Fruit Machine Chat

Also known as your personal pet hates. They don't have to be something logical like a whole game or a particular pub, landlord or type of customer. Something more small-scale really.

My main one is the 'Follow the Pattern' game on Big Match/Big Match World Cup, where the 5 cigarette card-style pictures of old players rotate in a certain pattern. I normally get the other skill games every time, apart from maybe the one with 8 country flags instead of 3 or 4 on the World Cup variant, but if I'm going to lose on a skill game it's that one that gets me every time, usually on the second instance of it when there are 8 to 10 rotations not 5.

My other one would be the comic character questions on Millionaire 2006 (Beano, Dandy, Beezer and Topper or whatever they are). There must be literally hundreds of them, they occur as low down as the 500 point question and I'd be amazed if ANYONE knew more than say 30% of them. Grrrrr...

mine is punters who go onto a previously vacant quiz machine when the barman has just started pulling my pint.

inside the games it would be screens which are only slightly skewed: no problem for most games but it makes WU/WC/TT 10x harder

unknownpseudonym wrote:mine is punters who go onto a previously vacant quiz machine when the barman has just started pulling my pint.

Ooh yes, definitely that one. Often you've already checked out the pub to see that the machine is free as you are on the way to somewhere else and had someone been playing already or had the machine been turned off, you'd never have bothered. Some guy put about 8 quid through that Pyramids card game after appearing from thin air while I was hoping to grab a few quick games on the way to the train recently. Somehow it always seems harder to bear when they are a true punter, particularly when they only want to play endless games of some non-paying skill game. At least with a decent player you can quickly decide to give up and move on.

The only thing worse would be a drippy couple who appeared from nowhere to do this!

Everything so far listed is very annoying, I agree.

To add my thoughts:

- playing with others and you have a hunch at the answer but another gives a firm but different answer - you go with them because to do otherwise would seem impossibly arrogant only to get the question wrong;

- to extend Nil Satis' BM point, any otherwise playable game with one aspect you have an inexplicable weakness at - I remember a game called Pinball Wizard years ago which was a Maygay Big Break clone, but where I couldn't reliably do the spot the bonus game, so therefore lost out on loads of Prize Ups, Bonus Answers etc.;

- badly placed machines - amazing how many pubs squeeze their machines into some ridiculously small alcove or right behind where a load of people sit, so you have to maneouvre yourself into position and feel very self-conscious pushing past everyone;

- "retreating" machines - you have a game offering big cash prizes, f*uck it up, and instead of getting another equally easy game next go, it suddenly goes back into non-paying mode, and the chance for the prize goes begging.

other things that get on my tits are:

Quiz machine next to a pool table so some twat is asking you to move every 2mins.

Music being played too loudly.

Oval Gamesnets where there is nowhere to put your drink other than precariously balancing it on the back if it is a narrow glass.

Machines that won't take the coins after you have wasted money on a drink. I just don't buy a drink now if I think it will go unnoticed.
This also avoids the problem of punters jumping on it while you are at the bar

Others

Itboxes that refuse to take an honest quid thus making you question whether someone has slipped you phoney money. Yet it then accepts a different quid first time. and has no problem at all with Polish Zlotys...

Trivia for dummies- not enough to blag your way thru the spoilers you then have to have an eyesight test before you get your quid...

Bully - when the end game just rotates on black and flashes the red up for a zillionth of a second

Hangman 2- I dont know why but Ive actually got into 'learned helplessness' mode with this one. The final question to win the dosh is usually some stinker of a spoiler and I have now gone on a run where Ive guessed wrong about twenty times on the trot. Its become my bogey game.

How could I forget? Top of the list at the moment has to be the crazy bug on Millionaire 2006 - twice more last night...

Mine are the morons who leave a pound in the machine and then wander off to the loo or the bar and expect the machine not to be played. I just jump straight on the machine and pretend not to have noticed.Also the twats who put a pound on the machine and expect you to get off as soon as you have finished your current game. Also the moron who keeps talking to you , often a kid (who shouldnt be allowed in pubs anyway)and drives you to distraction. Lastly the person who dares to touch the screen when I am playing it - when I play its MY MACHINE and you are risking a broken finger by proffering it (unless you are bigger than me!)

cool wrote:Mine are the morons who leave a pound in the machine and then wander off to the loo or the bar and expect the machine not to be played. I just jump straight on the machine and pretend not to have noticed.

Are you that desperate to get on it?

Cardinal Richelieu wrote:Are you that desperate to get on it?

Time is money!

vaginalbob wrote:

Cardinal Richelieu wrote:Are you that desperate to get on it?

Time is money!

Too true.. too true

unknownpseudonym wrote:mine is punters who go onto a previously vacant quiz machine when the barman has just started pulling my pint.

inside the games it would be screens which are only slightly skewed: no problem for most games but it makes WU/WC/TT 10x harder

if it were not for quizzers I would hardly drink...

the most annoying thing is when you are queueing at a bar and they take sooooooooo long to serve you, you get more and more stressed in case someone else takes the machine

I've not bothered buying a drink at the more busy wetherspoons a few times in LOndon and no-one cares. The real managers aren't there anyway.

The old Millionaire bug where you continued at £1 with all your bonuses and Chris said 'Thanks for Playing' and gave you a £1 which pushed the prize structure to 32,000 for the £1

Machines sited next to the toilet door so you get a whiff every time somebody goes to the pub

Going into pubs and finding some nerd playing Word Up for hi-scores when I could be on the machine winning real money.

QuizMaster wrote: Going into pubs and finding some nerd playing Word Up for hi-scores when I could be on the machine winning real money.

I can assure you that the money WU pays out is as real as any you might get from a trivia(l) game.

My pet hates are simple,

1) People lurking around, waiting for you to finish playing because they think that they have some "right" to get on the machine.
2) People who jump onto the machine whilst you go to the bar for change, even though you leave your drink/girlfriend at the machine, and credit on it. How many Sh*t Boxes have you seen that refuse to take notes?
3) People who scream for the doorman when you point out their failings to abide by normal social rules. Jeeez, it was only a slap in the mouth.