Judge Dredd:

Like most pinball games, Judge Dredd underwent quite a few changes during its design and testing phases. Sadly, during playtesting the main playfield toy - the planet - was found to have a fundamental design problem.

I remember playing this game in a pub in Hayes, and I guess it must have been a prototype or sample game, because this had the original planet.

So what's all the fuss about this planet? Originally there was a band around the outer edge of the orange platter you see on the left. Balls were then locked in orbit around the planet until there were 3, when multiball began.

The problem was, if the arm on the far left - which lifts the balls off the platter - failed for any reason, then the game was well and truly stuffed.

So the band was removed and the rules changed to that balls bypassed the planet and only the third ball entered orbit. A real shame it had to go because it looked really cool when it worked.

Judge Dredd was brought out in 1994 - well before the movie - and is based on the comic book 2000AD in which the Judge appears. Consequently, there's no Sly Stalone on the backglass, but looks all the better for it. In fact, the backglass sets the mood for this game, it's dark with strong splashes of colour and graphically violent and aggressive.

But don't go thinking this is a humourless game. Far from it, there's plenty of very dark humour in there, so if you can find the image of a sniper falling from a tower to be impaled on a fence, only to have a dog urinate on the remains rather funny, then you'll like this game. Like the comic strip, this game pulls no punches with its graphic violence, so it's not suitable for everyone. Still, I love it, and that's what really matters after all.

Judge Dredd certainly deviates from the norm for pinball design. There are no jet bumpers at all, while there are 2 ball launchers, a 3 level wireform and 9 balls in total (3 captive), 4 flippers and drop-targets too.

With all that it's not surprisingly a wide-body game and weighs a considerable amount, as all Williams' wide-bodied games do.

It was also the second game to incorporate Williams new DCS sound system, so the music and effects are crystal clear. It also featured a new type of game play called "Super-Game" where for the price of 2 credits you can start every ball with a themed multiball.

Perhaps because Judge Dredd never became very popular the "Super-Game" gameplay was dropped from subsequent games.

The reason for the game's lack of success can be put down to the violent theme, the dark moody appearance and finally the fact that it's a very hard game to master. It plays very fast and poor shots are punished rapidly with a drain.

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