Saturday Morning Gaming: The Black Knight 2000
That song. That song that called from across the bar. The choir singing, the Black Knight yelling “Give me your money!”
The table itself? It had *TWO* levels.
Check this out:
There were several features on this that made it my 2nd favorite machine of all time. The raised level with the loop-de-loop. The lower level with both a kickback on the left and a magna-save on the right. (It always feels like the game is playing fair by having those, instead of cheating by having side gutters in the first place.) The U-Turn in the middle of the board. Each of those, when you were *ON*, were easy ways to get up to winning a free game. I think my personal record of the upper-level loop was four times consecutively and I did the U-Turn about a dozen times in that same game. Multiballs and jackpots… I think I was only ever a perfect wizard for one game with that machine, but that one game was *AMAZING* and being able to go back and replay the table while being serenaded by the choir is worth the price of the table.
It’s being sold in a three-pack with Earthshaker (a game I’d played before) and Banzai Run (a game I hadn’t). Both are also amazing.
Earthshaker is a fun game that has the main conceit of the entire table rumbling during the multiball. It was a *GREAT* gimmick in person and if your controller has haptic feedback turned on, you’ll be able to re-experience it to a smaller degree.
The third machine in the pack is Banzai Run and it’s not that surprising that I’d never seen it. It was one of the most expensive machines that they made due to the fact that it had a second level in the top of the machine itself. Like, if you’d hit the ball up to the elevator, it would lift your ball and you’d play in the backbox itself.
I’ve played the machine a couple of times so far and while it’s amazing to think about playing this in real life, you can kinda see (if you have realistic physics turned on) why the game never really penetrated that far into the market. The physics are *SO* different that you’re not going to be able to get a whole lot done before your silver ball spills back out to the lower level.
But it’s an amazing third game for the pack anyway.
Oh, and it’s on sale.
I know for a fact that I’ve plonked more than $10 into Black Knight and more than $2 into Earthshaker. Banzai Run is just a bonus.
I would be remiss in not mentioning that some deranged genius out there mashed up Kanye West’s “Power” with the Black Knight 2000 song to make “Black Power 2000”.
So… what are you playing?
