An
old picture of my first four
Pinball Machines.
My
1974 Gottlieb Sky Jump Pinball Machine. A tough machine since the space between
the flippers is like 1/4 mile. It also features a target bank with a moving
5000 bonus (when lit) and moving special
which makes this game not only fun but big humps to try and score big on.
My
1971 Gottlieb Playball Pinball Machine. A damn good time all around.
You basically play Pinball and Baseball at the same time. Addicting as
hell. There might as well be Vacuum cleaners hooked up to the 2 outside
drain lanes because a drain down these outside lanes is all too easy. Keep
the ball in the center of the playfield and you can rack up the points...and
some runs!
My
1981 Gottlieb Black Hole Pinball Machine. One of the most challenging
machines made in my opinion. Anyone who has ever played this machine
knows it's difficulty and also it's replay-ability which makes it great. Multi-Ball
is a serious challenge instead of a gift like on some machines.
The DOWNSTAIRS playfield of course makes this game even more unique and fun.
I Love it!
My
1980 Gottlieb Counterforce Pinball Machine. This is basically "Missile Command"
in pinball form. The "ATTACK ROCKETS" come down to destroy your
"MULTIPLIERS" just as the missiles would come down to attack your Cities in
Missile Command. Each drop target corresponds to a missile.
Hitting that drop target, destroys that corresponding incoming missile thus
saving your multiplier and allowing you more points. Some killer features
of this machine are the rollovers and spot targets that are linked to the drop
targets. You can drop a drop target by hitting one of those corresponding spot
targets or rollovers. It's is really cool to see a target drop on a
machine this old without ever being hit. Even cooler... it "remembers"
which player had which targets down from ball to ball and resets them
accordingly for each player so they begin play exactly where they left off after
their last ball. Extremely cool crap for a machine of it's time. In fact,
I know of no other System 80 machine that does this.
Now...
my friends'...1973 Gottlieb High Hand Pinball Machine. A target rich environment makes
this one quite challenging and fun. You need to knock down all four target
of each suit (spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds) to get big points and
eventually light special by knocking down all 16 targets. Much easier said
that done. What's cooler is there are only 2 ways to collect the bonus
points you deserve for your target dropping efforts. That is to get the
ball in the center hole, or when you drain down the out lane. To make it
more difficult is the fact that you cannot do a direct shot into the center hole
because the ball speed will just make the ball jump right back out again. A
clever bank shot or a lucky bounce is needed.
Lots of fun and replay-ability.
My
1999 Revenge from Mars. The first of the 2 Pinball 2000 machine
models made. Video Images are "projected" or should I say reflected onto the
playfield to create real "virtual" targets. An incredible idea which
produced incredible results. Full motion video seamlessly integrated into
a pinball machine. It was a fantastic idea. It is just a shame that
the companies weren't around to produce more of them.
My
1999 Star Wars Episode 1 CONVERSION KIT. The second of the 2 Pinball
2000 machine models made. This machine was produced in full machine form but
was also made in a CONVERSION KIT that allowed you to change the Revenge from
Mars machine into a Star Wars Episode 1 machine in just minutes. 2
machines in the space of 1. This was another fantastic feature of the PINBALL
2000 platform. Again, an incredible shame that more models weren't produced.