Sega’s Baywatch, released in 1995, rides the wave of the most-watched TV show on the planet onto a sunny, fast-playing playfield. Designed by a team including Joe Kaminkow and Joe Balcer, it leans into beachfront fun with a memorable mechanical quirk — a fourth, game-controlled “Shark Flips” mini-flipper topped with a plastic shark fin — plus a five-ball multiball that delivers the biggest points in the game.
The scoring rewards both daring and discipline. Three skill shots are worth a combined 50 million, sometimes making it worthwhile to just work the top lanes early to bank them — and landing all three lights permanent “squid-pops” on ball three. Completing the drop targets lights a lock at the guard tower, and multiball is where the real money lives: hit all the lit shots, then the shark hole for the super jackpot, then the upper ramp for a second super. The wise move on ball one is to hit the guard tower a trio of times before you activate the lock, smoothing your path to the wizard mode later.
There’s smart risk management baked in, from letting the ball drop safely off the dangerous shark flipper to timing out the riskier modes rather than forcing them. Bright, breezy, and unapologetically of its moment, Baywatch is a fun slice of mid-90s Sega pinball — a beach-party machine whose five-ball multiball and shark-fin gimmick still make a splash.