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From: bulko@ut-sally.UUCP (William C. Bulko)
Newsgroups: net.games
Subject: Old pinball favorites
Message-ID: <1715@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Apr-85 19:00:47 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.1715
Posted: Thu Apr 25 19:00:47 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 03:12:21 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 40

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Anyone remember Mata Hari?  It's pretty old, but it wasn't one of those
with the mechanical counters (i.e. it used 7-segment displays).  It's
definitely my favorite, with Eight-Ball probably running a distant second.
Mata Hari was interesting to me because it gave you a choice of three 
different "success strategies":
(1)  Clearing two banks of targets was worth something like 50,000 points
     each time;  the first time, it also lights special, and awards a
     replay each time afterwards.
(2)  The playfield (which was laterally symmetrical) had a large loop
     (sort of an inverted isosceles triangle with rounded corners), with
     rollovers "A" and "B" on the left and right legs, respectively.  With
     a good shot, you could send the ball from a flipper up one side, across
     the top of the playfield, and back down the other side, scoring an
     A and B pair, and catching the ball with the other flipper.  Each A-B
     pair bumped a counter worth increasing points, followed by extra ball
     and special.
(3)  A drophole at the top of the playfield incremented your bonus multiplier
     and gave you 3 ponus advances, so hitting it was a good way of winning
     games by points.  The drophole was in the middle of a concave "dish",
     which made it harder to predict the direction of the ball's motion on
     near misses.
I never got bored with this machine, since I rotated between strategies for
a change of pace.  We used to play this a lot at the UTEP Student Rec Center
when not in class.


_______________________________________________________________________________
		    "To err is human;  to admit it is not."
Bill Bulko					Department of Computer Sciences
The University of Texas      {ihnp4,harvard,gatech,ctvax,seismo}!ut-sally!bulko
_______________________________________________________________________________
-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
		    "To err is human;  to admit it is not."
Bill Bulko					Department of Computer Sciences
The University of Texas      {ihnp4,harvard,gatech,ctvax,seismo}!ut-sally!bulko
_______________________________________________________________________________