Who loves pinball? (moved)

[bokmeow]

lol, Theater of Magic was right next to the LAH Machine, that thing was pretty cool too "Shoot the magic trunk!"

I love Theater of Magic, but all those moving parts often meant that they needed tons of upkeep. The side of the trunk often split open, the trap door that popped up at the bottom of the right staircase ramp often came loose, sometimes the balls in the Tiger Saw got stuck, etc. etc.

 

[qube]

Good move on this thread. This was one of the biggest re-directions of a thread's intention ever, of a thread not created by Drifty, Kan, or DA at least

 

[aria]

The Pinball Circus is unique, extremely rare, but --more importantly-- a lot of fun:

I cropped that photo from another I took and tried to enhance the colors in the field of play a bit --I also tried including one side to show a flipper button.

I made it all the way to the Clown's mouth but I couldn't get it through. Very fun, multi-tiered game.

I have a video of it in action, perhaps I can upload it somewhere.

EDIT: here's my bad video (the damn window reflection) As YuckMud mentioned, there's more on YouTube by others.

 

[Moon Jump]

Stern's new machine coming this month to go along with the new movie. I don't think it'll live up to "The Pinball Adventure" that came out years ago, but Stern's tables have been really good.

I think right after they made Lord of The Rings, they've been getting better and better with their tables. So I'm looking forward to playing the new one.

 

[Dr Shroom]

I love Theater of Magic, but all those moving parts often meant that they needed tons of upkeep. The side of the trunk often split open, the trap door that popped up at the bottom of the right staircase ramp often came loose, sometimes the balls in the Tiger Saw got stuck, etc. etc.

I think my ball got stuck between the board and the trunk once, had to tilt the sucker

 

[norton9478]

Good move on this thread. This was one of the biggest re-directions of a thread's intention ever, of a thread not created by Drifty, Kan, or DA at least

But certainly not above the famous "Our Beloved Bibliophile" thread.

 

[norton9478]

The good thing about the new stern pins is that it will continue to put decent machines onto the market......

Which hopefully will help to keep the prices on all machines low[er]


PS: How bad are those Pirates of the Caribbean machines?

The look good in pictures..... But they arn't coin op or anything...

I hope that they are better than those Midway arcade machines made out of cardboard.

 

[bokmeow]

I think my ball got stuck between the board and the trunk once, had to tilt the sucker

That has happened to me too. Usually when things like that happen, the BIOS will check all doors, all locks, any moving parts to release any balls that may have gotten stuck, but even the best of failsafes will fail sometimes.

 

[Moon Jump]

The Pinball Circus is unique, extremely rare, but --more importantly-- a lot of fun:

I cropped that photo from another I took and tried to enhance the colors in the field of play a bit --I also tried including one side to show a flipper button.

I made it all the way to the Clown's mouth but I couldn't get it through. Very fun, multi-tiered game.

I have a video of it in action, perhaps I can upload it somewhere.

There's a few folks with videos of it online. I love when they spoke to the owner about the game. He said "Your lookin' at over half a million dollars of Bally's money right here. When the distributors heard the game was going to cost one and a half times more then a standard machine, they said no and they stopped the production of the machine"

I think that game would have made more money then that horrible Pinball 2000. I never liked it and the table was too friggen small!

 

[bokmeow]

T

I think that game would have made more money then that horrible Pinball 2000. I never liked it and the table was too friggen small!

Yeah, you're not the only one. I played Revenge from Mars, hated it completely, and a casual pinball gamer friend of mine was like, "are you crazy? that was like the most fun I've had playing pinball in years."
Sigh. The dumbing down of pinball appreciation.

 

[norton9478]

Yeah, you're not the only one. I played Revenge from Mars, hated it completely, and a casual pinball gamer friend of mine was like, "are you crazy? that was like the most fun I've had playing pinball in years."
Sigh. The dumbing down of pinball appreciation.

I thought it was ok....

And kind of fun.

I wouln't expect a purist/enthusiast to like it.

It was not Star Trek tho.

 

[SonGohan]

Hahaha.

I still hate pinball though.

 

[Moon Jump]

Yeah, you're not the only one. I played Revenge from Mars, hated it completely, and a casual pinball gamer friend of mine was like, "are you crazy? that was like the most fun I've had playing pinball in years."
Sigh. The dumbing down of pinball appreciation.

Gary Stern had stuff to say about that, I got a video on the net YEARS before YouTube and I hosted it on my site.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=C2aszDOhQzo

Pretty much, if you have hard tables, beginners aren't going to want to play them and will avoid them all together. They want to try to make a nice level playing field for everybody.

I also think what the Pinball Hall of Fame owner said is true. It's not that people don't like pinball (Well, we know Wes doesn't like it) it's that there isn't any places left to play pinball.

As I said before, I have to drive out to New Jersey to play a good table, all the ones I know of by me are shot and nobody takes care of them anymore.

 

[Hikaru Ichijyo]

I'm a HUGE fan of pinball machines and video pinball. I'm surprised that after four pages in, no one's mentioned Addams Family Pinball. That's hands down my favorite game. Twilight Zone, Demolition Man, and Bram Stoker's Dracula were some favorite machines of mine as well. I always leaned more towards Bally machines more so than Stern or Data East, but they've made some good ones as well (Star Wars by Data East was pretty fun).

It's unfortunate there isn't any real arcades/places to play pinball in Cincinnati anymore. I would love to be able to go back to Ann Arbor, MI and visit Pinball Pete's again.

 

[bokmeow]

Gary Stern had stuff to say about that, I got a video on the net YEARS before YouTube and I hosted it on my site.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=C2aszDOhQzo

Pretty much, if you have hard tables, beginners aren't going to want to play them and will avoid them all together. They want to try to make a nice level playing field for everybody.

I also think what the Pinball Hall of Fame owner said is true. It's not that people don't like pinball (Well, we know Wes doesn't like it) it's that there isn't any places left to play pinball.

As I said before, I have to drive out to New Jersey to play a good table, all the ones I know of by me are shot and nobody takes care of them anymore.

Speaking of level playing field for everybody, you know what was most frustrating about The Twilight Zone? Shortest flippers I've ever seen on a pin. Ball draining right down the center can be virtually unavoidable if one isn't a skilled veteran of pinball tables. The old adage "Keep your eyes on the ball" definitely applies.

 

[Arcademan]

Stern's new machine coming this month to go along with the new movie. I don't think it'll live up to "The Pinball Adventure" that came out years ago, but Stern's tables have been really good.

I think right after they made Lord of The Rings, they've been getting better and better with their tables. So I'm looking forward to playing the new one.

Stern has done an excellent job with their pinballs, even more impressive now that they have a virtual monopoly on the pinball industry. With no serious competition, they could be making subpar machines but their quality is high. The Indiana Jones pinball is a solid play since I got to sample it at the recent ASI Trade Show.

 

[Arcademan]

There's a few folks with videos of it online. I love when they spoke to the owner about the game. He said "Your lookin' at over half a million dollars of Bally's money right here. When the distributors heard the game was going to cost one and a half times more then a standard machine, they said no and they stopped the production of the machine"

I think that game would have made more money then that horrible Pinball 2000. I never liked it and the table was too friggen small!

Thngs like that sunk Bally as well as Williams failed Pinball 2000 series, which was supposed to be the next generation of pinball, combining the playball field with a video screen to combine the experience of both. The 2000 series were convertible and that was suppose to be the big selling point but Midway pulled the plug and then shortly afterward left the arcade business completely.

Main reason you don't see too many pinballs? High cost and constant repairs due to way too many moving parts. Arcade owners like simplicity with their equipment and pinballs simply require the most work for the smallest return on their investment. If one tires of a video game, they can put a new game into it, not so with a pinball though the Pinball 2000 series was suppose to change that logic.

 

[bokmeow]

Thngs like that sunk Bally as well as Williams failed Pinball 2000 series, which was supposed to be the next generation of pinball, combining the playball field with a video screen to combine the experience of both. The 2000 series were convertible and that was suppose to be the big selling point but Midway pulled the plug and then shortly afterward left the arcade business completely.

Main reason you don't see too many pinballs? High cost and constant repairs due to way too many moving parts. Arcade owners like simplicity with their equipment and pinballs simply require the most work for the smallest return on their investment. If one tires of a video game, they can put a new game into it, not so with a pinball though the Pinball 2000 series was suppose to change that logic.

Yeah, I know the reasons for the pinball's market contraction, but there was a confluence of many other factors that did it in. Plus, don't nail me to the cross for saying this, but the Pinball 2000 concept was lame. It tantamounted to slapping the ball against a wall like a raquetball. That really put me off. Yeah, they could switch the programming out to do the Star Wars Ep I, but it still doesn't change the basic equation --- you're just slapping the ball against the same wall.

 

[norton9478]

Main reason you don't see too many pinballs? High cost and constant repairs due to way too many moving parts. Arcade owners like simplicity with their equipment .

Fuck,

They hardly ever wanna replace a microswitch in a video game CP...

 

[Hikaru Ichijyo]

Stern has done an excellent job with their pinballs, even more impressive now that they have a virtual monopoly on the pinball industry. With no serious competition, they could be making subpar machines but their quality is high. The Indiana Jones pinball is a solid play since I got to sample it at the recent ASI Trade Show.

Aren't a lot of the guys who used to work on Bally working for Stern now? I saw a thing on Youtube about a guy who got a Family Guy pinball machine and it was done by the same team who did Addams Family and Twilight Zone.

 

[Arcademan]

Aren't a lot of the guys who used to work on Bally working for Stern now? I saw a thing on Youtube about a guy who got a Family Guy pinball machine and it was done by the same team who did Addams Family and Twilight Zone.

I know the WMS designers Pat Lawlor and Steve Ritchie are part of Stern Pinball since I've met both of them at trade shows, don't know about any others.

EDIT: Checked wikipedia and there's a few there apparently. Pat and Steve are mentioned by name in the article. Cool.

 

[Tron]

Dr.Who pinball any one ? I know it's one of my favorite lincense machines besides addams family.
http://www.pinballrebel.com/game/pins/drwho/dr_who_pinball.htm

Though i will say i didn't take the time to enjoy pinball to much when i was younger...i guess becuase what it takes to master it.

These days i appreciate pinball more i just wish i suported it in it's prime. Sure you, have companys such as stern hanging on but there not too wide spread these days.

Btw far as the video game version of pinball go i still think (Devil Crush) and (Necronomicon) are the best ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQrUVLj_HiQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axe0DKqdtZc

Funny how both games have a occult theme

 

[talks2wall]

Most people don't mention it, but the Super Mario Bros pinball machine kept me entertained for hours, even though I expected to hate it.

Most video game versions of pinball really disappoint me. The accuracy and finesse of the flippers just never feels solid enough. Despite all the hype, I was disappointed with both Alien Crush and Devil's Crush when i got them on the VC. I might trying the Williams collection for the Wii, but I'm skeptical. Gonna hit a dive bar Friday night that has at least 3-4 pinball machines, including Playboy and Lord of the Rings.

 

[terry.330]

This thread is great.

It's funny I was talking to a couple guys from my work a couple days ago about pins. J6Ps and suprisingly they mentioned some of the best tables. The one dude said when he lived in Detroit that he was friends with some guys that ran a coin op company and he asked about getting an Elton John table and the guy said he had just gotten one and repaired it. He was asking $400 for the thing and my buddy was all over it. Unfortunately his wife wouldn't let him buy it at the time. This was years ago and he's been pissed about it ever since.

 

[Timorous Scott]

someone by me is selling the street fighter II pinball machine for $700. and yes, its the one where you get to beat up the car.