A few years ago Barcrest were one of the best fruit machine companies out there. Their games were all very playable. This machine was no exception.
On the outside it was a horrible game, extremely nasty to those who didn't know how to play it, extremely great for those that did. If you tired to brute fore this one you were going to get your wallet drained very quickly! You couldn't just go lower than 10s and higher than 3s, it would kill you off almost straight away. What you had to do was step to a decent number and then you were odds on to a hi lo gamble win. This meant you needed as many steps as possible and when you ran out you had to know what to collect.
Here's a clip of the machine in a happy mood, offerening lots of steps from the bonus and giving bad numbers that step too good numbers, if that makes sense.
The machine also had some great SFX!
Getting a jackpot repeater was hard work. The only 2 ways of this were a supermode jackpot or filling the steps. Filling the steps was much easier to do. All you had to do was have a cople of step and have a couple of nudges left. Simply respining the reel would often bring in other numbers adn alot of the time hitting the 4 or 5 which would give you a huge step boost! Check the vid out.
There were some sure signs of readyness on this machine. Just from the bonus aswell. Selector was great, usually giving 4 steps but if it gave nudges someone had done something seriously wrong! With nudges you could nudge as many times as possible but as soon as the numbers were nudged in for the feature, that's what you'd end up with. Blue 7s, melons and red 7s could be had from nudges! Starting a feature with a win like this would usually give you the top. Maybe a big top, again from selector :-)
This machine and it's clones loved to do a 3 jackpot run. Jackpot was prety hard to get if you dodn't know what to look for. The 3 stand out features were reel roulette on super mode, step to nearest either super or normal and loco hold. Step to nearest was easy as, there was 1 set up where you needed 5 nudges and then enough to get to the feature. Basically you'd have a red 7 on reel 1 and reel 3, on or close to the winline. Within 5 nudges jackpot symbols could be nudged in the reel 1 and 3s winline. From this point jakcpot is there with step to nearest.
Reel roulette on super was easy enough. Just have a jckpot symbol on basically anywhere but the winline on reel 2. A slow pick of whichever win you wanted. Stop it on a jackpot symbol for jackpot!
Loco hold was a bit more complex. You had to set the reels up so that when the reels stepped round jackpot could be taken via a super hold. Sounds easy but takes a bit more setting up.
Here's a clip of this machine giving a couple of jackpots.
If on the feature you were offered supermode or boost then the machine was ready to pay. The machine was most of the time in this state due to it being a bastard to the casual punter! Hitting super mode was great, you just knew a jackpot wasn't too far away!
This machine is quite old now. Not many about anymore. Your only hope is in a seaside arcade but then it'll be on a £5 jackpot, which to be fair, isn't worth the bother. Luckly for you (and me) there is fruit machine emulation. The video is Golden Dragon running in mfme9.4, the unofficial leaked version of mfme. Te layout is a 'Classic' version. None or little graphics involved but the machines is functional. I personally created this layout, pretty much because I owned the machine for a year or so and loved it! I still to the day wish I still had it.. At least owning it gave me the chance to photo the reels and the machine. I used the reels and some one within the fruit machine emulation scene used to photos to make a DX.
If you want to have this machine running on your pc, ask me how to here of via my youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/FruitVideos
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Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Cool Games - Billy The Quid.
Not that long ago I bought this machine from Advance Leisure on ebay. Cheap machine really for a £35 jackpot machine.
First impressions were, great machine, wow, loads going on etc. I still feel the same. There really is so much going on and so many ways to win some money on this machine.
There are alot of feature not worth the time and a handful that are worth keeping an eye out for! Blue features aren't that great,
But, the red feature had some great results!
you will see in the above clip there are a few hidden gems! My favorite had to be Big Chief 4. A true skill pick of the top 4 wins, including the BTQ streak! This is also ow I got my first £105 on this machine.
Other than that there are several other streak to be had.
Personally, with it being my machine I only go for the BTQ streak. Don't mind if its red or blue. Had £105s from each.
The machine does seem to have similar routes it likes to take. When starting on the feature, if you have a bonus get rid of it right away. Having add again is bad. If you go into the middle with it you'll then have taxi, which give you an advantage. The machine will bock the middle if you keep add again.
Once you have lost this hit start. Without the add again alot of the time it spins a 9, straight into the middle. Then from here it could go anywhere but I have noticed alot of the time the next move is an 8, straight to the bonus which is ironic as you now have your taxi! Right, from this point use your taxi right away and try to get the 3 super sots next to the bonus. Hold down cancl to slow things down. Retake the bonus if it keeps blocking the super shots. Once you have the super shots and have used them go lower than the 8. Crazy I know but it's wins 98/100 of the time! Once you have taken these then spin on. It's anyones guess from this point but with 4 shuper shots knocked out you stand a real good chance of the BTQ streak, well, more than before. Alot of the time it will boot you back on the outside. Just hope that you survive and land on the arrow back in to the bonus next to the super shots. Only gamble on 1+2+3 and 10+11+12 here. It will still kill you off sometimes but it's you best shot!
This machine does have an invincible mode aswell. Easy to see, the name at the top just keeps flashing away! See video!
Another nice thing is you can play multi stake. 10p for 1 line, 30p for 5 and 50p 5 lines and all numbers in view! The top streak can be had off the 10p stake which is nice to know! See video!
The excellent thing about owning the machine is the way you can force it. Just stick loads in and take nothing. Then play away a machine that is so happy you will find it very hard not to win! Check this clip out!
It does seem you can trap the machine. Setting up an active rewind, which can only be had from the ouside and taking it there and then getting yourself on the 2 super shots. Once you spinaway from the shots rewind back to them! You can rewind back from ? aswell.
Active rewind is great to have and use. The machine will try to boot you out of the middle but the machine can loop in a way which is quite funny! Having a good number to gamble on is the key. Any other lower number and it would have probably killed me!
A good machine for home use, not so great in the arcades and pubs. Play totally different at home. Board costs aren't too much etc. If I seeone and try for a board it's always too costly and it never offers me too much. Maybe if I can find some time to delve deeper into the machine I might perfect it. This is the plan. Nothing better than buying a machine for home use and working out exactly how to play it and go out and win some money!
There are plenty more videos of this on my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/FruitVideos, so have a search in the channel for them!
First impressions were, great machine, wow, loads going on etc. I still feel the same. There really is so much going on and so many ways to win some money on this machine.
There are alot of feature not worth the time and a handful that are worth keeping an eye out for! Blue features aren't that great,
But, the red feature had some great results!
you will see in the above clip there are a few hidden gems! My favorite had to be Big Chief 4. A true skill pick of the top 4 wins, including the BTQ streak! This is also ow I got my first £105 on this machine.
Other than that there are several other streak to be had.
Personally, with it being my machine I only go for the BTQ streak. Don't mind if its red or blue. Had £105s from each.
The machine does seem to have similar routes it likes to take. When starting on the feature, if you have a bonus get rid of it right away. Having add again is bad. If you go into the middle with it you'll then have taxi, which give you an advantage. The machine will bock the middle if you keep add again.
Once you have lost this hit start. Without the add again alot of the time it spins a 9, straight into the middle. Then from here it could go anywhere but I have noticed alot of the time the next move is an 8, straight to the bonus which is ironic as you now have your taxi! Right, from this point use your taxi right away and try to get the 3 super sots next to the bonus. Hold down cancl to slow things down. Retake the bonus if it keeps blocking the super shots. Once you have the super shots and have used them go lower than the 8. Crazy I know but it's wins 98/100 of the time! Once you have taken these then spin on. It's anyones guess from this point but with 4 shuper shots knocked out you stand a real good chance of the BTQ streak, well, more than before. Alot of the time it will boot you back on the outside. Just hope that you survive and land on the arrow back in to the bonus next to the super shots. Only gamble on 1+2+3 and 10+11+12 here. It will still kill you off sometimes but it's you best shot!
This machine does have an invincible mode aswell. Easy to see, the name at the top just keeps flashing away! See video!
Another nice thing is you can play multi stake. 10p for 1 line, 30p for 5 and 50p 5 lines and all numbers in view! The top streak can be had off the 10p stake which is nice to know! See video!
The excellent thing about owning the machine is the way you can force it. Just stick loads in and take nothing. Then play away a machine that is so happy you will find it very hard not to win! Check this clip out!
It does seem you can trap the machine. Setting up an active rewind, which can only be had from the ouside and taking it there and then getting yourself on the 2 super shots. Once you spinaway from the shots rewind back to them! You can rewind back from ? aswell.
Active rewind is great to have and use. The machine will try to boot you out of the middle but the machine can loop in a way which is quite funny! Having a good number to gamble on is the key. Any other lower number and it would have probably killed me!
A good machine for home use, not so great in the arcades and pubs. Play totally different at home. Board costs aren't too much etc. If I seeone and try for a board it's always too costly and it never offers me too much. Maybe if I can find some time to delve deeper into the machine I might perfect it. This is the plan. Nothing better than buying a machine for home use and working out exactly how to play it and go out and win some money!
There are plenty more videos of this on my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/FruitVideos, so have a search in the channel for them!
Global - Hi Spirits.
I have so many fond memories of this machine. A few years ago one of my local arcades had it in in 30p £25. It was such a good earner!.
The machine itself looked really good. The sounds are great and the gameplay was really fair, even if you didn't know what was going on. If you kept forcing out for the top it would eventually give naturally or via a red board. See video!
Most of the time though it was best to head towards 2 different features, super hold and seven stepper.
Super hold was great, not only could you snag jackpot and high wins like red seven but you could take it and reboard for a much better set up. You could reboard so many times in a row. If nothing was there, nudge in the feature enrty symbols and take super hold, hold them on the winline and hope something else is closer. en a £5er would be enough for me. There was nothing better though than snagging a jackpot. Sometimes it would even only be a couple of nudges away and considering super hold was the second feature up, easy as. See video!
Another thing to go for with super hold was the hidden features. Getting the red lines was easy via super hold. This would give you a chance at a true skill hit or a random one. The true skill was indeed true skill and the top feature could be had like this. See video!
The other feature to look out for was seven stepper. This is a great feature. £8 or £15 wins could be had very easily here. You had to know your reels but it's not as hard as you think.
Reel 1. The red 7 was above the blue 7 with the feature symbol on it. The other 7 on the reel was blue and it had a red box overlaid on it. The blue 7 with the feature symbol is above that.
Reel 2. Real easy one. The red 7 is above the jackpot symbol and the blue above that then all the way back round to the red one again.
Reel 3. Just like reel 2, the red 7 is above the jackpot symbol and another red one above that. Then the blue. As long as the blue 7 was below the winline you were safe there!
If you took it and messing it up then bad move, £2 and you were quite high up. To be fair there not that much worth taking above seven stepper. If you wasn't going for that you were all out for the top.
This machine also did swap holds. Swap holds were great if you got what it meant. Hold any 2 symbols once, then again and on the 3rd time if you got a matching symbol spin in you swapped over for the 3rd hold. Didn't really work with anything above £5. If the machine was in a state where it did you have done something seriously wrong!
Unfortunatley this machine is unemulated and not likely going to be within the distant future. A 'reel' shame as Global made some fantastic machines back then. Not many but there were a few gems!
All in all, a really good machine. When perfected pleany of profit to be had!
However, do bear in mind. On 5p/10p £5 jackpot. Don't bother. The board costs are way too high and the rips are harder to get. The gamble sucks on the £5 aswell.
The machine itself looked really good. The sounds are great and the gameplay was really fair, even if you didn't know what was going on. If you kept forcing out for the top it would eventually give naturally or via a red board. See video!
Most of the time though it was best to head towards 2 different features, super hold and seven stepper.
Super hold was great, not only could you snag jackpot and high wins like red seven but you could take it and reboard for a much better set up. You could reboard so many times in a row. If nothing was there, nudge in the feature enrty symbols and take super hold, hold them on the winline and hope something else is closer. en a £5er would be enough for me. There was nothing better though than snagging a jackpot. Sometimes it would even only be a couple of nudges away and considering super hold was the second feature up, easy as. See video!
Another thing to go for with super hold was the hidden features. Getting the red lines was easy via super hold. This would give you a chance at a true skill hit or a random one. The true skill was indeed true skill and the top feature could be had like this. See video!
The other feature to look out for was seven stepper. This is a great feature. £8 or £15 wins could be had very easily here. You had to know your reels but it's not as hard as you think.
Reel 1. The red 7 was above the blue 7 with the feature symbol on it. The other 7 on the reel was blue and it had a red box overlaid on it. The blue 7 with the feature symbol is above that.
Reel 2. Real easy one. The red 7 is above the jackpot symbol and the blue above that then all the way back round to the red one again.
Reel 3. Just like reel 2, the red 7 is above the jackpot symbol and another red one above that. Then the blue. As long as the blue 7 was below the winline you were safe there!
If you took it and messing it up then bad move, £2 and you were quite high up. To be fair there not that much worth taking above seven stepper. If you wasn't going for that you were all out for the top.
This machine also did swap holds. Swap holds were great if you got what it meant. Hold any 2 symbols once, then again and on the 3rd time if you got a matching symbol spin in you swapped over for the 3rd hold. Didn't really work with anything above £5. If the machine was in a state where it did you have done something seriously wrong!
Unfortunatley this machine is unemulated and not likely going to be within the distant future. A 'reel' shame as Global made some fantastic machines back then. Not many but there were a few gems!
All in all, a really good machine. When perfected pleany of profit to be had!
However, do bear in mind. On 5p/10p £5 jackpot. Don't bother. The board costs are way too high and the rips are harder to get. The gamble sucks on the £5 aswell.
Friday, 6 March 2009
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
BWB - Red Hot Poker
Back in the 90's there were a fantastic collection of Video fruit machines. Originally on 20p £6 tokens. They were amoung some of the best machines to date. The streaks were huge and even when they were in a bad mood they still played quite well. Offered enough to keep you playing.
Red Hot Poker was pretty unique at this time. A video poker machine. Way better than any other video poker machine made since! Joker poker? No, move over!
This clip is what they were all about!
5 jackpots! Now that was one big pocket of tokens.
There was a cash repeater aswell along with other win combos. It had marked card to make you think you had the edge!
This machine did nasty things to you though. Higher than a 2, 2 lose! How can that be?
Another nice touch was the 'wild' joker cards. These would sometimes hold over and increase upto 4. If you got upto 4 and started a new game then you pretty much knew that you were going to hit a decent win!
I bought the machine on ebay from stemik gaming a few years back for only £50 + £50 delivery. What a bargin!
Stemik still to this day supply fruit machines on ebay at good prices. From all the companies on ebay their machines are by far the cleanest most looked after machines you can buy. They do tend to be a bit more expensive but you really do get what you pay for!
As with most machines I got bored of it and put it back on ebay.If I remember correctly it sold for £80! I had the machine for about a year and only lost £20 when selling it on. Can't be bad.
I'd love to own another like it. Would have to have the same prize set up. You do sometimes see others like it on ebay but they areusually all 5p play and £4 jackpots which are really not worth the time, day or money!
Overall, BWB made some rubbish in it's time but one things for sure, these were spot on!
Roll onto 2009 and theres no more playable machines out there. With stakes going upto £1 and jackpots £70 this really could be the end of the fruit machine... 50p £35 was almost a step too far but £1 a go? Seriously, the average punter isn't going to put £20 in a machine to get a feature worth £5.
Our only hope is nobody plays them and all cash boxes take a massive hit.
Red Hot Poker was pretty unique at this time. A video poker machine. Way better than any other video poker machine made since! Joker poker? No, move over!
This clip is what they were all about!
5 jackpots! Now that was one big pocket of tokens.
There was a cash repeater aswell along with other win combos. It had marked card to make you think you had the edge!
This machine did nasty things to you though. Higher than a 2, 2 lose! How can that be?
Another nice touch was the 'wild' joker cards. These would sometimes hold over and increase upto 4. If you got upto 4 and started a new game then you pretty much knew that you were going to hit a decent win!
I bought the machine on ebay from stemik gaming a few years back for only £50 + £50 delivery. What a bargin!
Stemik still to this day supply fruit machines on ebay at good prices. From all the companies on ebay their machines are by far the cleanest most looked after machines you can buy. They do tend to be a bit more expensive but you really do get what you pay for!
As with most machines I got bored of it and put it back on ebay.If I remember correctly it sold for £80! I had the machine for about a year and only lost £20 when selling it on. Can't be bad.
I'd love to own another like it. Would have to have the same prize set up. You do sometimes see others like it on ebay but they areusually all 5p play and £4 jackpots which are really not worth the time, day or money!
Overall, BWB made some rubbish in it's time but one things for sure, these were spot on!
Roll onto 2009 and theres no more playable machines out there. With stakes going upto £1 and jackpots £70 this really could be the end of the fruit machine... 50p £35 was almost a step too far but £1 a go? Seriously, the average punter isn't going to put £20 in a machine to get a feature worth £5.
Our only hope is nobody plays them and all cash boxes take a massive hit.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Project Coin - The Roll and a into to Emulation.
This machine was so good back in the day. Such a shame machines aren't made like this any more. Also, shame there's hardly any about these days.
However, a year or so ago I found one!
The clip below is just your typical machine play, not much going on but keeping you interested enough to keep going.
When you got the feature (getting 3 roll symobls on the winline) there was always the possibility that the machine would climb all the way up the cash wins, and sometime doing it more than once!
Overall, great game, great sounds. Such a shame there's none about anymore.
This is where emulation is your best friend!
You can goto a website called http://www.fruit-emu.com/. Here you can download emulators and user created machines and play them on your PC! They are just like the real thing. They actually run the machines game rom and sound cards. The machine thinks it's running but it is in fact running on a computer screen!
They are very easy to run. Even easier to get it all set up and costs nothing at all, not a single penny!
For now, here's a clip of Barcrests Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!. This classic layout was created by myself! There is also a DX version created by other users and all a freely avaliable to download via the above website.
Just to add, a classic layout has no graphics. The only graphic will be the reels and sometimes a wintable. A DX is a classic but with complete graphic lamps. It's not overly complicated to put either a classic or DX together. If you know you photoshop or paint shop pro softwares then to be fair it's all straight forward. Classics are a bit more tricky but nearly all machines that do run have a classic. There's always a need for hi res photos or flyers or in the best case machine glass scans. If you have any of these or can get some then please get in touch with me here!
Anyway, onto the video.
As you can see, although it's a classic it does in fact look quite like the machine. Laid out the same and all that. Notice how the sounds sound like the real machine, it plays like the real thing, hell, it may aswell be the real thing apart from the 120kgs of weight that goes with it!
This is one of thousands of emulated machines and that's not joke. If I asked you to think of an old machine i'd say there's a 90% chance it runs on your PC!
However, a year or so ago I found one!
The clip below is just your typical machine play, not much going on but keeping you interested enough to keep going.
When you got the feature (getting 3 roll symobls on the winline) there was always the possibility that the machine would climb all the way up the cash wins, and sometime doing it more than once!
Overall, great game, great sounds. Such a shame there's none about anymore.
This is where emulation is your best friend!
You can goto a website called http://www.fruit-emu.com/. Here you can download emulators and user created machines and play them on your PC! They are just like the real thing. They actually run the machines game rom and sound cards. The machine thinks it's running but it is in fact running on a computer screen!
They are very easy to run. Even easier to get it all set up and costs nothing at all, not a single penny!
For now, here's a clip of Barcrests Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!. This classic layout was created by myself! There is also a DX version created by other users and all a freely avaliable to download via the above website.
Just to add, a classic layout has no graphics. The only graphic will be the reels and sometimes a wintable. A DX is a classic but with complete graphic lamps. It's not overly complicated to put either a classic or DX together. If you know you photoshop or paint shop pro softwares then to be fair it's all straight forward. Classics are a bit more tricky but nearly all machines that do run have a classic. There's always a need for hi res photos or flyers or in the best case machine glass scans. If you have any of these or can get some then please get in touch with me here!
Anyway, onto the video.
As you can see, although it's a classic it does in fact look quite like the machine. Laid out the same and all that. Notice how the sounds sound like the real machine, it plays like the real thing, hell, it may aswell be the real thing apart from the 120kgs of weight that goes with it!
This is one of thousands of emulated machines and that's not joke. If I asked you to think of an old machine i'd say there's a 90% chance it runs on your PC!
Saturday, 21 February 2009
One of the all time greatest fruit machines? Pyramid!
Back in the day Electrocoin made several really good feature game fruit machines. They are amoung some of the best fruit machines ever to hit arcades.
One came up on ebay a while back, only a few miles from me so had to buy it! Although it had a 5p stake and an £8 jackpot it still played fairly well. Originally it was on 20p play with a £6 jackpot and it played so well on the set up.
On the very inside layer the Black Hole would nearly always kill you off. There was a half decent feature there called Win Series which went like this!
My favortie feature was SkillClimb. Very easy to obtain and red sevens were reachable and sometimes a jackpot, not in this case though :-)
As you can see from the clip below, the whole theme along with the sound effects worked so well. There was really so much going on. You see the reel skill feature at the end of the clip. Jackpot was a big no no on this feature but it would happily not jump on red sevens.
Spot a Win was very hit and miss, never really took it when playing in an arcade. Saw it give too many low wins! There was so many better features to go for like skill climb, reel skill, pick a win or nudge time.
Overall, great machine with a fantastic jackpot tune!
I would certaily buy another if it had a better stake/jackpot ratio!
One came up on ebay a while back, only a few miles from me so had to buy it! Although it had a 5p stake and an £8 jackpot it still played fairly well. Originally it was on 20p play with a £6 jackpot and it played so well on the set up.
On the very inside layer the Black Hole would nearly always kill you off. There was a half decent feature there called Win Series which went like this!
My favortie feature was SkillClimb. Very easy to obtain and red sevens were reachable and sometimes a jackpot, not in this case though :-)
As you can see from the clip below, the whole theme along with the sound effects worked so well. There was really so much going on. You see the reel skill feature at the end of the clip. Jackpot was a big no no on this feature but it would happily not jump on red sevens.
Spot a Win was very hit and miss, never really took it when playing in an arcade. Saw it give too many low wins! There was so many better features to go for like skill climb, reel skill, pick a win or nudge time.
Overall, great machine with a fantastic jackpot tune!
I would certaily buy another if it had a better stake/jackpot ratio!
Big Jackpots! Reel King, Fortune 500 and 8 LIner
This video is my most viewed video on http://www.youtube.com/FruitVideos
The video was filmed in the Section 16 era of fruit machines. Stakes were high! This one could be played on 10p a go all the way to £2. Crazy to think 15 years ago £2 was a jackpot on many machines! Not only that, a select few Section 16 machines could be played on £10 a go! Now that is crazy! Why it was ever allowed is beyond me! I never played one, way to risky but I did how ever buy one. Didn't cost the earth at £135 delivered to my door and still gets played quite a bit by myself after owning it for nearly 2 years!
The above is one way to snag a £500 jackpot on reel king, the other is below.
Anyhow, below is the monster Fortune 500, running on a manly £10 a spin!
The above video is running on a massive £10 a spin! Took ages to set up a real time jackpot. Real time was always the aim with this one. I have been trying to get a real time double jackpot on it for ages now and am beginning to think i'll never get one! Still, it's a fantastic saver machine for me!
Before I bought this one I bought another Section 16 machine called 8 Liner. This one could be played on as little as 50p a go all the way to £4. It had a £200 jackpot and paid alot! I had to set up a real time jackpot on this one too :-)
Sadly the machine developed an error and I couldn't find a way to fix it. Shame really, thought it was better than Fortune 500 and certainly had better sound effects!
Still, it lived for quite some time and I had many hours/days playing away, not losing a penny!
A while back now Section 16 was banned and B3 was brought in. Still £500 jackpot but on a limited £1 stake. Also only 4 machines to an arcade/bingo hall which was a great idea. Still, loop hole can be found and arcades started sectioning off areas and putting 4 in each area! Money grabbing or what? No wonder arcades in this day in age are empty compared to the crowded places they were in years gone by!
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