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Submitted by Laurens B, coin-operated.
Pinball existed, and was popular, long before video games appeared on the scene. Today, only 1 company still makes pinball machines. These great forms of entertainment still exist in electronic, video game form, but the real deal is pretty much extinct. Such a shame.
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I love pinball machines. So much fun to be had. I knew a guy who once owned a arcade that shut down. So he had all the machines in his garage. Me, and the neighborhood kids would go over to his house, and play Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and SF Rush for free all day. He also had a few pinball machines. The ones I recall playing the most.
The Twilight Zone “Really kick ass”
Goldeneye “Fun”
Indiana Jones “Great”
The Who: Tommy pinball machine “really kick ass”
our pizza place (Odyssey’s) has had the same on for 20 years. it still works!!! they also have their old Pac-Man :[)
The best pinball game of all time was “Space Shuttle”.
http://www.edcheung.com/album/album05/pinball/shuttlepin.htm
It may not have been the most challenging or feature-rich game around, but it had everything that made the 80s a great time to grow up.
A favorite of mine was “Attack From Mars.” It had everything: UFOs zapping major cities, giant animals wreaking havoc, and a giant robotic Abraham Lincoln kicking ass.
Best Pinball games of all time = KISS, High Speed, Fire Power, and Haunted House. There are honorable mentions, like the one that imitated a carnival and one that I believe was called Earthquake, but those first four sucked out hundreds of my dollars–twenty-five and then fifty cents at a time.
Hey, I own about ten now. Used to have over 20 in the basement. You can still buy them on Ebay, etc. Sternpinball.com still makes them and another company in west Michigan is re-popping some of the classics. You can restore them youself (parts are cheap) ar get one fully refurbished. Type in the names of the ones you remember playing. You can afford to buy one with your tax return money. Think about it……….your own machine in your home!!! Sweet!
Start your pinball collecting quest with the monthly magazine: “Gameroom Magazine”. It’s all about pinball, video games, jukeboxes, arcade classic games. Lot’s of ads and where and how to buy them. They are on the web. Also check out “MAME” games, or MULTICADE games. Hundreds to thousands of video games in ONE
CABINET!!!
my friend has pinball in his basement. at his birthday party we stood around playing it for an hour.
There’s also a downloadable game for the XBox Live Arcade and Playstation Network called Pinball FX. It’s a nice-looking sim with decent control and a variety of tables, including some downloadable ones. There’s even two based on Street Fighter and Rocky & Bullwinkle!
Why would they start to get rid of pinball machines? Whenever I go to the bowling alley or anything like that they have A pinball machine and I jump at the chance to play a real pinball machine…
Oh well though them all closing up shop leaves room for new companies to pickup where they foolishly left off.
I still keep seeing them about as well. They’re not as prevalent as the ones with screens on (which, really, are a dying breed themselves), but are holding their own along with the coin-push machines, air hockey, etc… Modern arcades, mostly existing as a sideline to e.g. Bowling or as small affairs in the corner of a bar, are quite diverse affairs nowadays. The pinball abides…
Sadly, the main reason pinball is disappearing from most places is that the operators aren’t willing to invest even just a few minutes a week in maintenance (or CLEANING), which then leads to premature failure of parts, and then nobody plays it. And while the supply of new games isn’t great, the private collection side is thriving, and parts for almost every machine will be available for many years yet. I have an extremely uncommon game (Alvin G’s “Pistol Poker” yet can find (or get repaired) almost anything I need.
Some interesting sites:
Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas (pinballhall.org)
Pinball News (pinballnews.com) info on upcoming shows and many of the ‘museums’ of pinball
Some notables I remember:
Pinbot
Funhouse
Cyclone
Data East’s Star Wars Pinball
Star Trek Then Next Generation
The Twilight Zone
and my favorite:
Addams Family
That should be THE as in Star Trek TNG. Also, there is a fairly interesting documentary about pinball centering on Attack From Mars called “TILT:The Battle To Save Pinball”. It’s worth checking out for history and to see the last gasp of the dying pinball industry.
This old timer loved pinball machines — until they went electronic. (Pinball Wizard was one of the last great ones.)
The problem with the electronic ones is that they automatically adjusted their skill levels so it made it harder to get a replay… and that was half of the fun of them.
As far as why they fell out of favor in non-arcade settings, I think that was as much maintenance and space compared to the other arcade games.
While the pinball video games are good, nothing beats the real deal. Watching that steel ball roll around, trying to keep it from falling and you losing it. Some people think it’s lame, but it takes real hand-eye coordination to rack up the points. The ones I liked include the Simpsons one shown above, Stargate, Elvira, and Harley Davidson. Out of those, Harley was probably the most awesome.
I STILL have a Jurassic Park one I received it in the 90’s I STILL LOVE IT ^.^
Sweet. I still have my Super Mario Bros. pinball machine, also from the 90s.
Just did some maintenance to get it running again and I love it. My 2-year-old loves it, too.
I have 7 machines in my basement that I have lovingly restored, so they ain’t extinct yet!
Flash Gordon, Pinbot,High-Speed, Gorgar, Kick Off, Roller Disco & Dungeons & Dragons, FTW
My dad loved to play these things and if he finds one, he’ll STILL play it.