Get Your Kicks on Route 66: A Road Map to Bally's Corvette Pinball
Photos: Colin Alsheimer
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In 1993, video game programmer George Gomez moved to Williams / Bally’s pinball division as a game designer. His first game, Corvette, was based on the iconic American “dream car” and its rich history; originally intended to be a widebody release, the game was converted to a standard body and released in 1994, with a big press event at the National Corvette Museum that opened around the same time.
While Corvette has appeared less prominently on location since its debut, the game is still beloved by advanced players, including myself, for its heavy emphasis on combos and wide variety of shots. This game’s DNA can be seen in Stern games as recent as James Bond 007 or Rush.
Collect 9 historic Corvette cars for a chance to look into the future of the iconic American vehicle. Bally's Corvette was released in 1994 and is the first game for designer George Gomez.
Two targets are located at the bottom left and right sides of the playfield. The left targets light the spinner for “turbo boost”, which is generally ignorable, while the right target lights the left outlane kickback and is thus a very important shot. Don’t try to shoot the light kickback target on the fly – hold a ball, and then flip for it with a late shot from the left flipper.
The left side of the game is occupied by two important shots for high scores – the left orbit, and the LT-5 engine. Locking balls at the engine starts multiball and is generally the dominant strategy in tournament play, but the locks can only be lit by shooting the left orbit. In between the two shots is the “MILLION” target, which can result in dangerous returns to the flippers. Use the “MILLION” target as a guide for determining what time on the flipper the left orbit or engine ramp can be made.
Located up the center of the playfield are the pit, used to collect parts and start challenges when lit, and the spinner, which feeds directly into the bumpers and can be very difficult to recover from as a result. The pit is required to shoot for the final shot of “Catch Me” and during a hurry-up mode awarded off of Route 66 and is more reliable if shot early from the right flipper.
The upper flipper shots – the side loop and the skid pad ramp – are also very important due to their usage as the jackpot shots during multiball. They are roughly comparable to the upper loop and side ramp on James Bond 007 in position but are slightly easier to set up due to the many ways the ball can be fed to the upper flipper. Even the kickback sends the ball directly to the upper flipper on this game! If the ball ends up near the upper flipper, there’s no reason not to use it.
On the right side of the game are the Route 66 ramp and the right orbit. The right orbit is a good way to set up combos but otherwise is rarely used, while the Route 66 ramp starts what can be called the game’s “modes”, which are just a linear sequence of awards that reset each game. The Route 66 ramp normally sends the ball to the right flipper, so it can be good as a transfer shot, but if it is lit for an award, then it will send the ball to the left flipper.
Located above the plunger lane is the game’s major gimmick, the Crossed Flags dragway. This mechanic doesn’t interact with the ball, but is meant to serve as a visual indicator of progress during challenges and the “Race Today” video mode.
Scoring on Corvette is typical for its era. 200M is a good starting point for newcomers – advanced players should be able to pass 1 billion with a few good multiballs.
Skill shots can add up during a long game on Corvette, especially if you’re consistently locking balls at the engine. Just plunge for the flashing lane and move it using the flippers for 5M + 5M per skill shot, to no known limit.
Corvette was the first game to include a super skill shot, which is commonplace in newer games. In this game, the super skill shot is activated by pressing the left flipper two times, then the right flipper once, then the left flipper twice again; then full plunging and shooting the side ramp. While the super skill shot awards slightly more points than the normal skill shot, the normal one is too easy to pass up and feeds the ball to the flippers more consistently.
The main goal of Corvette for players hoping to “complete” the game is to collect all 9 cars listed on the grid above the flippers. While there are many ways to collect them, there are two reliable ways: traveling Route 66 and completing challenges.
“Start challenge” is lit at the pit by collecting the flashing blue car part or shooting the pit to spot the part. The first car part will always be “hi-lift cams” at the engine, then “big block” at the left orbit, followed by “big brakes” at the right orbit.
During the challenge, keep shooting the flashing shots to advance your car (the blue one located above Crossed Flags) and win against the opponent’s red car. The shots corresponding to parts you collected prior to the challenge double the progress of other shots, and the spinner if lit for “turbo boost,” also advances farther. When a challenge is completed, a point value between 50M and 100M is scored depending on how fast you completed it, and a car is awarded.
There is a "hidden" way to earn 250M during challenges that has been discovered recently. During any challenge, you can also gain a large amount of progress during the first challenge of a game by shooting the pit and repeatedly mashing the flippers. However, if you don't press the flippers whatsoever during this display, the challenge will end and erroneously award about 250M points. Even the 90s Williams machines aren't free of software bugs!
Generally, challenges can be ignored in tournament settings – the points scored from them are minuscule compared to other rules in the game, unless you actively aim for getting the 250M from timing out the pit-in as described above. However, casual players or those with minimal experience with the game might benefit from challenges to adapt to the game layout, and the 250M award is a safe bet if recovering from the left orbit is giving you a hard time. Multiball is what most players will go for, however, and uses shots that aren't nearly as difficult to hit as the pit.
Making a shot to the right ramp will open a diverter at the back of the ramp and display the next Route 66 award; a subsequent right ramp shot will then collect it. If the diverter isn’t open and a mode is currently running, then shooting the right ramp will qualify the next award, which can be collected once the mode ends.
Route 66 awards are scored in the following order:
Like challenges, Route 66 awards are ignorable in a tournament environment but are worth playing for if the player hopes to become Future Car Champ.
“Race Today” is started at the right ramp and is another quick way to earn cars, but is started in a different way from the typical Route 66 award. Over the course of the game, the yellow arrows in front of each shot indicate that they will award spark plugs – they change every time the ball rolls through an inlane. Extra ball is lit after a fairly low number of spark plugs – afterward, every 8 spark plugs will either award 20M points or light “Race Today” at the right ramp.
“Race Today” is the game’s video mode and uses the Crossed Flags dragway above the plunger. To win the race and collect another car, the player must use the left flipper to accelerate and shift with the right flipper when prompted by the DMD. Points between 50M and 100M are awarded based on how fast the player won, and the drag race becomes more difficult each time it is played during a game.
If the player wins the video mode, they will be awarded with a 2-ball multiball where all ramp shots score jackpots worth 15M. This quick multiball is a great time to play for track combos.
Track combos are a lesser-known rule on Corvette but are well worth researching. Shots to the engine ramp (when it isn’t lit for lock) or right orbit allow the upper flipper shots (ie. upper loop, skid pad ramp, and RAUCOUS target) to be made in succession and collect track combos, each combo correlating to a different famous racetrack and adding up in end-of-ball bonus.
The values scored for each track combo are additive rather than cumulative, meaning that the score pool built up with previous track combos on the same ball is awarded again once you make another unique track combo.
Multiball is easily the biggest source of points in Corvette and is what tournament players should predominantly be focused on while playing (so long as they aren't aiming for the 250M challenge exploit described earlier). For the first multiball, only one left orbit shot is needed to light lock at the engine. Subsequent multiballs require the left orbit to be shot once for each lock, eventually requiring the lock to be made on a time limit. The three locks for the first multiball also award cars.
Once the third ball is locked, you can rev the engine for some small bonus points and kickback will automatically light as the multiball starts. Keep an eye out for the upper flipper, as balls will eject out of the engine towards that flipper one at a time to set you up for jackpots at the upper loop and skid pad ramp. The jackpot value starts at 60M for the upper loop and half that for the skid pad ramp – it increases by 20M each time both jackpots are scored, up to 100M.
You can continue to score track combos during multiball and even score super jackpots worth an instant 100M (and relighting both jackpots!) by shooting the upper loop immediately followed by the skid pad ramp.
Once the player has collected all 9 cars (either from challenges, Route 66, Race Today, or multiball), extra ball will light and the puzzle challenge will start, remaining active until completed. Puzzle challenge requires the player to shoot 9 total shots to complete the puzzle of the 1997 Corvette on the DMD, locking 3 balls at the engine ramp in the process. Once the puzzle is completed, puzzle multiball can be started at either the engine ramp or right ramp.
Puzzle multiball is a relatively low-scoring wizard mode where quadrajets are enabled (ie. each bumper hit is worth 1M) and every shot to the engine ramp scores 25M x the number of balls in play, up to a maximum of 100M with all four balls in play. Once the multiball ends, the player’s car collection will reset, though collected cars will still contribute to end-of-ball bonus like they did before.
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