Reports are coming in from all over the World, the Earth is under attack, an attack from Mars!

Pressing the start button of Bally's 1995 attack From Mars yields the above or one of various other unnerving quotes. Yes, it is true, the Martians have landed and they have rather nasty plans with our planet.

Attack(s)

The machine's theme looks to be affiliated with the 1996 movie "Mars Attacks!" (starring a bunch of Hollywood stars), but this is not the case.

"It is in no way related", according to George Gomez, "Brian Eddy had the concept long before the movie and it is mere coincidence that they emerged on the market within a year of each other".

Related or not, the theme has the same synopsis: The Martians land on planet Earth and wreak havoc all over the place.

City Hopping

The main idea of the machine is to visit several famous landmarks and fight the Martians who are quite busy destroying them: The Eiffel tower in Paris, The Pisa tower in Italy, The Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, The Tower Bridge in London and the Statue of Liberty in New York. Yes, this is as fun as it sounds!

The center of the playfield attention is the big Martian saucer hovering over a bank of targets. Giving these targets some good wacks results in the lowering of this assembly clearing the way to a funnel-shaped area with a single droptarget in the back. The order of what city you go to first differs from game to game and the number of whacks on the targets inside the funnel increases with each and every city.

Big points are easily scored when completing the cities (which makes "city-hopping" a technique utilised by some daredevils during tournaments). But beware! The centralised position of the saucer also leads to many balls going right down the center and that's exactly where the hole between your flippers is!

Defeat the Martians in all cities and it's time for retribution. You'll take their saucer and fly to Mars to destroy that stinking planet once and for all!

Quotes galore!

One of the main strengths of this machine are the humorous quotes. Like some of the other Bally/Williams machines from this time (like Medieval Madness and Monster Bash) the machine is really funny and mostly downright hilarious to play.

A Frenchman in heavily accented English: "Sacre bleu, the Martians are destroying the Eiffel tower", a German dude screaming: "Germany will kick your Martians butts to the moon!", a upper class English lady: "No time for tea, BLAST those Martians!" and an Italian "Mama mia, the Martians are straightening the Tower of Pisa!". Top of the bill, however, must be the over the top American general: "Get the troops ready!", "Missiles locked on target!"

While many of the quotes often got lost in the noisy arcades, at home they're a real treat! And just like aforementioned machines the varation due to the many characters in the game as well as the sheer number of different quotes keeps them funny, even after years of playing it!

Total annihilation

Back to the game. Another way of bashing Martians and hitting the high points is to start the Total Annihilation multiball. Completing all lights for the loops and ramps (labeled "capture", "big-o-beam", "tractor beam" and "atomic blaster") starts this frenzy of explosion and mayhem where anything scores points and alot of them if you can keep the balls in play for a while.

Main Multiball

More 'skill' is needed during the regular (lock three balls to start) multiball: You have to shoot each of the 5 long shots on the machine to light a sixth shot which moves positions every couple of seconds. A nice challenge which is always a kick to get to!

"Suuuupaaa Jaaaackpooot!"

Novelties

Apart from the really cool idea of sticking four plastic Martian figures onto up/down moving sticks and shaking them like crazy in "Martian Attack" mode, the machine has a feature which can only really be appreciated in the dark: Stroboscope Multiball. Remember those flashing lights in the local discotheque which made everyone dance like a robot? Well in stroboscope multiball you get to play pinball with just such a strobolight (under the main saucer at the back of the playfield). This proves to be quite hard when you're playing in a dimly lit room! Hey, and it even resulted in this pinball machine being the first ever to have an epilepsy warning sticker on it!

Wow

All I can say about this machine: Wow! The design team really hit the nail on the head with this one. It is fun, easy to play but challenging (even after owning it for 4 years). It has a killer soundtrack and some great 'Martian' music and you can play this machine for hours without it getting boring a single bit.

Well, the only negative point I can think of its price. The machine goes for well in the $3000s and sometimes even up in the $4k. But can you blame people paying such a price? The pin is quite a rare find simply because most people won't part with it (I certainly wouldn't)!

Footnote: The 'Medieval' connection

It seems like a lot of people like to compare this game with Medieval Madness, that other great game by the same design team. There are indeed a lot of similarities to the game design, ruleset and even the style of humour.

Personally, I love both games (having owned them both at the same time) and remember at first I would play the Medieval madness the most. After a while though, I started enjoying the Attack From Mars more and more. In the end I ended up selling the MM because it no longer challenged me while the Attack From Mars, to this very day, does.