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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shutyertrap" data-source="post: 260873" data-attributes="member: 134">First day I got to Portland, I checked out Ground Kontrol as it was a short 12 minute walk from my hotel. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't really impressed. It seemed like a bar that happened to have video games and pinball machines. By that I mean stuff was stuck in any corner it would fit. I did get to finally play The Hobbit (not impressed), Pabst Can Crusher (if all EMs played and sounded like this, they'd be way more fun), and Kiss (had good games on it, but kinda meh overall). Prices were 75 cents for Stern games, 50 cents for WMS/Bally. Tables played fine, more or less what you would hope to find out of routed machines, as opposed to how you usually find them. Was there for only an hour, spending 5 bucks in total.Looking around on the pinballmap.com sight, I really wanted to play some machines I haven't gotten a real chance at yet. That's when I spotted Quarterworld. It was almost 4 miles from my hotel, but the fact they had Dialed In meant I had to go. Oh, they also have 30 machines on hand. I rented a bike from a kiosk, Biketown (Nike has these set up all over the town and I like the idea behind it a lot), and set to cycling to this place. All I can say is it was soooo worth it!Quarterworld is more of an arcade that happens to have a bar in it. I did have to pay a cover charge of 1 dollar (goes up to $3 in the evening), but as soon as I stepped foot in, I knew this is what I had hoped Ground Kontrol would have been. It was dark, there was funky electro 80's style music playing, and a quick walk down a hall full of retro arcade games let to a large open room that looked like the arcades of my youth. Best yet, 2 walls lined with pinball. I really wanted to hop on Dialed In right away, but there was someone already playing. I took a quick look at all the machines on hand, decided to throw the 50 cents already in my pocket into Centaur. Pricing on machines was exactly the same as GK. I proceeded to play Centaur on that initial 50 cents for the next 90 minutes. Replay was only 500,000 and it was set to 5 balls. I was getting at least one replay per game, sometimes 2. I was having fun though, as the rubber was really fresh, and Centaur has the same feel of my Eight Ball Deluxe. Yeah, I want one big time. I was especially getting a thrill saving balls from the outline by nudging them through the gates. Works almost better than in TPA. Getting double queen's chamber however was simply impossible after the first drop target, as the captured ball never reacted like it does from that shot in TPA. Eventually I walked away from the game with 2 credits still on the machine.I played Batman 66 finally, only to realize that it is more or less The Dark Knight. I like the goofiness of it better though. Then I played Dialed In with my headphones plugged in. I didn't connect my phone to the game (honestly not sure even how to do that), but no matter as I had a blast on it. It's pure Lawlor, with enough tricks and gimmicks to essentially be a next gen TZ. My only gripe, it scores a woefully small amount of points like the other two JJP pins. I don't need to score billions, but finishing a game in the 100 thousands is completely unsatisfying. That literally is my only complaint. I'm no fan of WoZ, found Hobbit kinda dull, but this thing was right up my alley.I had one game on Ghostbusters Pro. Found a free game on Game Show, which was fully LED'd out and was a strobing nightmare to play in such a dark room. I mean, it was brutal in these conditions, the ball disappearing from sight all the time. I debated throwing my remaining 50 cents into X-files, instead opted for Flinstones. Ya know what? I actually had a good time on that. It's kinda ugly, but the shot combos are rather fun.With no more quarters, I checked on Centaur. It still had my 2 credits on it. So, more games were played. I walked away from it with 4 credits! As I did that, on the machine next to me was someone who worked at Quarterworld. I commented that I was impressed by how well maintained the machines were, and she got a huge smile and said that was all her! Said she checks different machines daily for blown bulbs, broken items, improper settings. Rubber is changed regularly, and machines are cleaned as often as she has time for. No wonder I was loving this place! I mentioned how easily I was destroying Centaur, and she said she keeps it that way because it's one of her favorites and she wants people to play it.By this point I'd been there a little over 3 hours and needed to hop back on the bike to get back to the hotel. But first, I had to witness the Tesla Coil show. They have a giant one set up, and they play live keyboard music that it reacts to. It was kinda rad, louder than hell (they provide free ear plugs as it is about 90 decibels loud, or monster truck loud), and perfectly at home in an arcade. As I started to leave, I noticed yet another room off the main room. Poked my head in, and there were 10 more pinball machines I'd completely missed! Oh well, they were all machines I'd played before. I doubt I'm gonna get a chance to visit any other pinball sites this trip, but I feel I've already visited the best.</blockquote>

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