Visited the National Pinball Museum in Baltimore today

[jkonami]

They've got a pretty nice setup! I got to play a lot of the machines that I noticed were favorites on this board for the first time - Earthshaker, Big Bang Bar, Safecracker, ST:TNG, they have a nice selection. I went with my girlfriend and two of our friends, and we all had a blast, thought we'd be done with the 2 hour pass but the time went by quickly since we were having so much fun. They have a great Pat Lawlor row - Banzai Run, Earthshaker, Whirlwind, Funhouse, TAF, and TZ, all right next to one another. Lots of interesting EM tables, too. The biggest surprise for me was how much I liked Bank Shot, which they have on the first floor - that game was really satisfying, both to play and aurally. I don't know if they had it tuned to perfection or what but it plays awesome. It's all by itself, pretty much, among other exhibits that aren't playable or turned on - so you can hear it perfectly. The rest of the playable games are upstairs and that's more like a loud arcade. Plenty of other people having a good time there too. Some downsides: TZ was down for maintenance, I was hoping to play the real thing (been checking out the future pinball version at home, really looking forward to TPA's version!), Black Knight (not 2000, sadly) didn't seem to work, Indiana Jones was there too and was also turned off. On the plus side, they have a guy running around and fixing machines all the time. Funhouse wasn't out when I arrived, but they wheeled it out and it was playable not long after. They also have a third floor with god knows what machines, they have to close it off for now because of an A/C problem so I couldn't report. Check it out though, I thought I'd give them a little endorsement here, because I love to see arcades live on

Now I have to make a run to Crabtown USA to get my Black Knight 2000 fix...