1985 Williams Comet Pinball Machine - Gameplay, Artwork, Design Video

Ladies and gentlemen this is Joe's Classic Video Games back with another cool arcade game or in this case pinball game video for you this afternoon. This is William's famous 1985 Comet pinball machine. This was designed by Barry Orsler in Python. The famous Python, Angelo, did the artwork. Check this out. They also did Pinbot and they did Cyclone and I think Barry did Dracula later on. So we had a true master design. This one is a good but it's 1985 so it hadn't got into all the bells and whistles yet but it had a had a ramp and some other cool little toys on it. Very creative game. And we just finished up so we figured we'd film a little video of it. This one's in pretty nice shape. It's not perfect or mint or anything but it's pretty pretty decent. You can see that the black has a little bit of the grain showing through on the plywood on the side but these had cool stenciled side art on it or I guess I guess that's stenciled. I can see overspray so I guess so it's got like the little wannabe Epcot ball. It's got the flying whatever you call that one. It's got the roller coaster. You can see the city in the background. The tents. You see the kid with his ice cream cone and his balloon. He's very happy. And on the back it had the Williams logo with the comet kind of thing on it. And like we had somebody talking about this the other day. They said that these weren't these weren't factory. The R and the TM. Yeah they are. It uh since it's overspray it has a uh they couldn't paint something that fine so they just made a little sticker that you put on there. So that's that. And then on this side of course it's the same just a mirror mirrored image. The same on the back box. Very cool game. I believe these I believe this was a System 9 I think. It might be 11 but I think it's a System 9. I think it was before System 11. Comet. So like I said Python Angelo did the art on this. That guy was creative as heck. I mean he came up with all kinds of stuff. And this came out before Cyclone. So just like they did on Cyclone or like he did on Cyclone the playfield is covered by all these little characters that are at the park. And you're looking down on them. So there's a guy walking with his girlfriend. There's a woman pushing a little stroller. The guy next to him has his he's going bald but he has his hair pulled back. There's a little kid holding onto the stroller with a little baby doll. And it's like this all over the playfield. So like for instance you can go up here see different people standing around pointing. Then up here there's a big robot and some kids standing around checking out the robot. Look how they did the pop bumpers. So you've got the three pop bumpers and then he's got a bunch of people standing up watching and walking up. And then you got two people in bumper cars hitting each other. It's really creative like that all over the playfield stuff everywhere. The rollover lanes at the top are like the entrance to the park. Everybody's lined up in a queue and there's people at the So crazy creative and real like a real busy look if you if you get down and look at all the detail and all hand drawn stuff of course. And then on the back glass he was famous for all kinds of very creative artwork. So you've got if you look the park is up here on the top but it's turned upside down because they're on a roller coaster and they're looping upside down. So we're to go very creative and it's flashing win 1 million. And just little things like you see this little street going through the logo tearing it apart. And on the end here there's a little face on it. Super creative so we'll check out the passengers riding. So this little brat brought his ice cream cone and the ice cream's flying back. Hit this older lady in the face and then flew back and hit this guy in the face. And then you've got a kid here who looks completely freaked out. Maybe her mom here she's freaked out and her hair is flying back and it's this old man's face. This guy's having him a heck of a time. Little kid here. So there's a lot going on in the art. Very creative. Oh and here is the man himself's signature. So let's see what else we've got here. We've got some little uh trams here. The red one and the yellow one. We've got some little go-karts here that ride around this track. We've got a little train that comes around. You can lose the ball in this weird thing here where it goes down the in lane. But if it goes down the out lane it has enough momentum that it rolls right over the rolls right over the hole onto your flipper. You've got a shooting gallery over here with rabbits and a shooting gallery over here with ducks. And then the play field has this big old ramp on it. Comes down to here. Up here you've got the corkscrew which is actually a little short corkscrew ramp that you can go either way. You can go up or down. And then over here on this side you've got this ramp that they call the cycle jump. You go up the ramp and you can make one of those three holes. If you make the last hole you can make 1 million points when lit. It's the first ever 1 million pinball shot and they were proud of it. Alright so we'll uh oh and look. Derrick Dillon. Oh and you've got a drop target here which is pops up a lot in the game no pun intended. The guy talks and yells at you the whole time. Alright so we'll read the instructions because as you know if you know the instructions it's much more fun. So this came out in 85 but it says 86 at the top because they were very proactive. Making 1-9-8-6 lights play field multiplier for timed interval. First ball two times, second ball three times, third ball five times. Alright so if you get all four of the rollovers the 1986 it'll light up your out hole bonus multiplier for a timed interval. Making the four duck bank lights the corkscrew to collect bonus. So if you get all four of these duck targets right uh whenever you make the corkscrew you collect the duck bonus. That's the corkscrew. Making the four rabbit bank lights funhouse to collect bonus. So here's the four rabbits and here is the funhouse. It's just a little saucer back in there but you can collect the rabbit bonus by going in there. This is the rabbit bonus ladder here and this is the duck bonus ladder here. Alright completing both banks activates Comet for higher scores, extra balls, and specials. So the Comet is the ramp which is a pretty pretty easy shot. It's right in the middle goes up and around makes cool roller coaster sounds and then whenever it comes over here they start screaming. Completing both banks a second or third time lights extra ball and special. So the extra ball I guess the specials are these bottom two on the out lanes and the extra ball is on the cycle jump. Dunk the dummy to advance bonus x. So this is the dummy. You have to knock down the drop target and then hit the switch behind it to dunk them and he'll start screaming at you. Hey you idiot stuff like that. One million awarded by back ring of cycle jump with red 5x and cycle jump lit. So if you get all scores times two, all scores times three, all scores times five right and you get the it says and cycle jump lit and you you get the cycle jump lit up to 200. If you make that shot just right it'll go all the way to the back land in that back hole hit that switch and it will give you 1 million points and then theoretically the game goes crazy. I haven't done it yet so I'm not sure but what a cool game. So I will uh put the glass back on it turn off the lights set up the tripod and we'll play it a little bit and see what you think. Alright folks so hopefully you got a pretty good view of the play field. I am going to uh I turned up the music a little bit so you can hear it in all of its 1985 glory. Now there's this one part listen to that. Boy that's cool. There's this one part where it makes this uh kind of falling bomb sound that just goes on and on and on and on and I think that's how it's designed but if so if it does that it's not broke it's just annoying. There it is. It'll keep making that until another another sound interrupts it. Cycle jump 20,000. That right lane is killer. We'll get better we're just getting started. Timing down it's like make that ramp shot and stuff. Alright 20,000 again. Now I'm gonna hit this drop target and then the guy will start going hey hey dummy. Turkey. Hey come on hit me. Hey hit me. I missed him. Oh not quite enough. Oh there's a there's a post in the middle so I'm gonna have to train myself to be brave enough that if I if if that happens where it doesn't make the ramp and it comes back it's going to go straight down the middle but if you if you'll let it it'll bounce off the post. Man that right out lane is killer. Let's do better this time. Oh come on with that damn right out lane. And the freaking oh I saved it. You can oh come on horrible. All right so I just proved you can nudge it back in if you start losing it down that end lane hit the hell out of the machine. Oh gotcha sucker. So that's the bumper cars. All right so now I need to start doing the cycle jump a little bit. All right I got 516,000 that time that's a little better. It looks like the first looks like the first high score is maybe 1.5 million. All right so I got the second the second spot. It's tough. All right the million shot is lit folks. The one million is lit folks. Close. Close folks. Didn't quite get it. And they took it from me too you know. They won't give it back. Damn I came so close it was bouncing around. All right that's 562,000. It's the fun house. Fun house. So damn annoying. I'm trying. Did I get? I got the second one again. It's hard to get that last one. I keep knocking down the drop target again. Not bad. All right that's 319,000 on the first ball. Yeah. Almost made the corkscrew. Just the first one. Yeah we hear you. We hear you. So hard to get that last shot. All right 681,000. I'm getting better. Let's keep going. What I need to be doing is getting more of those damn drop targets. Another good shot that I probably ought to start doing is if you go up the corkscrew backwards you're back up in the top rollovers which is about the only way to get up there. That's a damn tough shot because of the way I've got the flippers set up. It's hard to get it wide like that. See what I mean? Come on. So when you when you set the flippers up this angle here like I set it up so that the ball rolls off of this in a straight line. So that's how I always do it. That way the ball so if the ball comes this way it will roll straight onto the flipper. If you do that though it makes them a little bit higher so it's probably designed to be a little bit lower and if it's a little bit lower then you can make a little bit wider shot which would make it easier to hit this first drop target. And the same on this side. If this one was a little bit lower it would make it easier to make that bottom drop target. The only way the only way I made this gonna do is I'm gonna use the right flipper more. I've been using almost exclusively the left flipper because I like how on the left one you can catch the ball and play with it a little bit but the right one so the right one I've basically just been feeding over to the left one with but I'm gonna try to make some more of these right hand shots. Another thing you may not realize that I'm doing up at the top there there are those four lanes. You can't really see them. They say 1986 it's got a lane change so when you hit the right flipper it makes the light that's lit up change. So if the ball is going down like the second lane but that one's already lit up you can hit the flipper and it moves the lit one to the third one and then when the ball goes down the second one now you've got two lit up. So that's why I keep hitting the flipper when it's up there. Playing with it. Ball got stuck right on the edge of the of the thing. Come on man. There we go. Shake rattle and roll baby. Oh come on. All right we're gonna play a couple more. Saved by the post. You got to get good at that post thing. but I'll be damn if I'm gonna stand around and just like watch the ball go down that train thing on the left. One last game people. I had a guy knocking on the door trying to come in. I told not even be worth messing with. Come on. I'm trying to beat my 600,000. So far it ain't looking good. Damn. Didn't make it up the corkscrew. We can't go down. We can't go out like that folks. That's right. Well at least I matched on a game that's on free play. We can't go out like that folks. That's right. Even though it's been 30 minutes I'm gonna play one more game. I think this might be the one. I think this might be the one folks. My body is ready. Oh in your face. 50,000 points. Thank you. It ain't right. You got to be kidding me. They're laughing at me. Oh I made the top hole again. 200,000. That'll help. That's how you do it folks. Oh and then lost it. All right since that was short we're gonna play one more. That's right. To hell with it. It's my machine. I do what I want. Hell it's even my camera. All right that's just the first one. First one again but I didn't get any points that time. It wasn't lit. Out of the ramp. It's like airball city here folks. Damn it. There we go. That keeps working. I can't believe it. Oh we hear you. We hear you. We hear you. Here we go. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Oh I missed. Damn it. Damn it. And they take it from you if you don't get it. I thought I had it. I thought I had it man. I could have been a contender. That's enough for tonight. Bad though. Check it out. 679,000. Kind of pathetic. I'll bet you people that own a Comet are just laughing your asses off at me. Oh he only got 679,000. Oh and he thinks that he's a pro. He only got 679,000. You saw folks. I tried. I tried for 25 damn minutes. That's the best I could do. All right now by the time you see this video Mr. Comet may have roller coastered its way off to somebody else's house. We may not even have it available for sale anymore. But you can see all the arcade games and pinball machines that we do have for sale at all times on our website. Go to lionsarcade.com. Now if you're in the area stop by and see us. We're in downtown Rock Hill, South Carolina. And we got all kinds of fun stuff like this in at all times. And if you're not in the area and you don't want to buy one. Well that's cool. Just subscribe to us here on YouTube. Now don't forget to subscribe and to let us know what you thought about the game in the comments below. If you'll go look I reply to all the comments. So we will see you on the next video. Hey turkey.