A great pinball adventure awaits!

How'd they do it?

Another very popular pinball machine, even more so with the hype surrounding the fourth George Lucas blockbuster film set to release in May 2008, is of course Indiana Jones! It's right on par with pins like The Addams Family and Twilight Zone and high on many collectors wishlists. And rightfully so! The machine, designed by Mark Ritchie (indeed Steve Ritchies younger brother) has managed to squeeze all the fun parts and quotes from three Indiana Jones movies in one great pinball adventure! If you liked the movies, there's a lot to like about this pin!

Indiana Jones is one of the great machines of Williams' "SuperPin" line of games, an impressive series of widebody pins released in the 'golden' 1993-1994 period which included games such as Twilight Zone, Star Trek: TNG, Road Show and Demolition Man.

Crispy DCS Sounds

Indiana Jones was also the first game equipped with the crisp sounding Williams DCS sound system. Back then, this system (which featured 4 channels of 16 bit sound) was a true revolution on the pinball market. In a noisy pub or bar the difference may not have been directly noticable but in fact the quality was a huge leap forward and nowadays, with more pinball machines in private gamerooms, DCS really pays off! Personally I think the quality of this sound has still not been beaten to this very date and playing a DCS machine is a real treat to the ears!

Path of Adventure

Ok, enough about the sound, let's talk about features. As said before, Indiana Jones is a widebody machine and this is not without reason. Although the machine -funnily enough- only has two regular flippers, the amount of features put in it simply wouldn't have fitted in the regular cabinet. The most notable of these features is the "Path of Adventure", a player-controlled tilting mini playfield in the upper left corner of the table. Controlling this little playfield (with the flipper buttons) is a pretty hard to master technique and since the switches that need to be hit on this mini playfield all take part in the wizard mode, it adds to the lastability of the game. In other words: you won't easily master and finish the game. Unfortunately the "Path of Adventure" is also one of the mayor culprits of problems with the game. Due to the complexity of its design it has always been prone to breaking down and often called an operators nightmare. In home use, this will not be a big problem once you get it to work well, and maintain your game. You should however pay attention to this specific part of the game when you are buying an Indiana Jones because if it's broken it's often not an easy fix.

Ball-spewing idols

The great six-ball multiball is an adventure on its own. On the right side of the playfield is a beautiful rotating idol head which houses the balls that have been locked. Upon the start of the multiball (and during some other game modes as well) the idol seems to be spitting out an endless amount of pinballs and each time it does this, a roaring 'elephant' sound can be heard. Balls are fed to the right flipper at high speed and this makes for an interesting multiball to say the least.

Modes, modes, modes

The greatest feature though, are the 12 modes of the game. They wonderfully represent the three movies and are diverse and fun to play. There's Castle Grunewald where you have to give the captive ball a good pounding, Tank Chase where orbits have to be shot repeatedly, Three Challenges where targets on the mini-playfield need to be hit, Monkey Brains a rather nasty mode with burping sounds and all, Steal the Stones another mini-playfield challenge, Survive the Rope Bridge featuring the great right ramp show which goes all the way round the table to the left flipper (at high speed), Get the Idol based on shooting the center droptargets and the sinkhole behind it, Streets of Cairo a finding mode (make various shots until you find Marion), Well of Souls my favourite mode, a frantic 6-ball multiball!

And then there are video modes. Not one, not two but three of 'em: We've got the Raven Bar: move crosshairs with flipper buttons and shoot bad guys. Choose Wisely: Cups are shuffled around and you have to drink the right one (or die in a classic animation) and the most fun Escape in the minecart where you have to navigate a minecart through tunnels and ever increasing speeds.

Highly recommended

All in all, Indiana Jones is high in the top 100 and it belongs there! This pin is fun for the whole family, with plenty of action and a ruleset that will not bore you quickly!

Buying tips

Here are some general things to look out for, apart from the usual stuff, when you are buying an Indiana Jones:

• Make sure the Path of Adventure mini playfield works! Removing the playfield glass to do so will help. There's also a test menu option to control the mini playfield. The mini playfield should move without stuttering and you should be able to send the ball both down the left and right paths.
  
• Cabinet sides are often faded since the cabinet art is mostly red, yellow and orange (the colors that fade the first). Stickers for this are available but don't come cheap! So if looks are important to you, be sure to check the cabinet sides. Remember that non-faded Indiana Jones cabinets are getting very rare and these machines will often come at a cost.
• Check out the idol mechanism. This can be easily done by playing the well of souls mode.
• Play at least a couple of games to make sure the ball though opto assemblies are fine. The first versions of these opto boards were very unreliable, but changes are great that these have allready been replaced with better versions.