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Coleco's Pinball Construction Set and Hard Hat Mac featured two high quality games on one media. As an added bonus, with Pinball Construction Set, you couldAUFG Product Review 
 
by R.H. Mitchell 
 
Product: The Excellent Arcade 
By:  Renegade Software 
 
Coleco's Pinball Construction Set and Hard Hat Mac featured two high quality games on one media. As an added bonus, with Pinball Construction Set, you could design your own pinball layouts using an extensive toolbox of programming bits and pieces provided as part of the package. 
 
Renegade Software has taken advantage of Pinball and has produced a freeware contribution called the Excellent Arcade. This disk includes ten different pinball games, and is available through Steve Major's 'The ADAM Connection' at a cost of $14.95US. 
 
One thing I like about this offering is the presence of a 'readme' file on the disk indicating where it has come from, and how to use it. So often, these disks arrive without any indication of who produced them and where they came from.  With the Excellent Arcade, you know exactly where to send your questions, comments, and your contribution, because Steve Major has provided his address. Let's have a look at the program itself. 
 
It's a self-booter. You load your disk or data pack and pull the reset switch. The familiar Pinball Construction Set introductory screen will appear, followed by a menu of the games available. The ten choices available are easily selected using the up and down arrow keys followed by <return>, and very quickly you're into your selected pinball game. At this point, you use the Smartkeys to select a one or two player game, and away you go. If you've used the Pinball Construction Set demos, you'll have no trouble following the action. 
 
Here are the Game Titles: 1) Deep Space; 2) Red Hot; 3) Baron; 4) Egypt; 5) Fast Food; 6) North America; 7) Clown; 8) Bones; 9) Distortion; 10) Castle. 
 
Each of these games has something a little different to offer. In Deep Space, your ball will disappear forever if it comes near the black hole. I've yet to discover the roles of the two space vehicles there. One looks strangely like the Starship Enterprise, and the other is definately from Arthur C. Clarkes's 2010. Each time the fall strikes them, there's points awarded, but certain parts of each ship light up when hit, others do not. You've also got to watch out for some invisible bumpers in this one. They'll get you when you're not looking. 
 
In Red Hot, the idea seems to be to stay out of the 'ZAP' zone where your ball will also disappear. In Baron, you play with two balls, and the bumpers are hidden in the clouds.  Watch out! In the game Clown I found it was all too easy to get caught between the two sets of flippers and hit nothing of value at all. The last game on the menu, Castle, seemed to be the most difficult of the bunch. This one features a castle at the centre of the board, the sun overhead and one small cumulus cloud at one side. If you play your ball right, you can set up some interesting bounces between either the sun or the cloud and the castle roof, picking up points each time you hit. Beware of the castle door. This is another spot where you lose! 
 
My favourite was the game called Bones. This one sets up a rather large skeleton in the middle of the board. Each time your ball touches him you get points. If you can jockey your ball up in between his ribs, it'll bounce back and forth between ribs forever, accumulating for you maximum points with minimum effort. 
 
The graphics in the Excellent Arcade are just that...excellent. The author seems to have taken full advantage of the capabilities of the Pinball Construction Set in coming up with some very good layouts. There is one criticism to be offered. The speed with which the ball moves in all games was often not quick enough to sustain my interest. I found that I spent a lot of time waiting for the ball to travel between one point and the next. Now I understand that you can use the Pinball Construction Set to adjust your gravity to various levels in designing a game.  The authors of the Excellent Arcade might want to take another look at that aspcect of their product. 
 
The other improvement that could be made is to beef up the 'doc' file just a bit to include some explanatory detail on each of the games. Where are the spots that get you the points? Where are the ones to stay away from? What's the object of each game? Those who are pinball buffs may not need such explanation. I'm not, and it would have enhanced my enjoyment of the games. 
 
Despite these two minor points, the Excellent Arcade will make a fun diversion for those who like pinball games, and is well worth the modest price. If you're interested, contact: 
 
The ADAM Connection, c/o Steve Major, P.O Box 562, Champlain New York, 12919.  time waiting for the ball to travel between one point and the next. Now I
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