Caribbean Cruise is one of those games where I can't help but smile while I'm playing it, even when I'm playing horribly. The music is upbeat and cheery, the playfield art is so cheesy that it's great and the shots are varied, challenging and just plain enjoyable.
Now keep in mind this is a cocktail machine, faux wood grain paneling and all. And yet, for its diminutive size, it packs a wallop!
The playfield is a masterpiece. How in the world can you fit 4 flippers, 3 inlanes, 2 pop bumpers, 3 drop targets, 11 standup targets, 3 star rollovers, 2 spinners and a kickout saucer all on a small playfield without it seeming like a cluttered mess?! Well John Trudeau figured it out, and it works. It's kind of divided into 3 sections: main, top and left side. The flippers mostly have their assignments, but there are some backhand and across the playfield shots that are extremely satisfying and often necessary to avoid a cheap drain.
The dmd is inlaid into the middle of the playfield which is pretty nice. You can watch the rudimentary animations and keep tabs on your score while keeping your eyes on the playfield.
The scoring though, ugh. It's unbalanced for sure. Multiball jackpots while the multiplier is boosted is pretty much the way to go. This is so unfortunate, because one of the most enjoyable modes is the skeet shooting where you try to time your shot and hit the lit target for a million points. It sure feels more like duck hunting than skeet shooting though!
This game is for sharpshooters and, if you aren't one already, you will become one after a few hundred games. It plays fast due to the short playfield, and is often unforgiving with missed shots. Not much flow here except on the left side, flipper to the spinner. It goes warp speed after the second in a row. Getting three in a row feels amazing because the ball is moving so fast it's just muscle memory at that point. I've never gotten four in a row.
All in all a great game. Oddly enough, the reason I chose this game to represent the 80's, rather than a Williams System 11, is because I needed a machine that could go right in front of my breaker panels while still allowing access. It's perfect for that! Go shorty!
I can't in good conscience leave a proper review of this machine without the backstory of the company behind it, as best I understand it. International Concepts, based out of the Kansas City Metro area, contracted Gottlieb Premier to manufacture two cocktail pins in 1989, the only two machines IC would ever produce. The KS/MO state line runs roughly down the middle of the metro. Well IC had an office on the Missouri side to produce Night Moves, and an office 20 minutes away on the Kansas side to produce Caribbean Cruise. Big deal, who cares right? Ohhh no. Here's where it gets interesting, and really sad. From what I understand, IC went to trade/franchise shows around the country and convinced ordinary mom and pop couples to purchase their machines (which were cheaper if buying multiples) and promised them exclusive franchises in whatever county they lived in. They signed contracts basically stating that they could put these machines in bars and restaurants without fear that someone else would already have the same machine there. Don't forget back in the 80's, dine-in places like Pizza Hut still had cocktail arcades and seemed like no-brainer shoe-ins for a cocktail pin. Now comes the sad part. What IC didn't tell people, was that the restaurants and bars already had exclusive contracts in place with distributors that forbade locations from bringing in coin-operated machines from other sources. So the mom and pops that perhaps took out second mortgages to buy these machines found it next to impossible to put them on location. They were duped. Swindled. Taken for a ride. Remember when I said that one machine was produced/distributed from the Missouri side and the other from the Kansas side? Well I'm not a lawyer, but it sure seems like that would position them to absorb a lawsuit and declare bankruptcy in one state and, at the same time, take the money and run in the other. Fascinating story but I feel absolutely awful for anyone that suffered financially from IC's business dealings. I'm not stating any of this as fact. Feel free to do your own research and come to your own conclusions. It just stinks that such a good game has such a potentially nefarious background.