Another year, another great show! While the new venue is fantastic and better in almost every way, the NCPA proves that it's the planning, people, and execution that really make for a great show. I had a blast this year, having brought my brother to his first pin-only event(he's a CAX veteran). While we played a lot of games together, it was nice to see him venture out on his own and see him really take to a few games.
I think I may have played TBL the most over the course of the show, as I said I would. I got lucky and got to play it right at opening time Saturday morning and really enjoyed all the call-outs and scenes from the movie playing on the screen. They were really well utilized. I know it had issues over the course of the weekend, but TBL is a really fun game that is made really well for fans of the movie. I'd love to own one at some point in the future.
One of the games we played the most was a Star Wars Pro. I don't really consider myself a Ritchie-layout kind of guy, but man that game is fun! Not a huge fan of the Premium/LE version though. I don't think the game actually needs all that extra stuff, it's a great game without it. For me, SW falls under the same umbrella as Aerosmith, a delightful surprise for someone who is usually fairly skeptical of a lot of new games.
As for my games, no real problems from either of them. Just a couple of weird things. TAF had zero issues all show except for a stuck ball next to the Thing saucer(major credit goes to the show-goers who don't feel right shaking someone else's game enough to get the ball free). TZ had a hold circuit wire come off the lower left flipper, which took me longer to get my soldering iron and put it back than to actually do the fix. The slot machine plastic's bulb popped out somehow. It's a #47 and it's even hard to take out by hand! Then, towards the end of the show, the right ramp diverter decided to not work every fifth or seventh time. It was infrequent and independent of ball type(steel or ceramic) or even the ball being there or not. I replaced the coil sleeve, the coil resistance checked out, all the linkages seemed free and clear....it was very weird. Still haven't found a culprit. TZ had 455 plays and TAF had 639 plays. Got lots of compliments on how well my games played, too. Always great to hear with how much work I put into these games so long ago, now.
Can't wait for next year!