| Psycho Pinball | |
| Developer: | Codemasters |
| Publisher: | Codemasters |
| Genre: | Pinball |
| Modes: | 1-4 players |
Psycho Pinball is a 1994 pinball video game published and developed by Codemasters, released for Mega Drive in the United Kingdom and MS-DOS in the United States and Europe.[1]
There are four differently themed tables: Wild West (American Old West), Trick or Treat (Halloween), The Abyss (Caribbean underwater), and Psycho (an amusement park). While the first three are regular tables, Psycho broke new ground; it is connected to the others by activating certain jumpers, then launching the ball into one of the tents. The ball continues on the other table, returning to drop from the tent in Psycho when it drains. It is also the only one with a spring ball launcher and no multiball (presumably because of the potential for one of the balls to transition between tables).
Wild West is an open table with few obstacles; this makes it very difficult to make high scores, unlike Trick or Treat, which is a much more enclosed table and more ramp multipliers. The Abyss is the only one with two levels of play, and the multiball is usually reduced to two balls. To activate the multiball, the player has to trap a ball in one of the vent holes, and then knock it out of its trajectory when it is being thrown from one vent to another. It is possible, although difficult, to trap additional balls in the vents for use in a multiball.
One of its main features is minigames on each table. They range from simple panel games to full arcade sequences, all activated by hitting certain triggers, and then sending the ball to a particular location on the table. Panel games include Blackjack in Wild West; Spook Shoot (the player has to hit 20 ghosts which appear in three positions, corresponding to the three joypad buttons, or two flippers and a tilt on the PC) on Trick or Treat; Cup Confusion on Psycho (a shell game to find the letter P under one of three moving cups); or Fast Fishing (pressing the C button when fish pass by) in The Abyss.
The arcade minigames are much more elaborate and require more effort. The player is in direct control of Psycho, an armadillo, and must reach the bonus plaque.
The Trick or Treat table does not have such an arcade minigame, although early magazine previews show a minigame with brooms that never made the final game.
In the PC version there are three different games (activated in a practically identical manner):
It also adds Big Deal, a higher-or-lower card game, to the casino in Wild West (alternating with Blackjack).