Brave the frontier — Gottlieb’s Big Brave is an electromechanical two-player wrapped in an American West theme, a sister machine to the popular Big Indian, and it comes from the legendary team of designer Ed Krynski and artist Gordon Morison. With reel scoring and a confirmed run of 3,450, it’s a handsome woodrail-era Gottlieb that shares its sibling’s satisfying, bonus-driven design.
The strategy is a classic study in the art of the bonus build. Shoot the drop targets and rollover lanes to advance your bonus, and get the three top lanes to light more bonus and double bonus — building that bonus as high as you can is the key to a strong game. The vari-target on the left, though, is a genuine drain monster: the seasoned wisdom is to avoid it until the fifth ball, the double-bonus ball, when a solid hit awards 5,000 points and five bonus advances, though even then the return can be harsh. The drop targets do double duty, advancing bonus while generally feeding the ball in a nice direction, especially off the top drops. And plunge for the “I” if you can, since you can’t collect it any other way.
Big Brave is a fine showcase of the celebrated Krynski-and-Morison team’s craft, essentially a two-player companion to Big Indian, pairing an evergreen western theme with a satisfying, bonus-driven playfield and Morison’s warm artwork. That risk-reward tension around the dangerous vari-target gives the game real strategic texture. For the collector who loves the golden age of EM pinball and its greatest creative teams, it’s a rewarding find. Build that bonus, steer clear of the vari-target until ball five, and brave the frontier. Some machines reward smart shot selection, and this Gottlieb western classic keeps you thinking. Count coup and drop a coin.