Windows Classic 3D Pinball Space Cadet

[heart-of-wessex]

Does anyone still play this anymore? Cinematics 3D Space Cadet Pinball was included on Microsoft machines up until Windows XP then it was no longer provided but only recently I discovered you can download this for Windows 7, 8 and 10.

Only highest score I have ever got is 5,750,000. There's people out there who can get well over the 25,000,000 and I've no idea, I find it really difficult, not helped by the escape lanes once the balls gone down there, that's it you can't do anything about it. Trying to get a mission on the launch ramp I find a tad tricky, and when I do get one which might be, say, 8 Attack Bumpers, the ball seems to try it's hardest to avoid the Attack Bumpers, when I'm not on that mission, it does the opposite

If I'm on a low score and lost a ball, I'll restart it. I find it an addictive little game though that's good for time filling when I've got 10 minutes finding something to do, I'll fire this up

 

[ComUtoR]

You can get it on your phone.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

You mean this?

There was someone at work until last year who has twice taken the score "round the clock" to a billion points, and he was able to prove it to me. What really annoyed him was that when you do reach that level, it doesn't do anything special - it just goes back to zero...

 

[Lucan]

I play it very occasionally (I normally use Linux but can dual-boot XP), last time about 6 months ago. I only play a game or two (they don't last long), not addicted.

There was someone at work until last year who has twice taken the score "round the clock" to a billion points.... What really annoyed him was that when you do reach that level, it doesn't do anything special - it just goes back to zero...

I expect the score filled the memory space allocated to it, and that's what happens when you add more. At least Windows did not crash for once.

At work some time ago we found a game of chess on the company mainframe, of which we had a terminal. One of our guys was good at chess and he beat it to the point of check mate. However the computer did not give up! It made a further move, so our guy took its king. The computer still did not give up and continued with moves. Our guy then took all of its remaining pieces, and after the last one the program crashed with an error message. Seemed it had never occured to the writer of the chess program that it could ever be beaten.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I'd like to be able to find "Columns" that works on a modern computer...

 

[heart-of-wessex]

Blimey! That's a score board better than mine!

Still can't get any better, also managed to get through the hyperchute enough times to get 'extra ball available' but it doesn't seem to do that, still only 3 balls and game over?

How do you normally launch a ball? I usually hold the space bar for a second or just under to get a trick shot. I believe it's something like launch the ball and pass three lights you get the maximum 15,000 points, then the points are lower if you get more than that.

Obviously if you launch it at full whack you get nothing

 

[krus_aragon]

I'd like to be able to find "Columns" that works on a modern computer...

I once saw several copies of Columns for the Game Gear at a retro gaming shop. Much to my annoyance, they'd arranged them in a row instead of a column.

Have you tried this port of Columns to the PC? It's available for Linux and Windows, among others, and will also run in a browser window.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Still can't get any better, also managed to get through the hyperchute enough times to get 'extra ball available' but it doesn't seem to do that, still only 3 balls and game over?

How do you normally launch a ball? I usually hold the space bar for a second or just under to get a trick shot. I believe it's something like launch the ball and pass three lights you get the maximum 15,000 points, then the points are lower if you get more than that.

1) You only get the extra ball from that if you then drop down one of the sides within a time frame of a minute or so. Another way of getting an extra ball is to get a level 3 commendation.

2) It's 75,000 points for three launch lights. 30,000 for two or four lights, 15,000 for 1 or five and as you say nothing for climbing more than five! This only works for initial launch; for a replay you might as well go all the way to the top and hope the ball rattles around to rack up points quickly.

Have you tried this port of Columns to the PC? It's available for Linux and Windows, among others, and will also run in a browser window.

I'll run that past the IT bod who built my system ( it's a custom build ) and see what he says. There's a possibility that our high security settings might affect it and stop it running properly...

 

[J-2739]

I remember playing this game as a toddler, although I can't remember being any good...

Can you get it on an iMac?

 

[krus_aragon]

I remember playing this game as a toddler, although I can't remember being any good...

Can you get it on an iMac?

At a guess, your best bet would be running the Windows version under a virtual machine (e.g. Parallels) or Wine.

 

[nlogax]

Just play it online, it's available via a DOSBox session.

https://classicreload.com/win9x-3d-pinball-space-cadet.html

 

[507021]

I love playing this game, my current best score is 4.3 million.