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| - In a box shaped warehouse building is housed an American gem, the PInball Hall of Fame. Pinball fans, you have arrived at Mecca.
I am not that knowledgeable about pinball machines, but do love great arcades. The room is roughly 80% pinball machines, 20% other arcade games. That is a lot, considering they have over 200+ machines. The best part? You can play all of them!
Not a fan of pinball? That's okay. How about playing Tron? Punch Out? Paperboy? Donkey Kong? Robotron? Mario Bros? Star Wars? Ms. Pac Man? Out Run? They have all of those. I was hoping for 720 the skateboard game, but didn't see that. I was hoping for the old Gauntlet, which they don't have, but they do have a newer version. In the corner I spotted an out-of-order Dragon's Lair game. Dang it, I would've poured buckets of quarters into that.
If you stop playing pinball and want to nerd out, you can see informational notes on historic machines. Not all machines have them, but some do and they will tell you when the machine was released, that it was the first to have digital scoring, or double bumpers, a spinning wheel, etc. Games range from $.25 to $1.00, with most pinball games falling in the $.50-$.75 range.
PINBALL CIRCUS, THE HOLY GRAIL OF PINBALL MACHINES! Did Sean Connery ever find the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones? Well, the Holy Grail of pinball machines is here. I had no idea that there even was one. I was walking around the arcade and noticed a massive, impressive four level pinball game that drew me in... Pinball Circus, made in 1993. There were only two of them ever made by Midway and the other one is in a private collection. They did some test marketing and weren't sure if it would be more successful than any other machine, so they scrapped it. Sad, because they game has it all, it's fun, keeps you engaged, has an elephant that lifts your ball with his trunk and give you random bounce back life. Four levels? Yes, you have to try and hit the ball up four ramps and there are paddles on each level. I could only get it to the third level. It costs $1 to play, but I must have played it five or six times because it was that fun and I was that determined.
There are so many great pinball games here, some that make you laugh while others remind you of the time you were a 10 year old staking a quarter on the machine, trying to get a game in between two guys smoking Marlboro Reds with their Guns N' Roses jean jackets on.
A few of the pinball machines that might bring back memories:
Kiss
Playboy
Terminator 2 Judgement Day
Star Wars
Star Trek
Star Trek Next Generation
Simpsons
South Park
Space Jam
Street Fighter II
Space Jam
Waterworld
Frank Thomas - Big Hurt
Elvira Party Monsters
Last Action Hero
Guns N' Roses
Cyclone
Black Knight
Superman
Spiderman
Qbert
Gilligan's Island
Royal Rumble
Spanish Eyes
Mata Mari
Space Mission
Wizard
Elton John's Capt Fantastic
Wizard
Centigrade 37
Atlantis
Arabian Nights
Indiana Jones
Evil Knievel
Starjet
Tons and tons more...
A big thank you to those that maintain this place. There is no admission fee. They have machines in the front that sell bottled water and sodas and popcorn. They also have a some really old school games and flip card movie machines from the early 1900s. It's a classic arcade, with a major emphasis on pinball machines.
This place is seriously rad, one of the best arcades in all of America!
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