View Full Version : Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball
Spoons
05-07-2003, 07:05 PM
And if you know those lyrics, you know I'm talking about pinball. Perhaps I should have called this, "The Pinball Appreciation Thread."
Anybody else here like pinball? I've played for years--I can still recall my first game, over thirty years ago, on a Gottlieb's "Mibs" machine. No, I didn't get a free game, but I did get hooked on pinball.
I've played for years since. I've played pretty much everywhere I've been in the world--Canada, the USA, the UK, Europe, Australia--anywhere I've got time to kill and there's a machine in an airport, train station, bus depot, arcade, store, pub, or whatever. I see a machine, I play.
Sometimes, I win a free game; sometimes, I don't. It depends. How is the machine? Is there a lean or a slope? How has the machine been maintained? Is it one I've played before or is it new to me?
I own a machine--a Gottlieb "Out of Sight" from the mid-1970s, and it's in perfect working order. It's not a video game, nor even a later solid-state pinball, but it's mine; I've fixed it up, and I love to play it. I wish I had a perfect working model of a Gottlieb "Royal Flush" or a Bally "Trail Drive," those being my two favourite pinball games of all time, but one does what one can, and I'm happy with my game.
Anybody else like pinball?
Mr. Blue Sky
05-07-2003, 07:08 PM
One of my favorites was Williams' World Cup. It had some of the best sound effects especially when you got the multiple bonus awards. Loved the way the ball smacked the glass coming out of the kickers.
Rysdad
05-07-2003, 07:27 PM
I love pinball. My favorite game was Buckaroo. Back in the day before digital readouts, it had actual rolling wheels for numbers. (One game for ten cents, 3 game for a quarter.)
I still play, and I ain't too shabby.
Bippy the Beardless
05-07-2003, 07:51 PM
I love pinball too, it just seems more real than any arcade games. There was a TT-Racing pinball game in the Student Union that I would play to get buzzing before boring lecture.
Cheers, Keith
Bippy the Beardless
05-07-2003, 07:53 PM
- Damn I accidentally gave away my secret identity.
The Who song is a pain, coz whenever I play pinball it's running through my head, and sometimes I even have to hum it. That wouldn't be so bad except I'm kinda laim at pinball.
Cheers Bippy
Scylla
05-07-2003, 07:56 PM
My favorite is Pinbot. I actually have a real Pinbot arcade machine that I picked up a couple of years ago.
Unfortunately one of the LED displays burned out (the one that tells the number of credits) and I have no idea where to get another.
I love multiball games. If I get another I want "Big Guns" which is my second favorite.
Spoons
05-07-2003, 08:19 PM
Scylla, check the Yellow Pages under "Amusements." That should list the operators in your area.
The operators should be able to "pirate" parts from older machines, and pass them on to you. That was how I got some parts for my machine.
Gahh! I had "Pinball Wizard" stuck in my head during exams today, and so of course I couldn't sing it out loud. Thanks for reminding me...
Zenster
05-07-2003, 10:55 PM
Pinball, has, does, will and always shall rock out completely.
Video games barely hold a candle to the whirring-bouncing-ricocheting and flipper-humping thrills of a good pinball table. The gravitic-kinetic flight characteristics of the ball in motion are superb training for catching, intercepting and launching other mechanical objects in real life. There shall be a table in my basement at some point in the future, that's a gimme.
dwc1970
05-08-2003, 12:55 AM
I play pinball every now and then and I have always been drawn to the flashnig lights and sounds as well as the physics involved in how the ball bounces around. What I would like to know is, what are the techniques you guys use to keep the ball in play longer? Obviously this will vary by machine. I know the basic object is to keep hitting the ball with the flippers and aim it towards the high-scoring targets. Every machine is different and many have special flippers located elsewhere on the table in addition to the two at the bottom. Most of my games are cut short because the ball will come rolling back down the table dead center and no amount of spastic flipper-button pressing will touch the ball and it will pass right between the flippers.
JohnT
05-08-2003, 05:15 AM
Depending upon how sensitive the tilt-mechanism is, you can slap the machine when you press the flipper which will (if you do it right) cause the machine to shift slightly enough so that the flipper can reach the ball.
Takes practice to do this right, though.
Fredge
05-08-2003, 05:51 AM
I love the silver ball too. I remember playing when I was barely old enough to see over the coin slots. My mom was in a bowling league and I would have run of the place while she bowled. Those were the days when you'd find about 20+ machines lined up in a row.
Later, when I was about 10, my neighbors got a 1975/76 Bally Knockout that they kept in their garage. I used to make a pest out of myself to play that machine.
Today, I play whenever I see one, but mostly it's the Visual Pinball simulator on my PC though I'd love to get my hands on a real Knockout and an Elvira Scared Stiff and several other machines.
Typo Negative
05-08-2003, 06:13 AM
I've heard it said that Townsend wrote the song only to impress a critic who was actually a pinball fanatic and get a good review.
CalMeacham
05-08-2003, 06:22 AM
I never played pinball until I went away to college. There were three pinballs games on the dorm's main floor, and the floor I lived on actually owned three old pinball machines and kept them in good repair (until one guy got drunk and angry at the machine, andput his fist through the backglass). It was cheap, too, ten cents a game, or three for a quarter! I got addicted. It really got bad when I got good enough to win replays.
I've played ever since, when I could find games. Sadly, they don't seem to be putting games places in the new malls, and are taking existing ones out as they refurbish.
screech-owl
05-08-2003, 06:22 AM
Another pinball fanatic here. Wish I could find another "Joust" pinball machine.
Yup, the one with the flying ostriches and the pteradactyls.
It was a flat, two person tabletop machine (players stood opposite each other). The point was to keep the ball on your own side of the machine to score points (the interor part of the table was slightly peaked in the middle, so each side had a slant to the table. Cool sound effects on it.
Only ever found this once, at a traveling arcade at the New York State Fair, yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaars ago. My sister and I played the heck outta that machine. Forget the rides, this was much more fun!
Anyone evey see this also? Anyone have an extra one to sell me?
phraser
05-08-2003, 07:00 AM
I have only ever played microsoft pinball that came with windows :(
China Guy
05-08-2003, 07:13 AM
I love pinball. born in '61. Used to take a quarter in high school, play for an hour or two and then sell off the games. I think it was Bally that had Captain Fantastic, a Tommy inspired game that was simply freaking awesome.
Much prefer the pre electronic pinball machines. Just had a better feel, although I have to admit that the multiball games are pretty fun. I liked T2 and played that a lot back when I lived in Japan. Alas, that was pretty much the end of my pinball days was when I moved away from Tokyo in 1994. :(
This is a godless heathen country where the few electronic pinball machines are poorly maintained and more frustrating than fun to play if you know what I mean, and I know you do. The flipper doesn't work well, or a bumper doesn\'t bump, etc.
There's also a Japanese novel called Pinball 1973 by Murakami that's kinda interesting. IIRC a guy tries to find his favorite machine by tracking down a legendary pinball machine collector that has a warehouse full of machines. You can download it here: http://basic1.easily.co.uk/03E054/05F01F/pinball.htm
Dinsdale
05-08-2003, 08:08 AM
My faves were 8 Ball and Power Play (yes, I'm that old!)
Three ball games.
Last fall I found there was a pinball/videogame/neon sign shop next door to my daughter's dance school. Put the hard sell on our getting a Top Gun for our basement for X-mas, but Ms. D put up one hell of a defense. Maybe this X-mas.
Doomtrain
05-08-2003, 08:45 AM
Nobody's mentioned the machine that's surely in the Top 10 All Time Pinball Machines...The Addams Family! Invasion (Invaders?) from Mars is also a favorite of mine.
caveman
05-08-2003, 08:54 AM
Ahh, pinball! My dad was a pinball fanatic back in the 70's, and passed the love of the game on to me, along with comic-book fandom and a receeding hairline. Thanks, Dad!
My favorite? Fish Tales, which kept me entertained on the cheap at a deabte camp in Lubbock many moons ago...
mycoman
05-08-2003, 09:11 AM
oooh, pinball!
Our local K-mart had some great machines until they closed due to chapter 11 a few months back. Bummer, because not only was I having a blast, but my wife really got into Funhouse (awesome, with a talking dummy head on the layout) and Circus Voltaire. I could never play enough to reclaim my peak. . .
In college (late 70s) they had some machines in the basement of the dorm, and some of us would go down every night after dinner. Centigrade 37, Faces (which of course we called feces) and Mars Trek. The ultimate came one weekend when we went down after dinner and kept winning free games on Mars Trek. When the closed down we were still working on our original dime with 15 free games racked up. The four of us made a pact to see if wee could play all saturday for free. We had to eat in shifts, but we did it. Once you get a machine wired, it really flows. I got 5 free games on my first ball one game. Did we eventually get bored?
Nope.
TommyTutone
05-08-2003, 09:45 AM
I blame my father for getting me hooked. One of the earliest I recall playing was a Strikes and Spares machine. I currently own a 1994 Star Trek: the Next Generation, which I love, but it has an optos that needs to be cleaned or replaced on one of the guns and I am ashamedly too mechanically declined to figure such things out.
Assuming I ever get my basement finished, I look forward to adding a few that I loved, but not many others seem to do (so I can hopefully get them cheaper) like Gilligan's Island and Dr. Dude. Of course Addam's Family and Indiana Jones are also must haves, as is Twilight Zone and Medieval Madness... sigh.
It broke my heart to see Williams/Bally get out of the pinball making business, they were the last, though Stern came back from the grave in grandiose style.
voguevixen
05-08-2003, 10:31 AM
Much to the chagrin of my travelling companions, I delayed a Indiana to New York road trip by nearly 2 hours because I COULD NOT LOSE on a Batman game at an Ohio rest stop. I think they finally shoved me out from in front of it or something.
Love the game and always gravitate to it first at arcades. One of my favorites was one called Tornado. It had a huge fan in it that would kick on when you activated the "tornado" round, lol. There was also a Harley one that started up like a cycle when you put your tokens in that was cool.
Unfortunately, now that I have the money for something like that, I seriously don't have the room. Our place is bursting with junk already.
belladonna
05-08-2003, 10:48 AM
Another Pinball junkie here, through and through.
Pinbot is a good one, but I've got a soft spot for "Bride of Pinbot" too. She speaks to you as you activate her "parts" in this really sultry, come-fuck-me-now cyber-voice, "Oooh, I can see..." Cracks me up every time.
There's another good one called either Cyclone or Twister with one of those spinning plates that can trap the ball and shoot it off in some bizarre direction, but I haven't seen one in quite a while. I got hooked back in HS because the Big Boy we hung out at for ridiculous amounts of time had a Terminator machine in their game room that would give free credits if you smacked the machine just right. Free pinball. Is there anything more beautiful in this world?
Spoons
05-08-2003, 11:05 AM
dwc1970 asked:
What I would like to know is, what are the techniques you guys use to keep the ball in play longer?In addition to JohnT's suggestion about slapping the machine, learn to catch the ball on a flipper in the up position. Then, you can let the flipper down, and as the ball rolls, aim and shoot it at a target. A little practice will tell you how the ball comes off the flipper and where it will go when it rolls from the trap position. On some machines, you can even use this technique to shoot "backhanded"--that is, at a target behind the flipper--if you do it quickly enough.
It really is a game of skill, but as with all skills, you've got to develop them through practice.
LlamaPoet, I'm unsure what an "optos" is, but I learned a lot about my game just by opening it up and seeing the inside. It looks a little like Dr. Frankenstein's lab in there, but it all makes perfect sense after a while. And you don't need to be an electronics genius to see loose or missing connections on a part (say, a bumper) that is giving you trouble, or a bit of dirt preventing an armature from moving in a relay.
Of course, for safety's sake, especially if you're unfamiliar with the insides, make sure that the machine is unplugged when you open it up. There are a couple of transformers that convert the wall AC power into DC power, and if you don't know what you're doing, you might touch something that will give you a strong shock.
Or, you could just call a repair person. You can reach them through the operators listed under "Amusements" in the Yellow Pages. I've had to call one a few times when a problem had me stumped, and it was well worth the cost.
Amethyst
05-08-2003, 11:05 AM
I didn't know that Williams/Bally stopped making pinball machines :(
I'ld rather play pinball than video games any day!
I remember liking Eight ball and I think there was an enhanced Eight ball called super Eight ball or something like that.
Hmmmm ... maybe I should suggest to my hubby that once he completes finishing the basement, we could get a pinball game (this might just be the motivator he needs!)
Ol'Gaffer
05-08-2003, 12:25 PM
Originally posted by belladonna
<snip>
Pinbot is a good one, but I've got a soft spot for "Bride of Pinbot" too.
<snip>
There's another good one called either Cyclone or Twister with one of those spinning plates that can trap the ball and shoot it off in some bizarre direction, but I haven't seen one in quite a while.
<snip>
Another Pinbot addict here. There used to be one at the community college I went to, right next to the Centipede game.
I spent hours there.
Belladonna, the game was Cyclone. Remember "Ride the Ferris Wheel!" with the picture of Mr. and Mrs. Reagan on the roller-coaster?
BUT, my all-time favorite has to be F-14 Tomcat. What a truly great game. The sound of the jet engines starting up when the five-ball multiball started always sent an adrenaline jolt right down my spine. I loved that game but haven't seen one in probably ten years.
Sengkelat
05-08-2003, 12:51 PM
I played Addams Family obsessively. But I can't say that I'm particularly good at pinball.
I also liked T2 and the Twilight Zone, with one NON-silver ball.
I also played some Theater of Magic. I was pretty good at getting the skill shots, but often would have the ball then roll directly between the flippers while the machine was still saying in its cheesy voice "Amazing skill!!" #$%$ sarcastic machine!
Embarassingly enough, what got me to like pinball more was the "pity balls" where it'd give you a free ball if you lost one without scoring anything on it. Yeah, I suck. Never won a free game except by the "match" value.
BTW, another pinball skill (like I should be giving anyone advice) is to stagger the flipper presses. For instance, if the ball is coming towards the very tip of the left flipper, if you hit both flippers at the same time the ball will glance off the tip of the left flipper, go behind the right one, and you lose the ball. If you press the left one and then immediately after press the right one, the ball will bounce off the end of the left flipper and be driven back into play by the right one. Obvious, but it took me a long time to figure it out.
Also, if the ball is bouncing around on the edge between "lose the ball" and "the ball goes to the flipper" if it looks like it's tending towards the bad side, you can nudge the table away from you, thus getting the ball to bounce around a little more and perhaps go down the path you want. Err, I hope that description makes sense.
MineFujiko
05-08-2003, 01:07 PM
No votes yet for Creature from the Black Lagoon? It recreates the experience of going to a drive-in movie during the Fifties, right down to sing-along-able pop tunes ("Summertime Blues") and an actual "movie" triggered during multiball play.
Oicu812
05-08-2003, 02:03 PM
Addams Family!!!! The number ONE game of all time!
My first real addiction with pinball came about with the Evel Knievel machine. We had one in a neighborhood store that would give you a free game if you tapped it just right, directly in the center of the embossed diamond shape on the front door! It must have had a weak switch that made contact, because we played the hell out of that machine, and never put a dime in....
O
born too late
05-08-2003, 02:19 PM
Good old-fashioned pinball beats the hell out of those $5-a-pop new-fangled video games they have these days...
Anybody remember Black Knight 2000?
I like to play 'Space Cadet' at work sometimes
Doomtrain
05-08-2003, 02:40 PM
I once saw (and played) a "Tommy"-themed pinball machine. And it was a feekin' blast!
Kilt-wearin' man
05-08-2003, 03:44 PM
My favorite had to be [i]Jurassic Park[/b] - the best part of the game was when a ball was trapped - it stopped on a magnet in the center of the board and a Tyrannosaurus Rex bent down and ate it - while the speakers featured Wayne Knight's voice yelling "No! NO! NOOO! AAAAIIIIGHGHHHAaaaaaaghhhk!" Such fun.
Foolonthehill
05-08-2003, 04:16 PM
Spoons;
My cousin in Reno has his own Gottlieb "Royal Flush" It was made in the '50's. Still has mechano-electric relays, (110 v) for bumpers, (gotta really smack'm to get a response), score comes around on trolley carrying metal tags with painted numbers. Tilt mech. is a thin rod with weight at one end, gimble in center; if table is struck, weight moves, other end of rod hits contact, ( my cousin stiffened up the gimble a bit so you can smack the table a little harder).
Everytime I go to his place I give up any pretense of social etiquette and glue myself to the table.
Sock Munkey
05-08-2003, 08:17 PM
I adore pinball but I'm only good at the video game versions of it.
eunoia
05-08-2003, 10:06 PM
Originally posted by Amethyst
I remember liking Eight ball and I think there was an enhanced Eight ball called super Eight ball or something like that.
Eight Ball Deluxe (1982, there was also a limited edition the next year), "Quit talking and start chalking!" All-time classic.
Originally posted by born too late
Anybody remember Black Knight 2000?
Remember it? I sang the blues about it. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=64587)
Now I know someone who'll get the references!
Another favourite multi-ball game was Fireball II. That was the one you could win enough free games to sell to get drunk. Of course this is when a 12-ounce stein of Molson Export was 70 cents...
I have a great coffee table book called "Pinball - The Lure Of The Silver Ball" ©1988 by Gary Flower and Bill Kurtz if anybody wants to flesh out a fuzzy memory.
"TOCK!" Love that sound.
Eonwe
05-08-2003, 10:29 PM
I love pinball. I'll always play a good pinball table over a video game any day.
I also love Black Knight. I've got a friend whose hobby is collecting and refurbishing pinball tables. Right now he's got two Black Knight's, one Harlem Globetrotters, Black Hole (very cool backwards bit below the regular playing surface), and one or two others.
drafty_de
05-08-2003, 11:04 PM
"The Game Room" was an arcade in my home town. It had about 20 pool tables and nearly as many pin ball machines. Bride of pin bot, F14 tomcat, Cyclone, and Xeynon were all lined along one wall. Ohhh so many hours of my youth were spent there. Later in life a bar by the name of "Nasty Habits" was a favorite watering hole. The owner was a pinball freak. 3 machines crammed in a corner and he regularly got a new machine about every 2 months. Game Show, Adams Family, and Dracula are some tables that come to mind. Druing lunch at work we would sneak down the street to the bar, hammer a couple beers and play the silver ball. If during a multiplayer game we matched a game we would play one handed. one player on the right flipper, one on the left. That was always fun. "The Game Room" is now a discount dollar store and "Nasty Habits" closed when the owner became a dealer on a gambling casino boat. Sigh.....
neuroman
05-08-2003, 11:21 PM
Another Addams Family fan.
At the HI youth hostel in Strasbourg (in 2002), I played a "Tommy" pinball machine that totally rocked. Maybe it was the same one that GMRyujin played. Unfortunately, I only got the replay once. :D
Sylkyn
05-08-2003, 11:41 PM
Originally posted by Zenster
Pinball, has, does, will and always shall rock out completely.
If EVAR there was a sig line.....this is it.
I hate games. I am not a gamer. Computer, arcade, online, whatever. Games suck.
Pinball, however, is the most fun I ever had on my own (without a date) as a young 'un. And not only was it fun...but I absolutely kicked ass playing it. The only game on this earth I really knew my stuff!!
The rock-opera Tommy took on a personal thing with me because of it. I may have really been lousy at everything else, but I was The Pinball Wizard...(sigh) back in my misspent (but hey, it was there) youth.
Still pretty good at it, too. Actually, real good. I love hearing my kids saying, "MOM! Whoa! Where'd you learn that?"
Of course...I also play a mean MEAN air hockey, too.
O lord...I am so old.......
China Guy
05-08-2003, 11:42 PM
Originally posted by neuroman
Another Addams Family fan.
At the HI youth hostel in Strasbourg (in 2002), I played a "Tommy" pinball machine that totally rocked. Maybe it was the same one that GMRyujin played. Unfortunately, I only got the replay once. :D There were two. Captain Fantastic and one other that I just can't remember right now. It wasn't called Tommy. Both of them were damn good machines, and probably my all time favorite. IIRC Captain Fantastic was pretty easy to get the special but damn hard to beat on points.
Anyone remember the Simpson's machine? Homer Simpson shouting "1 million smackers?"
Doomtrain
05-09-2003, 12:19 AM
Originally posted by neuroman
Another Addams Family fan.
At the HI youth hostel in Strasbourg (in 2002), I played a "Tommy" pinball machine that totally rocked. Maybe it was the same one that GMRyujin played. Unfortunately, I only got the replay once. :D
Nah, mine was in an arcade in an old Pizza Hut in New Orleans. It had about 20 games and about 800 (I stretch the truth) pinball machines. The games stayed the same. The pinball machines constantly rotated. And I last played Addams Family about a year ago. There's still one (or was) in the arcade in Esplanade Mall in New Orleans.
"Gomez, daaarling."
Spoons
05-09-2003, 09:47 AM
Originally posted by China Guy
There were two. Captain Fantastic and one other that I just can't remember right now. It wasn't called Tommy.Wasn't that one officially called "Wizard"? It was by Bally, featured a "Tommy" theme, and if I recall correctly, had a picture of Roger Daltrey on the backglass.
Wait, I found a reference (and thank you, eunoia for reminding me that I have the Flower and Kurtz book on my shelf):
Later that year [1975], Bally unvelied the first mega-hit pinball, Wizard. The artwork, created by David Christensen (of Fireball fame), was based on Tommy, with two of the film's stars (Roger Daltrey and Ann-Margret) pictured on the backglass.(from Gary Flower and Bill Kurtz, Pinball: The Lure of the Silver Ball, London: Quintet Publishing Ltd., 1988, p. 68.)
And since I have my references out, I thought I check this statement made by Foolonthehill out:
My cousin in Reno has his own Gottlieb "Royal Flush" It was made in the '50's.I was unaware that Gottlieb made a "Royal Flush" in the 1950s--when I originally spoke about wanting one, I menat the 1976 Gottlieb version. But here, in Pinball! by Roger C. Sharpe (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977), it says that there was also a Gottlieb "Royal Flush" made in 1957!
Thanks for the info, Foolonthehill. I learned something new about pinball today!
voguevixen
05-09-2003, 10:36 AM
Originally posted by China Guy
Anyone remember the Simpson's machine? Homer Simpson shouting "1 million smackers?"
I loved that one! If I remember right Homer went "Whoo-hoo!" when you pulled the plunger and shot your ball. When you lost it Nelson went "HA-ha!"
Dolores Reborn
05-09-2003, 12:11 PM
Wow, you guys sure have dredged up some memories! I love pinball, too. My favorites have been Twilight Zone and Addams Family, and another one I think was called Pay Day. It had two talking heads of construction workers, one male and one female, that you would shoot the ball into for multiball. It also had a "construction zone" feature that would vibrate the machine like a jackhammer would. Very cool.
I much prefer any pinball game to the stupid shoot-em-up video games.
Lute Skywatcher
05-09-2003, 12:58 PM
I started playing pinball when I was a kid but never really got into it until after highschool. Around '88, I got tired of the video games and started going to arcades just to play pinball. At least until I found one arcade that had not just pinball but a bunch of older games like Dig Dug & Ms. Pac-Man. Sadly, that place (Wilson Blvd. at Courthouse Metro) went out of business in '95 or so. I haven't been in an arcade in years, simply because all the ones I know about have no pinball.
I absolutely rocked at two games that were in the arcade at Ballston Common. They had both Star Wars and some soccer-themed game, the name of which I have forgotten. Any time I was in the mall, I'd stop by the food court and go drop a few quarters. Until the games stopped being friendly toward me. One day I was in there and my techniques didn't work anymore! What's worse is that the soccer game became virtually unplayable. When the ball was shot into the goal, it was supposed to go down a channel and returned to the playing field but it stopped doing that, it would just stay in the goal area and not go anywhere.
I can buy the Star Wars table being adjusted so it wouldn't be as friendly but whatever happened to the soccer table was just plain low.
lachesis
05-09-2003, 01:52 PM
oh wow -- a forgotten chapter of my past.
when i was in grade school, my family had a boat. we'd cross the Potomac to the Maryland side, where my folks would entertain themselves with steamed crabs, drinks and slot machines.
i got to fish off the pier.
until i finally discovered their pinball and shooting gallery machines. ah yes, the days of 3 games for a quarter.
:: happy sigh ::
i eventually got a buddy whose parents joined our boating group. we whaled the living tar out of that pinball machine. got to the point we could play all night on a dime. i remember at least one night when the 'rents were dragging us out of the clubhouse, there were so many free games left on the machine we were just tilting them off. (stingy little snots, weren't we?)
[ and i was pretty darn good at the shooting gallery, too. ]
to our dismay, the management must have started getting pissed with their lack of revenue on the pinball after a while. (cheap bastards! they had a ton of slots and a couple pool tables, plus one of those hockey-puck fake bowling games.) eventually our pride and joy disappeared.
college was great, since the cafeteria/lounge had pool, foozball and pinball. i managed to pull a passing grade for the English class i'd been busy skipping by writing a paper on the psychology of pinball games. (so much for misspent youth.) :p
after becoming a member of the workforce, one great job was located right next to a bar that featured pinball and those new-fangled video games like Space Invaders. ::blush:: i couldn't seem to muster the right eye-hand coordination for video, but i was still respectable on the pins.
new job, new location. and for a little while, the happiness of a Time Out section in the mall area there, complete with all manner of games. and meeting the game i Love To Hate -- Black Knight. (i'm not sure if this is the same one everyone else admires. did yours laugh at you derisively when the ball would go down the side gutter?)
alas, landlord desire for incoming eventually saw these spaces developed into offices. i've been pinball deprived for many a year now.
i've tried the electronic pinball on my home PC once or twice. it's...okay. but it's Just. Not. The. Same.
Gatopescado
05-09-2003, 02:04 PM
Out in my wonder-palace (aka the huge-ass garage) I have Bram Stoker's Dracula, Indiana Jones: The pinball adventure (both by Williams), Maverick and an original Black Knight. Black Knight is in the process of restoration and sits idle.
Dracula and Indiana Jones are the best games I've ever played! I hear Dr. Who is pretty good too, but have never played it. Indy has all the latest upgrades and is near perfect. Only lacking the "lost plastic" option to make it 100%. Outstanding game, especially the "Well of Souls" mode.
Find it and play it if you have the chance.
My garage rocks!
___________
Never kiss an animal that can lick its own butt.
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