Midway 3: Another Hit for Mass Media?
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
Mass Media is now a well-known developer in Home. Since their first incursion into our little world, they have come up with a steady stream of unique content, starting with the Neptune Suite apartment, then adding the Midways and Weird Wear lines of clothing. They are known for pushing the envelope here with their product choices in all of these lines, so when they finally added Midway 3, I wasn’t surprised to find it followed the same vein.
When Home reopened its doors after Wednesday’s update, I went to my Harbor as always and looked at my Navigator to see what was new both in Home content and at the stores. There was a big addition this week – two new public spaces.
One of the new spaces was the long-awaited Midway 3. Since their arrival in Home, both of the Midways have proved – through the constant top five sales of their green ticket – that they have a hit on their hands. Going to these places reminds us all, young and old alike, of the traveling carnivals that appear in our empty fields and on street corners every summer.
This nostalgia and love of the weird and wacky games we might find in one of these places brings many people back to the Midway, even after they have won all the prizes available. Then you have the Home athletes, like RayBladeX, who find beating all of the games there a challenge to be faced.
The VIP club that he belongs to will likely all be there til they beat this new one. They will want to add the Ruby Jacket for beating all of the games here to their purple and gold ones. I asked Ray for his first impression, and he said, “I like it; I think it will be the hardest one to beat yet.”
This new Midway is founded on the same basic design as the previous two. The ever-present Miz Fortune is back with new prizes to be won and the layout is the same, with most games lining the area and one in the middle in a booth. The ticket sales were handled a bit different this time by putting it in the same area as where you go to look at your progress on the stand in the center.
Mass Media has once again come up with names for some of their games that hold sexual innuendo within them. There is Whack Off, and another named Puck It which push the envelope a bit. But it is all in good fun, so you have to look at it as a bit racy – but in a good way. Here is a list of the games and their functions.
- Light Me Up – Light all the dark lights while avoiding the lit ones, harder than it looks.
- Big Foot – kick the football through the uprights
- Bean, Beans, Beans – hit the different colors with bean bags to score, I found this one to be easiest to win on.
- Penny Pincher – tossing game similar to others before it.
- Pull My Finger – drop bouncing balls to eliminate bombs.
- Scatter Shot – the new shooter in town with an alien twist.
- Puck It – Ice hockey, knock out the goalies teeth, harder than it looks.
- Dead Ringer – a grave twist on horseshoes.
- Whack Off – kill enough bugs to fill the score bar before time runs out.
- Miz Fortune – the same game with new rewards.
As usual the first rewards for all of these games are a variety of t-shirts, most of which will end up in people’s storage. The rest are a compilation of the good, the bad and the ugly like they always have been – some furniture and some avatar items.
There is a new area of this space though, and this part is a big change from the previous ones, it is called the Hot Zone. This area is a stand alone that links all of the other Midways together. But it doesn’t only stand there for this function, it has its own games as well, only these ones have a different twist to them.
Hot Zone has a two player game called Hot Streak Air Hockey that is a lot of fun to play. I have always liked air hockey games in real life, so it was good to see one brought here to Home. It cost three tickets to play this game, but there is a reason for that. Not only do you accumulate points that you can use – like you do in Sodium – to “buy” things, but here you can enter into a contest that Sony has provided great real life prizes for.
Every time you use a ticket here (and after you sign up for it), you get an entry into the contest which has prizes like tablets, sound systems, and the one this week, a Bravia 3D television. The prizes change each week, at the end of the contest there will be a grand prize of $15,000.00 given to one lucky winner. There are some weekly winners of $1,000.00 in the last few weeks of the contest as well. There is a score board to keep track of how many entries you have, but like most contest of this sort, the rules clearly state you don’t have any better chance with three entries, like the ones I got by playing the hockey game one time, than by getting hundreds.
Real Life Contest In Home!
The one drawback is a Canadian friend of mine said they can’t enter or win this contest. It doesn’t seem fair that they are a part of NA Home yet can’t participate, but it probably has to do with the contest laws in place.
The Lots Of Junk Redemption Center is where you turn points earned in the hockey game in for a multitude of rewards. The most costly are Darla and Karla companions for 40,000 points, with a scattering of t-shirts, jackets and other things to choose from. This is a new way for Mass Media to go, giving us the choice of what we want to strive for instead of preset rewards. Smart move on their part, as this will likely be the go-to place for quite a while in Home.
There is another game coming to the area as well called Speed Dial, which will give you a new way to add to your point collecting.
All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this new addition brought into the Midway area by Mass Media, and I think they now have a new money-making hit on their hands.
- Same familiar atmosphere
- New games are fun
- New Hot Zone area
- Some nice rewards to strive for.
- $25,000 contest!
- More t-shirts.
- Contest not open to our Canadian friends.
May 17th, 2012 by Burbie52 | 5 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
Great review Burbie. I’m like how Mass Media keeps expanding the Midway, they could stop spending money designing stuff and just rake in the tickets, but they don’t and that’s big kudos in my book.
Really good review! I like airhockey, and didn’t know this was there. I will be stopping in to check it out.
Loved this review. I haven’t been to the Midway 3 yet but can’t wait to explore it. I can’t wait to try the Hot Streak Air Hockey. Sounds like a lot of fun. I hope I can level up in some of the games, I am still trying to get higher levels in the first 2 midways!
Im sure we will see the green ticket in the top seller spot for May
Great review Burbie,
I like the new midway. I’ve been there a few times so far. It will most likely make it into the top sellers.