Gottlieb’s Bad Girls, released in 1988 and designed by Jon Norris, is a late-era solid-state machine that pairs a cheeky billiards-and-pinup theme with a genuinely deep, multiball-driven layout. With three flippers, twin vertical up-kickers, twin spinners, a vari-target, and multiple banks of memory drop targets, it’s a busier and more ambitious table than its risqué cabinet art might suggest.
The scoring centers on the drop targets and the multiball. Completing all the drops qualifies the multiball — but there’s a crucial bit of survival wisdom baked in: hold the left flipper up at the start of multiball, or you’ll lose the ball straight away. Once you’re rolling, the lit spinners are where the real money lives, paying enormous points. The memory drop targets reward methodical clearing, and there’s a player-friendly “Bozo feature” that lights the top lane to start at 100,000 or 200,000 on your last ball if you haven’t yet completed a rack — a nice comeback mechanic.
A bit racy, a bit underrated, and surprisingly rewarding, Bad Girls is an interesting entry from the twilight of Gottlieb’s solid-state run. For collectors who enjoy a deep drop-target game with a multiball payoff — and don’t mind a wink of late-80s cheesecake — it’s a fun and characterful machine that plays far better than its reputation.