Gelsenkirchen
with a small toy table pinball a friend owned. At age 8 I instantly got hooked on the flashing lights and really wanted to be able to control the flippers and ball.
My first pinball game I owned was Pinball: Revenge of the Gator on the GameBoy, sometime in the early 90s. I don't know what made me want the game. At that time I chose games based on their boxart. In this case it wasn't really good. But I spent hours feeding alligators, finding out the rules and chasing the ultimate high by reaching master modes and achievinbg multiballs.
A true epiphany occured with Pinball Dreams on my very first computer, an Amiga 500. That's when I really got addicted and needed my daily pinball action. What an excitement to find out there were Pinball Fantasies..!
I don't know for sure the first pin I played for real. All I know is going to the movies never was about the movie.. but about playing a game of pinball before and after since the local theater always had 3 or 5 machines in the lobby. I guess Red and Ted's Road Show was among the first I played. Naturally I failed big time and instantly had great respect for the thunderous, mean, money-eating machines..
Finally in 2001 I had the courage, money and will to get me a machine of my own. Since I had no clue I ended up winning an eBay auction for a "Dr. Who" in good condition. I instantly got bored and still find it an awful pin with nothing to it. Bad choice. The price I payed and got back half a year later was a hilarious 400€!
With pinball manufacturers going out of business, Village cinemas closing shop too where I lived I ended up not seeing any machine for quite some time.
So most of the time I've played was in front of a screen. Pro Pinball: The Net was nice but timeshock! remained the best virtual pinball for me. This changed in 2011 when I re-discovered a craving I'd almost forgotten.
At a local diner I found a Stern Batman machine. It plays horribly for my taste and looks and feels cheap.. but it made me get Williams Pinball Classics for the PS3. After playing this for days I needed to get a machine of my own.
Welcome Demolition Man! There's a huge pinball seller in the area, but the affordable machines are in real bad shape and good ones don't go for less than 3 grand. So I played a round of Judge Dredd and while the game got me mildly interested (I didn't like the upper playfield action with the 3rd and 4th tiny flipper) I decided against it due to it being rusty and sporting a general dirty, neglected look.
Again, with hardly any real knowledge and experience but only some entries here I got DM in great shape off eBay. I like it a lot and am looking forward to many exciting hours with it!
