TPA titles in the wild

[Clawhammer]

Lyons Classic Pinball in Lyons, CO has 37 pinball machines currently, 7 of which are in TPA:
BK, CFTBL, MM, MB, NGG, SS, and TZ. Worth the drive from just about anywhere in the area; games are in excellent condition and owners are very nice. Also a neat location to play non-DMD games, a few early 80s Ballys (Frontier!) and some EMs.

http://www.lyonspinball.com/

 

[Robert Hunt]

The streak continues! When I began my attempt early this year to find and play all of the tables in The Pinball Arcade, there were only twenty titles in the collection. I couldn't find them all during that January jaunt (I still haven't) but I DID manage to play the two games that were released as I was making my way home – AFM and Genie. It was the same story in February when two more tables were released (Dr. Dude and Firepower) that I had just played weeks earlier. And March was even sweeter, because neither one of THOSE tables are the sort you're just gonna run into, and yet I had seen and enjoyed one fine copy of each during that January trip.

So I was twenty-three for twenty-six when the dust settled from my Texas trip last month, and I probably won't get another crack at going to Vegas until early May. But I can still improve my batting average if TPA releases pins I've already played this year, and Space Shuttle and White Water make it eight in a row! It's gonna take some luck and a little doing to keep the streak going much longer (gonna have to find a Tee'd Off pretty quick here) but for now I'm enjoying the fact that my "games played" average keeps going up.

And I figured out how to batch resize all those images in place so I wouldn't orphan all those links, but they've been cut down to size now and should no longer choke everybody's browser. (I learn things! (I like hitting specials!!))

Twenty-five for twenty-eight baby!! (Anyone not at FarSight beating that in 2013?)

 

[Robert Hunt]

Space Shuttle is another of those tables I remember seeing in the arcades in my college days. I'm sure I played it a few times, but back then quarters were for video games and laundry.

And while I knew that Space Shuttle was on the TPA short list, it proved elusive during that big January trip that took me to the National Pinball Museum in Baltimore, the Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Flippers Variety in Grandy, North Carolina. Sure I saw and played Williams' 1961 Space Ship:

1974's Spacelab:

And the 1976 2-player Space Odyssey and 4-player variant Space Mission:

But I wouldn't see a Space Shuttle until I got back to Florida, and likewise Space Station had to wait until I got to Texas. Somehow that seems appropriate!

The Space Station at the TPF went on to win "Best Restoration" of the entire show (out of some 450 machines.) I posted some pics of it here:

http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/3875-The-Best-in-Show-Pins-from-the-2013-TPF

 

[Robert Hunt]

I've said before in this thread that the Florida APE (Arcade & Pinball Exhibition) I went to in February really opened my eyes to what this hobby has to offer to average folks. Before then I had only been to giant museums and huge commercial arcades, but that collection of machines, brought together for just one weekend in Fort Lauderdale, was more impressive and fat with modern SS and DMD games than any commercial arcade in the world. I just hadn't realized how many machines, in great playing condition, were out there in the hands of people willing to lug them around to shows. So while it was staggering to enter that main hall at APE, which was confined to those “more modern” SS machines, despite the bewildering number of games that were blinking and calling out, it was impossible not to notice the Williams Space Station, and realize that THAT MACHINE was the cutoff - it was the oldest game in the room.

But it didn't PLAY old. It played fast and fun! I'm pretty sure I'll be playing the hell out of it on TPA.

And the Space Shuttle I played at the Texas Pinball Festival was in even BETTER condition (although it couldn't keep up with the Space Station, which won “Best Restoration” in the entire show.)

 

[Robert Hunt]

I guess I wasn't surprised when the Drudge Report informed me this morning that according to some academic study, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe in Bigfoot! Of course!! Proving that conservatives are delusional is high sport! But they should have polled pinball players, because not only do the overwhelming majority of pinball players BELIEVE in Bigfoot, most will admit to having PLAYED with him.

http://tinylink.net/53275

There was no shortage of Bigfoot sightings on my trip, and there were several skirmishes. The first time I saw the game was at Silverball, but I only played it once there because there were so many EM's and classic SS games I also wanted to play and I knew it wouldn't be hard to find at other places.

And my patience was rewarded when I got to Flippers, because as usual for their 90's pins, their White Water was immaculate.

 

[Robert Hunt]

And while Dennis Nordman is a giant, and this will be his fourth game to make TPA, it could easily wind up being his last, although if it were up to me we'd get Party Zone, Party Animal, Demolition Man, and Pirates of the Caribbean! But only the party tables are likely to get any real consideration for inclusion in TPA, and I already hear enough squawking about Dr. Dude to think they won't be making the cut in the next thirty or forty tables.

White Water however, was very well represented at both the APE and the TPF. There were two machines that looked and played great at the APE:

And two more at the TPF, won of which was named “Best 90's Pinball.”

So there it is – my tally stands at 25/28 for now. Will my streak continue in May? Will I somehow stumble across a Big Shot, Harley-Davidson, or No Good Gofers? Stay tuned!