Welcome to the first installment of my new series, RePlay ReView, where I’ll be going through the September 1987 issue of RePlay Magazine and presenting you with some of the latest, greatest coin-operated machines available for the arcade market!

The invention of the computer chip not only allowed for the introduction of video games, but it also allowed the old arcade standard pinball machine to evolve into the digital era, too. Gone are the days of mechanical rollers for keeping score; now, digital readouts tell you if you’re about to break the record. No longer restricted to just the bells of bumpers , the games had digital sound effects, musical scores, and flashing light shows that let everyone know you’re a pinball wizard. To that end, the pinball machine of 1987 looks quite a bit different from the one of 1967.

Here are the first eight pinball machines we’re going to check out…

CITY SLICKER

City Slicker is a Bonny and Clyde-themed game from Bally Midway. Released on March 1, 1987, the game had 300 machines produced during its lifetime. It’s a fairly standard pinball game with special bonuses for lighting up the letters C-I-T-Y-S-L-I-C-K-E-R or a series of six dollar signs on the playfield. It does feature a ramp that can elevate the ball to a second level of playfield where a special Uptown bonus can be acquired.

The designer of the game, Greg Kmeic, had more exciting plans for the game that would have made it feel like a real cops and robbers shootout. Kmeic wanted it to be a two-player, simultaneous game, with two opposing players controlling two different sets of flippers, both trying to get the ball past the other person – Player 1 would score points, while Player 2 just wanted to get the ball past the flippers and into the drain at the bottom. Player 2’s flippers would have been controlled by pulling the trigger on a handgun pistol grip on the side of the cabinet. Unfortunately, to save money and production time, Bally nixed the idea, but kept the bank robbery theme.

At only 300 units produced, this is a pretty rare game. So, the only video I could find of City Slicker gameplay isn’t great. But if you’re really curious to check it out, here you go:

HEAVY METAL MELTDOWN

Heavy Metal Meltdown is an 80’s hair band, heavy metal-themed game from Bally Midway. Released in August 1987, there were 1,600 games produced. This game is all about the theme. The artwork on the cabinet, as well as the playfield, is all chromed-out, lightning bolts, and rock & roll, complete with an Eddie Van Halen-esque guitar player down the center. The top of the cabinet features a boombox design for the speakers that belt out a steady drum and bass track. However, whenever the player hits a bumper or other triggers on the playfield, bits and pieces of a guitar lick play, too.

There’s a multi-ball option for this game, where the player can hit the active ball into a hopper that locks down the ball, releasing a new one onto the playfield. You can stack up to five balls into the hopper before they all release at once, which must have had the guitar solo sounding like the big number of the night.

Here’s a short video of the machine being played to give you an idea of what the game is like:

SPECIAL FORCE

Special Force is the game Chuck Norris would have in his basement. 2,750 of this military-themed game from September 1986 were produced by Bally Midway. The game has a lot of targets to aim for – from a line of tanks hidden in the jungle to random terrorists that pop-up out of nowhere. As you play, you’ll light up a series of bonus lights, and, once activated, you can hit the second set of buttons on the side of the cabinet to “launch rockets” at some of the targets. The game has a lockdown feature that will take your ball hostage and then you have to hit a special target to release it for a multi-ball game. If you hit your ball up the ramp, it winds up in a circular container with a helicopter painted on the top. As the ball swirls around the circle, it acts as the helicopter blades and triggers a machinegun sound effect.

Here’s a cool video going over the game features:

LASER WAR

So, remember last time I randomly pulled Joe Kaminkow, the pinball designer for Data East, out of the yearbook lineup? This is his first game for Data East. And it’s Data East’s first pinball game ever! What a weird coincidence.

Laser War was a Laser Tag-inspired game manufactured by Data East from May 1987 until February 1988, for a total of 2,569 units. The game itself wasn’t anything too unusual – lots of flashing lights, some digital speech and sound effects, a ramp that activated a light show on a laser gun turret at the top – but it did feature a pinball first – full digital stereo sound including a subwoofer. Early units also came with an LED “laser light show” topper that throbbed and warped like a WinAmp visualizer from 1999, but it was deemed too expensive for mass production, so only about 500 games were released with the light show.

Here’s a video of the laser light show that came with some of the early units:

And here’s a video of the gameplay:

HARDBODY

The 80’s obsession with working out made its way to the arcade in this bodybuilding-inspired game from Bally Midway. 2,000 units of the game were produced starting in April 1987. The only real innovation with Hardbody was the use of Bally’s “Flex-Save Lanes” on the outside perimeter. As the ball heads down one of these lanes and is sure to wind up in the drain, the player can act quickly by pressing a second set of buttons on the side of the cabinet to move flexible metal walls up and reroute the ball back into the main playfield. This feature was also used on Bally’s Dungeons & Dragons and BMX games.

The big draw for many is that the game was endorsed by Rachel McLish, a professional female bodybuilder who won the inaugural Ms. Olympia contest in 1980. Photos of her are featured prominently on the game’s translite.

Here’s an amazing review and gameplay video on YouTube:

PARTY ANIMAL

If Animal House was literal and then made into a pinball game, the result would be Party Animal. This game from Bally Midway, released in May 1987 with 2,250 units produced, featured a wolf in a Hawaiin shirt and sunglasses, cheetah girls in biker shorts, and flamingos in trucker caps, along with a jukebox that would play up to eight different songs, which you can change by hitting special targets.

The game’s translite showed our favorite party wolf holding up a big glass of beer and yelling “Rock Me!”. But if you were running a more family-friendly establishment, the game came with a “home” sticker that could be applied over the beer mug, turning the yellow beer to brown and labeling the mug “Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer” instead. Pretty clever, I have to say.

Here’s a short gameplay video so you can check it out:

STRANGE SCIENCE

Taking a cue from 1985’s Weird Science, Bally Midway’s Strange Science was a game based around the idea of a mad scientist swapping the brain of his pet monkey with an attractive young woman who stumbled upon his lab. Strange Science was released in November 1986 and 2,350 units were sold.

The concept is laid out in a multi-page flyer written and drawn by Brian Colin, an artist and animator who created a handful of classic video games for Bally Midway, most notably the monster mayhem game, Rampage.

The technology of the game isn’t anything too fancy – there are a lot of ramps and targets and special bonus areas like the Atom Smasher that can create a multiball game if you play your flippers right. However, the presentation of the game is a blast, with some really wild artwork, plenty of light-up areas, and neon light accents that made it really unique. Here’s a really good review over on YouTube:

ARENA

Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja have been captured by an enemy king. For his amusement, Conan and Sonja are tossed into an arena and forced to fight a vicious, winged demon to the death. This is the basic concept for Arena from Premier Technology/Gottlieb, released in June 1987, with a total of 3,099 units made.

The main novelty of the game is The Pit, an elevated, circular area at the top of the playfield that is the first place you enter after launching the ball. Inside the circle are Skeeball-like rings with different point values and a hole that drops the ball onto the main playfield below. The lowest ring is worth 25,000 points, the next one up is 50,000, the third one is 75,000, and the final ring, which is really just two pegs that are spaced just barely wide enough for the ball to fit through, is worth 100,000 points.

The other cool feature is a ramp that winds up in a metal railing (pinball people call this a “habitrail”) that drops your ball back into the playfield.

The translite on the cabinet is very late-1980s, featuring the photographs of a man and woman wearing slinky, leather armor and swinging around their Medieval weapons, superimposed into a painting of the boss monster of the game and the surrounding arena.