So I bought a Stern Viper recently after having never played it.
I decided I wanted to buy it cause of the rarity and so other people would have an opportunity to play it at TOPL.
Having played it for a few weeks now, I have to say, Eh, it's ok I guess but not the greatest game.
First and foremost let me explain the game. The big Plastic in the center is a turret, the turret spins and the objective is to aim the turret and hit one of 8 stand up targets across the entire playfield. Each of these standups adds a Playfield and Bonus X onto the game. Get them all and you rack up 9 x across the entire playfield which is huge.
There is also a physical lock and multiball, with multiball, I don't think the multiball adds any extra value other then more balls hitting more things giving more points.
The spinning Turret in the middle of the game is a pretty unique toy (First gun turret ever?) especially for the era of machine. I like the concept of having Playfield multipliers but hate the hold over from ball to ball. The soring really ramps up once you start getting Playfied X's but it means that anyone who has a good ball 1 is basically going to win the game since they will have a huge scoring advantage over everyone else.
Menace said there was a rumor of Scott Charles making an updated ROM to fix this issue, I posted on RGP looking for that and didn't find anything. I think that would be a vast improvement in the overall gameplay as it would require the player to rack up the PF X each ball and then try and take advantage of it during the ball, rather then racking it up and then just raping the spinner over and over.
End of the day the game is ok, but I don't think it will stay in the collection for very long. There are for sure better playing games that is for sure, I'll most likely hole onto it till after the TOPL playoffs to give everyone in TOPL ample opportunity to play it and then I'll pass it along to someone else for them to enjoy.
Anyway that is my take on Stern Viper.
I decided I wanted to buy it cause of the rarity and so other people would have an opportunity to play it at TOPL.
Having played it for a few weeks now, I have to say, Eh, it's ok I guess but not the greatest game.
First and foremost let me explain the game. The big Plastic in the center is a turret, the turret spins and the objective is to aim the turret and hit one of 8 stand up targets across the entire playfield. Each of these standups adds a Playfield and Bonus X onto the game. Get them all and you rack up 9 x across the entire playfield which is huge.
There is also a physical lock and multiball, with multiball, I don't think the multiball adds any extra value other then more balls hitting more things giving more points.
The spinning Turret in the middle of the game is a pretty unique toy (First gun turret ever?) especially for the era of machine. I like the concept of having Playfield multipliers but hate the hold over from ball to ball. The soring really ramps up once you start getting Playfied X's but it means that anyone who has a good ball 1 is basically going to win the game since they will have a huge scoring advantage over everyone else.
Menace said there was a rumor of Scott Charles making an updated ROM to fix this issue, I posted on RGP looking for that and didn't find anything. I think that would be a vast improvement in the overall gameplay as it would require the player to rack up the PF X each ball and then try and take advantage of it during the ball, rather then racking it up and then just raping the spinner over and over.
End of the day the game is ok, but I don't think it will stay in the collection for very long. There are for sure better playing games that is for sure, I'll most likely hole onto it till after the TOPL playoffs to give everyone in TOPL ample opportunity to play it and then I'll pass it along to someone else for them to enjoy.
Anyway that is my take on Stern Viper.
