Spider-Man

"Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man!"

Spider-Man

Spider-Man
Date available	December 8, 2010
Category	Marvel
Based on	Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
Designed by	Mate Szeplaki
Plunger mechanism	Straight into orbit
Skill shot type	Plunger strength
Number of return lanes	5
Number of flippers	5
Outlane protection	2 low-power spring-loaded kickbacks
Number of main missions	4
Wizard mode type	Final mission and victory multiball
Number of side modes	N/A
Number of multiball modes	1 (mandatory)

Spider-Man is one of the first four Marvel pinball tables released in 2010, originally released for Zen Pinball and Pinball FX before being ported to further Zen pinball collections. Based on the ubiquitous Marvel superhero Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, this table depicts his efforts to balance his life between fighting supervillains in New York City and making a decent living as a newspaper reporter for The Daily Bugle and building a romantic relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

This is the third known major pinball machine to be based on Spider-Man, following Gottlieb's The Amazing Spider-Man released in 1980 and Stern's 2007 pinball adaptation of Sony Pictures and Sam Raimi's 2002-2007 Spider-Man trilogy.

Table overview

The upper half of the table

The upper half of the table is designed to represent the sinister hideouts of Spider-Man's biggest villains. The back of the table is an opened bank vault for Stark Insurance, where a figure of Doctor Octopus stands, poised to rob its funds. In front of this bank vault is a smaller, raised second story playfield that is typically accessed by a hook ramp, which leads to an irregular trapezoid-like dead space that constitutes its center. Two asymmetrically sized flippers line the bottom of this area, which drains down to a left habitrail that brings the ball to the upper left flipper further down the main playfield.

A ramp decorated with spider webs wraps around the hideout entry ramp and leads all the way down to the leftmost inlane. This is the left websling ramp. To the right of that ramp is a sinkhole representing Doctor Octopus, labeled the "Doc Ock Lock", that feeds the ball exit near the left inlane, and to the right of that sinkhole is another websling ramp, the rightmost one, that leads all the way down to a very long habitrail going directly to the left flipper, crossing the table's apron and skipping the inlanes en route there. In front of the upper right ramp's entry is another parallel lane blocked by a captive ball that can be hit as a target. Sometimes, the ball may travel out of this lane from the VUK from Spider-Man's apartment, hitting the captive ball and knocking it free and rolling it down the hideout's right mini-flipper while becoming the captive ball in its place. Above both of these lanes is where a figure of Mysterio typically stands.

The trapezoidal dead space of the hideout playfield covers the entrance of a central websling ramp that arcs left, emerges out of a model of Spider-Man's web shooter glove and goes all the way down to the left flipper directly, skipping the inlanes. A large orbit wraps around the hideout level, but to the right of its apex is a drop-down area where weak orbit shots bring the ball to a bumper area. The left orbit is marked with the word SPIDEY and the right side of the left orbit entrance is lined with a backward-facing sinkhole that can be shot by shooting the ball in between the three top bumpers.

Between the bumper area and the right orbit are is the right ramp dedicated to the Green Goblin, which brings the ball directly to the right flipper, skipping the inlanes. Directly behind the right ramp is the entrance to the toy model of Spider-Man's apartment, which contains a vertical upkicker (VUK). A one-way upper loop dedicated to J. Jonah Jameson, editor-in-chief of The Daily Bugle, has an entrance running parallel to the VUK entrance under the right ramp, which travels all the way to the reverse sinkhole near the left orbit. Four target posts can be seen flanking the entrances to the hideout ramp, the center ramp and the bumper area. One of them will be lit at any given time, and after several seconds pass, the lit target post will cycle across the four target posts.

The lower half of the table

In front of the left orbit is the upper left flipper, used to shoot the apartment VUK. The ball heads to this flipper when it drains from the upper level hideout playfield via a habitrail. To the right of the right orbit is a sinkhole that can be accessed with a left flipper shot, or by making a weak plunger shot at the start of each ball. It also works as a VUK that pops the ball onto the right ramp's exit habitrail.

There are 5 return lanes, 3 on the left and 2 on the right, that spell THWIP; the two outlanes are guarded by standard kickbacks, and a ball exit can be seen to the left that exits balls shot into the Doc Ock Lock. There are also two slingshots and two main flippers. A figure of the Green Goblin stands over the ending habitrail of his ramp, which drops the ball directly to the right flipper.

The plunger

The plunger is a straight shaft that leads up to the table's main orbit. Depending on plunger strength, the plunger may launch the ball through the orbit completely, drop it into the bumper area, drop it in a sinkhole to the left of it or drop the ball into the rightmost sinkhole.

To perform a skill shot, the player must adjust the plunger strength correctly so that the ball hits a lit target. The target may be any of the following three areas:

• A skill shot hole to the left of the bumper area that can be reached with a moderate plunger shot.
• The right orbit, where the ball needs to land on and roll down out of with a medium-weak plunger shot.
• The right sinkhole, which can be reached with a weak plunger shot.

The value of the skillshot starts at 200,000, and increases by 50,000 when the sinkhole in between the bumpers is shot while the ball is in play.

Objective

Help Spider-Man defeat three of his most nefarious villains, Doctor Octopus, Mysterio and the Green Goblin, while doing his best to please his most prominent critic, J. Jonah Jameson, through four missions.

Missions

Each mission is started in a unique manner and must be completed successfully to access Clone Chaos; a random mission can be started immediately by hitting a flashing target post 4 times when no modes are currently active, and the Lunatic Award from the right sinkhole can also assist in starting missions. Once a mission is successfully completed, it can be repeated as many times as possible, becoming more difficult with each successful completion. The table also automatically keeps track of the highest "stage" the player has reached in a mission - the highest number of times the player has played a mission in a single session. The stage numbers determine the scoring for lit shots during Clone Chaos, which carries over between games.

The following missions must be completed:

• Doc Ock: Take on Otto Octavius, former nuclear scientist-turned-supervillain who invented four wearable robotic arms to conduct dangerous experiments. Shooting the Doc Ock Lock twice, once to light it and once to start the mission, will summon Doc Ock for a battle; he will use his robot arms to rise from the back of the table and gradually advance towards the player's flippers. The player must drive back Doctor Octopus by shooting any of the three websling ramps as many times as possible until Doctor Octopus completely retreats to the back of the table. Every second playthrough of this mission, Doctor Octopus will be able to catch the ball with his two other robotic arms and slam them down on either of the two habitrails leading directly to the flippers and will move faster than before.
• Green Goblin: Norman Osborne created a formula that he hoped would increase his intelligence and strength, but it also costs him his sanity, turning him into the menacing Green Goblin. Spider-Man can battle the Green Goblin if the player shoots the right ramp three times, which will cause him to throw a pumpkin grenade the same size as the ball onto a random part of the playfield. The player must knock the grenade free with the ball, then shoot the strobing center or right ramp within 10 seconds with the pumpkin grenade ball to defeat him. The mission will end in failure if the player takes too long to hit the Goblin with the grenade or drains either ball; if the player drains the normal ball, it will be automatically saved. On every second playthrough of this mission, the Green Goblin will attack with two grenades and the player must hit the Goblin twice with both grenades to win.
• Mysterio: Quentin Beck, a spurned and less fortunate special effects designer, decides to use his skills to elusively conduct criminal acts and stay one step ahead of the law. To face Mysterio, Spider-Man must find him first. The player starts the hunt for Mysterio by hitting the captive ball target on the upper level hideout area. The lights on the table will flicker and under this brief moment of darkness, the figure of Mysterio will teleport somewhere else. The player must find Mysterio and shoot the lane where he appears within 20 seconds; after finding Mysterio three times, requiring a captive ball shot for each attempt, the next captive ball shot will start the battle against him and activate a ball saver for the entirety of the mission. To win the battle against Mysterio, the player must help Spider-Man brave Mysterio's mind-altering gas, which reverses the flipper controls, and shoot all three websling ramps within a 30 second time limit that resets with each shot. Every second playthrough of this mission will require four shots to complete instead of three - the right ramp will also be lit.
• J. Jonah Jameson: J. Jonah Jameson, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Bugle, believes Spider-Man to be a menace - but what he doesn't know that is that he works there as his alter-ego, Peter Parker. Shooting the upper loop if Front Page Award isn't lit will start a hurry-up at the right orbit for 1 million points, decreasing to 0 over 15 seconds. After the first successful completion of this mission, the hurry-up value will increase by 1 million. This mission can even be completed during the wizard mode.

Clone Chaos

Shooting the Doc Ock Lock after all four missions above will start a 30-second, time-limited challenge to lock 3 balls into that same sinkhole without draining the ball; each lock resets the timer. Once all three balls have been locked, a 4-ball "victory" multiball will start, granting the player a chance to shoot lit lanes for jackpots determined by the highest number of played missions the player has reached in a session. After draining down to a single ball, the player must play through all four missions again to get another chance at starting Clone Chaos.

Perks

The following perks can be activated during play:

• Ball Saver: At the start of each ball and multiball mode, a 15-second ball saver will be available. The ball saver can be regained either by spelling THWIP with both kickbacks active, or by earning it from the Perfect Ball Save Spidey Award.
• Kickbacks: Spelling THWIP on the return lane rollovers will activate the left, then the right kickback. Kickbacks are only good for the current ball.
• Bonus Multiplier: Every 20 bumper hits will increase the bonus multiplier by +2x, up to 8x. The bonus multiplier can be held by collecting the Enhanced Strength Spidey Award.
• Spidey Award: Shooting the orbits (1 + the ordinal number of the award) times will score a reward, given in the listed order. Multiple sets of Spidey Awards can be collected on the same ball.
  • Spectacular Score: 500,000 points.
  • Perfect Ball Saver: Activates the Ball Saver.
  • Incredible Jumps: For 30 seconds, every shot to the apartment will score 1 million points. The timer resets for every shot.
  • Deluxe Web-Slingers: Activates super jets. Every bumper hit for the rest of the ball scores 10,000 points.
  • Enhanced Strength: Holds the bonus multiplier.
  • Yeah! Extra Ball: Awards an extra ball.
• Websling Awards: Shooting all three websling ramps once will score a reward, given in the listed order. Once the player has collected the extra ball from Websling Awards, the feature will be deactivated for the rest of the ball.
  • Celebrated Hero - 1 million points.
  • Aunt May's Dinner Party - All shots score 200,000 points for 60 seconds.
  • Extra Ball - Awards an extra ball.
• Lunatic Award: Shooting the right sinkhole during normal play will score a random award from the following selection: lunatic score (small points between 10,000 - 50,000), advancing any of the four missions, or start all (which activates all four main missions at the same time).
• Front Page Award: After completing a main mission, the next shot to the upper loop will score 100,000 points times the number of the stage of the mission that was completed.
• Jump Scoring: Shooting the jump VUK three times in a row will score 50,000, 100,000, then 150,000 points. The third shot will divert the ball to the right ramp and count as a right ramp shot.
• Extra Ball: Extra balls can be collected by earning the final Websling and Spidey Awards.

Tips

• Spider-Man can be a very long-playing, high-scoring table thanks to the value for Clone Chaos carrying over from game to game and the difficulty of losing the ball. Make an effort to get the websling extra ball on every ball, and repeatedly shoot the upper loop during Clone Chaos to start the Jameson mission to further increase the jackpot value.
• You can easily overcome the reversed controls during the battle against Mysterio. If you are playing the table with a pad controller, simply flip it around so that the right flipper button is on your left and the left flipper button is on your right. You can also just operate both flippers simultaneously - the ball saver will save any lost balls during this mission.
• Later stages of Green Goblin can be a pain to complete, as the timer constantly decreases with each playthrough. Try only completing the mission once per Clone Chaos run to make the wizard mode easier to get to.

Tournament notes

• Spider-Man is not advised to be used in tournaments due to its long-playing nature and the Clone Chaos feature carrying over scoring between attempts.

External links

• Official table trailer
• Table walkthrough by ShoryukenToTheChin (PDF)
• Official table soundtrack on Bandcamp (tracks 1 - 6 of Marvel Pinball Original Soundtrack)