Zombie Aladdin
New member
- Mar 28, 2014
- 340
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Let's face it, not everyone will be able to get access to every pinball machine in existence. Some are just too rare, too new, too expensive, or too fragile to get the opportunity to play them. What are some of the ones you want to play on for real but, for one reason or another, have never been able to?
Me, the two at the top of the list would definitely be Cactus Canyon and The Wizard of Oz. Cactus Canyon is rare and sought-after, so machines available for public play are few, and any such machines get snapped up quickly by collectors. I actually wanted to play Cactus Canyon before I started playing The Pinball Arcade, as I like western themes, and it looked really interesting. When I played it on The Pinball Arcade I found it has a wicked sense of humor ("Blow his li'l ol' head off!") and is so over-the-top, I love it. On top of that, Cactus Canyon had its own version in the cartoon Gravity Falls called Tumbleweed Terror, featured in the episode "Soos's Really Great Pinball Story" where the kids slam-tilt the machine. This action transports the main characters into the machine itself, where the vindictive talking skull on the playfield attempts to kill them. After watching the episode, I decided to look into Cactus Canyon and found it interesting.
(You may notice the skull is a triple-reference to the Bart Bros., Rudy, and the Terminator.)
As for Wizard of Oz, it's the only pinball machine on the market with a monitor, and as an artist, I am interested in seeing how Jersey Jack makes use of it. Not that I'm not interested in the playfield and gameplay too, but having a monitor in the backbox is, I feel, something revolutionary and something pinball has needed in a while. As for actually playing the game, it's so complex that watching videos of it online doesn't get me a good idea of how it plays because I have no idea what's going on, and the ball gets lost in the artwork. Probably because of its price, and definitely because of its newness, public machines are also few in number with no known locations in Los Angeles, where the pinball culture here is really centered around private ownership. Since I cannot afford a Wizard of Oz, I don't think I'd have much of a chance to play it in-depth to any degree.
Me, the two at the top of the list would definitely be Cactus Canyon and The Wizard of Oz. Cactus Canyon is rare and sought-after, so machines available for public play are few, and any such machines get snapped up quickly by collectors. I actually wanted to play Cactus Canyon before I started playing The Pinball Arcade, as I like western themes, and it looked really interesting. When I played it on The Pinball Arcade I found it has a wicked sense of humor ("Blow his li'l ol' head off!") and is so over-the-top, I love it. On top of that, Cactus Canyon had its own version in the cartoon Gravity Falls called Tumbleweed Terror, featured in the episode "Soos's Really Great Pinball Story" where the kids slam-tilt the machine. This action transports the main characters into the machine itself, where the vindictive talking skull on the playfield attempts to kill them. After watching the episode, I decided to look into Cactus Canyon and found it interesting.
(You may notice the skull is a triple-reference to the Bart Bros., Rudy, and the Terminator.)
As for Wizard of Oz, it's the only pinball machine on the market with a monitor, and as an artist, I am interested in seeing how Jersey Jack makes use of it. Not that I'm not interested in the playfield and gameplay too, but having a monitor in the backbox is, I feel, something revolutionary and something pinball has needed in a while. As for actually playing the game, it's so complex that watching videos of it online doesn't get me a good idea of how it plays because I have no idea what's going on, and the ball gets lost in the artwork. Probably because of its price, and definitely because of its newness, public machines are also few in number with no known locations in Los Angeles, where the pinball culture here is really centered around private ownership. Since I cannot afford a Wizard of Oz, I don't think I'd have much of a chance to play it in-depth to any degree.
