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FAMILY GUY |
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Following on from our first pictures of the game, now we have a whole ton of pictures from the secret test location in Chicago courtesy of TheKorn and Web Wide Video.
First, a better look at that cabinet artwork.
Next, an overview of the playfield.
Now the obligatory warning about the game not being finished. This is a test game running version 0.44 software. Some hardware and many software features are not implemented fully or correctly, so there are some rough edges in the pictures and several gaping holes in the rules, but there is still plenty to whet our appetites. Our tour begins at the flippers and works in a clockwise direction.
There's a centre post in lieu of a ball saver. The post is activated at the start of the game and again by the Death drop target.
So while one outlane has a special award, the other has a "not special". The inner inlane raises the Death drop target to enable the centre post.
The first character we come to is Meg. She has a lane on the left ending with a standup target. There didn't appear to be any rules written for Meg yet.
Above Meg is Chris who also has a lane ending in a standup. The ramp return runs above the Chris lane and the Lois shot flows around to exit through the Chris lane onto the upper left flipper for a shot at the Evil Monkey jackpot. Just to the right of the Chris lane is a single Death drop target. Hitting this enables the centre post between the flippers.
The ramp entrance has a dropable Evil Monkey target much like the ghost on the centre ramp on Rollercoaster Tycoon. Hitting this scores the lit award value and advances towards Crazy Chris. Regular ramp shots advance towards an extra ball at the left captive ball. There are also four drop targets to the left of the ramp entrance. Knock these down three times to light Fart Multiball as illustrated by the 1-2-3 inserts above the flippers. The lower drop target is also the skill shot.
The Drunken Clam Mystery hole in the pop bumper area awards points, extra balls and can even complete family members. It can be made directly from the left flipper or from the pop bumpers. The Evil Monkey jackpot shot actually loops and exits through the Lois lane. The beer can doesn't raise or lower but it does register hits. Hammer away at it until the lit beer mode begins.
The lit beer mode is changed by the pop bumpers. There did not appear to be any rules for the XXX targets at the time or writing.
The Stewie targets are used to build the time available on the mini-playfield.
The mini-playfield is a time-based game using the seconds built up on the Stewie targets below. There is a single small sized ball which is autolaunched between the flippers while there is still time remaining. The slingshots do not have kickers and the only active parts of the mini-playfield are the flippers which are of a new, thinner design to more accurately represent a scaled-down pinball game. There are standup targets, a 2-way loop which lights different letters depending on the direction of travel and a ramp. All shots apart from the standups are registered with optos rather than rollover switches. Completing all letters to spell out the family members begins Stewie Multiball. Otherwise, no points are scored on the upper playfield.
Stewie normally faces left but when the mini pinball game starts he rotates round to face the mini-playfield.
Those two captive Newton balls look interesting - as though they are supposed to feed each other - and yet the post prevents that. Curious. Anyway, shooting the captive balls advance P-I-N-B-A-L-L which, when completed, lights Stewie Multiball at the scoop.
The spinner on the Lois lane is used to light the TV modes above the flippers. 25 spins lights the mode while the scoop starts it. The scoop also starts Stewie Pinball on the mini-playfield and starts multiball modes. The Pirate standup didn't seem to do anything in this release.
The game is a fairly low scoring affair at present, which is unlikely to change with future software revisions. It appears modes can be stacked with multiballs and several multiballs can run concurrently. You can't play Stewie pinball during a multiball though.
And that concludes this more detailed look at Stern's newest game. Thanks again to TheKorn and Web Wide Video for the pictures and the information about the rules and gameplay.
© Pinball News 2006 |
