Silverball guide · James Bond 007
When to press the button
James Bond 007 gives you six villains, six henchmen, six gadgets and six weapons, and your score is mostly decided by a playfield multiplier you build almost by accident and then have to spend at the right moment.
Bond Women are the multiplier, and they collect themselves
Six Bond Women sit at the upper loop, and each one is qualified by a counter on something you are already shooting: 25 bumper hits, 3 right orbit shots, 4 DB5 ejects, 4 left ejects, 10 rocket hits, or 200 spinner spins. When one is qualified, a shot to the upper loop collects her.
Each collected woman is worth 1x of playfield multiplier, called 007 Scoring, to a maximum of 7x. Press the action button while it is pink to start it. She also buys you time: 007 Scoring lasts 20 seconds at 2x and stretches to 70 seconds at 7x, and starting it at the full 7x hands you a 30-second ball save on top.
The important consequence is that you cannot collect or qualify more women while 007 Scoring is running. It is not a background bonus you leave switched on. It is a resource with a start time you choose, and choosing badly is how good games get thrown away.
The thing 007 Scoring does not multiply
Bird One Multiball's super jackpot is worth the sum of the base jackpots you collected to light it. That super is multiplied by whatever 007 Scoring you have running. The sum that gives it its base value is not.
Read that twice, because it inverts the obvious play. Running 7x while you grind out jackpots does not build a bigger super jackpot; it just multiplies the jackpots themselves, which are small. The efficient sequence is to build the jackpots with the multiplier off, and then start 007 Scoring for the collect.
The multiball is worth building properly for the same reason. Jackpots are worth 1 million plus 25,000 for every SPECTRE target you have hit, with a bigger jump for completing the bank, so hitting SPECTRE targets all game long is what turns Bird One from filler into a scoring mode. Collect all the singles and they relight as doubles, then triples, and the super caps at 300 million.
One more thing almost nobody takes: at the very start of Bird One Multiball the two upper flipper shots are briefly lit for double jackpots, and collecting three of them qualifies a multiball extension that automatically relaunches two balls when you return to single-ball play.
The weapon countdowns are cheap and permanent
Completing the SPECTRE targets lights a weapon countdown at the Goldfinger target, and shots to the rocket lane spot letters you have not collected. Each countdown is a 10 million hurry-up over about fifteen seconds, and several of them end the moment you make one shot. For that price you get a perk for the rest of the game.
They are not equal. Swimming With Sharks gives you two smart missiles at the start of every ball instead of one. Bath-O-Sub Bash makes the super jets, super spinner and super rocket last the whole ball rather than about a minute. Troublesome Tarantulas adds 17 seconds to every mode timer and 7 seconds to 007 Scoring. Deadly Dagger adds 7 seconds to every ball save. Death By Derby upgrades the mystery award with five results you cannot otherwise get, including holding your Bond Women multipliers to the next ball.
Wait for the weapon you want to cycle round before shooting the target, because you choose by timing rather than by menu.
The one caution is scheduling. A countdown cannot be stacked with a multiball, and while one is running you make no progress towards either multiball. If Bird One or Jetpack is close, finish that first.
Smart missiles stop working exactly when you want them
A smart missile collects any lit shot, and it picks the hardest one available. You start the game with one, you get one for completing any mode, and the super skill shots each award one the first time you make them. You can hold up to four.
But a smart missile is disabled outright whenever a super jackpot is lit. That covers both multiballs, the Q Branch multiballs and the mini-wizard modes, which is to say all the moments a player instinctively saves them for.
So spend them. Use them inside villain, henchman and gadget modes, on the shot you keep missing, and treat a full stack of four as wasted rather than banked. Note also that the action button does three jobs, and the flippers cycle between them: blue is a missile, pink is 007 Scoring, green is swipe-a-ball on a Premium or LE. Check the colour before you press.
Villains and henchmen, and the shots that pay double
The right ramp starts a villain mode and the side ramp starts a henchman mode. Either way the bumpers and the Goldfinger target rotate which one is queued up, so you choose before you shoot. Values start at 2.5 million plus 250,000 a shot, and playing all six of a kind opens a mini-wizard mode.
Several modes hide a multiplier in the instructions. In Disco Volante Demolition the left eject scores double after a ramp, and quadruple if you take it straight off the ramp as a combo. In Diamonds of Destruction one of the three lit shots flashes for double, and the spinner moves which one. In Encounter on the Orient Express combos score double value and double progress. In Feeding Frenzy a direct shot to the rocket scores double.
Feeding Frenzy also has a cost worth knowing: while it runs, you cannot make progress towards Bird One Multiball, because it uses the same drop targets and rocket.
Q Branch: two of them are much cheaper than the rest
The six gadget modes are qualified by counters, and the counters are wildly different in length. DB5 needs three shots to the DB5 eject. Power Pack needs three shots to the left eject. Both carry over between balls, and both turn into 2-ball multiballs with a super jackpot worth the whole jackpot total.
At the other end, Q's Ring wants 400 spinner spins and then pays 1 million a shot, and Little Nellie wants 20 rocket hits. Radioactive Reconnaissance and Q's Ring stay single-ball; the other four become multiballs.
Radioactive Reconnaissance is worth a mention because it rewards a guess. All the lower shots score 3 million, but one random shot pays 35 million if you take it as your first shot of the mode, and less the more shots you make before finding it. The Geiger counter tells you how close you are after each shot, so listen rather than shoot on rhythm.
Progress towards Q Branch can be made during ordinary modes but not during either multiball.
The skill shot is worth holding the left flipper for
There are eight skill shots. The ones that matter hold the left flipper up and plunge at full strength, then take the right ramp, the side ramp, the DB5 eject or the bumper lane from the upper flipper within five switch hits. Each is worth 2.5 million and, the first time you make that particular one, a smart missile.
You get skill shot opportunities far more often than at the start of a ball. Any mode that ends with the flippers cutting out and the ball returning to the plunger gives you another: the four Q Branch multiballs, Bond... James Bond multiball, and the villain mini-wizard modes. On a Premium or LE with physical locks enabled, every Bird One lock gives you one too.
Since each unique super skill shot only pays a missile once, work through them rather than repeating your favourite.
Where the cabinets differ
Bird One locks are virtual on a Pro and physical on a Premium or LE, which is why the Premium and LE get the extra skill shots described above.
Swipe-a-ball is Premium and LE only. With the action button lit green you can take a ball out of the Bird One habitrail, once per multiball, at the cost of needing more drop target completions to light locks next time. It is mutually exclusive with the add-a-ball perk from the Outer Space Hijack weapon countdown, so using one in a multiball locks out the other.
Jetpack Multiball's super jackpot is collected differently. On a Pro it is a roving shot moving right to left from the DB5. On a Premium or LE the jetpack picks the ball up and you shoot the Dragon Tank target while the jetpack sits over it, aiming it with the flippers on later attempts. Both are worth 10 million, rising 5 million per super within the same multiball, and both add a ball the first time.
Where this came from
Silverball wrote this, but not from scratch: it was compiled against the published rules below and checked against them, rather than written up from one person’s games. None of the wording is theirs. Machines get code updates that move the right shot, so a guide has a date on it for a reason.
- James Bond 007 community rule sheet (author not recorded in our copy)
