Was in Texas for the F1 race and ended up stopping by Cidercade in Houston this week with my wife. Hate to say it but the pinball machines were a graveyard of filthy, broken and in some cases entirely unplayable games. It’s sad too because several are newer Stern LE machines that have literally been trashed.

The cross over wire form ramp on mando was broken off and removed, the ball just launched off the end of the plastic portion of the ramp and flies down onto the playfield with a bang. AFM had flippers so shot they wouldn’t even make a clean shot to the mothership much less make any ramp shots. Toy story played well enough but had very soft flippers and was shockingly filthy for such a new game. Godzilla LE was equally filthy top to bottom with massive shooter lane wear and other damage, rubbers about to snap, etc. Led Zeppelin LE, the main mech elevating in the middle didn’t work at all. I can’t imagine the play counts on these machines they are beat. But to be honest most could be brought back to decent shape with some decent cleaning and flipper rebuilds.

We had way more fun playing the video games and drivers. If you are going there for pinball just don’t get too excited and be prepared to shed a tear for the lineup of trashed LE machines.