White Rose Gameroom Show (York PA)

EldarOfSuburbia

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Feb 8, 2014
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A brief synopsis of my visit - both days.

Friday:
- Played Walking Dead, enjoyed it, I posted a bit more detail (but not much, really) in the Walking Dead thread.
- Played some WOZ, also my first time, it's good but as has been said by many of game design, often, "Less is More". Boy is that a busy table. A lot of nice features but maybe if they'd decided to drop a couple an concentrate a bit more on some of the others, it'd be even better. Hopefully lessons learned for The Hobbit. The Hobbit has the potential to get Jersey Jack properly noticed - WOZ is a good collectors' table, a fine, solid, debut, but The Hobbit is a mainstream, current license and the table that might make it into movie theaters, though their asking price ($8k) is going to make distributors balk a bit.
- Played Jurassic Park for the first time in nearly 20 years. CHAOS!!
- Came to the conclusion that I need more F-14 Tomcat in my life, one way or another. It's moved high up on my "if I ever buy a table..." list.
- Played Silverball Mania and X's And O's and realized those are two more tables I'd played in the early 80s and completely forgotten about.
- Bemoaned the lack of AC/DC, Metallica, Stern Star Trek, and TSPP. There were two Family Guys, but they were constantly occupied and I wasn't that inclined to wait.
- Wondered why owners of tables, particularly late 70s-early 80s SS table, just don't take care of them. In particular, there was a Flight 2000 with flippers so weak even a well-hit ball only made it halfway up the lock lane. Major fail. Really though, missing lamps all over, flippers mostly weak and/or ineffectual - c'mon, this is basic maintenance stuff, you'd have a better chance at selling your table if you invested a couple hundred bucks and a few hours getting it back in shape.

Saturday:
- Had my daughter with me. She displayed all of the flail-and-hope technique that a 7-year-old pinball novice can muster. But more on that later.
- She really liked Super Mario Mushroom World, though I observed it was being very unfair with some of its pipe kickouts.
- We played WOZ together, she managed to get the "There's No Place Like Home" save started, and the table proceeded to have the ball kick STDM from the auto-plunge. I've still not seen anyone make the Save Toto save. I made one shot, bricked the second.
- There was a very nice BK2K, I think the same one that was at Allentown, it has a drink holder on one of the legs :) Shame it was set up with a definite right-to-left slope, either that or the right flipper mechanics were off. Balls up the left ramp to the upper playfield barely made it at best. Upper right flipper, balls never fed cleanly to it, meaning the orbit was almost impossible to hit; I never managed it once. Why spend so much time making a table look and sound beautiful - it had a sub-woofer hooked it, it sounded AWESOME - and not get it leveled correctly? Asking price was $5k. Yeah, I would've.
- Congrats to my daughter for competing in the Kids' Tournament (on Mr & Ms Pac-Man). She did okay. Everyone got a miniature gold plastic trophy!
- ...and finally:

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I lost. It turns out her weak plunging is just about damned perfect for Tommy's skill shot, and she got a lucky ricochet into the mirror on ball 3 to start multi-ball. I totally bricked my game.
 
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MWink

New member
Jan 13, 2013
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- Wondered why owners of tables, particularly late 70s-early 80s SS table, just don't take care of them. In particular, there was a Flight 2000 with flippers so weak even a well-hit ball only made it halfway up the lock lane. Major fail. Really though, missing lamps all over, flippers mostly weak and/or ineffectual - c'mon, this is basic maintenance stuff, you'd have a better chance at selling your table if you invested a couple hundred bucks and a few hours getting it back in shape.

- There was a very nice BK2K, I think the same one that was at Allentown, it has a drink holder on one of the legs :) Shame it was set up with a definite right-to-left slope, either that or the right flipper mechanics were off. Balls up the left ramp to the upper playfield barely made it at best. Upper right flipper, balls never fed cleanly to it, meaning the orbit was almost impossible to hit; I never managed it once. Why spend so much time making a table look and sound beautiful - it had a sub-woofer hooked it, it sounded AWESOME - and not get it leveled correctly? Asking price was $5k. Yeah, I would've..

I know what you mean about the Flight 2000 table. I was so excited when I saw it because I love the TPA version. It was a real letdown to play it and realize that it wasn't going to be possible to lock any balls. I couldn't hear any of the sound effects either because Black Rose was right next to it and it was one of the loudest tables in the whole place. It was also depressing to play the neglected ST:TNG table. I wonder how much the guy wanted for that?

Where was Black Knight 2000? I didn't see it.
 

EldarOfSuburbia

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Feb 8, 2014
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I know what you mean about the Flight 2000 table. I was so excited when I saw it because I love the TPA version. It was a real letdown to play it and realize that it wasn't going to be possible to lock any balls. I couldn't hear any of the sound effects either because Black Rose was right next to it and it was one of the loudest tables in the whole place. It was also depressing to play the neglected ST:TNG table. I wonder how much the guy wanted for that?

Where was Black Knight 2000? I didn't see it.

BK2K was only there Saturday. It was set up right next to Iron Man in the vendor area.
 

Kolchak357

Senior Pigeon
May 31, 2012
8,102
2
I always have thought Data East Star Wars was a subpar pin wrapped in a great theme. Played it a couple times Friday and guess what? I still think that's the case. Maybe I love the theme so much that it has caused me to have unrealistic expectations. Or maybe my opinion is just rubbish. I so want to love it.
 

EldarOfSuburbia

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Feb 8, 2014
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I always have thought Data East Star Wars was a subpar pin wrapped in a great theme. Played it a couple times Friday and guess what? I still think that's the case. Maybe I love the theme so much that it has caused me to have unrealistic expectations. Or maybe my opinion is just rubbish. I so want to love it.

That table - along with LW3, which was also there - was at the height of the DE mediocrity of the time, and both are blatant one-shot pins, and they're easy shots at that. For all the fun toys on the Star Wars table, if you can shoot the ramp, you can do just about anything, except multiball.

I think with Jurassic Park, DE at least got the right idea of ripping off TAF's layout (Pat Lawlor consistently rips off his own layouts, so why not, eh?), and making the game fun. Spit at Nedry? Okay! One of the best multi-balls ever? Yeah. And I had totally forgotten about the "Get Timmy Off The Electric Fence" mode. Naturally the biggest problem with the JP they had was T-Rex. With JP, if there's a problem, it's usually T-Rex.
 

Kolchak357

Senior Pigeon
May 31, 2012
8,102
2
I'm with you on Jurassic Park. I always enjoy playing that. The one at York played nicely. It was the first time my wife had even seen a JP. She really liked the T-Rex, so I was happy it was working.
 

Kolchak357

Senior Pigeon
May 31, 2012
8,102
2
Heading to the York pinball show again this Friday 10/12/2018. Anyone else plan on going? Can’t wait to play Deadpool, layout looks pretty cool.
 

dtown8532

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Apr 10, 2012
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York’s always a toss up for me. It’s a drive and not nearly as big as Allentown.

Not this year but will (as always) be at Allentown next May.
 

EldarOfSuburbia

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Feb 8, 2014
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Couple of highlights and takeaways from the morning.

Deadpool is fun, the display is particularly good for 90s fighting game fans!

Iron Maiden Premium doesn't add enough over the Pro to make it worth the extra - it's still a great game!

Loads of indie pins popping up now. Mafia, Thunderbirds, some multi-form table.

Played a pretty decent Fathom (not for sale and no price quoted, sadly).

And an unboxing of a new-in-box(!) 1962 Silver Sails bingo game. For real.
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Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk
 

Kolchak357

Senior Pigeon
May 31, 2012
8,102
2
I’ll try not to double up on the pics our friend Eldar has already posted. But here are a few more.

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EldarOfSuburbia

New member
Feb 8, 2014
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You missed what I thought was the best pin there, a great Captain Fantastic restoration - actually more than restoration, it looked as if it was manufactured to today's standards and came new-in-the-box. (Pics to follow - they're on my phone.)
 

Citizen

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Oct 5, 2017
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both are blatant one-shot pins, and they're easy shots at that. For all the fun toys on the Star Wars table, if you can shoot the ramp, you can do just about anything, except multiball.

At least they fixed it 20 years later.

Great pics, guys. I especially enjoy seeing the Thunderbirds, proper art Lost in Space, Mafia and as always Farfalla.
 

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