What is it about pinball?

[Buzz1126]

For those of us that pray at the Altar of the Silver Ball, there is that something, that pulls us in. For some, the flashing lights and the sounds from an empty table. For those of us a little older, maybe the bells and bumpers when we see someone playing. Still others have to fill the competition need, against the table, 1-3 people, or their own high score. For all ages, the backglass has always been an attraction.

In any case, we find ourselves at the business end of the game. The token drops, the table erupts into action. Drop targets reset, popping up like gophers from their holes. Bumpers darken, awaiting the necessary action to light them. Bonus levels and multipliers start at their lowest level.

And it begins.

You gently pull back the plunger, trying to get a feel for the spring that sends the ball into action. It arcs around the top of the table, dancing atop the lane bumpers with a nudge, dropping thru a lane or falling into hole, increasing the bonus level or adding to the multiplier. The ball returns to its decent, towards the enevitable. Like popcorn in a popper, the ball hits a bumper, then another, scoring ten points, or a hundred or thousands. As quickly as it entered, the ball makes its exit. Shooting out, it rolls in a semicircle towards a lane or another bumper, continuing the downward journey. Rollover switches light bumpers, increasing their point value. The drop targets take hits, increasing the bonus level. Multipliers of levels elevate, two, three, seven, even nine or more. That metal sphere has reached the tools of the player-the flipper. With deft actions of the flippers and reactions of the player, the ball returns towards the top of the table, only to head back the way it came, taking a different path. The player nudges the ball at opportune times, trying to defy gravity, and send it to a scoring hole or a bumper. The ball returns to the flippers and is again sent towards a potential reward. Drop a series of targets? An extra ball. Repeat the series? Bonus multiplier. Replicate that action of sinking enough targets or score enough points and you've captured the bounty of a free game.

Finally, the works of Aristotle, of Newton, of Einstein, are proven. With an aimed shot that goes imperceptibly left or right of its target, or a nudge lightly given or slightly too hard, that eighty grams of steel, that one and one sixteenth inch of polished metal, exits the playing field. Bonuses are multiplied and added to the existing score. An extra ball, if earned, is awarded. Exceeding the point total necessary wins the trophy of the action, the extra game, and is shown on the backglass. And at the end of the game, when all points are tallied, you watch closely as you await the results of a random number generator. Will you be that one among ten the generator puts out? That loud "POP!", the result of a match between the last two digits of your score and those randomly selected by the machine alerts you and others that you play yet again. However, the silence that follows shouts the need to insert another token.

There is a finality, though. Your battle against a foe of wires, of computer boards, of lights and plastic has come to an end. Your point total came in just under the amount needed to continue play. Your hands each have an indentation that fit exactly the top corners of a pinball machine. Your supply of tokens are spent. As you turn to leave, you play each game, each shot over and over. The next time, you think to yourself, the next time...

Minutes later, the flashing lights and exciting sounds have attracted someone. The token drops.

And it begins.

 

[Heretic]

50 shades of pinball?

 

[shutyertrap]

Yep, that was total pinball porn.

 

[jaredmorgs]

And, I'm spent...

 

[DanBradford]

For me I think it's that "just one more game" aspect where our best games are always just one shot away from something über epic.

Take for example my afternoon on POTC where I beat my high score:

Aaaaaaarrrrr. I just doubled my high score on POTC, me hearties

Those last two lights on the right (East wind - Heart MB super jackpot and defeat Davy Jones) are the hardest ones, finally I defeated them and had the wizard mode lit (four winds). Imagine it. Let me give you you the scene as an allegorical comparison: you have been trying to get Scarlett Johanssen or Angelina Jolie into bed, having only seen them once before.

So I/you get invited to a party by accident because my name is like someone else's name. I attend the party and go into the VIP area by mistake, where I'm not allowed, but they let me stay because they think I'm someone else. I meet Scarlett and Angie. We chat. They both like me but there's no real signals or red lights, but we all check each other out and get on well, and I get the impression that Angie fancies Scarlett. Later in the evening I find myself at the after party (again by luck) and the music and power breaks down. I find myself in a dark corner with S and A and we are all up for it and frustrated. Scarlett says 'come on you two, let's go to my apartment, it's round the corner'.

I go to Scarlett's apartment with Angelina Jolie. We all drink and laugh. Scarlett suggests strip poker. We play and end up all in our undies but with both girls totally pissed and horny. We all head to the bedroom. There is coke. There is booze. There is music. Everyone wants to spend four hours basically in nirvana in a sexathon instead of real life.
I approach the ladies in my undies. They are both super horny and super hot. Both are wet and willing. Both look at me hoping to be the first. Both are naked and open, a finger in their mouth and another at their (ahem) beck and call. A smell of musk is in the air.

Allegory over. Strike tents boys. I return to reality. I am in the wizard mode: I drain instantly and get nothing. In the allegory, I come in my pants and am asked to leave while the girls get it on with each other.


Errrr. Haha.

 

[Emergency_Room]

Never really put much thought into why I like pinball. Maybe it is the challenge of having to aim your shots perfectly, maybe it is the fact that the flashing lights and sound effects, or maybe it is because I want to make that little ball my personal...um... well you know. Whatever the reason though I have enjoyed playing pinball since I was about 8 or 9. Before TPA I had honestly pretty much forgotten about it. This is a little story about what happened to me in December.

It is a cold night in December as I park outside the J.C. Penny. It is Christmastime and many times I have been at this mall around Christmas. I think back to all the times as a kid I was brought here to see Santa. Entering the mall from J.C. Penny I see the center stage where many a time I sat on Santa's lap and told him what I wanted for Christmas. Now Santa is in a new location and the stage is empty. I turn and walk through the mall. The mall has seen better days but there are still a good many people doing some Christmas shopping. Finally I got to where I was wanting to go. Game Galaxy Arcade I walk in and see them. Two pinball machines sitting there calling for me to buy an admission.

Two minutes and $4 less in my wallet later I head toward the Back to the Future machine. Getting in position with fingers on the flippers just feels natural. I push the start button and pull the trigger back. For the first time in about fifteen years I am playing a real life pinball game. One game on that one and it is time to try the one next to it Hook. Of the two I played that night I thought this one to be the better one and wound up playing it the most. Eventually I tried a few other games, but the pinball machines kept calling me back.

As quick as it started my time in the arcade is up. I walk out of the arcade thinking that I had to come back sometime. When I got home I found out that the arcade I had gone to was closing in January. The games were being sold and anything left over was going back to Nashville. I knew I had to go back one more time before they closed. Unfortunatly I got sick and did not even feel like getting up to take the medicine I was given let along getting out and going to an arcade so I never did get to go back. The one good thing is that Nashville is only a 2 hour drive from here and at the one in Nashville they have a load of pins so I suspect I will go up there at some point buying much longer time.

 

[mystman12]

Great, your story has made me afraid my local arcade will close soon too! It's in an a really badly kept up mall, it has two Pinball machines, (Lord if the Rings , which was recently restored, and Big Guns, which the owner said was also going to be restored) and I haven't been there in months! I gotta get down there again sometime soon.

 

[Emergency_Room]

Great, your story has made me afraid my local arcade will close soon too! It's in an a really badly kept up mall, it has two Pinball machines, (Lord if the Rings , which was recently restored, and Big Guns, which the owner said was also going to be restored) and I haven't been there in months! I gotta get down there again sometime soon.

Well from what I understand the reason it closed was due to the fact that they are trying to bring new blood into the mall. They are putting in the areas first Burlington Coat Factory and it is going to take the space where the current restrooms are, so they are putting the new restrooms across from the old ones. It just so happened that was where the arcade was. It is almost funny how much they are changing the mall just to acomidate Burlington. They did not have much of a food court but now they have none because Burlington is also taking it. Oh well I guess a new anchor like that will be good especially since J.C. Penny announced they were leaving. Why they could not have moved the arcade is beyond me. My guess is that it never done that great.

 

[Shaneus]

I haven't read the OP (will save it for just before I head to bed tonight, by the sounds of it ) but:
* You can't get worse at pinball. Even when you're not practising, you're still getting better.
* You can never defeat a machine completely.
* Whenever you lose a ball, you slowly become better at working out what went wrong and how to avoid that situation in the future... even if it's changing the way you played a shot several shots earlier.
* No two tables play exactly the same, even if they're the same design.
* It's the only game at an arcade whose length can determined solely by the person playing it. Theoretically, a game could go on forever.
* It's mechanical. You have the power (you've got the fight!) of 50V to push a ball anywhere you want on that table, and you can feel it during the entire game.
* There's very little you don't see going on, everything that happens and is decided is right there on the playfield... it can't hide anything from you.
* There's nothing you can't customise about the game. All other single-player games have limited scope for adjustment in a configuration menu. But with pinball, there are angles, rubbers, playfield coatings, switch settings, modified mechanical components and more that you can adjust at your will (if you have the know-how).
* Even if you're "competing", you're still never competing against other people... it's always been just you and the machine (with very few notable exceptions, like Joust).

Um, I know there's far more, but that's how I feel about the whole thing

 

[vikingerik]

* You can never defeat a machine completely.

Except Bride of Pinbot. (And there's several others in TPA where I can go infinite with extra balls.)


* It's the only game at an arcade whose length can determined solely by the person playing it. Theoretically, a game could go on forever.

This. I grew up in the video arcade golden age, where games like Galaga or Centipede would last as long as you had the skill. So then in the later 80s and 90s, I always looked for pinball machines to maximize the use of my precious arcade quarters. Any arcade game with a fixed duration feels like a ripoff. With pinball, barring mechanical failure, every lost ball is ultimately of your own doing.

Whoever invented the racing arcade game is a commercial genius. The goal is to end your game as soon as possible!

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

* You can't get worse at pinball. Even when you're not practising, you're still getting better.

Not true. I was unable to play for 5 weeks due to a spine injury, and the degradation in skill once I resumed playing was very noticeable. It does come back relatively quickly, though.