- Mar 14, 2012
- 7,334
- 0
Me and a buddy went and played some real live pinball tonight at a place called Pins and Needles near downtown L.A.
You can check out the website here www.pinsandneedlesla.com
The big positive was that parking was not an issue. Not only was there lots of it, but you didn't have to pay for it. The location is an oddity, as the building is mostly used as rehearsal space for musicians. There's hallways everywhere with lots of doors, and each one of those had music coming out of 'em. There was a vending machine that amongst the candy and chips also had drumsticks and guitar strings! Anyways, behind one of those doors was Pins and Needles. Basically its a loading dock with pinball machines. A big roll up garage door was opened to the street, it's nothing but concrete inside, and there is a raised platform leading into the building. Not at all what I was expecting, felt very much like I was playing in someone's garage.
All the machines are owned my Molly (I think that's her name) and she was there playing the machines along with everyone else. There was a change machine for dollar bills, but if you needed a 5 broke, she took it, opened up the coin door to a non working table, and pulled out a little pill bottle like container that had 5 bucks worth of quarters in it! Once done, she asked you toss the container in a big ol' trophy cup that was from a pinball tournament. Quirky, but cool. I should mention that there were tables also in the lobby of the building and near the bathrooms down the hall.
Okay, enough of that. How was it playing real tables for a change?
In a word, odd. I'm spoiled by digital perfection. First table we played was Rollergames. Plunged the ball full power and it didn't make it up the ramp. Uh oh. Hit the up kicker that send the ball to the middle flipper and was told "dont' flip!" so I didn't. Magnet failed to catch the ball though! Uh oh again. Caught the ball with the left flipper, and it started rolling to the right. Big uh oh. Table obviously wasn't leveled. To say the least, wound up being a short game.
That in a nutshell was my night. These are things you have to contend with in the real world of pinball, where tables aren't 100% and tuned to perfection. Still, lots of fun to be had.
Next played Future Spa. Table is comically slow. It was right next to Funhouse, and the degree of table angle was shockingly different. Future Spa was bordering on perfectly flat it seemed! I joked that it was like playing in slow motion. So used to using twitch reactions to save balls from going where you don't want them to, my timing was completely off for this table. Also add in the fact this one had the ball drifting left. I couldn't aim to save my life either. Table made me feel like a complete moron. Wheeeee!
After that was Black Rose. It was level, seemed in good condition. I tried using all my TPA skills only to get completely skunked by my buddy who was just randomly flipping. This was also my first exposure of the night to the ball making drastic turns due to slight imperfection in the playfield. On this particular table it was right by the flipper, the cannon that turns and the inset lights. Ball would roll over those and jank left or right hard. Talk about not something that would happen digitally. We just laughed though, the randomness of it all.
Now I should mention, cause it greatly affected the next two tables played, that all the lights were shut off inside the garage space. So we're playing Jak*Bot, and when you hit the targets in front of the visor, the table strobes, go black for a moment, then lights up again. Well in that space of time your ball goes from being at the top of the table to being right in front of the flippers, traveling while the table went dark and your eyes were adjusting to the strobe. Similarly Funhouse is extremely hard to keep track of the ball in the dark due to its bright flashes. Complain all you want about tables being maybe too dark on the consoles in TPA, this was down right nasty!
Oh and by the way, Funhouse slaughtered me. I barely scored 3 million while in TPA I routinely break 30 without much effort. Just brutal.
Next played Gottlieb's Spiderman. At first I felt right at home since the flippers were layed out exactly as Black Hole. That's not the only similarity, as my game was extremely short thanks to some nasty ball drains. Oh well.
Moving on, played White Water. What a fun table, even if I had no clue what was going on. Had a really fun multiball on this one and I LOVE that left waterfall ramp.
Played Flash, then Jungle Queen. I was bumping the hell outta Jungle Queen and never tilted. Can really tell those old EM's like a good push and shove!
Tron was there, so got to play something current. After playing all these older tables in various conditions of play, hopping onto something that is practically brand new was strange. Closest thing to how play in TPA is, wound up being the only table I earned a replay on all night.
After that played Genius from Gottlieb Premier. This has got to be the ugliest table I've ever seen. The back glass looks like an unintentional Roger Corman movie tribute. The ramps are Pepto Bismol pink. The digital scoreboard is tiny and looks like it belonged on a scientific calculator. I mean look it up on IPDB, its horrendous looking.
Finished up the night playing Laser War, which if it wasn't for Genius, would have been the normal winner of the 'Ugly Table' award. Spectacularly bad 80's sci-fi themed back glass with a Frankenstein monster in an aerobics outfit!
And there ya have it. There for a little under 2 hours, total of $6 spent. There were a few tables we didn't bother playing, cause they were those very flat tables like Future Spa that held little interest to us. I had really been hoping the tables were in better shape, but at least everything on the tables worked. Tables that weren't level though kinda blew the fun for. As much as I like Rollergames, I only played it once because the level was really bad. Tables were all 50 cents too, which seemed a bit much, but I guess is also understandable these days. This is essentially a person renting a space for her personal collection and letting complete strangers come and play too. Pins and Needles doesn't hold a candle to Tim Arnold's Pinball Hall of Fame, but then it's only 25 miles from my house as opposed to the 350+ I'd have to drive to play in Vegas. That right there means the next time I need a pinball fix, Molly will be getting another visit.
You can check out the website here www.pinsandneedlesla.com
The big positive was that parking was not an issue. Not only was there lots of it, but you didn't have to pay for it. The location is an oddity, as the building is mostly used as rehearsal space for musicians. There's hallways everywhere with lots of doors, and each one of those had music coming out of 'em. There was a vending machine that amongst the candy and chips also had drumsticks and guitar strings! Anyways, behind one of those doors was Pins and Needles. Basically its a loading dock with pinball machines. A big roll up garage door was opened to the street, it's nothing but concrete inside, and there is a raised platform leading into the building. Not at all what I was expecting, felt very much like I was playing in someone's garage.
All the machines are owned my Molly (I think that's her name) and she was there playing the machines along with everyone else. There was a change machine for dollar bills, but if you needed a 5 broke, she took it, opened up the coin door to a non working table, and pulled out a little pill bottle like container that had 5 bucks worth of quarters in it! Once done, she asked you toss the container in a big ol' trophy cup that was from a pinball tournament. Quirky, but cool. I should mention that there were tables also in the lobby of the building and near the bathrooms down the hall.
Okay, enough of that. How was it playing real tables for a change?
In a word, odd. I'm spoiled by digital perfection. First table we played was Rollergames. Plunged the ball full power and it didn't make it up the ramp. Uh oh. Hit the up kicker that send the ball to the middle flipper and was told "dont' flip!" so I didn't. Magnet failed to catch the ball though! Uh oh again. Caught the ball with the left flipper, and it started rolling to the right. Big uh oh. Table obviously wasn't leveled. To say the least, wound up being a short game.
That in a nutshell was my night. These are things you have to contend with in the real world of pinball, where tables aren't 100% and tuned to perfection. Still, lots of fun to be had.
Next played Future Spa. Table is comically slow. It was right next to Funhouse, and the degree of table angle was shockingly different. Future Spa was bordering on perfectly flat it seemed! I joked that it was like playing in slow motion. So used to using twitch reactions to save balls from going where you don't want them to, my timing was completely off for this table. Also add in the fact this one had the ball drifting left. I couldn't aim to save my life either. Table made me feel like a complete moron. Wheeeee!
After that was Black Rose. It was level, seemed in good condition. I tried using all my TPA skills only to get completely skunked by my buddy who was just randomly flipping. This was also my first exposure of the night to the ball making drastic turns due to slight imperfection in the playfield. On this particular table it was right by the flipper, the cannon that turns and the inset lights. Ball would roll over those and jank left or right hard. Talk about not something that would happen digitally. We just laughed though, the randomness of it all.
Now I should mention, cause it greatly affected the next two tables played, that all the lights were shut off inside the garage space. So we're playing Jak*Bot, and when you hit the targets in front of the visor, the table strobes, go black for a moment, then lights up again. Well in that space of time your ball goes from being at the top of the table to being right in front of the flippers, traveling while the table went dark and your eyes were adjusting to the strobe. Similarly Funhouse is extremely hard to keep track of the ball in the dark due to its bright flashes. Complain all you want about tables being maybe too dark on the consoles in TPA, this was down right nasty!
Oh and by the way, Funhouse slaughtered me. I barely scored 3 million while in TPA I routinely break 30 without much effort. Just brutal.
Next played Gottlieb's Spiderman. At first I felt right at home since the flippers were layed out exactly as Black Hole. That's not the only similarity, as my game was extremely short thanks to some nasty ball drains. Oh well.
Moving on, played White Water. What a fun table, even if I had no clue what was going on. Had a really fun multiball on this one and I LOVE that left waterfall ramp.
Played Flash, then Jungle Queen. I was bumping the hell outta Jungle Queen and never tilted. Can really tell those old EM's like a good push and shove!
Tron was there, so got to play something current. After playing all these older tables in various conditions of play, hopping onto something that is practically brand new was strange. Closest thing to how play in TPA is, wound up being the only table I earned a replay on all night.
After that played Genius from Gottlieb Premier. This has got to be the ugliest table I've ever seen. The back glass looks like an unintentional Roger Corman movie tribute. The ramps are Pepto Bismol pink. The digital scoreboard is tiny and looks like it belonged on a scientific calculator. I mean look it up on IPDB, its horrendous looking.
Finished up the night playing Laser War, which if it wasn't for Genius, would have been the normal winner of the 'Ugly Table' award. Spectacularly bad 80's sci-fi themed back glass with a Frankenstein monster in an aerobics outfit!
And there ya have it. There for a little under 2 hours, total of $6 spent. There were a few tables we didn't bother playing, cause they were those very flat tables like Future Spa that held little interest to us. I had really been hoping the tables were in better shape, but at least everything on the tables worked. Tables that weren't level though kinda blew the fun for. As much as I like Rollergames, I only played it once because the level was really bad. Tables were all 50 cents too, which seemed a bit much, but I guess is also understandable these days. This is essentially a person renting a space for her personal collection and letting complete strangers come and play too. Pins and Needles doesn't hold a candle to Tim Arnold's Pinball Hall of Fame, but then it's only 25 miles from my house as opposed to the 350+ I'd have to drive to play in Vegas. That right there means the next time I need a pinball fix, Molly will be getting another visit.
Glad you had fun and if you go again PICTURES please.
