High Speed (pinball)


High Speed is a pinball game designed by Steve Ritchie and released by Williams Electronics in 1986. It is based on Ritchie's real-life police chase inside a 1979 Porsche 928. He was caught in Lodi, California on Interstate 5 and accused of speeding at.
It was the first Williams game to feature a jackpot to be collected within the multiball.
A sequel was released in 1992 called The Getaway: High Speed II.

Design

The machine went through several iterations of design.
This is the first Williams pinball machine to use an alpha-numeric display; but due to the high cost of these displays they were only used for the top two displays, with the two lower displays numeric-only displays. An alphanumeric display had previously been used in Hyperball, a 1981 Williams arcade machine. Python Anghelo designed the backglass so the score display is in the dashboard of the radar unit in the police car. The police are shown chasing a red Lamborghini Countach with a blonde woman as a passenger; this car has the license plate KINGPIN, a nickname of Steve Ritchie. The speed 146mph is used in the backglass artwork.
The game was originally designed without background music, but after Gottlieb Premier released Rock the decision was made to add it.
The playfield artwork was designed by Mark Sprenger and the numbers on the police cars - A8, W11, S81 - spell the initials of his son and birthdate in a similar way to on Space Shuttle.

Gameplay

The main object of the game is to turn the main stoplight from green to yellow to red by hitting the nine stoplight targets. Shooting the ball up the ramp or into the eject hole also spots a stoplight target. Once all nine have been lit, the objective is to shoot the ball up the ramp again, thus "running the red light," and starting the police chase mode.
To escape the police, the player can either shoot the ball up the ramp again or by lighting all nine stoplight targets again and then shooting the eject hole, starting multi-ball. Once multi-ball begins, all targets, spinners, and bumper shots increase the Hideout Jackpot. To win the jackpot, the player must shoot the ramp once again.
Another main feature of the game is the Freeways; one is located in each of the left and right orbits, denoted by spinners. Shooting either one of the two inlanes or making a loop around one of the orbits lights a Freeway, and the player then has 5 seconds to shoot the lit orbit again, scoring the Freeway value, increasing from 25,000 to 100,000 points, and eventually lighting an extra ball.
Shooting the ball up the ramp also increases the bonus multiplier from 2X up to 5X, any additional shots beyond 5X activate the BONUS HELD.
Once the jackpot has been won, the player can then attempt to light all nine stoplight targets again, and doing so lights a special, which can be collected if the ball drains in the correct outlane.
This game is the first to use "automatic replay percentaging", a system where the score for a free credit or extra ball is adjusted for the skill of the players who have recently played it.

Production

During its design, High Speed was jokingly called "High Cost" by some rival Williams engineers due to its then-high production cost. The advances in the mechanical design that went into High Speed, coupled with the machine's popularity, led to many machines being kept in service much longer than was previously the norm. The play surfaces of the machine were not initially given as much attention, leading to many High Speed machines seeing service to this day in extremely worn condition. Williams rapidly addressed this issue by making mylar playfield covers available and later adding hard clear paint coats to their playfields. Canadian specialist Classic Playfield Reproductions produced an officially licensed High Speed 13-color Reproduction Playfield, which shipped as limited edition in 2014.

Reception

In a review for Play Meter Roger Sharpe awarded it 4+/4, calling the game an "exceptional effort" using technological advances to create an entertaining package for the player.
Before release, High Speed was "immensely successful at test locations". High Speed was one of the games that helped revitalize the pinball industry, which had become stagnant due in part to the video game crash of 1983. High Speed sold 17,080 units. It was so popular that it convinced Disneyland's arcade to add pinball, a first in the park's entire history.
Pinball designer Pat Lawlor and pinball programmer Dwight Sullivan stated that High Speed is one of their favorite games.

Game quotes

  • "Okay buddy, Pull over!"
  • "Dispatch, this is 504. We're in pursuit, over."
  • "Roger 504. Apprehend them."
  • "Dispatch this is 504. Suspect ran a red light. Over."
  • "Dispatch, this is 504. He got away, over."
Upon starting multiball, the game pauses and plays the following conversation:
  • "Dispatch, this is 504. Suspect got away, over."
  • "504, this is dispatch. He what?"
  • "He got away."

Machine messages

  • "Light is red."
  • "Run red light."
  • "You got away."
  • "You escaped."
  • "You win jackpot."

Digital versions

Rare adapted High Speed into a video game of the same name for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was published by Tradewest in 1991.
A licensed version of this machine was released on The Pinball Arcade for multiple platforms in 2014. Its successor The Getaway: High Speed II was also released as an additional machine for this collection. Both machines were delisted on due to the loss of the Williams license.