And here I thought pinball was making a comeback…
on February 5, 2013 at 6:33 PM
I saw an article that had me hoping that Star Wars, which could probably make a profit from merchandising a line of branded key fobs that randomly exploded in your pocket, was going to be producing some new pinball machines for arcades… or wherever pinball is these days apart from that museum in Las Vegas. Sadly, it’s a video game of a vanishing gaming platform. It still looks cool and all, but there’s just something about the real deal I get a kick (see what I did there?) out of.
It probably doesn’t help that the two video game pinball games I played the most in my life were the very humble Atari pinball and the old “Space Cadet” game that came with Windows XP. On a side note, I didn’t realize that Atari had once released a stand-alone console version of a pinball game. To think that in such a short amount of time they were able to shrink it down to the size of an 8-track tape and make people buy it again. 
I know virtual is cheaper than physically making stuff, but I miss the ol’ “three balls for a quarter” machines. I’d be a very happy camper if someone could make a USB device that replicated the “knock” noise from an extra ball that could be tied to events in games and applications. If anyone wants to get a kickstarter going, drop me a line…
I actually got to play the Atari Pinball Arcade game. It was about what one would expect of the era. It was at a local pinball convention/trade show called Pin-a-go-go. Ten bucks and all the pinball your wrists can handle. New tables, old tables, REALLY old tables, weird tables, things that aren’t *quite* pinball (Hyperball, i’m looking at you…). Good times.
Company is going back to the old pinballs and putting them on tablets. You can get them for android and apple.
http://www.pinballarcade.com/
Aaron, you ever come out to Jersey, I can lead you to a couple of places. pinball is still alive and well in the Garden State.