Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas

Here at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, each pinball machine is a work of art.  The vivid colors, the smooth shapes, the gorgeous drawings.  Every single aspect of a pinball machine is pure design beauty.

I keep telling the wife that these machines are vessels of beauty, but she still won’t let me put one in the living room.  Says that pinball machines are too big or something.  This is where Kevin Tiell comes in to help.

© Kevin Tiell 2010

Kevin Tiell, a crazy talented ph0tographer from the Bay area really appreciates his pinball tables.  He has taken some AMAZING photos of some of your favorite tables, and they are breathtaking.

Check out his site, and order some prints. A picture on a wall has a much higher WAF (wife acceptance factor) than a whole machine in the living room.

http://kevin.tiell.com/

Also, Kevin may be coming to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas in the future to shoot some tables.  Add your comments to this post and give him suggestions on which tables have the best art.

You know that super sweet “Pinball Circus” by Midway? That vertical pinball machine that exists only at the Pinball Hall of Fame and one other place?  Tragedy has struck this super rare gem of a game.

Tim was doing some repairs, and he took Lolita (the aerial performer suspended in the middle of the game) down, and placed her on another machine.

Lolita back when she was whole. She was shy, but she spun around as you progressed through the game.

Some young girls came up and and said “Hey, look!  doll on a stick!”   Well, next thing you know, Lolita is in pieces on the floor.  It’s not like we can go down to Radio Shack and grab another Lolita.  She’s pretty unique, you could say that the other existing Lolita is now truly one of a kind.

We need a talented artist’s help.  We are looking for a sculptor to come in and help create a new Lolita, or maybe create a cast from the old one (we don’t know what would be best, we don’t create many hanging wire girls, so you tell us).  Remember that we are a non-profit, and we’re looking for a volunteer to help us restore “Pinball Circus” to her former glory.  Come on in and talk to Tim if you’re interested in helping.  Please spread the word, thanks!

Awesome Pants are recommended, but not required to play.

For your flipping enjoyment, we have a great game about Phoenix on the floor.  Enjoy temperatures that are even higher than Vegas, cactus, and blazing blue skies.  Oh, wait, not that Phoenix.  I guess this pinball is about some mythical bird.   Whatever.  Come on in and play it, then leave a rating here.

Flyer Art from the 50's = AWESOME

We’ve got another great wedge-head in the house.  Gottlieb’s “Playball”.  It’s one of those ones from Gottlieb where the first couple of minutes is spent either looking for the darned plunger, or shrieking in terror as the ball is thrown out of where the center drain usually is when you are testing out the flipper strength.  (Hint: the right flipper button launches the ball.)

Come in and give it a whirl, then post reviews on the table’s detail page.  Also, tell us how it stacks up compared to some of the other baseball themed tables.

Gottlieb’s Atlantis has recently been lovingly restored by the crew at the Pinball Hall of Fame crew, and is ready to receive your quarters with open arms,

View the game’s detail page for a video of the gameplay, some nifty trivia about Atlantis, and to rate the game.

There are very few decapitated floating heads at the Pinball Hall of Fame, but whatever.

After telling people for years that Pinball is truly an athletic sport, just like basketball, football, baseball, and bowling jousting, the jocks at ESPN Magazine named us as one of the stops on its “Ultimate Travel Guide For Every Sports Fan”.

Check out the list here.

Skee ball now has a foothold in the Pinball Hall of Fame

Do you hate aliens as much as I do?  Of course you do.  Who doesn’t?  Alien hatred is one of the founding values of pinballs and arcades since day one.

Instead of sending your balls flying at aliens by using flippers (like in Attack From Mars), or mowing them down with pellets (like in Defender) you get to manually handle your balls, and send them up a ramp!  Sounds like fun, eh?  Well check out the poster for this bad boy.

Click on this baby to have her go full screen. It's worth it.

This game is PROVEN to create excitement and fun for all ages.  You can’t argue with that kind of marketing shtick.

Come on down and give it a whirl.  You won’t get any tickets, so no spider rings for you.  Sorry bout that.

Read more and rate the machine here.

We have a few edits from Gil concerning the May 8th tourney:

1. Tournament Starts @ 11:00 am
2. Qualifying rounds end @ 3:00 pm
3. Qualifying round decreased from 18 to 9 tables (front 9)
4. The Final Round will be 18 holes this tournament, next tournament will switch to a Bracket Playoff format.

So be there, see you on Saturday.

Another great addition to our 8-bit classics library.  We now have Robotron: 2084 by Williams.  We’re a lot closer to the year 2084 than we were when this beaut was released in 1982.  Robots are cleaning our floors now, and they aren’t quite advanced enough to be self-aware, so Robotron is still science fiction.

Watch the following review for more info.

Notice the feathers stuck on the left hand side of the window.

“Turkey Shoot” by Williams is a crazy rare 8 bit game made in 1984?  How rare?  Well, the internets kind of failed me on that one.  I can’t find how many were manufactured, but it seems like there are less than 50 still running around on this green earth.

And we have one of them.

This is a standard light game in some ways, but after you pass a level, you are fluffed with feathers. That sound nice, right?  There’s a bunch of turkey feathers sandwiched between two pieces of glass that get blown around each time you pass a level.

It's exactly like this, but a little different

The “story” in the game is about 1/3rd of the population of earth turning into some weird turkey human hybrid, and I guess that when this happened, it was deemed totally cool to just shoot these people/turkeys.  So if you don’t care at all about human/turkey rights, this game should be right up your alley.