Think back to the old days when you had to pay for each game of pinball. What was the ultimate goal?  To play as long as you could on a single quarter (or whatever the price was).  The more free games you get, the farther your money goes.  Few games do as much for this […]

Uh-oh! Looks like rain! Of all the toys, gadgets, and other distractors placed in & on pinball machines, by far the most useful is the one in Whirlwind.  This table has a fan on top of the backbox that blows air right on the player during certain parts of the game.  So imagine this…you’re in the

Creepy, kooky, spooky, AND ooky…today we celebrate one of the best known and most loved tables in pinball history:  The Addams Family This machine from Bally/Midway is still the best-selling pinball of all time, with 20,270 units built and sold starting in 1992.  It was so popular that even with so many copies made, they fetch

This table is seriously in the running for the weirdest pinball ever made.  Except for the cabinet design, you almost could call it something else.  Enter Orbitor 1. It Can’t Roll That Way! Imagine gravity and the rest of physics pretty much going out the window, and you’ve got the gist of Orbitor 1.  This game

We all take talking pinball machines for granted these days.  In fact, I find them to be very helpful since I can listen for what’s going on rather than being distracted by flashing indicators.  But there was a time when that idea was new.  I can’t believe it’s been 45 years! Enter Gorgar, the first commerically-released

You never forget your first… The year was 1975. Two important events happened that year–I learned to bowl, and I played my first table. Both of these things would play significant roles in my life. The table was King Tut, an electro-mechanical table located at Astro Lanes (now Park Lanes) in Hillsboro, Oregon. My dad

I have no idea if Carl Sagan played pinball. But if he did, he’d surely have loved this machine. The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot This table was the first pinball ever to feature a 1 billion point shot (if you don’t get the Carl Sagan reference yet, do some homework). It was a major event

Today we celebrate a significant milestone in pinball history: the first solid-state 1-million point shot. That was Comet, released in 1985 by Williams.  This was the first of a set of three roller-coaster themed games: Comet, Cyclone, and Hurricane.  The latter two each featured easier-to-hit 1-million point shots, as well as some multi-million point ones.