Look at my balls

Pinball graveyard

October 12, 2009.... Some more Pinball Gravedigging.. The webs are filled with pinball stuff, and we're culling some of our favorites here at the Four Tokens Media Arcade. Way back when, I found a machine called Centaur II, in the basement of a ski lodge somewhere in Lake Placid, New York. I played it for a couple of hours on 50 cents, as my buddies proceeded to trash the room, the bathroom, run around outside, break stuff, pretty much everything teen hoodlums would do. Except me. I was hunched over the machine, listening to the Centaur's voice and the click of the flippers, and the smell of wires and pinball case mixing together. Until the flipper took off and flipped onto the playfield. Game over. It's pretty much the same as Centaur, but it looks a bit more flashy:

Right photo: David Ngo

Of course, what pinball player hasn't played and wanted to own The Addams Family pinball machine? I'm sure they are out there, but I don't know where they are. I found one of these things in the basement of an old mall in Middletown, New York, called the Orange Plaza. It has since become some weird Wal*Mart with a mall built underneath it. But it used to be a two-level mall, with two arcades called Just Fun. The lower level had the Addams Family, and the nice guy who ran the place. The upstairs Just Fun had the terrorist guy who was mean to people who wanted to spend money on his machines.

Anyway, the basement Addams Family machine was perfect, you could nudge it a bit, and it would warn you, but you really had to abuse it to get the thing to tilt. As I played, I kept getting the Bear Kick (heading up the center ramp which cut left, and dropped into the Thing Flips flipper), and getting more and more windows in the Addams Mansion lit up. Quick Multiball. The Mamushka. The I Never Get Any Points During the Gosh-Darned Raise The Dead bonus round. Then I lit the Tour the Mansion, after all windows were cleared. I check the score, it was 1,500,000,000 or something crazy like that. So what happens? The ball kicks up and gets stuck on top of the area near the box that holds the hand for Thing. I tell the guy, and he says the machine will reset if he opens it, and I know if I fiddle with the machine it will most likely SLAM TILT, because the ball was wedged in there good. So he opens it, the machine resets, and he gives me 50 cents more to play.

Ok, what are the chances of doing that again? Actually, they chances were pretty good. Another hour or so, playing past closing with the Just Fun guy watching, fetching another 1,500,000,000 or something, and finally giving up because I was playing too long, and I was tired. He said "you're done? You've got 4 replays, do you want to play them?" Of course I wanted to, but my fingers would probably not flip past what I had already done, and the marquee was filled with my initials, COR, for all names, Grand Champion and Family Members. This was over ten years ago, and my memory may be fuzzy about the exact details, but to this day I still would love to own one of these machines, it's just that damned fun.

Left to Right: Cemetery, Chair, Bear Kick, The Vault, Swamp

October 7, 2009.... Where the hell do they keep the pinball machines? Good question. The machines can be found, you just have to be patient, or rich. In this day of online gaming, of XBox 360s and PS3s, they can be easily overlooked or ignored. Maybe at the bus station down the street, or the pool hall stuck into the shopping center, right between Price Chopper and that party store that never seems to be open. Maybe check out a bar, or in the back of what we used to call "arcades", but are now bizarre places where they give out tickets for prizes like stuffed animals and plastic swords. Be warned, the machines in the bars may have the tilt set to super-sensitive, and if there's a female voice in the game, forget it- it'll be turned up to mock you like many women in a bar are most likely to do. That includes Dave & Busters, but at least they have more than one machine, so we can't complain about it.

The next place would be at weird shops or music shops or head shops, or, one great location that is all three combined with your toy box and your old porn collection, Rock Fantasy, in Middletown, New York, owned by our old buddy Steve, the guy who got me into that really loud insane heavy metal that annoys so many people, and who also sold me my first and only machine (RIP to a fire!). Steve owns many machines and keeps some at his home and at The Rock Fantasy, open now for over 20 years, awesome! He even has a sort of league that gathers on Thursdays. Apparently, there are many more freaks like me that like to play pinball!

CLockwise, Left to Right: Dolly, Steve (in black), Gorgar, OCNY Pinball Club

Another place to look, E-commerce places, like eBay and Amazon. They usually have a good if not overpriced collection of pinball stuff.

The last place, would be the digital pinball community: PinMAME, Pinball Nirvana, and Future Pinball.. There are people re-creating arcade machines, as well as creating there own machines. There's some really good stuff in there, all you have to do is look, and check the legal disclaimers. And do have patience when you try to install it, it's a pain in the fekkin' ASS, I tell you! But when it works, it's a pinball lover's bastion of hope for the pinball community. But it's a PAIN IN THE ASS!

October 7, 2009.... Somebody made a Metallica pinball from a modified Earthshaker pinball machine. Looks pretty cool, although it's most likely a one-of-a-kind, unless somebody in Metallica's camp sees it as a marketing possibility.

Some of the amazing work over at Dirty Donny's blog:

Left to Right: Earthshaker, Metallica, larger than life

... and some gratuitous Addams Family pinball stuff:

September 24, 2009.... Finding Hall of Fame for the 360 is turning out to be more difficult than I thought, nobody knows where it is. I may have to resort to Amazon to get my copy, and, oh yeah, maybe even save $10 at the same time!

September 14, 2009.... Pinball Hall of Fame: William's Collection.. It's been out on the Wii for some time, now it should be coming to the XBox 360, toting along some extra tables, and an attractive price of $39.99. Apparently it's also coming for the PS3, we'll be watching the shelves:

No Good Go'phers
Medieval Madness
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Gorgar
Pinbot
Funhouse
Black Knight
Space Shuttle (upper right)
Whirlwind (upper left)
Firepower
Taxi
Jive Time
Sorcerer

Sounds good to me. I wonder what they have planned for DLC on this title? Addams Family? Terminator 2? Black Knight 2000? Attack From Mars? Star Trek: TNG? We'll have to see if the team that put this together is still involved with the new-look Warner Bros. Midway company.

June 6, 2009.... It's not Pachinko.. The classic silver ball pinball machines are all but extinct, save for a few machines here and there and new Virtual Pinball machines being pushed out here and there. But there is still a place for the original machines here with Einstein and Pencil Shavings seeking out the machines, wherever they may be.

The irony of the thing, a pinball machine is not unlike a gravesite. You've got the headstone, and you've got the plot, and inside the coffin-like machine, you've got the heart of the matter: wires, lights, buzzers, solenoids, and the odd smell that of warm electric circuits and wood. A smell that would remind you of a basement.

Theatre of Magic

Our example of how a pinball machine looks like a grave. Make no mistake, I love pinball machine, but the irony is not hard to overlook. This machine is one of the good ones, a busy playfield and lots of samples. But, if I have to hear "Magic Mirror" one more time, somebody will pay.

The

Pencil Shavings

Must-Plays:

Addams Family

Attack from Mars

Banzai Run

Black Knight 2000

Funhouse

Gorgar

The Machine

*Pinball FX

Pinbot

South Park

Star Trek: TNG

Star Wars Trilogy

The Twilight Zone

**Zen Pinball

*XBox 360 title .... ** PSN Title

Underneath the table, it's a pretty sight.