Thread 719209848

I was not alive in the 90's. Were pinball machines really popular in arcades at the time? They look like they were a ton of fun. And if you were good enough you would get your monies worth.

>>719209848 (OP)
The worst mechanic in the world of pinball is when they would give you free balls constantly. Let it fucking end, I'm tired of hearing Kiss

they weren't. it was extremely rare to see them in the wild. there was a lot of stigma attached to them from the seedy early days of the video arcades. parents didnt want their kids to see them and get lured away by perverts

Pinball was the shit

>>719209848 (OP)
ITS SHOWTIME

>>719209848 (OP)
>Were pinball machines really popular in arcades at the time?
Pinball machines came before video games, anon. Pinball used to be the only thing in an arcade.

Just stay away from deaf dumb and blind kids, they don't get distracted by all the buzzers and bells. They'll take your pinball crown away from you even when you do your best.

Pinball is just so cool anons...

>>719209848 (OP)
You could even find a couple in every movie theater

The solid state ones are kinda lame compared to old electro mechanical ones. The clicking of the score reels to ding and dongs of the points.

>>719209983
>schizo babble
Posting the opposite of reality isn't healthy.

I was around during that era as a kid. Tried it once and lost the 50 cents my parents always gave me, so i opted for arcades with more playtime for your money. Regret not playing those machines today

>>719211031
i was always garbage at light gun games even though i thought Area51 kicked ass.
Area 51, house of the dead, Carnevil were all kino, but I got more playtime out of pinball

>>719209848 (OP)
Medieval Madness is still one of my favorite games both in real life and in virtual form (pick your poison with one of the emulators or even pinball arcade)

>>719209848 (OP)
There's a pinball club in my town but it's also one of the 'barcades' from that cringe hustle and bustle of the big city pasta, so I've never been to it

>>719211018
He's not entirely wrong if you go back far enough. There was a point the US was trying to outlaw them for being gambleing machines and the very old ones, before even digital score boards, were usually kept in more adult oriented areas.

>>719209848 (OP)
Pinballs are tons of fun... for about 10 minutes

>>719209848 (OP)
Addam's Family is super fun, it's in Pinball FX and I got to the point where I could clear all the mansion rooms. I really want to play one irl some day.

It's kinda weird how Pinball never caught on outside of America and France. I feel like Japan would have made some great machines if they realized it was more fun than pachinko.

>>719211018
never reply to me ever again you subhuman piece of shit

>>719209848 (OP)
Pinball had faded by the 90s. There were still pinball machines being made, but they had long since passed their peak in the 1970s. You could still find them in places like bars, pizzerias, or your local theater's arcade area, but the flashy graphics of arcade vidya drew the most eyes. Also they were fun, if you were good enough you could get a massive amount of play out of your quarter since they weren't as unfair as a lot of arcade video games were. There is an arcade museum in my state that has a MASSIVE collection of old pinball machines and I have driven all the way over a couple of times just to spend a few hours playing pinball.

>>719209848 (OP)
>I was not alive in the 90's. Were pinball machines really popular in arcades at the time?
They had a comeback with T2 and Adams Family licensed machines.

>>719212523
Pachinko is just a way to get around the gambling ban in Japan. It is a completely different costumer base. Also Japan did have a pinball scene back in the day, but vidya 1 hit killed it.

Pinball is awesome but I cannot stand the gimmicky Jersey Jack and movie (or band) tie in tables being produced. They replace all the SOUL of oldschool games with cheap LED screens and loads of pointless stuff. Good games like Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, or Championship pub are awesome.

The only thing worse than a crappy table is the kind of minmaxxer metanerd who constantly holds the ball so they can aim one shot every minute.

>>719209848 (OP)
In the arcades I went to back then, there were maybe two or three of them in any given arcade (Addams Family was a mainstay). Video games were way more prominent though.

>>719209848 (OP)
In PA most arcades had at least 1-2 pinball machines and firehalls would tend to have 2-3 plus some shooter like operation wolf. And then there were places that leaned more into pinballs, but those seemed a bit rarer since the pull was mostly arcade games.

>>719213567
>They replace all the SOUL of oldschool games with cheap LED screens
Are the original electronics and lights even being produced?

They were already pretty boomer core in the 90s.
No kid wanted to ding a ball around to hear zippedy doo dah noise when you could punch someones head off in Mortal Kombat.

>>719209848 (OP)
Pinball was still popular in the 90s. Every arcade usually had a row of pinball machines and you'd randomly find a single pinball machine at random stores.

>>719210196
thanks, now I have that song in my head

>>719210196
>Pinball used to be the only thing in an arcade.
There were mechanical arcade machines too but yeah, pinball machines are like late 1800's or early 1900's if i remember correctly.

For me, it's South Park pinball.
The only pinball I can win free games at.

I recommend Zaccaria Pinball on steam. Theres like 200 tables with some really off the tangent layouts compared to bally, williams or even gotlieb. I love the physics in this game more than FX

>>719215026
is this one of those games that has like 5 or so shitty tables to play with but then like $500 worth of DLC of actually good ones?

>>719215124
Its all DLC with free timed demos on all tables. Wait for a steam sale.

>>719209848 (OP)
Even my bumfuck nowhere hometown had a few at the bowling alley. They and the other cabs got plenty of use back then. The one in your OP and a Terminator one, specifically. Plenty in movie theaters too, as other anons said.
My uncle loved the pinball cabs and also had High Speed pinball at home for the NES. I played some too, but was too young to git gud at them. I was more into Die Hard arcade, Aero Fighters, and Off Road Challenge.
t.'88

what the FUCK am I supposed to do when the ball goes right between the paddles, or goes down a lane where the ball just fucking dies

>>719209848 (OP)
Kinda crazy to me that the new generation has never seen one of these things irl. You'd still see them in places like bowling alleys and kinoplexes into the 2000s.

>>719215469
1. Learn how much you can slam the machine without activating TILT
2. Slam it that much when the ball is going towards the death lane

>>719215469
Learn to tilt. When you know it is going down like that a solid bump can shift the ball just enough to cause it to clip the paddle and save the ball. It takes a bit of practice and differs slightly on each machine but you can tilt safety without triggering the tilt sensor if you practice.

my local barcade has a bunch of those new Stern pinball machines where you can save your score through an app.
people here actively compete with each other because of it since it keeps track of the high scores from all the machines in that location.

>>719210923
I still have a picrel "Super Soccer" in my basement. My grandparents had a business in deploying gaming and gambling machines and music boxes in the 60s/70s.

https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2443

>>719210923
The problem with the EM machines is they all have like one of three themes and it gets kond of old

>>719214842
The toilet is a cool feature, but otherwise it doesn't have enough rails for me.
Nothing beats the kino Roller Coaster Tycoon layout

>>719214282
Spoken like a non disciple.

Love this nightmare on elm street machine with a fucked up Freddy head

>>719216336
Whoops, forgot image

>>719216401
The melting effect on his face reminds me more of the Ark of the Covenant scene than nightmare on Elm Street

>>719215685
That's pretty neat

>>719209848 (OP)
They were popular and yes they were very fun. The main issue with them in general is upkeep; you need to basically have a bachelor's in electric engineering to repair them. That said, many modern barcades have at least a half dozen pinball machines; just google search "pinball near me" and you're sure to find at least one or two places (still popular at bowling allies too).

>Local barcade gets Family Guy Pinball
>It has a miniature pinball game inside it you can activate
>It disappears one day and never comes back
>No other game like it
you know what grinds my gears

>>719217074
it was probably leased rather than bought

>>719209848 (OP)
My local laundromat had a pinball table in the early 2000s, no idea how a laundromat could have pinball given how difficult they are to maintain so it probably wasn't long for this world. But it was at least that popular that they tried

the barcade downtown from me has free games atleast one night a week
the best one is the teenage mutant ninja turtles one

Sonic Adventure unironically made pinball click as a concept for me.

Costco near me has a Star Wars on free play. I dropped my kids off at school, drove 5 minutes to Costco, got a hot dog and played for about an hour.
I don't like star wars but I like free pinball.

>>719212343
>He's not entirely wrong if you go back far enough.
OP said 90s, so if he's not talking about the 90s, he is entirely wrong

>>719215685
I wish more barcades saved highscores on their machines. My local one has a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet that saves the high score, and I've been trying to beat it for ages.

>>719209848 (OP)
I remember when I was 10 my Mom took me and my brother to Disney World. My main memory of that week long trip was going to the hotel arcade at night and playing the pinball machines for a few hours. If I remember right the machines they had were
>spider-man
>simpsons
>nightmare on elm street
There was one more that had Arnold Schwarznegger on it but I don't remember what it was. Probably Terminator or Total Recall.
Man those were some good times.

For me its bride of pinbot