Daytona Beach, FL
Just wanted to share a cool little "toy" I picked up for 30 bucks recently. It's a Tomy tabletop pinball called Pirates Treasure. For those who remember Atomic Arcade Pinball from 1979, this appears to be it's bigger, badder, cooler brother. I had an AAP in '79 and remember it to be pretty small and simple. I think only the 3 bumpers, and 2 slings scored points. This little gem however is the closest tabletop pinball I have found that mimics the real deal. I am pretty surprised at just how advanced this toy pinball really is. It scores points via the top rollovers, 3 bumpers, 1 angled bumper, 2 kick out holes, and through a cellar kick out shot. The cellar shot hooks around the upper left, drops under the playfield and kicks the ball out just above the third flipper on the right. It's just a brilliant feature for a tabletop pinball.
The bumpers work great and provide really decent action, and the kick out holes work flawlessly. The playfield is 10" wide and 16" top to bottom. Of course the experience pales in comparison to the real thing, but for a toy, you just can't find a better pinball experience. If any Pinsider comes across one of these more advanced Tomy tabletop pinball machines, they are definitely worth picking up for a few bucks. I got this one in the original box, and with instructions for 29.99. They certainly seem cheap enough to buy and are surprisingly fun and well made. The only thing I think Tomy should have done in hindsight for a more complete experience, would have been to take two more of those straight angle bumpers (the yellow bar between the kick out holes and bottom bumper) and insert them into the two slingshots above the flippers. Outside of that, they managed to put out a pretty faithful tabletop recreation of the real thing.
