New WMS slot games are out of this world

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Updated: November 24, 2011 3:34AM

The Martians are coming! They’re after Earth’s monumental treasures, and a few women, for good measure.

Can you stop them? Perhaps you can — with a chicken or a pig. Or maybe you don’t want to stop them. Maybe you’d rather join the invaders.

Take your pick when you play WMS Gaming’s new sci-fi slot machine epic, “Attack From Mars/Revenge From Mars.” It’s on WMS’ Sensory Immersion platform, which means the game comes with a special chair with Bose speakers in the back, bringing 3-D sound and motion effects.

On top of that, players can continue to interact with “Attack From Mars/Revenge From Mars” away from the casino through WMS’ new Player’s Life site at playerslife.com. There’s more good stuff to come, including a designer’s blog entry about the game and the ability for players to earn computer wallpaper and ring tones while playing.

Sensory Immersion has been an enormous success for WMS, starting with the action game “Top Gun” and continuing with the “Wizard of Oz” games.

This time, WMS has gone for humor, harkening to the fun of the 1990s pinball game “Attack From Mars.” In the bonus events, you get to choose whether to be a Martian attacker in “Revenge From Mars” or a human defender of Earth in “Attack From Mars.”

The Martians are little green men, and sometimes you’ll see them in their flying saucers. Other times, they’ll come to Earth in towering robot-like travel machines with long metal legs and four long metal arms. The Martian is in control inside a transparent dome at the top of the robot. Animation both on your main screen and in a screen above ties the otherworldly experience all together.

Much of the interplanetary fun comes in four bonus events. The “Attack From Mars” bonuses are called “There Goes the Universe” and “Duck, It’s Chicken.”

Take “There Goes the Universe.” You’re trying to save monuments of the world from the invading Martians. If you fail, a Martian abduction ray steals the Eifel Tower, Stonehenge or other treasure, and your bonus round ends.

Or on the “Revenge” side, try “Abduction Makes Me Hungry. You’re the Martian, in your flying saucer, hovering over a city with a doughnut shop, ice cream store, pet store, gas station and other shops. Your Martian hovers from shop to stop, beaming up food until he gets a nibble gone bad. That gives him digestive trouble — with appropriate sound effects — and the round ends.

It’s all meant to evoke a B-movie feel, from the days of campy science fiction, bug-eyed, green-skinned monsters. Most of all, it’s supposed to be fun — and it is.

John Grochowski’s “Casino Answer Man” tips air at
5:18 p.m. Tuesday-Friday on WLS-AM (890).