Apollo 13 (pinball)

Infobox Pinball | title = Apollo 13
manufacturer = Sega Pinball


system = Sega WhiteStar
designer= Designer: Joe Kaminkow, Joe Balcer
Programmer: Lonnie D. Ropp, Orin Day
Artwork: Mark Raneses, Jeff Busch
Mechanics: Joe Balcer, John Borg, Rob Hurtado
Music and Sounds: Brian Schmidt
release = October 1995
production = ?

Apollo 13 is a 1995 pinball machine designed by Joe Kaminkow and Joe Balcer. Released by Sega Pinball, it is based in the film "Apollo 13".

Gameplay

After starting a game, you have a choice of "Regular" or "Novice" mode. "Regular" is the normal 3-ball arrangement. "Novice" is timed play; the player has 2 minutes when any drained balls are autoplunged, and after the 2 minutes expires, the game is over when the ball(s) on the field drains.

You can start a game in "League" mode by holding the left flipper button in while starting a game, and "Wizard" mode by holding the right flipper button in.

There are 9 Missions; after doing all of them, Master Alarm is lit at the right saucer. The Misions are:

*"Orbiter"
*"CO2"
*"Manual Burn"
*"Rocket 2-Ball"
*"Moon's Gravity"
*"Under Volt"
*"Life Support"
*"Docking"
*"Lite Extra Ball"

Once that the 9 missions have seen finished, will start the wizard mode "Master Alarm". It's a 40-second frenzy where every target scores 1M and adds 1M to a Jackpot that is lit at the Blastoff ramp. The Jackpot does not reset after collecting it, and it doesn't (to my knowledge) have a limit. Obviously, this round can be worth a ton of points if you have the ramp shot down.

Multiball modes

*Regular Multiball (3-balls)
*13-ball (13 balls): When the 8 BLASTOFF letters (shown below the score display) are completed (they then flash), the next multiball will be 13 BALL.

When 13-ball starts, the bottom post raises and stays up for about 10 seconds. Three or four balls are launched, and after about 5 seconds the 8 balls in the 8-ball holder are released, all at once. There is no ball saver.

During 13-ball, the Rocket is lit for Jackpots. The Jackpot values seem to be affected by the number of balls in play and the number of switch closures. My best guess is that the Jackpot = 10M * (balls in play) + 1M * (switch closures). In any case, they're typically in the 100-250M range.

After a Jackpot, the bottom post is NOT raised. This is very important, as the ball will most likely head STDM. Your options are to try to slap save it, hit it with another ball (my favorite method), or just let it go.

After 5 Jackpots have been collected, the Super 13-Ball Jackpot is lit at the ramp for X seconds. I've gotten twice, but I don't remember what it's worth (1B?). If the S13BJ is collected, regular 3-ball multiball begins.

Trivia

*It's the first pinball machine to have a multiball mode with 13 balls.

External links

* [http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=3592 IPDB listing for "Apollo 13"]