The Pinball Thread
- Thread starter Tanoomba
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AladainAF
Best Rabbit
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I used to actually own a Bride of Pinbot and fell on hard financial times in my life, and had to ebay it for only $2,200
Regret that greatly, but am on the list for the BoP remake at Dutch Pinball, and have an open order for a BoP from MP Amusements.
Here in Austin,we have Pinballz Arcade, which is AWESOME. However, their prices are over the top horrible, they want over $4,000 for BoP last I checked and thats without any restoration and it's in rather poor condition.
Some of my old favorites, almost all Williams machines:
And the most enjoyable "recent" pinball:
Regret that greatly, but am on the list for the BoP remake at Dutch Pinball, and have an open order for a BoP from MP Amusements.
Here in Austin,we have Pinballz Arcade, which is AWESOME. However, their prices are over the top horrible, they want over $4,000 for BoP last I checked and thats without any restoration and it's in rather poor condition.
Some of my old favorites, almost all Williams machines:
And the most enjoyable "recent" pinball:
Tanoomba
ジョーディーすれいやー
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A thousand times "yes".
My local video store had an Addams Family machine and I fell in love with it. Everything just felt so right. I would get goosebumps when I triggered multiball! I think it had a knack for making you feel like you were making progress with every shot, even though it could be cheap as hell sometimes.
Not many options for playing on real machines today, though. Sometimes I go to a caf? where I can play this machine:
But it's not in top form. The left and right bumpers are almost completely unresponsive, which would make the game much easier overall, except the flippers themselves have also lost a lot of their oomph. It also swallowed a couple of loonies once, but to the owner's credit they did get around to fixing that. I think the only other pinball machines are downtown at the last arcade in Montreal (besides in a few movie theaters, as far as I know), but I rarely go there.
But then, the lack of pinball options is what got me into Pinball Arcade. The Arabian Nights table (which is fantastic) is always free to play and there's a rotating "free game of the month" so you can get a more-than-decent pinball fix for free. Addam's Family pushed me into buying season 4, as I figured since I was investing anyway for my favorite table ever, I might as well get a whole bunch of tables (the fact that no other season 4 games had been released yet and every one would be a time-released surprise only added to the overall satisfaction). I also later bought the season 1 tables, making this the most money I've spent on one game in years. If they can pull off getting either The Simpsons or the Super Mario machines, they've got another guaranteed season sale to me.
Mudcrush Durtfeet
Hungry Ogre
- 2,428
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F-14 Tomcat and Black Knight 2000 were a couple of my favorites.
Black Knight deserves an honorable mention. When it came out, it was so good.
"No way. Give me your money!"
Black Knight deserves an honorable mention. When it came out, it was so good.
"No way. Give me your money!"
Folanlron
Trakanon Raider
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Black Knight 2000 is worth it for just the soundtrack alone.
Twlight Zone, Adams Family, Junkyard is a lot of fun also(so many machines all slammed into 1)
I have played the "Wizard of Oz" from Jersey Jack about 6 months ago, was fun but I can see future problems(If the machine is in a bar, the LCD monitor wasn't secured very well)
Twlight Zone, Adams Family, Junkyard is a lot of fun also(so many machines all slammed into 1)
I have played the "Wizard of Oz" from Jersey Jack about 6 months ago, was fun but I can see future problems(If the machine is in a bar, the LCD monitor wasn't secured very well)
AladainAF
Best Rabbit
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Yeah those tables like BoP and Black Knight 2K were amazing because they basically had the same FM Synthesis sound chips in them as the old Sound Blasters yet they truly mastered the sounds to make some really badass soundtracks.
I forgot about Adams Family TBH, definitely a great table. Most people don't know but Stern still makes Pinball Machines and they are cranking them out quite good lately, but they don't have the same feel as the old Williams tables to me.
I forgot about Adams Family TBH, definitely a great table. Most people don't know but Stern still makes Pinball Machines and they are cranking them out quite good lately, but they don't have the same feel as the old Williams tables to me.
I was an avid pinball player back in the 80s/90s and really wish they were still around in new quality. Addams Family (best table ever), BK2K, Getaway, White Water etc were all classics but I still have a soft spot for Comet. A simple table but with good play it was destroyable.
Gamma Rays
Large sized member
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Good for you on the purchase, I have wanted to buy one for years, but live in a 3rd floor apartment. Getting a machine up the stairs would be close to impossible, so it's a no go.
A lot of maintenance and repairs, you can do yourself. I used to work in a large arcade back in the mid 90's and serviced a lot of machines
** Important thing to state now - Unplug the power lead from the wall before opening it up!! Small things inside the coin door are okay, but as soon as you want to take out the glass or lift the playfield, you gotta be safe.
You realize after working on them that the power comes into the cabinet and on some of them the connectors and the connections to the power supply are right there, uncovered. It's inside the machine under normal use, so safe, 1990's safe. Don't just think that you're doing a small fix 'up over here' is away from that area and okay, I dropped a small bolt once and went fishing for it . . . lets just say we had good circuit breakers.
During my time working on them, I came up with a general rule, I called it the 90% rule. When there is an issue with the machine 90% of the time, the problem is visible, you can open the machine, have a look in the area ( sometimes you need a good search with a torch ) and you can actually see the problem and fix it in less than 10 minutes. The sort of problems that arise here are mostly due to the quite physical nature of the machine's operation / operating. Causing things like small parts to work loose and fall out of position, or solder points to break, or sometimes a part might have broken. These are easy to fix ( well, broken part might be harder in your position / we had a store of parts to get from ).
It's an area where you need to get a little confidence and get in there and get it fixed.
Of the remaining 10% of issues. There was 90% of that was an 'invisible' problem, that could be found by using a multimeter to find the issue, often a wire with an internal break. Continuity mode for that, or something like a failed electrical part. But these fixes took some more time.
And then the final 10% of that last 10% were the big problem ones. But in truth quite rare.
Sir Funk
Lord Nagafen Raider
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Last summer I went to the local pinball joint and had the interesting experience of playing a game dedicated to the great American actor, BILL PAXTON. It was one of the strangest machines in the shop to be sure, but all of his greatest hits were represented in the game!
ex-genj
Golden Squire
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Thanks, good info. Only problem I have now is a flaky switch inside a scoop, everything else seems to be in good shape, maybe a couple burned out lights I'll have to poke around. Didn't realize it was quite so vulnerable so um will start unplugging it now when I'm in there..