Ah. TX-Sector. What an oddball game. Often compared to Robo-War, a game produced just a few months later from the very same design team. What's the deal? What makes TX-Sector such a notable game?
TX-Sector came out the same year Williams released Banzai Run, Taxi, and Cyclone. YIKES. That's some stiff competition, and lets not kid ourselves: Compared against those games, TX-Sector looks like some ill-conceived machine from a 12 year old's fever dream. Seriously, what's with that backglass? Is this game worth your precious gameroom floorspace, or is it just another jukebox game with lackluster gameplay, like BK2K?
With the benifit of hindsight, we can step back and looking at it objectively. Lets get the obvious out of the way: This game's sound package is excellent. What was going on in the Gottlieb sound studio? TX-Sector's audio is brooding, groovy, and mysterious all at the same time. It offers depth so great, every ball sounds like it has a different variation on the mainplay tune, and when you max out the drop target bonus, you get a new tune variation. Speech is clear, well mixed, and never repetitive. You'll hear callouts of teleporters lost in the "infinity zone" saying "I'm Here!" and "HELP" as the ball bounces around in the pops. VERY cool.
Gameplay is another standout. Shots are all over the place here, and like it's cousin game Robo-War, valuable shots move around the playfield, so no single shot is exploitable for big points. There's a few different ways to approach the game: The most common way is to rip those lit spinners. They're valuable, but more points can be had by building your "Mega Level" and shooting for a timed teleport multiplier--but you have to be fast! That timed teleport bonus isn't easy to get, and it's only lucrative after you've built up your Mega Levels!
Multiball's main objective is to build up your mega levels (again). Each time you reach the top of the ladder, the game awards 100,000 points and collects the current Mega Level bonus. This is the only time bonus levels hold over, and carry ball to ball, so multiball is less of a "shoot a single shot for a jackpot" and more like a "shoot everything frenzy" mode. Extra balls are only lit during multiball.
The two main strategies are either to nail the lit spinner, but doing so puts the ball out of control and into extreme danger. A more focused approach is to build the Mega Levels towards LOCK and teleport the ball after dropping the "interlink" drop target for a timed multiplier that counts down from 9X. A single, well set up shot can easily be worth 1 million points this way. HUGE points for this game.
Pros:
--The super rad teleport trick is way cool
--Sound and music
--The playfield layout is pretty advanced with good balance and shot variety
Cons:
--Being able to collect a building jackpot while in multiball would give players more incentive to play it.
--Gameplay is terrifically brutal
--Playfield artwork is cool, you have a galaxy, some awesome space teleportation stuff, but why does the backglass look like a fever dream during an acid trip?
When all is said and done, I think this game was just ahead of it's time in many ways: Rules can be a little haphazard and unclear at times, but there's always good balance and shot variety. Maybe not as much strategy as Robo-War has, BUT there's still plenty to do here, and is absolutely deserving of your hard earned floor space.
London
Laurel Springs, NJ
