Pinball Arcade is great to try out if you are about to buy a machine to see basically how it plays. If you want to play a machine that most people can't afford it's great. If you want to play a machine that you may only see at a show it's great. My scores on it are much higher than in real life because the physics are such that you can predict the way the ball reacts to playfield obstacles. For example Bride of Pinbot when you put the ball in the pop bumper area it feeds the ball to the right flipper the same exact way every time. On a real machine there are so many factors that aren't taken into account like the ball spinning. I really like it because I probably wont be able to buy games like Bride of Pinbot or Scared Stiff MM, TOTAN etc. I bought my first machine (Genie) because I first played it on Pinball Arcade and that this was a fun enough game to start with.