Terminator 2: Judgment Day

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The UNofficial TERMINATOR 2:
Judgment Day Rule Sheet
Compiled by Dean St.Antoine

"TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY" is registered trademarks of Williams Electronic Games Inc. © 1991 Williams Electronics Games, Inc. Motion Picture Elements: © 1991 Carolco Pictures Inc. Terminator, Endoskeleton and Depiction of Endoskeleton are trademarks of Carolco Pictures, Inc. All rights reserved.

NOTE: These rules are compiled from hours on end of continuous play of "Terminator 2" and are as accurate as possible to the author's best knowledge. If there are any discrepancies, please notify the author.

OBJECT OF THE GAME

This game does not have one single objective, it revolves around many different objectives. Any one objective can be singled out and concentrated on to get a good score. Scores over 200 million require using more than one, possibly all objectives.

STARTING THE GAME

One to four players can play. New players can enter the game by inserting coins and pressing Start until the end of the first ball; after that, pressing Start aborts the current game for all players and begins a new one.

TRIGGER SKILL SHOT
(formerly plunger skill shot)

The plunger has been replaced with a heavy duty gun grip. You must pull the trigger at the right time to hit the moving target on the 5 bank. Successful hit scores 1 million points. Each successful hit after that is worth 1 million more than the last hit. (on a 3 ball game w/7 extra balls won, the 10th trigger shot would net you 10 million)

RAMPS

Cyberdyne Systems Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Cyberdyne Systems Skynet Command Center are hereafter referred to as Left and Right ramps respectively.

AUTO-FIRE

At the start of a ball or when multi-ball is started auto- fire will light for a short time (operator adjustable). When lit auto-fire is a feature that automatically saves a player's drained balls by throwing them back onto the playfield. This is to prevent 5 second ball times from occurring. It is especially important during multi-ball when balls will be lost in just a few seconds typically.

The operator has the option of also lighting auto-fire when the drop target is knocked down to prevent center drains when shooting at this key shot.

RAMP SHOTS AND PAYBACK TIME

Shooting ramp shots with red arrows lit advances "Security levels" lights (yellow circles). Originally both lights are lit but after either ramp has been made the first time, you must then alternate ramps to light more security circles. Consecutive ramp shooting will award you with a MILLION for each consecutive shot. When all ten Security circles are completed you advance into a high scoring "PAYBACK TIME" mode for 20 seconds. (operator adjustable time) During payback time there are 6 shots worth 5 million. Theses 6 shots can be made repeatedly and there is no required order that you have to hit them in.

  1. Up the left escape route and into the cup at the top.
  2. Up the left ramp shot.
  3. Up the right ramp shot.
  4. Up and around the chase loop on the right side.
  5. Hit the drop target under the endoskeleton.
  6. Complete the 3 green times lights above the bumpers.

MULTI-BALL

Shoot and knock down the drop target, then shoot the ball into the ball popper, the ball popper will fire the ball to load the cannon. When the cannon is loaded with a ball, the cannon swings out from its "Home" position. Fire Cannon by pulling trigger on gun grip when the cannon passes the lit white stand up target. Hitting lit target scores Multi-ball.

When Multi-ball is scored (by hitting lit target with an accurate cannon shot), two balls are shot out onto the playfield automatically. For a short duration "Autofire" will be on.

JACKPOT and SUPER JACKPOT

During Multi-Ball, the object of the game is to achieve Jackpot and SUPER Jackpot, (50,000 points). The player must load the cannon by shooting a ball into the ball popper hole, behind the drop target. At this point the player is guaranteed an opportunity to shoot for a 1X Jackpot with the moving cannon, but the cannon will NOT be loaded until the other balls are drained or locked in the lock holes. If the player can manage to get another ball into one of the remaining two lock holes he will be guaranteed a 2X Jackpot shot. If all three balls are locked the cannon will load for a 3X Jackpot shot. Maximum points for Jackpot 1X, 2X, and 3X is 10, 20, and 30 million respectively.

Regardless of the number of balls locked, the player must have 1 ball in the ball popper to qualify for a Jackpot. When the other 2 balls are either locked or drained, the game says "Get the Jackpot" the ball popper then loads the cannon and the cannon swings out to shoot at the targets. If the player shoots a lit target, then the player receives a 1X, 2X, or 3X Jackpot depending on the number of locked balls as explained above.

If the player hits a 2X or 3X Jackpot, he may then shoot for the SUPER Jackpot. While at least 2 balls are in play, the player must reload the cannon with one of the balls in play. The game then says "Get the Super Jackpot" and the ball is popped to load the cannon. During the firing of the cannon for SUPER Jackpot the lit target is no longer a stationary target. It is moving up and down while the cannon is also in motion. It's a very tough shot but well worth mastering for the 50 million points received for a direct hit. If you managed to keep the other ball(s) in play you may repeat this last step for multiple SUPER Jackpots. Truly one of the best Super Jackpot sequences to date, my hat is off to the people responsible for this master of confusion.

CHASE LOOP FEATURE

The game starts with the chase loop score value lights (red rectangles on the right side of the playfield) at the lowest value (250,000 points) flashing. When the player shoots the ball around the chase loop once, he receives 250,000 points, the next rectangle in the line begins flashing (500,000 points) and the chase loop million light is flashing. If the player makes another consecutive chase loop shot re receives 1 MILLION consecutive bonus points in addition to the 500,000 points lit. If the player should make another chase loop shot immediately after the second, he scores 2 MILLION consecutive bonus points and 750,000 points lit. The player can continue consecutively in this fashion to light the 5 MILLION value. Once the 5 MILLION light is lit, it remains lit and continues to award 5 MILLION points for chase loop shots for the remainder of that ball. With each new ball the chase loop value resets to the original starting value of 250,000 points.

With the glass off I tested the limits of this millions plus feature of consecutively scoring the chase loop.. it did not seem to have a limit as my 101st shot netted a whopping 101 MILLION points. However I doubt anyone would be able to hit this shot more than 20 times in a row no matter how good they are.

ESCAPE ROUTE FEATURE

The escape route feature consists of a row of six rectangular inserts on the left lower side of the playfield, the kickout hole at the top right of the playfield, and the red 3 bank of stand up targets in the middle of the playfield. Each time the player completes the red 3 bank targets, the rectangle features advance in an upward direction and are lit in a flashing mode. The player shoots the ball in the top kickout hole to collect the bottom-most flashing feature. It is possible to have all or some of the rectangles flashing, but the player must shoot for the top kickout hole to collect the values in an upward consecutive fashion

The player has the entire game to light and collect these features because the game recalls the let features from ball to ball. At the 4th escape route feature (extra ball), the 3 bank of stand up targets go to a liberal timer mode, forcing the player to complete the 3-bank before the time runs out, and all target arrows go out. When the top value, or "10 million" is collected, the feature starts over at the "security pass" level with a much more aggressive timer. Lights in order they are collected are:

  1. Security Pass - lights 1 security level.
  2. Hold Bonus - holds over bonus and Multiplier.
  3. Light Flipper Lanes - lights flipper return lanes to qualify Hurry-up (on left) and Video Mode (on right).
  4. Multi-Ball - begin standard multi-ball.
  5. Extra Ball - Scores and extra ball.
  6. 10 MILLION - 10 million when lit.

DATABASE FEATURE

Database is a random feature that contains a possible 16 values that a player may collect "randomly" [computer overrides not withstanding]. When the Database is lit, the player shoots the ball into the lower left kickout hole; the game pauses briefly for a display of "Terminator thought" and selects on of the 8 displayed values. The possible values are:

1) Extra Ball 9) 500,000
2) Light Extra Ball 10) Video Mode
3) Light Hurry-up 11) Chase Loop Advance
4) Auto-fire 12) Security Level
5) Special 13) Bonus X
6) Light Kickback 14) Light Special
7) 3,000,000 15) 1,000,000
8) Multi-ball 16) Hurry-up

My main gripe here is that the game really messes with you if your score is getting to high... anything over 80 million and yer damn lucky if you get anything other than number 9 or 11. And not even listed you can get the real ripper of 100,000 "big points". The computer is also told to help the weaker player out so it wont be such a romp and discourage the guy from playing again. Extra ball is the most common help to a player not doing good against a better person. If you're going to have a random element in a game KEEP IT RANDOM!

BONUS MULTIPLIER

A bonus is scored and stored in "Terminator 2's memory". The longer a ball is in play the more bonus points he receives. Each time the three lanes at the top are completed, the bonus X is advanced from 2x to 8X. Somewhere depending on the scores being placed on the machines as a whole, the game will light up the "skill extra ball" for completing 6X or 8X. The drop target scores this extra ball. When "Hold Bonus" is lit, all Bonus and Bonus Multipliers are carried over to the next ball. If Hold Bonus is achieved on the 3rd ball, Bonus is added twice.

HURRY-UP (can you tell this is a Ritchie game yet?)

Hurry-up is a big-points feature that consists of a "points time down" starting at a value of 15 million points and ends at 3 million for the last 3 seconds of the 15 second count down. The sooner the player collects Hurry-Up (by shooting around the chase loop when lit), the more points he collects. The feature can be lit by scoring the 3rd level of the "escape route", or lit randomly by the database feature.

VIDEO MODE

(give it a chance before condemning video in a pinball!)

Since Terminator 2 incorporates a Dot Matrix Display with good resolution, a playable though short "Video Game" is offered to the player. It consists of Terminators which must be scored (killed) by moving a cross hair target sight on the display. The cross hair can be moved left and right with the left and right flipper buttons. The video game is over when the terminators shoot the players 3 times or all the terminators are eliminated by the player. If they are all eliminated you get a bonus. Special items in the video game:

  1. Endoskeleton Head - worth bonus points
  2. Flying terminator plane from the future - worth bonus pts.
  3. Extra Ball box - hit this fast falling item for an extra ball. Note: it doesn't always show up and mostly when it does you are not close enough to take it out, but it is really nice when you do score it!

MECHANICAL FAILURES

There is only a couple of problems with balls getting stuck. The major problem is during multi-ball when you have a ball in the popper and the drop target is hit and is supposed to reset fast enough to not allow another ball into the popper area. Quite often the ball will make it past the target in the split second it takes to reset and you're stuck with 2 balls behind the target. This really isn't a major problem as the game will shortly find that nothing is going and load the cannon for you. The major drawback is that if this happens during payback time your timer will expire before it realizes that you are in this situation. So either don't take that final shot to start payback time during a multiball or be very accurate with your multiball and keep them away from the drop target.

SETTINGS

Replay start: 15 mil to 250 mil (factory 30 million)
Replay Boost: 1 mil to 50 mil or OFF (factory 5 mil)
Replay Percent: 5% to 50% (factory 10%)
Match Feature: 1% to 50% or OFF (factory 8%)
Special Percent: 1% to 10% or OFF (factory 3%)
Extra ball percent: 1% to 35% or OFF (factory 10%)
Millions Plus: ON or OFF (factory ON)
Drop Target Autofire: ON or OFF (factory OFF) very nice when on
Flipper Trigger: ON or OFF (factory OFF) make'em use the grip!
Champion H.S.T.D.: ON or OFF (factory ON) LEAVE IT ON YOU FOOL!
Timed plunger: ON or OFF (factory OFF) On kicks ball out of plunger lane if players doesn't within 1 1/2 mins.

NOTE that was just SOME of the settings I thought would be good reading.

SUMMARY

This game is sure to be a hit of the year! The only real drawback on this masterpiece is that it didn't have a worldwide release date to coincide with the movie release. (pre-production models were out, but on the whole the game didn't start on the assembly line until mid august). Steve Ritchie AND TEAM deserve lots of credit for giving us a simple playfield with the best set of rules to go with it! Operators will be glad to have an easy to clean game and players will love the rules that make this game so good. First impressions of this game were low, but once I got behind the flippers the game really sucks you in. The movie tie in was nice but this game stands up to the if you washed all the graphics off it rule it would still be a great fun to play. (was that a Yeager rule of thumb?) Anyway hope everyone gets a chance to play a well-maintained version of this and as always if anything in this file is wrong, speak up and I will make the corrections. This reflects a game set up on FACTORY settings but high scores DO make the game play harder.

Score that took the game home in a tournament: 172 million

My current high score on factory: 508 million

I have played about 10 games in the over 300 million range, and the key is jackpots 1x 2x 3x Super and PAYBACK TIME! Don't forget to cash in on the extra balls that can be obtained in four count them (4) different ways. Good luck!

Hasta la veesta BABY!

Written by: Dean St.Antoine
P.O. Box 2375
Fontana, Ca 92334-2375

Editor's Notes

  • HTML added by David Gersic dgersic_@_niu.edu
  • E-mail addresses have been expunged to prevent web-bot spamming, and Web links have been updated where possible.

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