A very underrated game by an underrated game designer (Oursler).
When waxed, cleaned and set steep, this is a mean machine that rewards accurate flipper play and brutally punishes bad shots. The center drop target bank especially requires care (and requires you to use one flipper or the other consistently when hitting particular drops or the ball will be rocketing down the right outlane before you even have time to blink). Upper playfield is excellent, with 6 drop targets, 3 standups and a spinner that are ALL instrumental to good scoring. With 3 ways in/out of the mini playfield, ball control is important and just mashing the flippers quickly won't cut it. The wide body design is well served in this machine considering the 3 unique areas of play and the out-wide locks for multi ball.
Backglass and playfield art is pure 70s-80s awesomeness. Many complain that "its a dragon/hydra-thing, not a scorpion". Don't be so literal. It's the name of the weaponized hovercraft-boat-thing fighting the monster. Make sense? Absolutely not. But that's part of the fun of it! My only complaint here is the cabinet art is pretty bad.... But so was almost every cabinet in the Era....and who plays the game for the cab art anyway? As a plus, the red/yellow/green cabinet does at least stand out.
Sound is pretty blah, no voice, no music and little variation. That said, the sound goes crazy during a countdown timer multiball (along with a nice lights-out start to it) that really amps things up and increases the challenge. And the multiball is hard-as-hell since ball control is so important and just keeping it alive without accurate shots is a quick way to an outlane drain.
All in all, a really fun game. Game times can be long with accuracy or insanely short without. A good change of pace in a collection that can improve your skills, but would be hard to justify as a stand alone.