Eight Ball Champ

Eight Ball Champ, last in the trilogy, is more of a shooter’s game than its predecessors, but in competition, your best play is to not spread your shots around but just do left orbit. Some tournament directors may modify it to balance the game better; check before you play if possible.

The green star rollovers in both orbits start out worth 5K and go up each time shot, first to 10K, then 10K at a time after that up to 100K. (This feature may be altered in competition, more often for the left orbit than the right.) A left orbit shot that continues all the way to the top right saucer also raises your bonus multiplier to 2X, 3X and 5X. Once your multiplier is at 5X, the top saucer scores 100K.

Shots through either orbit then feed down into the top H-A-M lanes, part of C-H-A-M-P. Completing CHAMP turns on double playfield and raises the spinner value left of the “H” from 500 to 1K. A second completion activates triple playfield and boosts the spinner to 3K; one more time lights irrelevant specials, but does boost the spinner to 5K. The game has lane change that cycles the lanes not just for the HAM at the top but includes the C and P return lanes, so you can complete CHAMP without ever having the ball go into a return lane. That feature is often turned off in competition, though, meaning you have to either shatz the return lanes or get lucky to acquire the C and P letters. In anycase, you want the ball to enter an Unlit lane. Like Gottlieb’s Tag Team the same year, this game has the light indicators reversed from normal; you need to have the ball go through the lane to unlight it to score it\! (Must be a 1985 thing.)

With enough orbit shots and some lane luck, you may be able to complete CHAMP twice for triple playfield and simultaneously have your bonus at 5X and the top saucer worth 100K. At that point, saucer shots score 600K (100K rollover plus 100K saucer, both times 3X playfield), vs. the incremental value of 90K for a target (5K base at 3X playfield \+ 15K times 5X bonus). You’re sure to get some drop and stand-up targets anyway, but don’t make them your primary objectives.

Bonus can be huge, up to 3,000,000 with multiplier. You get bonus of 15K per pool ball or 120K per rack of 8; the 8-ball must be made last after getting 1-7 or 9-15 by shooting the left orbit all the way across the top to the saucer. You also get bonus of 10K per letter in E-I-G-H-T and 50K for each letter in B-A-L-L. The EIGHT are stand-up targets behind the pool ball drop targets. Getting EIGHT gives you a letter in BALL. Both base bonus and multiplier are held.

The drop targets reset each ball, covering up the EIGHT stand-ups in the process. The 1-2 and 4-5 ball drop targets in front of the I and H stand-ups are the more useful ones to get early, given a choice. To get the second ball from each target, you need to hit the drop target, then the stand-up behind it after which the drop target pops back up, then the drop target for the second numbered ball.

The game tends to play “bouncy”; dead bounces sometimes bounce too much and go up to the opposite slingshot rather than just across to the opposite flipper. You may need to live catch instead. Shatzing or post passing should work to transfer the ball from left to right. If you can’t comfortably pass the ball from left to right, shoot the right orbit up top for more CHAMP letters and to raise that rollover’s value. Don’t bother to shoot the left spinner.

The ball has a nasty habit of hop-draining out the sides when seemingly headed into either return lane. If it doesn’t drop into the return lane cleanly, watch out and prepare to nudge.

Don’t forget to use the upper right flipper for extra opportunities to shoot the ball into the top saucer.

If the game has had lane change turned off, getting 2X or 3X playfield will require some luck with the return lanes, so now bonus becomes more important. You still want to shoot the left orbit to get to 5X, and orbit and top saucer shots are still good value at 100K to 200K, but the pool ball and letters are now almost as valuable if the rollover value increments have also been removed.