"He got away..." "HE WHAT?"

When you're starting with one of the all time most important pinball games, High Speed, as your base, it's going to be tough to not crank out a fun game. But at the same time, you have alot to live up to! Luckily for us, The Getaway: High Speed II, is up to the task.

The basic PF is very similar to High Speed in layout, insert placement and art design. But now it's dominated by the Supercharger, a captive loop that just SLINGS balls around it and down a ramp to your left inlane. There's also a new ramp in back that sends balls to a lock on the right side (kinda like Rollergames) when it's in the down position. So while it's not the dead on same like Pinbot/Jackbot, it is very reminiciant of High Speed. But now you get DMD graphics and digital sound! The main play tune is a version of La Grange that actually suits the game very well, and the multiball music sounds like an update of the High Speed theme, which is cool. More speech calls than before, but reusing the classic police dialogue ("Dispatch, this is 504...") keeps the nostalgic feeling going. Finally, while the good old flasher is still there, it has a new cabinet toy joining it... a "shifter" shooter, that can be "shifted" up and down during gameplay and used to control your speed in the (very cool) video mode.

Getaway is one of the early DMD games, so while it may not have the bells and whistles some of the later ones do, it's a heck of a game, and of course being a design by Steve Ritchie the flow and gameplay are top notch. Sometimes it's a bit unforgiving, but it's got a ball saver and besides, as Skull (and Arnold) says, "Play better!"

It's one of my faves, and I certainly recommend it if your a fan of fast action pinball!