Chicago Pinball Expo 2015

I popped over to the Chicago Pinball Expo for a bit. Last year was pretty fantastic. The Game Hall had a ton of games to the point where they had an overflow room and the Vendor Hall had a lot of neat stuff there too. But looks like this year is not going to be too good.

I should preface by mentioning it's Friday afternoon and typically the place doesn't get booming till later that night. But was pretty bummed with what I saw so this is going to be somewhat negative.

Also should mention I have not played Game of Thrones which is debuting at the Expo. They had GoT machines for the Tourney and I could see the others were in the Vendor Hall but it wasn't open yet and was too bummed out to stick around till 6pm when it did open.

So this is primary of what I saw in the Game Hall.



The Game Hall was pretty empty. Typically you see several rows full of machines and also ones along the sides of the wall.



They're not here. But hey there's a Solar Fire set up at the back there! That's actually become one of my favorite pins. It's a Black Knight clone with some cheesy Battlestar Galactica themed artwork. But I think it plays better than Black Knight. Although the playfield on this machine was all beat to hell the game played well enough for me to enjoy it.



Are the games over in this corner? Well yeah two cocktail pinball machines that weren't hooked up yet.



Hey! Here's a few pins!

But only a few. This row had a Rollercoaster Tycoon, a Safecracker that was turned off when I came in (later turned on), and an Eight Ball Deluxe that was also turned off.

In the Back were tables with color DMDs: Attack from Mars, Congo, Metallica, and I think Simpsons. Played a bit of Congo - which is such a great table - and while it was playable it was kinda beat up.

The beat up tables is a bit of a theme this year.



Here's some tables! A few EMs on the left and a mix of SS/EM/DMDs on the right. There were probably about 80 pins in the room and several were turned off, in the process of being fixed, or beat to hell. Very few in what I would consider good or better condition.

I know I shouldn't complain since I don't bring a pin (or even own one) but I think the anticipation of having a chance to play some good tables only to find a small number of pins and many beat to hell or not working was really disappointing.

More pics in the next post.

So here's an example of a beat to hell table. The Taxi was playable although the plunger was really weak and the flippers were a bit weak but good enough to be playable. But the actual table was in terrible shape. Lets take a closer look.



I think Santa Claus may have come down with a bit of the bubonic plaque this year. I think he's even scarier looking than poor Drac who's a bit crispy due to sun exposure.



Ok I need to lighten up the mood a bit. So here's something that I hadn't played before. Disco Fever which is a SS game. It wasn't that much fun but does have one feature that I've only seen on one other pin...



Banana flippers!

As odd as these flippers look they really don't change up the gameplay all that much. You would think given the shape you can cradle the ball in the curvy area but its really difficult to get the ball to stop in there. And even when you do it doesn't give you additional control of placing a shot. It is neat to check out though if you ever see a pin with them.

This was a neat surprise - and probably my highlight from the show. A Q-Bert. I've never seen one before and always want to try it.



The game is pretty bizarre but so is the table layout.

It isn't the deepest game. You basically try and complete the cube in the center of the table by making specific shots on the table. The layout is actually pretty cramped. The ball is constantly being directed towards that center portion of the table so it makes the table feel a bit cramped. I never felt there was good flow on it.

But the oddest thing about the table...



...is the flipper layout.

You have the two upper flippers, which function normally, and then the two bottom flippers. The two bottom flippers basically are there to save the ball. If the ball goes straight down the middle there's a chance it'll fall to the left/right of the center lane and you can bat the ball back in to play. Same with those bottom left/right lanes. You can just bat the ball back in to play - and I was able to do that quite a lot.

The other odd thing about the bottom flippers are they trigger opposite to what you press. So if you press the left flipper button the bottom right flipper will trigger. It's too confusion so the Pro Tip I can give is just hit both flipper buttons when you need to bat it with the bottom flippers.

Glad I got to play this game though. Was very curious about it. But my takeaway is its not much fun.



Speaking of not much fun...hiyo!

Wow an actual Goin' Nuts. I was actually kinda pumped to see this as there's only 10 of these around.

Man did I want to play that game. But this guy you see in the picture there he was playing it. So I went and played another table and circled back. And he was still playing it. So I went off and played two other tables and came back. And he was still playing it. So I played a few more tables and came back and he was still playing it! He was actually going nuts over the table.

Long story short I was finally able to play it much later sometime after he cracked. One of the flippers was working 50% of the time but otherwise was fine and I did ok on it.

But this game is not good in TPA and not good in real life.

I've noticed this one has gotten a few mentions of late. It's the spiritual successor of Space Shuttle.

Lets take a closer look...



The table layout is pretty neat looking. Plenty of targets to shoot for. On the right side there's a ramp that's blocked by a drop down target - working similar to how the center ramp works in Space Shuttle. There's a neat circular space station toy at the top. And it has a nice sound package.

The one thing that kills it for me though are the slingshots. There's no lanes the ball can roll down where you can catch it on the flippers and gain control. Typically the ball is hitting the slingshots and putting the ball back in to play. When the ball goes to the flippers its usually going to fast where you can stop it. So there's little opportunity of actually controlling the ball. And that means all those lovely targets on the table you can't really aim at.



Lots of Gottliebs here.

I've seen Gold Wings at other shows but I don't think I've actually played. This one has a bit of an odd layout too.



It looks like there's a lot going on in the table but it's actually kinda small since the table is split in two.

On the right side you have your two normal flippers but on the left you see a fair portion of the table is dedicated to just that one flipper - which is like a manual kick back that won't always save you. Splitting the table like this actually makes it feel a bit cramped with the right side table area - where you're mainly playing. The Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash game kinda makes the same mistake of splitting the table up.

The game was one of the ones that were in better shape so I was glad for that but I didn't get the hang of the table. So while I know I don't like the table I didn't come away disliking it. It was just a bit odd.

Ok I'm getting a bit bummed out here and its reflecting in my writing. So gonna stop here. Not sure if I'll head over tomorrow or not. Would like to check out the vendor hall and the Game of Thrones and Kiss tables but not sure I want to spent another $25 to do that.

Thanks for the review Crawley.

Great pics. Thanks for the posts.

Nice pics! Sweet home Chicago....and GO CUBS GO!

Did you check out any of the group talks? I know Heighway showed some of the Alien table art for the first time etc...

Metalzoic said:

Did you check out any of the group talks? I know Heighway showed some of the Alien table art for the first time etc...

Click to expand...

No I didn't. The seminars ticket is $60 and there isn't enough that I'm interested in. Plus all that stuff tends to appear online either on Pinside or Pinball News.

Beyond playing the GoT table I would have loved to play Heighways release version of Full Throttle. I know they had the LE version there too - which has a digital backglass - that I would have loved to play. But oh well. I think they showed up at the Midwest Gaming Classic this year so hopefully will again for next year and play it there.

Where the lines for Full Throttle to long to wait? I've read that the lines for Lebowski and Hobbit were a pretty long ass wait.

This show was a real letdown compared to the last couple years. What happened??? The convention was around the same time last year, but had probably 3x to 4x as many tables. Why did attendance and the number of tables plummet?

I only went Friday night and didn't realize the vendor hall didn't open until 11pm. The vendor hall had a full ballroom booked, so I was hoping a lot of the tables were hiding in there. No dice. I left disappointed

Sweet. Thanks for the report!

Megahurtz said:

This show was a real letdown compared to the last couple years. What happened??? The convention was around the same time last year, but had probably 3x to 4x as many tables. Why did attendance and the number of tables plummet?

Click to expand...

Last year someone brought 45 tables alone, and on top of that had quite a few people bring their own tables, so free play area was well populated. This year didn't have that.

From what I'm reading on pinside it sounds like there is some contention between the organizer and those that bring tables. So brining a table isn't as big of a benefit for this Expo and apparently the guy can be a bit harsh.

So looks like I'll just go the one day (Saturday) next year for this one. Will leave the actual pin playing to Midwest Gaming Classic and VFW events.

Sounds like a lot of it is the Mike guy that organizes the show.
Check this thread out:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/thank-yous-and-farwell-expo-15