I've been playing pinball for a very long time now. It was around 1998 that I met The Getaway at a pizza place I worked at, and it all finally clicked for me. I couldn't stop playing it. My friend Mike and I went at each other's throats competing for Grand Champion. Somewhere along the way, I became very good at pinball. He and I developed tricks that we didn't realize other people knew. The coolest move we "invented", we called the Death Save. It wasn't until recently that I discovered there was a whole world of people who already knew what we knew, and they even used some of the same terms we mistakenly thought we had coined.
See, I always loved pinball, but I never really sought out pinball. If a bar I went to had a random machine like Medieval Madness or Twilight Zone, then I became good at that one machine. It was always a treat finding a new machine, but those instances were few and far between. It took me a while to find "The Pinball Arcade", because I had fallen in love with a PS3 game called "The Williams Pinball Hall of Fame". In my mind no other pinball simulator was even worth playing. I didn't make the connection that they were one and the same until much later.
These days I live five minutes from a place that has around 100 machines. I'm there a lot. Recently I discovered that they have a Pinball League. It's finally time to step up and see just where I stand against real competition. That is the purpose of this blog. I am going to attempt to document my time and experiences as an outsider in the league, starting on my first night as a rookie. I'm pretty confident in my own skills, but it's time to test myself. Whether I succeed or fail miserably, I will write about it honestly. If this becomes a blog for us all to laugh at my hubris and misfortunes, then so be it. I'm not trying to be a big shot. I'm nobody special, and I already know this.
Tonight will be my first night in the league. There is a Novice and an Advanced League. I will be starting in the Novice League. The rules state that if you place in the top three for a season, you lose your novice status. My initial goal will be to place out of Novice and earn my way into the Advanced League. If this takes me more than one season to accomplish, then I will see it through. I want to earn my spot in a tougher league instead of just saying, "I think I deserve to be there".
This past weekend I planned on training all weekend. After all, you never know which four machines will be chosen each week, and I'm still in the process of trying to play every machine they have at least once. While I was waiting for my friend to go to the arcade, I sat down to play a quick game of Creature from the Black Lagoon (PS4). This was around 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. The next thing I knew 18 hours had passed, and I found myself with 211 Billion points and the top spot on the leaderboards. While I am proud of this, it was never my intention. The score rolled so many times that I lost track of where I was at, so I just kept going.
I never made it to the arcade to train, because I went into a coma shortly thereafter. We'll see how I do tonight, but honestly, I'm still feeling a little sick from that run. I wish I had just prepared like a normal human being.
I'll keep you posted.
OmegaDef
OMD
See, I always loved pinball, but I never really sought out pinball. If a bar I went to had a random machine like Medieval Madness or Twilight Zone, then I became good at that one machine. It was always a treat finding a new machine, but those instances were few and far between. It took me a while to find "The Pinball Arcade", because I had fallen in love with a PS3 game called "The Williams Pinball Hall of Fame". In my mind no other pinball simulator was even worth playing. I didn't make the connection that they were one and the same until much later.
These days I live five minutes from a place that has around 100 machines. I'm there a lot. Recently I discovered that they have a Pinball League. It's finally time to step up and see just where I stand against real competition. That is the purpose of this blog. I am going to attempt to document my time and experiences as an outsider in the league, starting on my first night as a rookie. I'm pretty confident in my own skills, but it's time to test myself. Whether I succeed or fail miserably, I will write about it honestly. If this becomes a blog for us all to laugh at my hubris and misfortunes, then so be it. I'm not trying to be a big shot. I'm nobody special, and I already know this.
Tonight will be my first night in the league. There is a Novice and an Advanced League. I will be starting in the Novice League. The rules state that if you place in the top three for a season, you lose your novice status. My initial goal will be to place out of Novice and earn my way into the Advanced League. If this takes me more than one season to accomplish, then I will see it through. I want to earn my spot in a tougher league instead of just saying, "I think I deserve to be there".
This past weekend I planned on training all weekend. After all, you never know which four machines will be chosen each week, and I'm still in the process of trying to play every machine they have at least once. While I was waiting for my friend to go to the arcade, I sat down to play a quick game of Creature from the Black Lagoon (PS4). This was around 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. The next thing I knew 18 hours had passed, and I found myself with 211 Billion points and the top spot on the leaderboards. While I am proud of this, it was never my intention. The score rolled so many times that I lost track of where I was at, so I just kept going.
I never made it to the arcade to train, because I went into a coma shortly thereafter. We'll see how I do tonight, but honestly, I'm still feeling a little sick from that run. I wish I had just prepared like a normal human being.
I'll keep you posted.
OmegaDef
OMD
