This game's ruleset is dominated by one particular end of ball bonus strategy. The left ramp, shootable from either flipper, feeds the left in lane. A left in lane -> right ramp or right orbit combo scores a Throwing Spike. The third Throwing Spike award is Spinner Millions, which increases the value of the spinner just left of the right ramp to 10,000,000 points' worth of end of ball bonus per spin for the rest of this ball. Whale on this spinner for as long as you can. Boost this strategy by completing top lanes for bonus multiplier, advancing to the 5th Throwing Spike award for Hold Bonus, or earning Bonus X, Hold Bonus, or Collect Bonus from the appropriate slots on the Cyberspace Grid where balls are locked.
If you are playing on a Johnny Mnemonic that has had the spinner value reduced or the spinner removed altogether to nerf this strategy, focus on playing Yakuza Strike as often as possible (hurry-up mode that starts with each completed set of 3 shots to each ramp), locking balls in a tic-tac-toe line to double all multiball jackpots, and shooting orbits to spell Johnny or Mnemonic which starts a 20-second Frenzy mode where all switches in the game score 15,000,000 points.
Pressing the launch button will autoplunge the ball to the top lanes. One of the three top lanes is flashing. Use lane change with either flipper to move the flashing light to the lane that the ball will roll through. All skill shots award 5 Gigabytes; skill shots also score 25,000,000 the first time, then 50,000,000, then 75,000,000, then 95,000,000 for every skill shot starting with the fourth. Skill shots are only available at the start of each ball, or immediately after playing Power Down wizard mode; skill shot chances are not given after a lock, as the game will send the ball all the way around and down the left orbit on that plunge.
The left ramp can be shot from either flipper and always feeds the left in lane. When the left in lane switch is triggered, the right ramp and right orbit are lit for Throwing Spike for about 5 seconds. Throwing Spikes give the following awards in order:
Once Light Extra Ball is earned, no more Throwing Spike awards can be given for the rest of that ball. From the start of the game, progress on Throwing Spike awards will be carried from ball to ball, but once you have received Light Extra Ball once, the game will reset your Throwing Spike progress at the end of every ball. If you are focusing on the Spinner Millions strategy, as well you should if playing on an unmodified game, it may be worthwhile to get all the way to Light Extra Ball on the very first ball of the game to ensure that Spinner Millions can be obtained on every future ball with just three Throwing Spike combos.
Ramp shots score 15,000,000 points. Hit a ramp three times to light the red triangles in front of it. Do this on both ramps and Yakuza Strike will instantly begin. This is a 35-second long hurry-up. All 7 shots in the game (both ramps, both orbits, the spinner lane, the center mode start lane, and Crazy Bob's saucer) will be lit orange for Yakuza Score, which starts at 60,000,000 and counts down to 25,000,000 before timing out. Collect the Yakuza Score as many times as you can from whatever shot is most convenient; nothing unlights after being collected. Yakuza Strike can be brought into any multiball or started during any multiball; doing so is extremely valuable (can easily be worth 1,000,000,000 points or more). Starting with the third play of Yakuza Strike, the game will require you to alternate between the two ramps to make progress rather than simply requiring three shots to each ramp in any order you like.
Ramps that are not lit for Throwing Spears, Combos, or during the Yakuza Strike mode will score a Video Frame. This is worth 4,000,000 points in end of ball base bonus. Collecting 8 of them lights an extra ball at the left orbit. Supposedly, collecting 50 video frames "completes the set", but I have no idea what this means or does, and it's frankly not a reasonable goal to try for in any setting.
The center lane starts modes when lit. It is lit at the start of the game, after a ball is locked for multiball, or by shooting Crazy Bob's saucer when no mode or multiball is running. Which mode will start is semi-random, indicating by the flashing light on the playfield which changes every few seconds. There are 5 main modes. All of them have a base value of 30,000,000 points and 6 Gigabytes if you were to drain immediately, but aside from that, they work like this:
After successfully completing any mode, the next trip to Crazy Bob's saucer will score 200,000,000 points and a Power Item.
After playing all 5 main modes and collecting 300 Gigabytes from around the game, the center lane will be lit for Power Down wizard mode. This is a 4-ball multiball with unlimited ball save. The score display will show a bar corresponding to each of the game's 7 major shots: from left to right, they are left orbit, left ramp, Crazy Bob's, center lane, spinner lane, right ramp, right orbit. The power levels corresponding to each of these shots will decrease somewhat randomly. Lit shots score points equal to the number of shots still lit times the total power remaining in all lit shots, which seems to be about 350,000,000 at the start of the mode, but the game doesn't tell you anything about exactly what you're scoring until the summary at the end. When a shot's power runs out, it will unlight for good. If you collected a Power Item from Crazy Bob while completing a mode, you can shoot Crazy Bob's saucer during Power Down to refresh the power meters of all lit shots at the cost of one power item. When all shots power off, the balls drain and the mode ends; all main mode progress will be reset for you to work through again, though you will keep the 300 Gigabytes collected during the game.
Starting a mode lights the center lane, spinner lane, and right orbit for Cyberlock, but only if those shots are not being used for a main mode if one is in progress. Shooting any shot lit for lock will cause the ball to become stuck to the hand mech in the back of the game. Use the flipper buttons to move the hand like an arcade crane game, then press the launch button to get the hand to drop the ball into the grid of nine saucers in the back right of the game. In addition to the regular flipper buttons moving the hand left and right, there are additional buttons on the sides of the cabinet that move the hand forward or backward as indicated on the table apron.
You will receive an award when you lock a ball in this grid depending on which saucer you chose. The 9 possible awards are the same every game, but they will be in different places each game (they will be in the same places for all players in the same multiplayer game, however). The very first time you lock a ball in the game, the display will very quickly show you which saucer corresponds to which award; the only other way to find out in advance what goes where is by shooting Crazy Bob's saucer, which will tell you what award is at one random location. The awards are:
Locking three balls anywhere in the grid starts multiball. Each position that a ball can be locked for multiball will put a jackpot in a different place when multiball starts:
#1: right top lane #2: right orbit #3: Crazy Bob's saucer
#4: center top lane #5: right ramp #6: left ramp
#7: left top lane #8: spinner lane #9: left orbit
Balls locked in the left column of the grid are fed to the bumpers; balls locked in the center column are fed to the left in lane; balls locked in the right column are fed to the right in lane. Jackpots at the top lanes or Crazy Bob's are worth 30,000,000 points. Jackpots at the ramps, orbits, or spinner lane are worth 50,000,000 points. If the three balls you locked to start multiball make a tic-tac-toe line, those jackpot values are tripled to 90,000,000 and 150,000,000 for the entirety of multiball. (These details may be slightly wrong: let me know if they are.)
In most cases, the spinner lane and right orbit will send a ball all the way around the back of the table and down the left orbit. The lower left standup target lights Access Jet Bumpers, which activates a diverter that redirects a ball making one of these shots to the bumpers for a few seconds.
When not lit for anything else, shots to the left orbit give letters in Johnny and shots to the right orbit give letters in Mnemonic. Completing either word will reset all letters in both and start Frenzy, a 20-second round where every switch in the game is worth 15,000,000 points. This is a good time to shoot the spinner very hard or end up in the pop bumpers for a while.
The right in lane lights the left orbit for Hit Me for a few seconds, which scores 25,000,000 points. If you reflex multiple consecutive shots into the left orbit, each subsequent one scores 20,000,000 more than the last.
Johnny Mnemonic has a conventional in/out lane setup. The left in lane lights the right ramp and right orbit for Throwing Spike awards for a few seconds. The right in lane lights the left orbit for Hit Me for a few seconds. The right out lane can be lit for Special by the grid's mystery award. The left out lane has the Mnemonic Recovery, a drain shield that will give you the ball back if the ball drains out the left out lane when lit. If it is not lit, the Recovery can be relit by one of the Grid mystery awards or by hitting the large yellow standup target in the lower-middle-right (?) two times. Going down a lit left out lane when ball save is running will still use up the Mnemonic Recovery, even if you would have gotten the ball back from the ball saver anyway.
Bonus is calculated as 4,000,000 points per Video Frame collected during the game, plus 5,000,000 per Combo made on that ball, plus 10,000,000 per Spinner Millions spin registered on that ball, plus 100,000 per Gigabyte earned during the entire game, all times bonus multiplier. Most pieces of the bonus will be 50,000,000 points or less, but the Spinner Millions can easily be 9 or 10 figures; I've seen it be over 3,000,000,000 points on its own before, and it is affected by the bonus multiplier! Bonus multiplier is earned from completing the top lanes or the Bonus X lock grid award. Max bonus multiplier is 4x; trying to increase the multiplier past that will score 50,000,000 points the first time and an additional 10,000,000 each subsequent time, max of 100,000,000. The first time during the game that 4x bonus is achieved, the left orbit will be lit for extra ball.
If Hold Bonus was lit on the previous ball, the last ball's held bonus is added to the current ball's bonus at the end, and is not affected by multiplier. Since there are two ways to light Hold Bonus- the 5th Throwing Spike award, or the corresponding lock grid award- earning both will light Hold Bonus for both the current ball and the next one. Hold Bonus does carry over bonus multiplier as well as the full base bonus value. Bonus can be collected mid-ball as one of the lock grid awards as well.
If you did not make a lot of progress on Spinner Millions during a given ball, the bonus will not be worth a meaningful amount- a couple hundred million points, tops. If you were able to go to town on Spinner Millions, the end of ball bonus cna be worth 10,000,000,000 points or more, which is a ridiculous total even at this level of score inflation, so don't tilt a ball as it's draining and do try to collect your bonus from the grid if possible.
There is considerable compensation software for if the hand mech that would lock balls in the grid is out of order. In this case, locks are all virtual, and lock shots will always come down the left orbit. If Crazy Bob's is shot at such a time where it would normally tell you the location of one of the grid awards, it will instead just give that award to you. If you have further details on this, let me know so they can be included here, since the hand is considered to be one of the most prone-to-break-down toys in all of pinball.
The game manual lists the point value for a special in competition/novelty play to be 1,000,000 points, but there's simply no way this is correct. I would expect a special to be worth 500,000,000 points similar to JackBot (also a Williams game from 1995), or possibly even 1,000,000,000 points.
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