Story dated 21st June 2000

It looks as the next pinball release from Stern Pinball Inc will be a revamped version of Sega's unreleased game "Kelly Packard's Golden Cue".

The new game, called Sharkey's Shootout is a remodeled Golden Cue, a game which made it's first outing in the UK at the London ATEI show January 1999.

Back then it appeared along side the dominating South Park game, and was available as a standalone or tournament version, with or without a top mounted dot-matrix display showing national scores. It was a goal-based game, so that once you'd achieved the set objectives the game ended.

Now Kelly has been dropped, and the rules overhauled to make the new game.

Sharkey's Shootout is now under test at the Gala West in Naperville, Illinois, USA. Although it's far from a production game, with the rules not finished nor the sounds or dot effects, it's clear that the playfield is largely unchanged from Golden Cue.

Golden Cue itself is heavily based on the 1981 favourite, Bally's Eight Ball Deluxe which sold in excess of 8000 units, and spawned a Special Edition which sold over 2000 games. The playfield and aims are similar, although both Golden Cue and Sharkey's Shootout (SS) add extra shots and added complexity to the rules.

SS is something if a first for Stern/Sega as it employs the talents of John Youssi for the artwork. Ex-William's artist Youssi has worked on many William's and Bally games, most noticeably alongside Pat Lawlor on almost all his games. He joins fellow William's exile Dwight Sullivan at Stern for this game.

While SX was aimed at the European market, SS appears to be targetting the American pool halls and arcades with this game. The music is provided by ZZ Top.

As we said, this game is in a very early stage of testing, so once things start to firm up a bit we'll bring you more news.