Pinball machines/games

[UberScout]

When I was a kid, I used to go to my local Jungle Rapids every chance I could to play the pinball machines they had there; I thought those things were so awesome. I guess the fact that I was playing an actual game with physical mechanisms and not just 16-bit sprites on layered parallax backgrounds was new to me...

When I was younger, the pinball machines they had were:

The Addams Family
The Simpsons Pinball Party (Data East)
Starship Troopers
South Park (SEGA 1999)
And I think one more but I can't remember, it was probably broken all the time :/

Now in 2019 they only have Star Trek and The Walking Dead Pinball, that one I got a chance to play.

My nostalgia that I remember for them (mostly game overs):

The Addams Family: You could shoot the ball into the hand and...I think, if I remember right, he'd tried to throw it at one of the bonus ramps? Memory's fuzzy on that one.
- If you lost all three balls, the machine would play a rendition of the show's theme song, and end the "snap snap" part by flipping the flippers in place of snapping.

South Park:

- Losing all three balls causes Kenny to die in some random way and the classic "Oh my god! You killed Kenny!" line. I think. It's been a while.
- I think you had to start multiball by shooting the ball up a ramp into the Marklarr's ship?

Starship Troopers

- Losing all your balls causes a trooper to blow the head off a fat-looking alien.

Now, in 2019 with The Walking Dead and Star Trek...I haven't played the Star Trek one, I only was able to spend my last dollar on The Walking Dead pinball. (There was the actual arcade game sitting at the front of the establishment, but it was Sophia's birthday and I didn't want to put the focus on myself.)

TWD:

- To start multiball, you have to get the prison in the middle of the table to open up to reveal the Prison Walker, and knock him down.
- Losing all three balls causes a huge horde of walkers to appear and tear into an innocent civilian, eating their innards as their intestines line up to show you your final score (good god!!). Rick (or maybe it's Neagan?) then chimes in to urge you to try again.

What was your favorite experience with a pinball machine?

 

[aspieoutlaw89]

Street Fighter II,also a fighting game classic.
-Defeat 12 Characters until there are none left standing,like a hunting game in the form of a pinball machine.

 

[Tom]

Back in 1980 I had a slight crush on the imaginary robot girl in the Xenon game in the Rec Center at my first base.

My favorite however is the Lord of the Rings game by Stern that came out in 2003, because they used the same toy figures in it that I collect.

 

[Judge]

Used to play them many years ago when arcades were more popular. From Soho down to Brighton, I must have played them all.

Best experience? Avoiding a "TILT". Hard to do when pulling on the machine so hard you can lift it off the ground. Oops. Anyways I was better with air hockey.

 

[Misery]

My own favorite is this:

I have played this to the point of mastery. Know it inside and out. Exactly how the scoring system works, what every tiny part does, the correct angles to use to hit certain targets, the correct order to do things.... I can keep a game of this going for a long time.

It's quite the machine. Two things make it unique: First, that bit in the center, a backwards section that sits underneath the main board, with those flippers inside sending the ball TOWARDS you. It's hard to see, but there are a couple of bumpers and some drop targets inside that mini board. If the ball drains in there it comes back up to the main section. You get to the mini board via that bit in the upper left.

The goal is to build up both bonus and multiplier via the various drop targets, repeating a certain set of actions to max these out, and then once that's done, activating multiball to make use of those and get crazy points. You can get extra balls as well but there's a hard limit on those, you cant just keep earning them. It's a tough table, the very open design of the main board means that it is very *fast*, the ball always travelling at warp speed. You have to know the right timing to nudge the thing to keep the ball from launching itself into the drain.

Now, aside from that, there is also this little wonder:

Pinball FX2 VR on Oculus Rift

This is one of the reasons why I got into VR. Those machines look absolutely real once you're in there. Bloody amazing. Though obviously the surroundings are... well, not quite the arcades of old, hah. But there's a whole seperate program to simulate proper retro arcades.

 

[the_tortoise]

What was your favorite experience with a pinball machine?

All of them. Pinball is amazing.

 

[Wolfnox]

I was terrible at it. I do miss the bigger machines.

 

[puzzlingbill]

My own favorite is this:

View attachment 56904

I have played this to the point of mastery. Know it inside and out. Exactly how the scoring system works, what every tiny part does, the correct angles to use to hit certain targets, the correct order to do things.... I can keep a game of this going for a long time.

It's quite the machine. Two things make it unique: First, that bit in the center, a backwards section that sits underneath the main board, with those flippers inside sending the ball TOWARDS you. It's hard to see, but there are a couple of bumpers and some drop targets inside that mini board. If the ball drains in there it comes back up to the main section. You get to the mini board via that bit in the upper left.

The goal is to build up both bonus and multiplier via the various drop targets, repeating a certain set of actions to max these out, and then once that's done, activating multiball to make use of those and get crazy points. You can get extra balls as well but there's a hard limit on those, you cant just keep earning them. It's a tough table, the very open design of the main board means that it is very *fast*, the ball always travelling at warp speed. You have to know the right timing to nudge the thing to keep the ball from launching itself into the drain.

Now, aside from that, there is also this little wonder:

Pinball FX2 VR on Oculus Rift

This is one of the reasons why I got into VR. Those machines look absolutely real once you're in there. Bloody amazing. Though obviously the surroundings are... well, not quite the arcades of old, hah. But there's a whole seperate program to simulate proper retro arcades.

Loved that machine - really liked the "downstairs" play.