Back to F-14 Tomcat info page

Review: Pinballreviews.com on ??/??/????

Game: F-14 Tomcat
Design: Steve Ritchie
Art: Doug Watson
Year: 1987
MFG: Wms

	
        Reviewer  Rudy  9Ball  Drac  Buzz  Doc  Jimbo  Total
  Art: Backglass  -     7.5    7.5   8     6    5      6.75
  Art: Playfield  -     7.5    7     4     5.5  6      6
           Sound  -     8.5    9     11    6    7      8.25
Playfield Design  -     8.5    6     6     6    5      6
           Rules  -     8.5    8.5   5     6.5  8      7.25
       Longevity  -     8      7.5   4     5.5  4      5.75
          Totals                                       6.75

9ball

Pluses:
Very fast and furious game with many cool features like the Yagov "in your face" kicker, multiball lock up and release sequence, light show & sounds. Good rules & playfield layout made this pin a solid addition to the '87 Williams line up. If you were playing an F-14 in a dark arcade you were definitely attracting a lot of attention with all the lights flashing!

Minuses:
Not the fault of the designer but most F-14 playfields used sub-par glue for the lamp inserts resulting in them lifting up and creating "mini ramps"® sending the ball flying everywhere. A few other games had similar problems including High Speed & Funhouse. Sample F-14's had a row of clear lens flashers that would blind the crap out of you. (Production games used colored lamp covers to prevent the potential rampant epilepsy attacks caused by the clear ones).

Drac

Pluses:
Terrific sound makes you think you're in the middle of a war on an aircraft carrier in the cockpit of an F-14 awaiting takeoff. Very fast ball kicker as a result of shooting ball into left-most orbit is very exciting as is the multiball

Minuses:
Rules aren't as deep as many Williams' pinball games (keep shooting the right orbit to hit the upper right saucer and you'll do fine), but the fast,exciting game play more than makes up for it.

Buzz

Pluses:
Fast and furious with the best system 11 sounds around. Awesome light shows.

Minuses:
Games turns over WAY to easy. Very simplistic ruleset with uninspired jackpopts. Butt-ugly Watson artwork.

Doc

Pluses:
Good light shows, fast action, multiple flippers

Minuses:
More minuses, than pluses on the game. I'm not a big Steve Ritchie fan and after High Speed this game was a let down. Never could get into playing it. In fact, there was one at an airport I use to fly into almost every week, and I would rather sit in the waiting room than play this game.

Jimbo

Pluses:
Actually a nice pf layout...gotta love the top loop around. I always find it fun to try to continually loop the top loop! Great game if you like flasher bulbs...I love flasher bulbs..the more the better. I can remember playing this game just to 'light up' the bowling alley. It was an attention getter. Then kids would walk up and watch...then I was able to sell all the credits I had racked up! =P Good sounds too...Killing Yagov was exhilerating!

Minuses:
Too many actually...Overall art package is pretty bad...especially the bg. Very shallow rules....good for learning how to spell TOM CAT! Easy to get bored with this one. Also too easy to turn over...scoring is a little too high for a 7 digit game. Maintenance wise this game is horriffic! Meltdowns are common. I guess too many flashers/coils pulling too much current. I tried to like this game but it was definately no High Speed!!