Bally’s conversion is a few years older than
Circus Atari, so they may have come up with the
idea first. Does that make Clowns/Brickyard seem any more original today? Sorry.
The clowns are quite large here and look like those stick figures that you sometimes see
on roadsigns. Before initially jumping on the see-saw, these guys to a little dance to
circus music. They are a lot easier to catch, unlike the Odyssey2 game. The balloons are
the most realistic looking of these games and each has a single spot or shadow. They
scroll rather slowly and move in alternating directions.
The only thing I don’t like is the fact that you can start out with 99 lives, just too tempting. What would be considered the "normal" amount? 3? 10? We’ll never know. This is the only version that has a white background, the others are black, and these clowns seem to have a rather strange action off of the balloons, and a longer "hang time", too. It even pauses for a brief moment when you hit the last balloon in a row, playing "We’re in the Money" as it builds a new one. The Bally joystick/paddle works almost as well as the Atari paddles and ten times better than the Odyssey2 sticks.
