine, and brakes, $3000 each, each correspond
to one of the four racers. If you have the corresponding piece of
equipment, the Mystery target lights during that racer's Speedway
Challenge and Duel. Hitting the active Mystery target spots one shot
towards that Challenge or Duel. Also, having the appropriate piece of
equipment makes it take longer for that racer to overtake you during
the Big Race.
Lottery Tickets, $1, Cookies, $3, and Extra Ball, $50000: pretty
obvious.
Planner, $1000: This is only available when you have already played
the city mode for the city, and there is a choice about where to go
next (if you don't have the compass, this item won't appear in
Chicago, Salt Lake, Seattle, New Orleans, Phoenix, or Los Angeles.)
Buying one lets you select your next destination, and immediately puts
you On the Road. If you do not have the compass, you can only go
leftwards; if you have the compass, you can go to any adjacent city.
A planner can be overridden by the compass - see On the Road, below.
Ferry, $2000: This is available in Chicago or New Orleans after you
have played the city mode. It takes you up or down the Mississippi
River to the other of those two cities.
Cruise Control, $2000: Each spin of the spinner increases your Road
speed by 2 MPH instead of 1.
City Guide, $5000: When you're On the Road and the display says "XXX
miles to City, home of ...", if you have this item, the "home of ..."
will be filled in, letting you know what mode is in that city.
Air Bag, $5000: 30 seconds of air-filled goodness.
Compass, $10000: Lets you choose your destination. See On the Road
below. ** This is unavailable on Extra Easy.
Big Air Bag, $25000: 60 seconds of good-filled airness.
Mystery, $100000: Starts Really Big Race, see below. Only appears if
you've qualified for Really Big Race, of course.
Big Mystery, $1000000: Starts Million Dollar Madness, see below.
Jay's Giveaway: This can be started either by a city quickshot or from
Open the Trunk. Items from Jay's begin flashing on the display. Press
both flippers or the Launch button to take the current item. He will
not offer equipment you already have, or a planner or compass or
cookie. If you press the launch button while the audio "Jay's
Giveaway" is going, he'll give you a lottery ticket; otherwise lottery
tickets can't be awarded.
From JWJ, here's a list of all the cookies:
1. LOOK TO THE FUTURE AND DON'T BE GREEDY
2. YOU'LL NEED TO BE VERY FORTUNATE TO WIN THE JACKPOT
3. ONE DAY YOU'LL BE A MILLIONAIRE
4. SPOILERS WILL MAKE YOUR TAXI LOOK REALLY SPORTY
5. IT TAKES A GREAT ENGINEER TO BUILD A BRIDGE
6. FEELING TIRED? JUST DON'T BE A MONSTER
7. TAKE A BREAK AND GET OFF THE STREETS
8. WITH A COMPASS YOU'LL NEVER LOOK BACK
9. THERE'S SOMETHING REALLY BIG OUT THERE
10. GO TO FOR EXTRA FUN!
And their explanations, ROT-13'd (numbers 4-7 indicate which equipment
corresponds to which racer):
1. Ersref gb gur bcra gur gehax pngrtbel obbfg.
2. Cebonoyl ersref gb zvyyvba qbyyne znqarff.
3. Frr #2.
4. Fcbvyref ner gur rdhvczrag nffbpvngrq jvgu gur fcbegf pne.
5. Gur ratvar nffbpvngrf jvgu gur ubg ebq (gurer'f n oevqtr ba gur QZQ
va uvf punyyratr.)
6. Gverf nffbpvngr jvgu gur zbafgre gehpx.
7. Oenxrf ner nffbpvngrq jvgu fgerrg fcrrqjnl punyyratr (gur zvav oht.)
8. Guvf pbbxvr vf _jebat_: frr Fryrpgvat n Qrfgvangvba.
9. Cebonoyl ersref gb ernyyl ovt enpr; znlor zvyyvba qbyyne znqarff.
10. Gryyf lbh juvpu pvgl unf gur rkgen onyy dhvpxfubg va guvf tnzr.
Combos and Maneuvers:
Combos are available during just about any non-multiball time. Combos
award increasing numbers of points. The base value starts at 1M on
each ball, and is increased by 250K by completing TRUNK. The
multiplier increases by 1 for each combo shot in sequence after the
first. Having the correct equipment for a racer also increases the
value of their combos - the base is 1M extra for such shots.
Combos progress towards Duels. To light a Duel, you need to make a
racer's combo (these are different from the 3-2-1 shots) three times
to light the Duel the first time, and four times for later Duels.
Legal combos are: Advances towards Duel:
Upper right ramp -> left ramp* Hot Rod
Right ramp -> left ramp Hot Rod
Left ramp -> right ramp Hot Rod
Upper left ramp -> right ramp^ Hot Rod
Big loop -> right ramp^ Hot Rod
Right orbit -> right ramp^ Hot Rod
Right ramp -> left orbit Sports Car
Left ramp -> left orbit* Sports Car
Upper right ramp -> left orbit* Sports Car
Upper left ramp -> right orbit^ Sports Car
Left ramp -> right orbit Sports Car
Big loop -> right orbit^ Sports Car
Right ramp -> right orbit* Sports Car
Mini-loop -> upper left ramp Monster Truck
Left orbit -> upper left ramp Monster Truck
Upper right ramp -> upper left ramp Monster Truck
Right orbit -> upper right ramp Monster Truck
Big loop -> upper right ramp Monster Truck
Upper left ramp -> upper right ramp Monster Truck
Left orbit -> mini-loop Mini Bug
Upper right ramp -> mini-loop Mini Bug
Upper left ramp -> big loop Mini Bug
Right orbit -> big loop Mini Bug
*These combos are only available when the first ramp diverts
properly to allow you to complete the combo.
^These combos are available anytime; let the ball fall past the
upper left flipper to the lower left.
Shooting multiple loops in a row pauses the combo sequence, letting
you continue it when you hit a different shot. Shooting multiple left
ramps, right ramps/magnochargers, or right orbits consecutively are
not combos and cancel the current combo sequence.
There are eight combo maneuvers. Four of them are short, three- combo
sequences that count as two combos towards a duel; four of them are
long, four-combo sequences that light a duel immediately. If you
perform a maneuver, the racer whose duel towards which it counts
will announce it.
Maneuver 1 2 3 4 Duel
Handbrake Turn L orbit Mini-loop UL ramp Big loop Mini Bug
Bootlegger Rvs L ramp R ramp L ramp Hot Rod
Barrel Roll Big loop UR ramp Mini-loop Mini Bug
Fish Tail ? ? ? R ramp Hot Rod
Back Flip UR ramp UL ramp UR ramp UL ramp Monster Truck
Power Slide UL ramp R ramp L orbit Sports Car
Two-Wheeler R orbit Big loop UR ramp Monster Truck
Dough Nut Mini-loop UL ramp Big loop R orbit Sports Car
Remember that the first shot of the sequence must be a combo by
itself. Example: to do a Barrel Roll, shoot
UL ramp - big loop - UR ramp - Mini-loop , or
R orbit - big loop - UR ramp - Mini-loop .
If a maneuver includes a loop, you can shoot that loop multiple times
in a row without losing your sequence. Maneuvers can also overlap:
if you do a Two-Wheeler, the last two shots are also the first two
shots of Barrel Roll, so then hitting the mini-loop will get the
Barrel Roll.
The short maneuvers score twice as much as the combo would if it were
not a maneuver; the long maneuvers score 4X as much.
Fish Tail is the only one left missing.. if you find it, let me know
immediately! :)
I think I've covered all the city features, so now let's go
On the Road:
When you go On the Road, you start 250 miles away from the next city.
(the 250 is different for different difficulties.) Your speed starts
at 30 MPH. Each spin of the spinner or hit on the closed taxi
increases your speed by 1 MPH, or 2 if you have cruise control. ** Max
speed is 100 MPH (taxis just don't go faster than that :) ). Making
any shot (the Nameless Scoop counts; the left orbit and open taxi do
not) subtracts your current speed from the number of miles remaining.
When the distance remaining reaches 0, the left orbit becomes lit to
enter the next city and you can no longer increase your speed from the
spinner (you can from the taxi.) ** Hitting a slingshot subtracts 1
mile from the distance remaining.
If you drain on the road, the next ball starts in the next city. ** On
Hard difficulty, this only happens if the distance remaining is 0, and
it never happens on Extra Hard. ** Road play is unavailable on Extra
Easy; after a city mode the game just randomly advances you to another
city.
When your speed reaches 56 MPH, Speed Trap becomes lit at the U-turn.
Shoot it to start the Police quickshot (see Police Chase Frenzy
below.) Video Mode can be started by hitting the open Taxi during
road play. Combos and Open the Trunk are still available, but the
Speedway sequence is not. Duels are available by hitting the Police
Scoop when a Duel is lit.
Selecting a Destination:
/Chicago\
/Salt Lake\ /Detroit\
/Seattle\ /Denver \ / Boston \
San Fran Las Vegas Memphis New York
\Los Ang/ \Dallas / \Washington/
\ Phoenix / \Atlanta/
\Orleans/
This is confusing. When you leave a city, the game randomly selects
one of the cities to the left as your destination. (if you're in
Boston, it can pick Memphis or Detroit.) If you bought a planner, the
city you select will be your destination.
If you _do not_ have the compass, this happens: Each hit of a
slingshot while on the road changes your destination, but it is always
to the west. These changes won't happen if you bought a planner.
These changes will happen during Duels and Police Chase Frenzy.
If you _have_ the compass, this happens. Now, hitting a valid pair of
W-N-S-E targets and then the compass target sets your destination. So,
if you're in Dallas, and hit S and E and the compass target, you will
go southeast to Atlanta. If you're in Salt Lake, and hit N, the W
target will not be active (since you can't go northwest from Salt
Lake.) These destination changes happen even if you used a planner!
These destination changes do not happen during Duels and Police Chase
Frenzy.
This is _contradictory_ to the cookie "With a compass you'll never
look back". In fact, a compass is the _only_ way to go backwards.
Video Mode:
If it is lit, hit the Taxi while on the road to start it. You drive
your taxi through the video mode, killing or avoiding other cars (your
choice.) You start 1000 (miles? yards? it doesn't say) away from your
destination, with 60 seconds on the timer.
After you kill 10 cars, the police car comes at you. Kill him to make
a special object appear. The special object will be a giant pinball,
or if you've already killed it this game, it'll be a question mark.
Killing the pinball wins an Extra Ball (duh); killing the question
mark scores a BRB. Both police car and special object kills count
towards your kill total.
Scoring (fixed, thanks to JWJ):
You get 500K per kill, and an extra 4M for the police car kill. Then:
Completing VM where nothing got past you, 50M perfect bonus.
Completing VM without bumping any other cars: 50M special bonus.
Completing VM bumping another car, but no kills: 10M.
Completing VM with none of the above: an extra 500K per kill.
There is a bug such that you get 500K towards your VM total as
soon as the special item appears, and you don't get 500K for killing
it. The extra 500K/kill at the end is awarded correctly in any case.
Completing Video Mode starts you in the next city.
** You can use a Nitro Boost during video mode. It makes all the cars
coming at you come much faster until either the police car appears,
you brake, or you hit another car squarely from behind (slowing you
down.)
The highest number of Video Mode kills is kept as the Video Master
high score.
Speed Trap and Police Chase Frenzy:
When Speed Trap is lit, on the road, shoot the U-turn to start Speed
Trap. The magnet will grab the ball briefly, then let it go. This is
a quickshot that starts at 5M and counts down to 1M, where it stays
for well over 5 seconds before timing out. Shoot the U-turn again
while Speed Trap is running to start Police Chase Frenzy. MagnoLock
will catch the ball and fling it into the scoop. There is a quick
ballsaver after the quickshot is started: if the magnet drops the ball
right down the middle, it'll give it back.
The jackpot value for Police Chase Frenzy is the value of the
quickshot when it was made.
PC Frenzy is a 3-ball multiball. Jackpots are collected at the
U-turn. Anytime a jackpot is lit, the mini-ramp will be raised; hit
the police car to raise the jackpot by 1M to a max of 10M. Anytime a
jackpot is collected (** unless the jackpot was collected by going the
"wrong way" left to right around the U-turn), the MagnoLock will
attempt to catch the ball and put it into the scoop. Collecting a
jackpot also gives you about eight seconds of airbag.
Hitting the taxi once lights the U-turn for a jackpot. After
collecting that, hitting the taxi twice lights Double Jackpot. After
collecting that, hitting the taxi three times lights Triple Jackpot.
Collect the Triple Jackpot, and the taxi will open.
When a ball goes into the open taxi, you play "chicken" with the
police car. "Chicken" is 15-second timer to hit the police car (the
mini-ramp will raise) for the Super Jackpot of 5X the jackpot value.
"Chicken" keeps going even if multiball ends during it. The jackpot
sequence resets back to the beginning after "chicken" whether you win
or lose.
The first Super Jackpot of a PC Frenzy also awards a BRB and
relaunches balls to bring you up to 4 with a short ballsaver. (I know
I said I wouldn't do any strategy, but when that 15-second timer is
about to expire is a _great_ time to use a nitro boost.) If all but
one ball drains while the taxi is open to play "chicken", the taxi
will close. If you hit the taxi within two seconds of it closing,
"chicken" starts anyway, and you can get the SJ and keep the multiball
going.
After Police Chase Frenzy, you are still on the road, but the distance
to the next city is now 0, and you cannot relight Speed Trap while you
are still on the road.
If Open the Trunk awards an instant PC Frenzy, the base jackpot value
will be 2.5M. If a ball goes into the saucer during PC Frenzy, it
will hold it for about 15 seconds or until a jackpot is scored.
** Police Chase Frenzy is unavailable on Extra Easy difficulty.
Duels:
When On the Road, you can start a Duel at the Police Scoop if one is
lit. If more than one Duel is lit, one is chosen in this priority
order: Hot Rod, Sports Car, Monster Truck, Mini Beetle. (This is the
left-to-right order on the playfield of the racers.)
When a Duel starts, a second ball is launched. The Duel lasts until
you win it or lose a ball. You get a pretty long ballsaver to start,
around 30 seconds. During a Duel, if a ball goes into the saucer
before the racer pops up, it stays there for about 15 seconds or until
the racer does pop up.
The shots that advanced toward that racer's duel begin flashing. (for
the association list, see Combos.) Hit either of them a total of
three times (you get 5M per shot) to raise the racer. If you have the
correct piece of equipment for that racer, the Mystery target will
also be lit; hitting it spots one shot.
Put one ball in the racer for 10M, and the taxi will open; you have
about 10 seconds to put the other ball in the taxi for the win, a BRB,
20M, and $20,000. If that timer runs out, the racer ejects the ball
back at you and you must relock it. Shooting that racer's shot while
the timer is running scores 5M and resets the timer.
When you lose a Duel, you go back on the road. When you win a Duel,
you go on to the next city, and the ball that you locked in the racer
stays there until the Big Race. If you win a Duel while the ballsaver
is still active (quite possible), the ballsaver keeps going in
single-ball play until it expires.
After all four Duels have been played, Police Duel will light. This
Duel is started and plays pretty much the same as the others. The
associated shot is the U-turn; hit that three times. Then lock one
ball in the Police scoop, and put the other in the taxi to win.
Scoring for Police Duel is double that of the other duels, and winning
lights an Extra Ball.
The Duel sequence resets after Police Duel if there are no balls
locked in the racers. If any racer holds a ball, the game waits until
after the next Big Race to reset the sequence.
** Duels are unavailable on Extra Easy difficulty, and are supposed to
be unavailable on Easy difficulty but aren't (see Bugs).
The Big Race:
When you start the city mode in San Francisco, the Big Race starts.
For starting, you get 10M, plus 10M for each car you've beaten in a
Duel, or 100M Pole Position if you've beaten all four. 100 seconds go
up on the timer, with unlimited ballsaver and airbag. During the Big
Race, each lit or flashing shot is worth 2M for each Big Race Booster
you have, or 1M if you somehow get here without any BRBs.
(** rewrote this to try to make it clearer) The Big Race is a race
with you and the other four racers. At all times, any racer that you
can see (it's raised) is in front of you; any racer that is lowered is
behind you. Racers that you have beaten in Duels start behind you; any
car you haven't beaten starts in front of you. At all times, every
racer that is lowered will be holding a ball. The Big Race is a 5-ball
multiball; balls held by racers are included in that 5.
At all times, one raised racer will be flashing. Hitting it passes it
and makes it the "overtaker". Hitting an unlit raised racer doesn't
do anything; it just ejects the ball.
At all times, one lowered racer will also be flashing. This car is
the "overtaker"; it's trying to pass you. If you go about 10 seconds
(20 if you have the right piece of equipment for that car) without
passing another car, the overtaker passes you - it raises and ejects
its ball. Hitting the shot of the overtaker resets that timer, and
may change the overtaker to a different car.
When less than 25 seconds remain in the Big Race, and you're in first
place (all racers are lowered), the taxi will open. Hit the open taxi
to win the Big Race for 100M, $50,000, and an Extra Ball. If time
expires, you lose the Big Race; you get 10-40M for fifth through
second places.
After winning the Big Race, you play a Victory Frenzy. This is a
5-ball Speedway Frenzy, except that the base jackpot is 5M. Victory
Frenzy scores are not eligible for Speedway King scores. Win or lose,
the Big Race returns you to New York afterwards.
The highest Big Race score is kept as the Big Race King high score.
The Really Big Race:
To qualify for this, you must: play Speedway Mania, play Police Duel,
win Passenger Frenzy (get a Super Jackpot), win Police Chase Frenzy
(get a Super Jackpot), win the Big Race, and have $100,000. These six
tasks correspond to the six blue lights right above the flippers. Each
of these resets after the Really Big Race (the $100,000 may
immediately relight itself.) To start the Really Big Race, buy it
from Jay's after completing all six tasks (it costs $100,000 to
start.)
Really Big Race is a six-ball multiball, unlimited ballsaver and
airbag. You must make 15 shots to win. 100 seconds are once again
put on the timer. All four racers raise. You must hit each racer
three times; the third time, it'll hold the ball. These 12 shots
total $50,000 and 50M. The 13th shot is to hit the police car (the
mini-ramp will be up) for $50,000 and 50M. The 14th shot is to hit
the police scoop for another $100,000 and 100M; the scoop will hold
the ball. You must lock the last ball in the taxi for the win, an EB,
and another $300,000 and 300M for a total of $500,000 and 500M.
After winning a Really Big Race, you play a Really Big Victory Frenzy.
This is a six-ball Speedway Frenzy with the base jackpot being 10M (so
Ultra Jackpot will be 250M.) Really Big Victory Frenzy scores are not
eligible for Speedway King. Really Big Race returns you to the city
you were in afterward.
Using a Nitro Boost will spot the first or second shot on each of the
four racers, or the mini-ramp shot if that's lit.
If any racer has a ball locked in it after winning a Duel, that racer
will not hold the ball after the third time you shoot it during Really
Big Race. This can make it seem as if you have too many balls at the
end of Really Big Race.
** Really Big Race is unavailable on Extra Easy and Easy difficulties,
but see Bugs.
Million Dollar Madness:
Once you reach $1,000,000 (** on any difficulty), the game stops
counting your money. You want to go to Jay's and buy the Big Mystery
to start Million Dollar Madness. (No qualifications other than the
million dollars are needed.) Its existence is no secret (the cookies
kinda give it away) but I've ROT-13ed the description of it in case
you want to find out for yourself. You get 1 point for starting
Million Dollar Madness, for some reason.
Zvyyvba Qbyyne Znqarff vf n gra onyy zbqr. Gur nveont naq onyyfnire
ner npgvir sbe nobhg n zvahgr. Rirel bar bs gur rvtugl-sbhe yvtugf ba
gur gnoyr vf synfuvat. Fubbg n fubg gb pbzcyrgr bar bs vgf yvtugf.
Nyy fjvgpurf fpber bar zvyyvba, gb n znkvzhz gbgny bs bar ovyyvba.
Pbzcyrgr nyy rvtugl-sbhe yvtugf gb fpber nabgure bar ovyyvba. Avgeb
Obbfg fcbgf bar yvtug sbe rnpu fubg, nobhg n qbmra gbgny.
Guvf zbqr qbrf abg raq jura gur zhygvonyy raqf. Jura lbh'er qbja gb
bar onyy, lbh zhfg rvgure pbzcyrgr Zvyyvba Qbyyne Znqarff jvgu vg be
qenva vg. Nsgrejneqf, jva be ybfr, lbh jvyy unir $0 ntnva.
Extra Balls:
You can get extra balls in the following ways. The first four are
repeatable; the rest are once per game. Lit EBs are collected at the
Police Car scoop.
Win the Big Race (lights EB)
Win the Really Big Race (lights EB)
Win Police Duel (lights EB)
Win Speedway Mania (instant EB)
One from Jay's (either buy it or win it in the Giveaway; instant EB)
Video Mode when you "kill" the EB (instant EB)
Three consecutive loops (lights EB)
Ten consecutive loops (lights EB)
10 Magnochargers (lights EB)
100 Magnochargers (lights EB)
Maxed bonus - increase multipler when you have 10X (lights EB)
Extra Ball city quickshot (lights EB)
Open the Trunk (lights EB)
JWJ reported to me that 40 U-turns lights an EB, and I had listed that
in previous versions of the rulesheet. I've been unable to do that,
though... playing and shooting for nothing but U-turns, I reached 101
without lighting an EB.
Additionally, at the end of a game, you can use credits to buy extra
balls, to a limit of 10 per game. Credits are won by posting high
scores, or winning replays, or matching. The replay score maxes at 1
billion. The maximum number of credits is supposed to be 30, but
there seems to be a bug that there is no limit. It'll only display up
to 30, but will keep track of more beyond that.
Bonus:
Shooting either lower ramp during any single ball and most multiball
play lights Advance Bonus X at the U-turn. Shooting the U-turn
collects it. Bonus multiplers advance 1X-2X-4X-6X-8X-10X, though
Bonus Bonanza can change that sequence and go beyond 10X. Advancing
your bonus when it is already 10X or higher scores 2M Multiplers Maxed
instead.
When you drain, you get this much bonus:
10,000 for every U-turn you've hit.
20,000 for every Loop you've hit.
30,000 for every Combo you've hit.
100,000 for every city you've entered.
This total is then multiplied by your bonus multiplier. The bonus is
cumulative throughout the game; the bonus multiplier resets to 1 after
each ball unless it's held.
** Difficulty Levels:
You can choose from five preselected difficulty levels, or use custom
settings (which means your high scores won't be eligible for the
official high scores website at
http://www.empire-interactive.com/propinball/brusa/hiscores.shtml .)
The manual lists all the differences between difficulties on page 20;
I'm not going to repeat all that.
The difficulty levels are actually better thought of as complexity
levels - Extra Easy is very simple, Easy adds road play, Normal adds
Duels, and Hard and Extra Hard add better control of your destinations
(because road distances are longer, and you don't automatically
advance to the next city on a drain.) Million Dollar Madness is
actually easier to reach on Normal than the easier modes because of
the presence of Really Big Race. Normal makes extra balls available
from Police Duel and Really Big Race that aren't available on easier
modes. Extra Hard can actually be easier than other difficulties
because you'll rarely accidentally advance to a city that you didn't
want. Easy and Normal both offer more Big Race Boosters than easier
difficulties, so Big Race scores will be higher. The list goes on.
My point is that the difficulty levels don't necessarily mean the game
is actually harder... it's more like the "game variations" of the old
Atari 2600 game system.
Miscellaneous:
You get three tilt warnings per ball; if you use them all and trip the
tilt sensor again, you tilt, forfeiting the current ball in play and
its bonus.
Super City Bonus: If you visit every city at least once before going
to San Francisco, you get a Super City Bonus of 160,000,000 when you
start the Big Race. However:
Ultra City Bonus: If you visit every city once without visiting any
cities twice before going to San Francisco, you instead get an Ultra
City Bonus of 320,000,000 when you start the Big Race. Note that you
must use the Ferry once to do this.
Pity award: If you are on your last ball (not a buyin ball) and your
score is less than 50M, and you hit Open the Trunk, it will always be
the Hot Rod offering $13. When you open the trunk, it will be either
a Police Chase Frenzy or a 4-ball Passenger Frenzy, depending on
whether you are on the road or not. You can get more than one pity
award in a game if your score is still low enough.
When I was looking at the program file for the list of maneuvers, I
also saw the text strings "SPECIAL" and "MOO!" nearby. These appear
to be in the Open the Trunk section (SPECIAL is between EXTRA BALL LIT
and REALLY BIG AIR BAG), though I don't know if they ever show up.
Also, there was no text in there that would correspond to Midnight
Madness in any way, so that mode most likely does not exist in BRUSA.
There's also a bunch of weird text in there like SPOILERS II, SPOILERS
III, DELUXE I, DELUXE II, DELUXE III, and SATELLITE that were probably
removed during development but didn't quite get cleaned out of the
program.
Cheats: There are no known cheats for Big Race USA, and I'm fairly
sure that none exist. If you're finding the game too hard, there are
a couple things you can do. In the options, you can increase the
number of balls from the default 3 to something higher. Or try playing
at an easier difficulty setting. Or experiment with the table
physics; lowering the angle makes the game play slower, while
increasing the flipper power makes it easier to hit many shots.
Finally, just practice, practice, practice. :)
** High Scores: After finishing a game, hold both flippers for a
couple seconds and the game will give you a code for that game. Write
down this code and enter it on the official high scores website at
http://www.empire-interactive.com/propinball/brusa/hiscores.shtml .
(This info is in the manual, but it's kinda buried in the last
section, and not many people read the manual anyway.)
Bugs:
There's a small bug with ball movement around the Mini Bug racer. One
poster reported on rec.games.pinball that, after plunging, he had seen
the ball hit the Mini Bug from above and bounce back into the plunger
lane, which the game counted as a ball-save situation. I saw a
similar (probably the same) glitch too: Just as a city mode ended, the
ball was on top of the Mini Bug when she popped up. The ball
disappeared and the game immediately went to the bonus countup. I was
mildly perturbed, to say the least. :)
There's another small physics bug: the game seems to like to make
balls jump onto the left habitrail if they go airborne around the
mini-ramp area. This is harmless, though.
** On Easy difficulty, Duels and therefore Really Big Race (since you
need to play Police Duel) are supposed to be unavailable. However,
even though combos and maneuvers don't light Duels, Open the Trunk can
still light Duels. So you can still play the other duels, get Police
Duel, and therefore Really Big Race on Easy, though it takes luck and
a long time.
** When awarding a very big bonus (greater than about 1.7 billion),
the display will sometimes glitch and report only 1.7B for the bonus,
with the last few digits seemingly random. The full value will still
be awarded. If this happens, your score will suddenly have an extra
digit 1 in it (so, say, 45900M would become 451900M.) It's only a
display bug; it'll fix itself as soon as you score another point. (No,
I don't know what happens if this happens on your last ball, so that
it won't have a chance to fix itself.)
** In the options, operator adjustments 2.3.7 and 2.3.8 (number of
credits for high scores #3 and #4) seem to be always linked together -
when you change one, the other also changes.
Credits:
Author: Erik Mooney (emooney@attila.stevens-tech.edu ,
erikmooney@altavista.net)
Many corrections and info: J. Weaver Jr. (jwjr@pobox.com)
Other contributors: Richard Fein (rfein@inch.com), Andreas "Ante"
Grabher (meda@schoch.vol.at), Andreas Dern "Derninger"
(dern@dialup.becom.net), Robert DeLoura (deloura@halcyon.com),
Glenn (riker@valinet.com).
1.0: First version, 3/27/99
1.1: Added Skill Shots, Extra Balls, and Bonus, added more scoring
info, fixed some typos. 3/28/99, 3 AM :)
1.2: Lots of little fixes. Rewrote the Combos section. 3/28/99, 5:30
PM EST
1.3: More fixes including Super and Ultra City Bonuses. Rewrote some
sections to improve clarity. 4/1/99 (no, no April Fool's jokes here.)
1.4: Rewrote the Maneuvers section, though it's still missing a couple
bits of info. April 24, 1999.
1.45: Found the Dough Nut and Power Slide maneuvers. April 26 1999.
1.5: more minor updates & fixes, marked with **. May 20 1999.
Availability: On my homepage http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/~emooney ,
or by emailing me at emooney@attila.stevens-tech.edu or
erikmooney@altavista.net . Also, this guide should be available on Sam
Gabrielsson's excellent site The Tower of Pin at www.pcpinball.com .
Disclaimer: I do not guarantee the accuracy of any of the information
contained herein. I am not responsible for any physical, logical,
emotional, or brain damage incurred from this document or the
information contained herein. I only guarantee that it will take up
disk space (unless someone comes up with a revolutionary new
compression technique.) All trademarks contained in this document are
the property of their respective owners. I give permission to copy,
post, translate into HTML, and otherwise reproduce this document and
the information contained herein as long as credit is given to me.
Introduction:
As you probably know if you're reading this, Pro Pinball: Big Race USA
is the latest and greatest pinball simulator from the good folks at
Cunning Developments and published by Empire Interactive. The last
time I did a guide for a Pro Pinball game (The Web), two other people
used it to knock me out of the world Grand Champion spot. I'm still a
little miffed about that, but Ade and the boys have outdone themselves
with complexity this time around, and I've seen many many requests for
a rulesheet for Big Race USA, so I'll provide one. This is a "just
the facts" rulesheet; I'm not providing strategy or suggestions.
I've encrypted the spoilers with ROT-13. If whatever you're using to
view this doesn't have ROT-13 decoding, applets for it are available
on the Web: http://www.brookings.net/~darinaf/rot13.html (Javascript),
http://as.alliancestudio.com/tk/rot13.html (CGI),
http://www.rtg.se/~niclas/rot13.htm (VBscript), and other locations.
The information here applies to version 1.18 of the game. If you have
not updated your game, get the patch from Empire's site at
www.propinball.com . The site specifically for Big Race USA can be
found at http://www.empire-interactive.com/propinball/brusa if you
don't want to navigate through the Shockwave mess of the main site.
Also, I play on the Windows PC version; most of the info should still
apply to the DOS and Macintosh versions, though there may be small
differences (particularly bugs/glitches).
Please, give me feedback and corrections on this guide. Anything
marked with a (?) needs confirmation! If for some reason my email
addresses don't work (the stevens-tech one will expire in May 2001
when I graduate), I'll always be hanging out in rec.games.pinball as
long as it exists.
However, I cannot provide technical support for any Pro Pinball game!
I keep getting questions for both The Web and Big Race USA to the
effect of "the game won't work/behaves strangely/runs slowly on my
system, can you help?" The games run fine on my system; I can't help
with these issues. Go to Empire's site at www.propinball.com and
follow the links through to Tech Support. Similarly, I won't be able
to help with any other non-game questions like where to buy games.
This rulesheet doesn't cover Head to Head play at all. Mostly because
I'm not a big fan of that mode. I play a slow, control and strategy
oriented game... Head to Head is pretty much just whoever can make
shots the fastest. It's fun, much more intense than, well, anything
else, but it's not my type of game. Anyone wanna put together a head
to head rulesheet for me to include?
Also, translations of this rulesheet into other languages for European
players would be welcomed, particularly German and French. If anyone
wants to do that, please do so and let me know!
The Table:
Going clockwise from the drain, we encounter:
Air Bag: Acts as a stopper between the flippers, making it hard to
drain when this is up.
Left outlane: Lights the T in TRUNK.
Left outer inlane: Lights the R in TRUNK. If the MagnoCharger light
is lit, it lights the magnet on the right ramp for about 10 seconds.
Resets that 10-second timer if it is currently running.
Left inner inlane: Lights the U in TRUNK.
Open the Trunk saucer: Activates Open the Trunk when lit. Advances
the 3-2-1 lights in front of it during city play. When 1 is scored,
the Hot Rod raises for Drag Speedway Challenge.
Hot Rod: When the Hot Rod car is popped up, you can shoot a ball into
him here. Starts Drag Speedway Challenge during normal city play, and
is used in that mode and Hot Rod Duel.
Left Orbit: Has a spinner on it. It has a diverter to catch the ball
if any of the following conditions are met: Enters the next City if
lit to do so on the road. During city play, it enters Jay's Secret
Stash if that is open. Failing that, it starts Speedway Mania if it
is lit. Failing that, it starts Speedway Frenzy if that is lit. If
nothing is lit, the ball loops around to the upper right flipper.
Left ramp: Advances the 3-2-1 lights in front of it during city play.
When 1 is scored, the Sports Car raises for Oval Speedway Challenge.
Usually diverts to the lower left flipper.
W and N targets: Select destination while On the Road (more later.)
During City play, if it has been lit by the Nameless Scoop, it
unlights and scores $2000.
Sports Car: When it's popped up, shoot a ball into it. Starts Oval
Speedway Challenge during city play, and is used in that mode and
Sports Car Duel.
U-turn: Shooting multiple U-turns in a row relights Nitro Boost if it
is unlit: 3 shots for the first time, 5 for the second, then 7, etc.
Starts Speed Trap if lit to do so on the road. Advances the Bonus
Multiplier if lit to do so. Each shot in a row scores 250,000 more
than the previous.
Police Car Scoop: If the city mode for the current city has not been
played, it starts. If that mode has been played, it switches to road
play. On the Road, it starts a Duel if one is lit. Lit Extra Balls
may be collected here at any time.
MagnoLock: This is an under-playfield magnet, located a few inches
directly below the Police Car Scoop. Its purpose is to catch shots
exiting the left side of the U-turn, and sometimes fling them into the
scoop.
Mini-ramp: If this is popped up, it blocks shots to the Police Car
Scoop, making the ball strike the Police Car instead.
Compass target: Is involved with selecting a destination.
Mini-loop: Hittable from the upper right flipper, and loops back to
that same flipper. During city play, city modes, and Speedway Mania,
diverts to the Taxi and locks a Passenger lock if one is lit. Two
consecutive loops opens Jay's if it isn't. Shooting 3 loops in a row
lights Extra Ball, once per game. If that has been achieved, shooting
10 loops in a row lights an Extra Ball. I don't know what happens if
that has been achieved. :) Each shot in sequence scores 500,000 more
than the previous.
Upper left ramp: This is the blue ramp just to the left of the taxi.
Usually diverts to the upper left flipper, but sometimes (during Taxi
Rank Rampage and most speedway challenges) to the lower left flipper.
Relights the MagnoCharger light.
Taxi: If closed, hitting it during city play, a city mode, a speedway
challenge, Speedway Frenzy, or Speedway Mania advances towards a
Passenger lock. If open for the fourth Passenger lock during city
play, a city mode, or Speedway Mania, it starts Passenger Frenzy. On
the road, if Video Mode is lit, it starts Video Mode. Scores
quickshots if one is running, and is used in many other modes. Ejects
the ball from the Nameless Scoop on the bottom right towards the lower
left flipper.
Upper right ramp: Usually diverts to the upper right flipper, but
sometimes (usually during speedway challenges) to the lower right
flipper. Relights the MagnoCharger light. There is a very quick ball
saver activated when you hit this ramp. If the ball flies past the
upper right flipper and directly into the left outlane, the game will
give the ball back.
Big loop: Just above the upper right flipper, and loops back around
to the upper left flipper. Behaves the same way as the mini-loop for
Jay's, extra balls, and scoring.
Mystery target: Just below the upper right flipper. It is lit during
Speedway Challenges and Duels if you have the correct piece of
equipment from Jay's.
S and E targets: See W and N targets.
Right ramp: Advances the 3-2-1 lights in front of it during city
play. When 1 is scored, the Monster Truck raises for Stunt Speedway
Challenge. Usually diverts to the lower right flipper. However:
Magnocharger: A magnet somewhere under the right ramp. It grabs the
ball and flings it up the right ramp. See the Magnocharger section.
Monster Truck: When he is popped up, shoot a ball into him. Starts
Stunt Speedway Challenge during city play, and is used in that mode
and Monster Truck Duel. He won't pop up if the Magnocharger is
active.
Right orbit: Advances the 3-2-1 lights in front of it during city
play. When 1 is scored, the Mini Beetle raises for Street Speedway
Challenge. Loops around to the upper left flipper.
Mini Bug (aka Mini Beetle): When she is popped up, shoot a ball into
her. Starts Street Speedway Challenge during city play, and is used
in that mode and Mini Bug Duel.
Nameless scoop: Just ejects the ball after it enters the Taxi or
falls into this scoop. If a ball falls in here during any city play,
including challenges, Passenger Frenzy, Speedway Frenzy and Mania, and
even Victory Frenzies, it lights one of the WNSE targets. These
lightings carry over from city to city.
Right inlane: N in TRUNK.
Right outlane: K in TRUNK.
The Meter: On the bottom left of the table. If you are in a timed
mode, it shows the time remaining. If not, it shows your current
money total.
Nitro Boost: The light next to the plunger lane is lit when Nitro
Boost is available. If it's available, press the launch button to use
it, which completes all flashing shots on the table.
The Hot Rod, Sports Car, Monster Truck, and Mini Bug are collectively
known as the "racers", and their four shots (saucer, left and right
ramps, and right orbit) are known as the "racer shots". I use that
terminology quite a bit - sorry if anyone got confused.
Game Features:
There's a _lot_ of these. I'll try to tackle them in an orderly
fashion.
Skill Shots:
Hitting the upper-right ramp after launching the ball is a Skill Shot,
scoring the current skill shot value and $5000. Hitting the big loop
and then the right ramp in combo is a Super Skill Shot for 2X the
skill shot value and $10000. Holding both flippers for a couple
seconds before launching the ball activates an analog plunger. To
control the analog plunger, hold down the launch button to pull back
the plunger. (** you can deactivate the analog plunger by holding
both flippers for a couple seconds again.) Launching the ball to the
upper-right flipper and hitting the upper left ramp is a Secret Skill
Shot for 3X the skill shot value and $15000. Finally, using the
analog plunger and hitting the mini-loop (passenger lock must not be
lit) and then the upper left ramp is a Super Secret Skill Shot for 5X
the current skill shot value and $25000. The skill shot value starts
at 1M and increases by 1M each time you make any type of skill shot
apparently without limit - I've had it as high as 30M. Making any
skill shot causes the ball to divert to the lower flippers instead of
the upper.
City Modes:
First, you'll notice the map of the USA with 16 lights representing
various cities. It's arranged as follows (use fixed-width font to
view). Note that the designers took certain artistic liberties with
regards to the city arrangements :)
/Chicago\
/Salt Lake\ /Detroit\
/Seattle\ /Denver \ / Boston \
San Fran Las Vegas Memphis New York
\Los Ang/ \Dallas / \Washington/
\ Phoenix / \Atlanta/
\Orleans/
In any city, you can travel to any adjacent city in an adjacent
column. You can only travel from right to left unless you have the
Compass from Jay's.
In each city, there is a city mode. These rotate around from game to
game, but remain the same within one game. San Francisco's mode is
always the Big Race. Other than that, the cities are divided into two
'divisions':
East: New York, Boston, Washington, Detroit, Memphis, Atlanta, Denver,
Dallas
West: Seattle,Los Angeles, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Chicago,
New Orleans
Each division has a set of modes that are randomly assigned to the
cities in that division at the start of a game. Completing a
quickshot for _maximum_ value (10M) or any city mode awards a Big Race
Booster (BRB). Taxi quickshots start at 10M, where it stays for about
6 seconds, and counts down to 2.5M. After playing a city mode, hit
the Police Scoop again to go On the Road.
Passenger Frenzy may be started during any city mode, but not during a
taxi quickshot. Speedway modes may not be started during a city mode.
The East division modes are:
Bonus Bonanza quickshot: Make the quickshot to start Bonus Bonanza,
which lights the U-turn for 45 seconds. Hitting the U-turn during
that time increases your bonus X by 1 for the first hit, 2 for the
second, and 3 for the third and all later shots. This is allowed to
increase your bonus beyond the normal limit of 10X.
Bonus Held quickshot: Make it to hold your bonus X onto the next
ball.
Money Spinner quickshot: Make it to start Money Spinner, which lights
the spinner for 45 seconds. The first spin awards $50, and each spin
of the spinner awards $50 more than the previous spin.
Jay's Giveaway quickshot: Make it to play Jay's Giveaway (see Jay's
Junk for more info.)
Taxi Rank Rampage: You have 20 seconds to hit either lower ramp or
the upper left ramp, which will always divert to the lower left
flipper and give you a 3 second timer to hit the taxi. Do that 3
times to win the mode and a Big Race Booster; the third time, the taxi
will be open and you must get it _in_ the taxi to count. You get a
short airbag after each taxi hit.
Speed Humps: Timer is 30 seconds. All switches score 250,000. Hit
10 switches to raise the mini ramp. Hit the police car to add 250,000
to the all-switches value and 10 seconds to the timer. You can do
that a maximum of 3 times; doing it twice gets the BRB.
UFO attack: Timer is 20 seconds. One lit shot cycles between the
left orbit, left ramp, U-turn, right ramp, right orbit, and back
again. The base score is 5M. Hit the shot to add more time, score
the base, add 1M to the base, and randomly move the lit shot. Hit the
shot 3 times for a BRB. Before that, each shot resets the timer;
after that, each shot adds 10 seconds to a max of 20.
Mall Mayhem: Timer is 40 seconds. The Trunk saucer, Jay's, Police
scoop, and the Taxi are all lit for 10M each. Shoot them all in any
order to add an extra 5 seconds to the timer and light the U-turn. Hit
the lit U-turn to score 10M and the BRB. MagnoLock will catch the
ball after hitting the U-turn, but won't put it into the scoop.
The West division modes are:
Big Race Booster quickshot: Make it for a BRB. Note that if you hit
the quickshot for the maximum 10M, you'll get two BRBs.
Extra Ball quickshot: Make it for an EB. If it's made, later visits
to this city will have an Air Bag quickshot instead: make it to raise
the Air Bag for 30 seconds.
Nitro Boost quickshot: Make it to light Nitro Boost. Nitro Boosts
don't stack, so this is wasted if Nitro Boost was already lit.
Attack of the Creature (Tubby): You have 15 seconds on the timer. Each
spin of the spinner scores 1M (?) and adds 2 seconds to the timer.
Raise the timer above 35 (?) seconds to escape from Tubby and win a
BRB.
Car Park Calamity: The upper ramps and loops light. You start on
Floor 1. Shooting either loop scores 1M * floor and might open the
taxi if you're on a floor above 1. Shooting either upper ramp closes
the taxi if it was open, advances one floor, scores 1M * the new
floor, and adds some time to the timer. Shoot the taxi when it's open
to win the mode for a BRB.
Car Wash Chaos: Shoot the left ramp 4 times in 45 seconds for a BRB.
Grid Lock Lunacy: Timer starts with 30 seconds. The mini-ramp raises.
It lowers itself at about six-second intervals for about one second;
it won't lower if a flipper is being held. Hit the police car (above
the mini-ramp) to score 5M and add 10 seconds to the timer - you can
do that any number of times. Get the ball in the police car scoop to
score 30M and the BRB.
Big Race: Always happens in San Francisco, and has its own section.
Speedway Challenges:
3-2-1 lights can be advanced during any single-ball city play, but not
during Challenges. Shooting 3-2-1 scores 250K, 500K, and 750K for the
three shots. Complete the 3-2-1 lights in front of any racer to make
that racer raise. Hit that racer during city play to start its
Challenge. Each Challenge lights three shots: red, yellow, and green.
You have 30 seconds on the timer. Making any of those shots adds 10
seconds to the timer. Complete all three of those to raise the racer
again; hit it to win for a BRB and $10000.
If the shots are not completed in red-yellow-green order, each scores
5M and the racer scores 10M for a total of 25M. If they are completed
in order, they score 5M-10M-15M and the racer is 20M for a total of
50M. If you complete all four shots in order _fast_enough_, you get
an extra 10M for a total of 60M, and two BRBs instead of one. ** It
seems that the speed bonus is awarded if you take less than 20 seconds
total. Using a Nitro Boost will count as hitting the first three
shots in order, so it's pretty easy to hit the racer fast enough for
the speed bonus.
If you have the appropriate piece of equipment from Jay's, the Mystery
target will be lit during that Challenge. Hitting it spots the next
colored shot. See the Jay's section for more information.
If the big loop or upper right ramp is lit, shooting the left orbit
will make the Jay's saucer do a quick catch-and-release, setting up
a shot.
After a Speedway Challenge ends, whether by winning, losing, or
draining, its associated Speedway Frenzy becomes lit. Hit the left
orbit during city play when Jay's is not lit to start all lit Speedway
Frenzies.
Speedway Frenzies:
One ball is added for each Speedway Frenzy you just started. Shots
corresponding to the racers for the Speedway Frenzies you just started
are lit. The base jackpot value is 1M times the number of Frenzies
you started. Hitting an unlit racer shot scores the base jackpot
value. Hitting a lit shot scores the base jackpot and advances it to
Double Jackpot. Scoring Double advances it to Triple. Scoring Triple
lights Super, and the shot then stays at Single until the Super is
collected, when it can be advanced again. This sequence runs
independently for all lit shots. Scoring any Triple Jackpot gives you
about eight seconds of air bag.
Super Jackpots are collected by shooting either upper ramp, and a
single upper ramp shot will collect all lit Supers. A Super Jackpot
is worth 5X the base jackpot value. If you collect all four Super
Jackpots at once, you instead get an Ultra Jackpot, which is worth 5X
Super, or 25X the base value.
The _first_ time you collect a Super during any Speedway Frenzy, you
get one BRB for each Super, or 5 BRBs if it's an Ultra.
Nitro Boost will count as hitting the upper ramps first and then each
racer shot simultaneously. If Triple is lit on a shot, the Nitro will
collect that Triple but not the Super. If a Super is lit, the Nitro
will collect it and then the single (advancing that shot to Double.)
Confused yet? Here's an example. Suppose you win Stunt Speedway
Challenge, then lose Drag Speedway Challenge and Street Speedway
challenge. Then you hit the left orbit to start the Speedway Frenzy.
It's a four-ball multiball. The left saucer,right ramp, and right
orbit are lit. The base jackpot value is 3M. You hit the unlit left
ramp; it scores 3M. You hit the unlit left ramp again, it scores
another 3M. You hit the left saucer three times; it scores 3M, 6M,
and 9M. You hit the right ramp three times; it scores 3M, 6M, and 9M.
Two Super Jackpots are now lit. You hit the left saucer again, it
scores 3M and doesn't advance anything. You hit an upper ramp. That
scores two Super Jackpots for a score of 30M, and awards two BRBs. You
hit the left saucer four more times for 3M, 6M, 9M (Super is now lit),
and 3M. You hit an upper ramp for a 15M Super, but no BRB.
The highest Speedway Frenzy score is kept as the Speedway King high
score.
Speedway Mania:
Once all four Speedway Frenzies have been played (either all at once
or spread out), Speedway Mania is lit. Shoot the left orbit when
Jay's is not lit to start it. Speedway Mania gives you 60 seconds on
the clock, and that timer does not pause for anything. You get a
gratis ball saver for about the first 10 seconds.
You must make quickshots into all four racers to win Speedway Mania.
One racer will raise, and a quickshot starts counting down from 20M.
If you hit the racer, you score the quickshot value, 20M is added to
the base, and another quickshot starts with a racer that has not been
hit yet. Do that 4 times to win an Extra Ball and ** $20,000. A
quickshot expires after about 6 seconds: the racer drops and the
quickshot resets back to the base value with the same or a different
racer.
Nitro Boost doesn't work during Speedway Mania. Passenger Frenzy can
be started during Speedway Mania. (there was a bug in early versions
of the game that I don't think was ever fixed - occasionally, the game
tries to play the Passenger and Speedway Mania musics at the same
time, causing massive system slowdown. The workaround is to lower the
music volume to 0 until the modes end.) After Speedway Mania ends,
the 3-2-1 lights reset and you can begin the Speedway sequence again.
Speedway secret, ROT-13'd: Vs lbh pbzcyrgr nyy gur 3-2-1 yvtugf fb
gung nyy sbhe enpref ner envfrq ng bapr, naq gura uvg gur yrsg beovg
jura Wnl'f vfa'g yvg, vg tvirf lbh n serr OEO naq fgnegf n sbhe-jnl
Fcrrqjnl Seraml jvgubhg arrqvat gb cynl gur punyyratrf. Guvf fcrpvny
Fcrrqjnl Seraml tbrf njnl vs lbh fgneg n punyyratr orsber uvggvat gur
yrsg beovg.
Passenger Frenzy:
Hitting the Taxi advances towards Passenger locks. For the first PF,
you need to hit the taxi 1, 2, 3, and 4 times to light the first,
second, third, and fourth locks. Later PFs require 2, 3, 4, and 5
hits for each lock. (** on Extra Hard, it's 3, 4, 5, and 6.) Hitting
the Taxi towards a lock awards $1.
Passenger Frenzy can be a 2, 3, or 4 ball multiball. Passenger Frenzy
starts when you lock a ball in the last lit lock. So if two locks are
lit, and you lock the second ball, it starts; if four locks are lit
and you lock the third ball, it waits till the fourth ball is locked.
The first three locks are achieved by shooting the mini-loop (the taxi
door will open to admit the ball... cute) and the fourth goes in the
front of the taxi.
The Passenger Frenzy jackpot shots are the four racer shots, though
the racers stay down. One jackpot shot will be lit for each ball in
the multiball. The jackpot value is 5M plus $2000. After you make
all the jackpot shots (drop off all your passengers), the taxi opens
for a double, triple, or super jackpot of 5X jackpot (25M plus $10000)
depending on how many passengers you had, and reloads you with that
many passengers again, relighting that many jackpot shots.
Each Passenger Frenzy, the first Super Jackpot will also award a BRB.
Cow Jackpot, ROT-13: Vs lbh pbyyrpg sbhe erthyne wnpxcbgf va beqre
sebz yrsg gb evtug, fhcre wnpxcbg jvyy vafgrnq or n pbj wnpxcbg jbegu
gjvpr nf zhpu nf fhcre wnpxcbg. Avgeb obbfgvat gur sbhe
wnpxcbgf qbrf abg pbhag nf uvggvat gurz va beqre.
Magnocharger:
This is complicated enough to warrant its own section. Hitting either
upper ramp during any single ball play or any multiball except for Big
Race and Really Big Race lights the green Magnocharger light on the
left outer inlane.
When the ball trips the left outer inlane switch, and the Magnocharger
is lit, Magnocharger will activate on the right ramp for about 10
seconds. If you hit the inlane during this time, the timer resets. If
you do not hit the ramp before the timer expires, the green
Magnocharger light relights itself, and you must hit that inlane again
to use the Magnocharger.
When you hit the Magnocharger while it is active, the magnet will
fling the ball up the ramp at high speed for you. If this happens,
the ramp will divert back to the left flipper for another shot at the
Magnocharger, which will remain lit for about another three seconds.
Making a first Magnocharger shot raises the air bag for ** 20 seconds
on normal difficulty, different times for other difficulties; making a
sequence Magnocharger shot extends its time by a few seconds. Each
shot in sequence scores 1M more than the last, to a maximum of 5M.
The first and every fifth Magnocharger light video mode (or award 10M
Big Points if VM is already lit), except for the 10th and 100th
magnochargers which light Extra Ball.
The green Magnocharger light will not come on if the Monster Truck is
raised (but the game remembers it's lit and relights it when the Truck
goes down.) If the Magnocharger is active when the Monster Truck is
supposed to pop up, he will wait until it's inactive. However, during
Speedway Mania, the Monster Truck and Magnocharger ignore each other -
this will lead to a graphical glitch if the Truck is up and
Magnocharger is active at the same time.
I'll give a small hint here: if you want to shoot multiple
Magnochargers in a row, let the ball bounce off the airbag between
shots! Much easier :)
Open the Trunk:
Completing TRUNK lights the Open the Trunk saucer. It can be
collected both in the city and on the road. Lit Trunks do not stack.
The TRUNK lights are lane-changeable by the flipper buttons.
The trick here is that Open the Trunk is _not_random_.
There's four categories of trunk awards, small, normal, great, and
super. The category is dependent on which opponent it is, and what
the dollar amount is (only matters whether or not it's >1000.) Here's
your chart:
Dollars <1000 >1000
Hot Rod ? ?
Sports Car small ?
Monster Truck ? ?
Mini Bug ? ?
So if you open the Sports Car's trunk when the dollar amount is less
than 1000, you will get a small award. Have fun figuring them out, or
un-ROT this: fcbegf pne fznyy zbarl, zbafgre gehpx ynetr zbarl, naq
ubg ebq ynetr zbarl tvir fznyy njneqf. ubg ebq fznyy zbarl, zvav oht
fznyy zbarl, naq fcbegf pne ynetr zbarl tvir zrqvhz njneqf. zbafgre
gehpx fznyy zbarl naq zvav oht ynetr zbarl tvir terng njneqf.
Also, anytime you accept cash of less than 1000, the *next* Open the
Trunk award will be one category greater than it would otherwise be.
This is the only way to get Super awards.
Small awards are small points and small cash. Medium awards include:
Big Points, Big Cash, Bonus Boost, Jay's lit, Challenge lit (city
only), Duel lit (road only). Great awards include: Really Big Points,
Really Big Cash, immediate 4-ball Passenger (city only), immediate
Police Chase Frenzy (road only), Jay's Giveaway. Super awards are: EB
lit the first time in any game; every time after that will be a
90-second Really Big Air Bag.
If you just sit there and let Open the Trunk time out without choosing
anything, the trunk will be empty. If this happens, it does not give
you the category boost described above, but it _does_ seem (?) that
the category for the _dollars_ (greater or less than 1000) will be the
same for the next Open the Trunk. At least, I haven't seen anything
contrary to that in about ten tests.
Jay's Junk:
Probably the number one frequently asked question about the game.
Here goes.
To open Jay's, shoot either loop twice in a row. It's also lit for
you at the start of each ball (** except for Hard and Extra Hard.) To
enter Jay's, shoot the left orbit in city play.
The tires, spoilers, engine, and brakes, $3000 each, each correspond
to one of the four racers. If you have the corresponding piece of
equipment, the Mystery target lights during that racer's Speedway
Challenge and Duel. Hitting the active Mystery target spots one shot
towards that Challenge or Duel. Also, having the appropriate piece of
equipment makes it take longer for that racer to overtake you during
the Big Race.
Lottery Tickets, $1, Cookies, $3, and Extra Ball, $50000: pretty
obvious.
Planner, $1000: This is only available when you have already played
the city mode for the city, and there is a choice about where to go
next (if you don't have the compass, this item won't appear in
Chicago, Salt Lake, Seattle, New Orleans, Phoenix, or Los Angeles.)
Buying one lets you select your next destination, and immediately puts
you On the Road. If you do not have the compass, you can only go
leftwards; if you have the compass, you can go to any adjacent city.
A planner can be overridden by the compass - see On the Road, below.
Ferry, $2000: This is available in Chicago or New Orleans after you
have played the city mode. It takes you up or down the Mississippi
River to the other of those two cities.
Cruise Control, $2000: Each spin of the spinner increases your Road
speed by 2 MPH instead of 1.
City Guide, $5000: When you're On the Road and the display says "XXX
miles to City, home of ...", if you have this item, the "home of ..."
will be filled in, letting you know what mode is in that city.
Air Bag, $5000: 30 seconds of air-filled goodness.
Compass, $10000: Lets you choose your destination. See On the Road
below. ** This is unavailable on Extra Easy.
Big Air Bag, $25000: 60 seconds of good-filled airness.
Mystery, $100000: Starts Really Big Race, see below. Only appears if
you've qualified for Really Big Race, of course.
Big Mystery, $1000000: Starts Million Dollar Madness, see below.
Jay's Giveaway: This can be started either by a city quickshot or from
Open the Trunk. Items from Jay's begin flashing on the display. Press
both flippers or the Launch button to take the current item. He will
not offer equipment you already have, or a planner or compass or
cookie. If you press the launch button while the audio "Jay's
Giveaway" is going, he'll give you a lottery ticket; otherwise lottery
tickets can't be awarded.
From JWJ, here's a list of all the cookies:
1. LOOK TO THE FUTURE AND DON'T BE GREEDY
2. YOU'LL NEED TO BE VERY FORTUNATE TO WIN THE JACKPOT
3. ONE DAY YOU'LL BE A MILLIONAIRE
4. SPOILERS WILL MAKE YOUR TAXI LOOK REALLY SPORTY
5. IT TAKES A GREAT ENGINEER TO BUILD A BRIDGE
6. FEELING TIRED? JUST DON'T BE A MONSTER
7. TAKE A BREAK AND GET OFF THE STREETS
8. WITH A COMPASS YOU'LL NEVER LOOK BACK
9. THERE'S SOMETHING REALLY BIG OUT THERE
10. GO TO FOR EXTRA FUN!
And their explanations, ROT-13'd (numbers 4-7 indicate which equipment
corresponds to which racer):
1. Ersref gb gur bcra gur gehax pngrtbel obbfg.
2. Cebonoyl ersref gb zvyyvba qbyyne znqarff.
3. Frr #2.
4. Fcbvyref ner gur rdhvczrag nffbpvngrq jvgu gur fcbegf pne.
5. Gur ratvar nffbpvngrf jvgu gur ubg ebq (gurer'f n oevqtr ba gur QZQ
va uvf punyyratr.)
6. Gverf nffbpvngr jvgu gur zbafgre gehpx.
7. Oenxrf ner nffbpvngrq jvgu fgerrg fcrrqjnl punyyratr (gur zvav oht.)
8. Guvf pbbxvr vf _jebat_: frr Fryrpgvat n Qrfgvangvba.
9. Cebonoyl ersref gb ernyyl ovt enpr; znlor zvyyvba qbyyne znqarff.
10. Gryyf lbh juvpu pvgl unf gur rkgen onyy dhvpxfubg va guvf tnzr.
Combos and Maneuvers:
Combos are available during just about any non-multiball time. Combos
award increasing numbers of points. The base value starts at 1M on
each ball, and is increased by 250K by completing TRUNK. The
multiplier increases by 1 for each combo shot in sequence after the
first. Having the correct equipment for a racer also increases the
value of their combos - the base is 1M extra for such shots.
Combos progress towards Duels. To light a Duel, you need to make a
racer's combo (these are different from the 3-2-1 shots) three times
to light the Duel the first time, and four times for later Duels.
Legal combos are: Advances towards Duel:
Upper right ramp -> left ramp* Hot Rod
Right ramp -> left ramp Hot Rod
Left ramp -> right ramp Hot Rod
Upper left ramp -> right ramp^ Hot Rod
Big loop -> right ramp^ Hot Rod
Right orbit -> right ramp^ Hot Rod
Right ramp -> left orbit Sports Car
Left ramp -> left orbit* Sports Car
Upper right ramp -> left orbit* Sports Car
Upper left ramp -> right orbit^ Sports Car
Left ramp -> right orbit Sports Car
Big loop -> right orbit^ Sports Car
Right ramp -> right orbit* Sports Car
Mini-loop -> upper left ramp Monster Truck
Left orbit -> upper left ramp Monster Truck
Upper right ramp -> upper left ramp Monster Truck
Right orbit -> upper right ramp Monster Truck
Big loop -> upper right ramp Monster Truck
Upper left ramp -> upper right ramp Monster Truck
Left orbit -> mini-loop Mini Bug
Upper right ramp -> mini-loop Mini Bug
Upper left ramp -> big loop Mini Bug
Right orbit -> big loop Mini Bug
*These combos are only available when the first ramp diverts
properly to allow you to complete the combo.
^These combos are available anytime; let the ball fall past the
upper left flipper to the lower left.
Shooting multiple loops in a row pauses the combo sequence, letting
you continue it when you hit a different shot. Shooting multiple left
ramps, right ramps/magnochargers, or right orbits consecutively are
not combos and cancel the current combo sequence.
There are eight combo maneuvers. Four of them are short, three- combo
sequences that count as two combos towards a duel; four of them are
long, four-combo sequences that light a duel immediately. If you
perform a maneuver, the racer whose duel towards which it counts
will announce it.
Maneuver 1 2 3 4 Duel
Handbrake Turn L orbit Mini-loop UL ramp Big loop Mini Bug
Bootlegger Rvs L ramp R ramp L ramp Hot Rod
Barrel Roll Big loop UR ramp Mini-loop Mini Bug
Fish Tail ? ? ? R ramp Hot Rod
Back Flip UR ramp UL ramp UR ramp UL ramp Monster Truck
Power Slide UL ramp R ramp L orbit Sports Car
Two-Wheeler R orbit Big loop UR ramp Monster Truck
Dough Nut Mini-loop UL ramp Big loop R orbit Sports Car
Remember that the first shot of the sequence must be a combo by
itself. Example: to do a Barrel Roll, shoot
UL ramp - big loop - UR ramp - Mini-loop , or
R orbit - big loop - UR ramp - Mini-loop .
If a maneuver includes a loop, you can shoot that loop multiple times
in a row without losing your sequence. Maneuvers can also overlap:
if you do a Two-Wheeler, the last two shots are also the first two
shots of Barrel Roll, so then hitting the mini-loop will get the
Barrel Roll.
The short maneuvers score twice as much as the combo would if it were
not a maneuver; the long maneuvers score 4X as much.
Fish Tail is the only one left missing.. if you find it, let me know
immediately! :)
I think I've covered all the city features, so now let's go
On the Road:
When you go On the Road, you start 250 miles away from the next city.
(the 250 is different for different difficulties.) Your speed starts
at 30 MPH. Each spin of the spinner or hit on the closed taxi
increases your speed by 1 MPH, or 2 if you have cruise control. ** Max
speed is 100 MPH (taxis just don't go faster than that :) ). Making
any shot (the Nameless Scoop counts; the left orbit and open taxi do
not) subtracts your current speed from the number of miles remaining.
When the distance remaining reaches 0, the left orbit becomes lit to
enter the next city and you can no longer increase your speed from the
spinner (you can from the taxi.) ** Hitting a slingshot subtracts 1
mile from the distance remaining.
If you drain on the road, the next ball starts in the next city. ** On
Hard difficulty, this only happens if the distance remaining is 0, and
it never happens on Extra Hard. ** Road play is unavailable on Extra
Easy; after a city mode the game just randomly advances you to another
city.
When your speed reaches 56 MPH, Speed Trap becomes lit at the U-turn.
Shoot it to start the Police quickshot (see Police Chase Frenzy
below.) Video Mode can be started by hitting the open Taxi during
road play. Combos and Open the Trunk are still available, but the
Speedway sequence is not. Duels are available by hitting the Police
Scoop when a Duel is lit.
Selecting a Destination:
/Chicago\
/Salt Lake\ /Detroit\
/Seattle\ /Denver \ / Boston \
San Fran Las Vegas Memphis New York
\Los Ang/ \Dallas / \Washington/
\ Phoenix / \Atlanta/
\Orleans/
This is confusing. When you leave a city, the game randomly selects
one of the cities to the left as your destination. (if you're in
Boston, it can pick Memphis or Detroit.) If you bought a planner, the
city you select will be your destination.
If you _do not_ have the compass, this happens: Each hit of a
slingshot while on the road changes your destination, but it is always
to the west. These changes won't happen if you bought a planner.
These changes will happen during Duels and Police Chase Frenzy.
If you _have_ the compass, this happens. Now, hitting a valid pair of
W-N-S-E targets and then the compass target sets your destination. So,
if you're in Dallas, and hit S and E and the compass target, you will
go southeast to Atlanta. If you're in Salt Lake, and hit N, the W
target will not be active (since you can't go northwest from Salt
Lake.) These destination changes happen even if you used a planner!
These destination changes do not happen during Duels and Police Chase
Frenzy.
This is _contradictory_ to the cookie "With a compass you'll never
look back". In fact, a compass is the _only_ way to go backwards.
Video Mode:
If it is lit, hit the Taxi while on the road to start it. You drive
your taxi through the video mode, killing or avoiding other cars (your
choice.) You start 1000 (miles? yards? it doesn't say) away from your
destination, with 60 seconds on the timer.
After you kill 10 cars, the police car comes at you. Kill him to make
a special object appear. The special object will be a giant pinball,
or if you've already killed it this game, it'll be a question mark.
Killing the pinball wins an Extra Ball (duh); killing the question
mark scores a BRB. Both police car and special object kills count
towards your kill total.
Scoring (fixed, thanks to JWJ):
You get 500K per kill, and an extra 4M for the police car kill. Then:
Completing VM where nothing got past you, 50M perfect bonus.
Completing VM without bumping any other cars: 50M special bonus.
Completing VM bumping another car, but no kills: 10M.
Completing VM with none of the above: an extra 500K per kill.
There is a bug such that you get 500K towards your VM total as
soon as the special item appears, and you don't get 500K for killing
it. The extra 500K/kill at the end is awarded correctly in any case.
Completing Video Mode starts you in the next city.
** You can use a Nitro Boost during video mode. It makes all the cars
coming at you come much faster until either the police car appears,
you brake, or you hit another car squarely from behind (slowing you
down.)
The highest number of Video Mode kills is kept as the Video Master
high score.
Speed Trap and Police Chase Frenzy:
When Speed Trap is lit, on the road, shoot the U-turn to start Speed
Trap. The magnet will grab the ball briefly, then let it go. This is
a quickshot that starts at 5M and counts down to 1M, where it stays
for well over 5 seconds before timing out. Shoot the U-turn again
while Speed Trap is running to start Police Chase Frenzy. MagnoLock
will catch the ball and fling it into the scoop. There is a quick
ballsaver after the quickshot is started: if the magnet drops the ball
right down the middle, it'll give it back.
The jackpot value for Police Chase Frenzy is the value of the
quickshot when it was made.
PC Frenzy is a 3-ball multiball. Jackpots are collected at the
U-turn. Anytime a jackpot is lit, the mini-ramp will be raised; hit
the police car to raise the jackpot by 1M to a max of 10M. Anytime a
jackpot is collected (** unless the jackpot was collected by going the
"wrong way" left to right around the U-turn), the MagnoLock will
attempt to catch the ball and put it into the scoop. Collecting a
jackpot also gives you about eight seconds of airbag.
Hitting the taxi once lights the U-turn for a jackpot. After
collecting that, hitting the taxi twice lights Double Jackpot. After
collecting that, hitting the taxi three times lights Triple Jackpot.
Collect the Triple Jackpot, and the taxi will open.
When a ball goes into the open taxi, you play "chicken" with the
police car. "Chicken" is 15-second timer to hit the police car (the
mini-ramp will raise) for the Super Jackpot of 5X the jackpot value.
"Chicken" keeps going even if multiball ends during it. The jackpot
sequence resets back to the beginning after "chicken" whether you win
or lose.
The first Super Jackpot of a PC Frenzy also awards a BRB and
relaunches balls to bring you up to 4 with a short ballsaver. (I know
I said I wouldn't do any strategy, but when that 15-second timer is
about to expire is a _great_ time to use a nitro boost.) If all but
one ball drains while the taxi is open to play "chicken", the taxi
will close. If you hit the taxi within two seconds of it closing,
"chicken" starts anyway, and you can get the SJ and keep the multiball
going.
After Police Chase Frenzy, you are still on the road, but the distance
to the next city is now 0, and you cannot relight Speed Trap while you
are still on the road.
If Open the Trunk awards an instant PC Frenzy, the base jackpot value
will be 2.5M. If a ball goes into the saucer during PC Frenzy, it
will hold it for about 15 seconds or until a jackpot is scored.
** Police Chase Frenzy is unavailable on Extra Easy difficulty.
Duels:
When On the Road, you can start a Duel at the Police Scoop if one is
lit. If more than one Duel is lit, one is chosen in this priority
order: Hot Rod, Sports Car, Monster Truck, Mini Beetle. (This is the
left-to-right order on the playfield of the racers.)
When a Duel starts, a second ball is launched. The Duel lasts until
you win it or lose a ball. You get a pretty long ballsaver to start,
around 30 seconds. During a Duel, if a ball goes into the saucer
before the racer pops up, it stays there for about 15 seconds or until
the racer does pop up.
The shots that advanced toward that racer's duel begin flashing. (for
the association list, see Combos.) Hit either of them a total of
three times (you get 5M per shot) to raise the racer. If you have the
correct piece of equipment for that racer, the Mystery target will
also be lit; hitting it spots one shot.
Put one ball in the racer for 10M, and the taxi will open; you have
about 10 seconds to put the other ball in the taxi for the win, a BRB,
20M, and $20,000. If that timer runs out, the racer ejects the ball
back at you and you must relock it. Shooting that racer's shot while
the timer is running scores 5M and resets the timer.
When you lose a Duel, you go back on the road. When you win a Duel,
you go on to the next city, and the ball that you locked in the racer
stays there until the Big Race. If you win a Duel while the ballsaver
is still active (quite possible), the ballsaver keeps going in
single-ball play until it expires.
After all four Duels have been played, Police Duel will light. This
Duel is started and plays pretty much the same as the others. The
associated shot is the U-turn; hit that three times. Then lock one
ball in the Police scoop, and put the other in the taxi to win.
Scoring for Police Duel is double that of the other duels, and winning
lights an Extra Ball.
The Duel sequence resets after Police Duel if there are no balls
locked in the racers. If any racer holds a ball, the game waits until
after the next Big Race to reset the sequence.
** Duels are unavailable on Extra Easy difficulty, and are supposed to
be unavailable on Easy difficulty but aren't (see Bugs).
The Big Race:
When you start the city mode in San Francisco, the Big Race starts.
For starting, you get 10M, plus 10M for each car you've beaten in a
Duel, or 100M Pole Position if you've beaten all four. 100 seconds go
up on the timer, with unlimited ballsaver and airbag. During the Big
Race, each lit or flashing shot is worth 2M for each Big Race Booster
you have, or 1M if you somehow get here without any BRBs.
(** rewrote this to try to make it clearer) The Big Race is a race
with you and the other four racers. At all times, any racer that you
can see (it's raised) is in front of you; any racer that is lowered is
behind you. Racers that you have beaten in Duels start behind you; any
car you haven't beaten starts in front of you. At all times, every
racer that is lowered will be holding a ball. The Big Race is a 5-ball
multiball; balls held by racers are included in that 5.
At all times, one raised racer will be flashing. Hitting it passes it
and makes it the "overtaker". Hitting an unlit raised racer doesn't
do anything; it just ejects the ball.
At all times, one lowered racer will also be flashing. This car is
the "overtaker"; it's trying to pass you. If you go about 10 seconds
(20 if you have the right piece of equipment for that car) without
passing another car, the overtaker passes you - it raises and ejects
its ball. Hitting the shot of the overtaker resets that timer, and
may change the overtaker to a different car.
When less than 25 seconds remain in the Big Race, and you're in first
place (all racers are lowered), the taxi will open. Hit the open taxi
to win the Big Race for 100M, $50,000, and an Extra Ball. If time
expires, you lose the Big Race; you get 10-40M for fifth through
second places.
After winning the Big Race, you play a Victory Frenzy. This is a
5-ball Speedway Frenzy, except that the base jackpot is 5M. Victory
Frenzy scores are not eligible for Speedway King scores. Win or lose,
the Big Race returns you to New York afterwards.
The highest Big Race score is kept as the Big Race King high score.
The Really Big Race:
To qualify for this, you must: play Speedway Mania, play Police Duel,
win Passenger Frenzy (get a Super Jackpot), win Police Chase Frenzy
(get a Super Jackpot), win the Big Race, and have $100,000. These six
tasks correspond to the six blue lights right above the flippers. Each
of these resets after the Really Big Race (the $100,000 may
immediately relight itself.) To start the Really Big Race, buy it
from Jay's after completing all six tasks (it costs $100,000 to
start.)
Really Big Race is a six-ball multiball, unlimited ballsaver and
airbag. You must make 15 shots to win. 100 seconds are once again
put on the timer. All four racers raise. You must hit each racer
three times; the third time, it'll hold the ball. These 12 shots
total $50,000 and 50M. The 13th shot is to hit the police car (the
mini-ramp will be up) for $50,000 and 50M. The 14th shot is to hit
the police scoop for another $100,000 and 100M; the scoop will hold
the ball. You must lock the last ball in the taxi for the win, an EB,
and another $300,000 and 300M for a total of $500,000 and 500M.
After winning a Really Big Race, you play a Really Big Victory Frenzy.
This is a six-ball Speedway Frenzy with the base jackpot being 10M (so
Ultra Jackpot will be 250M.) Really Big Victory Frenzy scores are not
eligible for Speedway King. Really Big Race returns you to the city
you were in afterward.
Using a Nitro Boost will spot the first or second shot on each of the
four racers, or the mini-ramp shot if that's lit.
If any racer has a ball locked in it after winning a Duel, that racer
will not hold the ball after the third time you shoot it during Really
Big Race. This can make it seem as if you have too many balls at the
end of Really Big Race.
** Really Big Race is unavailable on Extra Easy and Easy difficulties,
but see Bugs.
Million Dollar Madness:
Once you reach $1,000,000 (** on any difficulty), the game stops
counting your money. You want to go to Jay's and buy the Big Mystery
to start Million Dollar Madness. (No qualifications other than the
million dollars are needed.) Its existence is no secret (the cookies
kinda give it away) but I've ROT-13ed the description of it in case
you want to find out for yourself. You get 1 point for starting
Million Dollar Madness, for some reason.
Zvyyvba Qbyyne Znqarff vf n gra onyy zbqr. Gur nveont naq onyyfnire
ner npgvir sbe nobhg n zvahgr. Rirel bar bs gur rvtugl-sbhe yvtugf ba
gur gnoyr vf synfuvat. Fubbg n fubg gb pbzcyrgr bar bs vgf yvtugf.
Nyy fjvgpurf fpber bar zvyyvba, gb n znkvzhz gbgny bs bar ovyyvba.
Pbzcyrgr nyy rvtugl-sbhe yvtugf gb fpber nabgure bar ovyyvba. Avgeb
Obbfg fcbgf bar yvtug sbe rnpu fubg, nobhg n qbmra gbgny.
Guvf zbqr qbrf abg raq jura gur zhygvonyy raqf. Jura lbh'er qbja gb
bar onyy, lbh zhfg rvgure pbzcyrgr Zvyyvba Qbyyne Znqarff jvgu vg be
qenva vg. Nsgrejneqf, jva be ybfr, lbh jvyy unir $0 ntnva.
Extra Balls:
You can get extra balls in the following ways. The first four are
repeatable; the rest are once per game. Lit EBs are collected at the
Police Car scoop.
Win the Big Race (lights EB)
Win the Really Big Race (lights EB)
Win Police Duel (lights EB)
Win Speedway Mania (instant EB)
One from Jay's (either buy it or win it in the Giveaway; instant EB)
Video Mode when you "kill" the EB (instant EB)
Three consecutive loops (lights EB)
Ten consecutive loops (lights EB)
10 Magnochargers (lights EB)
100 Magnochargers (lights EB)
Maxed bonus - increase multipler when you have 10X (lights EB)
Extra Ball city quickshot (lights EB)
Open the Trunk (lights EB)
JWJ reported to me that 40 U-turns lights an EB, and I had listed that
in previous versions of the rulesheet. I've been unable to do that,
though... playing and shooting for nothing but U-turns, I reached 101
without lighting an EB.
Additionally, at the end of a game, you can use credits to buy extra
balls, to a limit of 10 per game. Credits are won by posting high
scores, or winning replays, or matching. The replay score maxes at 1
billion. The maximum number of credits is supposed to be 30, but
there seems to be a bug that there is no limit. It'll only display up
to 30, but will keep track of more beyond that.
Bonus:
Shooting either lower ramp during any single ball and most multiball
play lights Advance Bonus X at the U-turn. Shooting the U-turn
collects it. Bonus multiplers advance 1X-2X-4X-6X-8X-10X, though
Bonus Bonanza can change that sequence and go beyond 10X. Advancing
your bonus when it is already 10X or higher scores 2M Multiplers Maxed
instead.
When you drain, you get this much bonus:
10,000 for every U-turn you've hit.
20,000 for every Loop you've hit.
30,000 for every Combo you've hit.
100,000 for every city you've entered.
This total is then multiplied by your bonus multiplier. The bonus is
cumulative throughout the game; the bonus multiplier resets to 1 after
each ball unless it's held.
** Difficulty Levels:
You can choose from five preselected difficulty levels, or use custom
settings (which means your high scores won't be eligible for the
official high scores website at
http://www.empire-interactive.com/propinball/brusa/hiscores.shtml .)
The manual lists all the differences between difficulties on page 20;
I'm not going to repeat all that.
The difficulty levels are actually better thought of as complexity
levels - Extra Easy is very simple, Easy adds road play, Normal adds
Duels, and Hard and Extra Hard add better control of your destinations
(because road distances are longer, and you don't automatically
advance to the next city on a drain.) Million Dollar Madness is
actually easier to reach on Normal than the easier modes because of
the presence of Really Big Race. Normal makes extra balls available
from Police Duel and Really Big Race that aren't available on easier
modes. Extra Hard can actually be easier than other difficulties
because you'll rarely accidentally advance to a city that you didn't
want. Easy and Normal both offer more Big Race Boosters than easier
difficulties, so Big Race scores will be higher. The list goes on.
My point is that the difficulty levels don't necessarily mean the game
is actually harder... it's more like the "game variations" of the old
Atari 2600 game system.
Miscellaneous:
You get three tilt warnings per ball; if you use them all and trip the
tilt sensor again, you tilt, forfeiting the current ball in play and
its bonus.
Super City Bonus: If you visit every city at least once before going
to San Francisco, you get a Super City Bonus of 160,000,000 when you
start the Big Race. However:
Ultra City Bonus: If you visit every city once without visiting any
cities twice before going to San Francisco, you instead get an Ultra
City Bonus of 320,000,000 when you start the Big Race. Note that you
must use the Ferry once to do this.
Pity award: If you are on your last ball (not a buyin ball) and your
score is less than 50M, and you hit Open the Trunk, it will always be
the Hot Rod offering $13. When you open the trunk, it will be either
a Police Chase Frenzy or a 4-ball Passenger Frenzy, depending on
whether you are on the road or not. You can get more than one pity
award in a game if your score is still low enough.
When I was looking at the program file for the list of maneuvers, I
also saw the text strings "SPECIAL" and "MOO!" nearby. These appear
to be in the Open the Trunk section (SPECIAL is between EXTRA BALL LIT
and REALLY BIG AIR BAG), though I don't know if they ever show up.
Also, there was no text in there that would correspond to Midnight
Madness in any way, so that mode most likely does not exist in BRUSA.
There's also a bunch of weird text in there like SPOILERS II, SPOILERS
III, DELUXE I, DELUXE II, DELUXE III, and SATELLITE that were probably
removed during development but didn't quite get cleaned out of the
program.
Cheats: There are no known cheats for Big Race USA, and I'm fairly
sure that none exist. If you're finding the game too hard, there are
a couple things you can do. In the options, you can increase the
number of balls from the default 3 to something higher. Or try playing
at an easier difficulty setting. Or experiment with the table
physics; lowering the angle makes the game play slower, while
increasing the flipper power makes it easier to hit many shots.
Finally, just practice, practice, practice. :)
** High Scores: After finishing a game, hold both flippers for a
couple seconds and the game will give you a code for that game. Write
down this code and enter it on the official high scores website at
http://www.empire-interactive.com/propinball/brusa/hiscores.shtml .
(This info is in the manual, but it's kinda buried in the last
section, and not many people read the manual anyway.)
Bugs:
There's a small bug with ball movement around the Mini Bug racer. One
poster reported on rec.games.pinball that, after plunging, he had seen
the ball hit the Mini Bug from above and bounce back into the plunger
lane, which the game counted as a ball-save situation. I saw a
similar (probably the same) glitch too: Just as a city mode ended, the
ball was on top of the Mini Bug when she popped up. The ball
disappeared and the game immediately went to the bonus countup. I was
mildly perturbed, to say the least. :)
There's another small physics bug: the game seems to like to make
balls jump onto the left habitrail if they go airborne around the
mini-ramp area. This is harmless, though.
** On Easy difficulty, Duels and therefore Really Big Race (since you
need to play Police Duel) are supposed to be unavailable. However,
even though combos and maneuvers don't light Duels, Open the Trunk can
still light Duels. So you can still play the other duels, get Police
Duel, and therefore Really Big Race on Easy, though it takes luck and
a long time.
** When awarding a very big bonus (greater than about 1.7 billion),
the display will sometimes glitch and report only 1.7B for the bonus,
with the last few digits seemingly random. The full value will still
be awarded. If this happens, your score will suddenly have an extra
digit 1 in it (so, say, 45900M would become 451900M.) It's only a
display bug; it'll fix itself as soon as you score another point. (No,
I don't know what happens if this happens on your last ball, so that
it won't have a chance to fix itself.)
** In the options, operator adjustments 2.3.7 and 2.3.8 (number of
credits for high scores #3 and #4) seem to be always linked together -
when you change one, the other also changes.
Credits:
Author: Erik Mooney (emooney@attila.stevens-tech.edu ,
erikmooney@altavista.net)
Many corrections and info: J. Weaver Jr. (jwjr@pobox.com)
Other contributors: Richard Fein (rfein@inch.com), Andreas "Ante"
Grabher (meda@schoch.vol.at), Andreas Dern "Derninger"
(dern@dialup.becom.net), Robert DeLoura (deloura@halcyon.com),
Glenn (riker@valinet.com).