My worst pinball sin is one nobody can see - when I'm in a groove, having a good ball, and my mind wanders toward the thought of "damn, I'm killing this machine!" And like that, I get careless, especially on fast flowing games where I start firing as fast as the ball comes to the flipper. Instead of catching and timing a shot or thinking about how I might defend if I miss, I'll start making risky redirects and firing fast inlane swooshes on the fly. It feels even better when the first time or two they hit their targets, and it further encourages that gunslinger mentality. It's like being the pinball version of Brett Favre, late in the NFC championship game.

Within seconds, one of these poorly advised shots is a miss, and a drain that was avoidable if I slowed the pace a bit and thought things out better. Every time. Then I will fall into a funk and drain my remaining ball(s) with little to show for it, and waste that one good ball with an average at best final score. That's an empty feeling, even when it's single player noncompetitive play.

I don't get to play real pinball too often. Sometimes I think I fall into the visceral experience - video game pinball can't reproduce it - and stop playing the cerebral game. And it keeps many games shorter than they could be.

YES - and a good old set of drop targets. Not everything has to be a flashy toy.

Some of my favorite spinner shots?

-Fish Tales is up there, especially to get that monster fish that can score big without shooting for caster's club or messing with multiball. Last FT I played I think had a juiced spinner because it would go for eight seconds or so when you ripped it hard.

-Black Hole with the "oh shit" feeling immediately to follow as the ball goes to the lower PF, hoping you can open the reentry gate before draining down ther.

-Black Knight, challenging to time on a ball through the right inlane that lights it for max points. Feels great to hit clean. And it's a spinner with a ramp, leading to the relative safety of the upper PF. Your best friend in multiball.

-And of course Gottlieb's Genie, the first spinner I recall shooting on a table I can name.

-Ripley's spinner serving as the "camera" shot might be tops if it was more relevant to scoring. Seems for the most part spinners dropped in prominence after the early SS era.

Steve Ritchie confessed in a 2001 interview that some of the shots on NF are harder to hit than he intended:

I was never that happy with the way No Fear came out and I'll tell you why. I really should have done one more white wood and taken out or modified one of the shots because they were too narrow if you ask me. Mr. Nicastro the President asked me to make the game quickly, as there was a hole in the production schedule. I should have just done what I needed to do.

When you're missing, NF is the clunkiest of his games. But it rewards accuracy. It's one that will make you a player who can kill a mosquito on a spot target in the back of a playfield with a flipper button. Hitting a shot with a narrow or not exactly straight angle is always satisfying, like shooting FunHouse's hidden hallway from the right flipper. My last FH session was hot garbage scorewise (lower GI being out didn't help) but I hit that shot and felt good nonetheless.

And I certainly must confess - a shitty pinball beats a shitty video game any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.