Anyone play in Guildford?

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:41 pm

I only ask because I witnessed a PROPER pro in one of those Beefeater-type places on Friday, on my lunch break from a job with a customer based there. This youngish guy came in and didn't buy a drink (grrrr...) but headed straight for the Gamesnet where he won £20 for 50p on Big Match (which was on a 'hard' setting as I found out when I'd had a go on there myself before my lunch arrived). He then collected his winnings and (surprisingly for me) left without playing anything else.

I realise that Big Match is one of the few games where a Jackpot is still possible but how could you get so good at one game without being able to win sufficient money on anything else to make it worth playing? I can see how the guy might be brilliant at Big Match and just travel around playing that but are there that many winnable machines around with it on, given that it must go very hard after being JP'ed - otherwise he'd surely have stayed around for another go on the same machine.

All very intriguing...

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:43 am

bizarre indeed.
1. i can't imagine guildford has enough gamesnets to warrant a trip from an alien.
2. in fact when i was last there (visiting a dear friend) it was just shitboxes in places like spoons and yates's
3. if he was a local he'd have already done the machine and, as we all know, JPs don't build up quickly enough on your home turf.
4. he was as bold as brass to go in at lunchtime, not buy a drink and bugger off after winning £20 (mind you i don't suppose anyone in beefeater cares.)
5. completely off-topic angus steak houses do money laundry, allegedly.
6. surely as NS says you win JP, buy a coke or whatever and consolidate your win with a couple of quid from other games.
7. hmm

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:04 am

Very interesting. Guildford is my home town (and I played machines very regularly there from about 1997 through to 2001) although I don't live there any more and the pro witnessed wasn't me (not sure I'm "youngish" any more anyway...) Which venue are we talking about? The Parkway on Ladymead near the A3 or the one at Burpham perchance?

My thoughts would be that maybe the guy had a strict hour for lunch and worked some distance away from the venue in question so had to be really disciplined and take the twenty and not play anything else. Maybe if it had been after work or a weekend he'd have played a few other things.

I think there's very few machines with BM left on them - they tend to be GamesNets and in the whole of London I only know three locations, only one of which I have thus far succeeded in winning material amounts from (the other two had clearly already been raided and weren't paying in any significant sense). I actually think, against my initial hopes, that BM World Cup is harder than BM. The main reason is that the game continue disappears so quickly, so any inaccuracy in playing tends to get penalised more harshly than was the case on BM.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:12 pm

It was indeed the Parkway (and it's a Brewers Fayre not a Beefeater, although I'm not sure that makes any difference!) - I couldn't have told you the name of it on Friday but I went back there today on my final day with the customer in Guildford. And the story has a happy ending too! - they had coincidentally just installed a new set of games on Saturday/Sunday which included a 'virgin' Big Match World Cup and I managed to JP that. I do find the 'Slowdown' function on there gives a non-expert like me that bit more chance of doing well on it.

The other thing that today's lunch hour confirmed is that Crazy Golf 2 is complete and utter $hite. Someone take that game outside and PUTT it out of its misery!!

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 9:56 am

i suppose that would be the fair way

, it is rough

. or els

it wood

drive

me to, erm, tee?

. i'd hazard

a guess that it will be a round

for the course

n.b. i haven't actually played it.

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:05 am

It's not very good. For those of you who remember the original, rather than having categories on the playfield, this now has a number of questions (1,2 or 3) which it will ask depending where you land. This is ok as long as you don't get the supremely diffcult hole with the round thing in the middle, because if you get stuck there you can end up having to answer a shitload of questions while you nudge your way past the disc.

Haven't seen a qualifying score different to 1000, but that's probably because nobody plays it where I go. If you do manage to qualify you get a completely superfluous endgame where you just knock out values and are offered (surprise surprise) the option to 'Deal' for a prize. I managed to get a £3 from this, but the gameplay left me so cold that I shan't be bothering again.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:12 pm

The original was a nice combination of reasonable questions and genuine skill - while the end game (putting through the 'windmill') was hard, it wasn't fixed like Bullseye or the new Battleships, or particularly that dreadful new South Park game.

This revision seems to have been based on two principles:

(i) making it twice as hard to win anything

(ii) removing any skill from the end game.

Ordinary punters will find it even harder to win anything, people like us won't play it and it will rapidly disappear from sight, one hopes. All in all, a work of genius from the developers at Bell Fruit!!

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 4:44 pm

Nil Satis wrote: it wasn't fixed like that dreadful new South Park game.

i've been finding this pretty easy to win from, the endgame is not as rigged as japseye or battleshits.

yes, sometimes it slides when not ready to pay out properly but i have had £10 in one game before and some £8s and £7s a few times]is[/i] something in this game for two in a bed.