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Sit back and prepare yourself for the most overwrought pinball opera since Tommy. Dragon's Revenge follows on from the Gothic horrors of Dragon's Fury, a hellish table of the ghastly and ghoulish, which was pinball heaven. The second instalment comes with an equally flamboyant setting.

A remote village is being terrorised by an evil dragon. Previously, the beast demanded tribute of one person every ten years, and wasn't too fussed with what was offered. However, one of his chosen meals, a schemere named Darvel, suggested the dragon demand the fairest maid in the settlement instead, The dragon agreed, and Darvel became his consort.

This state of affairs continued until three adventurers arrived to destroy the dragon. However, Darvel had acquired magical powers and imprisoned them in glass orbs. One of the adventurers managed to summon a lightning-fast orb with her last ounce of strength. This orb ricochets around Darvel's fortress, seeking to foil the Dragon's Revenge.

Most of the action of Dragon's Revenge takes place on the scrolling pin-table, which extends over three screens. The table is split into three different sections, linked by various passages, guarded with three sets of flippers. The only way to lose a ball for good, is for it to drop into the water below the bottom set of flippers. The ball is launched from a side channel, with a variable speed plunger.

At the heart of the table is Darvel. Her head is surrounded by three lights. If there are turned to the same colour her face comes into life (using rendered 'real' images). If the lights happen to be turquoise, Darvel jumps out of her setting, and parades around the screen, carrying a precious stone. Hit that for a massive bonus.

Horrible life-forms ooze out of various points of the table. They present no danger to the ball other than deflecting it off course and making its path unpredictable. Bearing names like Baalzhog, the Spiked Nightmare, and the Mindslayers, death is too good for them. Killing them also reaps some sort of bonus, like opening the way to some secret rooms.

There are eight bonus screens, entered by a series of secret passages. Each is a single screen, with a fixed task. The first three contain the adventurers who must be freed from their orbs. For each broken orb, the player has another ball to play within later bonus screens. Losing the ball in a bonus screen does not cost a life.

Bonus 1: Set on a waterfall, trolls attack by dropping from the sky. They fend off your ball by throwing their heads at you!
Bonus 2: The Valkyrie is imprisoned in a tree filled with spiders. Yuk! Smash the limbs of the tree to reveal the orb.
Bonus 3: The third adventurer is held captive by a massive bird, whose nest is on an island. Swooping eagles and tentacles from the lake seek to protect her.
Bonus 4: The snake monster lurks in a rancid swamp, with swarms of mosquitoes buzzing at the ball.
Bonus 5: The fire-demon lies behind the skull, defended by laval and gargoyles.

Dragon's Revenge is a fantasy pinball game, and a sequel to the Dragon's Fury/Devil Crash game of 1991.

Use the flippers to keep the ball within the playing area. Enter the bonus areas to free the adventurers.

Dragon's Revenge is a sequel that clearly doesn't scale the heights of its original. Although the same plot and scenery elements exist, the good ideas are drowned in a sea of mediocre programming and poor graphics.

The most important aspect of a pinball game is always the realism of the moving ball. In that department, Dragon's Revenge is badly flawed. The ball bounces at the weirdest angles, 'sticks' to some features, and appears to go through others.

Also, the flippers are too narrow to give an adequate control over the ball. Graphics and sound don't help matters by being amateurish.

Dragon's Revenge isn't a bad game, but it seems to border on it sometimes.

I absolutely agree with Gus that this game isn't as good as the original, but I still think it's quite fun despite its faults. When an original game is as absolutely ace as Dragon's Fury, it's always difficult to come up with a sequel which is as good yet has some originality - you have to give the programmers credit for trying to do something a bit different but the colourfully painted bonus levels are just too two-dimensional and the effect is flat and just not as interesting, despite the clever scaling of the balls in these areas.

The graphics on the main table aren't as good as the original either and there doesn't seem to be as much to do, which is unforgivable for saying this game is more than two years older.

I'm a complete pinball freak and if you are too I'd still buy this because it's the best offering on the pinball front that I've seen so far this year - just don't expect miracles.

Presentation 79%
P. The password option is a useful way of avoiding the boring parts. There are a selection of options.

Graphics 68%
P. Some semblance of the first game's Gothic appearance remains.
N. The table looks scrappily designed and the bonus screens are kindergarten drawings.

Sound 76%
P. Different tunes for the main screen and the bonus levels, and lots of sampled voices.
N. The sound FX can be, frankly, crap at times.

Playability 76%
P. A modicum of pinball fun, and an interest in the bonus screens.
N. Games last too long, and the poor ball movement spoils the game.

Lastability 67%
P. Pinball's a good game for taking out and playing with occasionally.
N. Playing through to the end wont take that long, especially using passwords.

Overall 74%
A disappointment when you think that Dragon's Fury is two years older, and is much better. Revenge is clearly based in mediocre territory. Bigger is not always better.