"Challenged? Calmly cheat, then conclude your quest by claiming cheap tchotchkes!"

Ah, Skee-Ball...the ubiquitous arcade game. Now, apparently many prominent reviewers decided they would submit reviews for Skee-Ball one day. I, however, was not informed of this (due to my being too lazy to get on AIM). Undaunted, I began my own master review of Skee-Ball, and here it is...only three days later than the rest.

Skee-Ball exists in many ways, shapes, and forms, but the basic gameplay is common to all Skee-Ball machines. First, you put your money (or token, as the case may be) into a little slot. You are then granted a certain number of balls to attempt to get into rings leading to holes, which are worth a varying amount of points. If you get enough points, you will be awarded with one or more tickets, which can be redeemed for (usually tacky) prizes. Hence, Skee-Ball is called a ''Redemption'' game.

Skee-Ball's simplicity is perhaps what drives its popularity. Anyone of any age can play Skee-Ball. There are even occasionally smaller Skee-Ball machines for the younger kids to play so they won't get frustrated. However, this simplicity is also Skee-Ball's downfall. Maybe it's just me, but I simply don't find the idea of rolling balls into holes very entertaining. The fact that Skee-Ball doesn't have any multiplayer options also detracts from its fun. I mean, wouldn't be interesting to have some sort of ''Battle Skee-Ball'', where you can roll the balls at your opponent, with the various holes in your opponent's body being...all right, forget that idea.

Getting back to the matter at hand, there are perhaps hundreds of (slightly) different versions of Skee-Ball. Most machines I've seen give you nine balls, but there is the occasional machine that gives more or less. Also widely varying are how many points it takes to get a ticket. One more common variation is the point values of the holes. Typically, the holes are in values of ten, from ten up to fifty. The larger the ''ring'' is surrounding the hole, the lesser the point value of the hole will be. Many machines also have a difficult-to-reach 100 point hole, which is typically located in the corner. The hole's diameter is only slightly longer than the diameter of the ball, so it is a challenge to score 100 consistently, to say the least.

However, there is a simple, and often utilized, solution to this problem: cheating. Oftentimes, there isn't anyone around to stop you from merely leaning into the machine and simply placing the ball in the high-value holes. Even if someone important is watching you and throws you out of the arcade for doing this, it doesn't matter much. The tickets you get are worth practically nothing anyway. You may gaze in wonder at a 10,000 ticket stereo system, then look down and realize you only got about 10 tickets for your effort. Then you'll realize what you can get are armies of toy soldiers. I'll leave it up to the reader to decide what to do with those.

Amazingly, even for such an ancient game, Skee-Ball can be prone to glitches if not treated properly by the arcade owners. Sometimes the damn machine won't give you all your balls. Other times the damn machine won't give you the proper number of points. Still other times the damn machine won't give you your worthless tickets! In cases like these, there's nothing much to do other than to go to the manager and demand your quarter back.

In case you couldn't tell from the tone of this review, I suggest you stay away from Skee-Ball games. If you value tickets, your arcade will most likely have something (such as slot machines) that gives out many more tickets than Skee-Ball. If it's fun you want, I would even suggest a game such as Whack-A-Mole over Skee-Ball. At least you get to bash things in Whack-A-Mole...

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/01, Updated 01/07/02