(Topic ID: 282540)

What pinball machine got you hooked?

By Reid420k

3 years ago


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  • 91 posts
  • 80 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 3 years ago by amstrick
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    There are 91 posts in this topic. You are on page 1 of 2.
    #1 3 years ago

    Hey, trying to find a post. But I am curious what pinball was the one that got you "hooked" "the bug" "addicted"

    I feel alot of people have good stories...... and on weird pinballs too...

    Use to have a Dk arcade machine 4 years ago but sold it and ran away from hobby (lost interest in hobby and friends weren't as interested to come play) a friend told me i should check out the pinball bar that just opened up.... I thought hey why not they have arcade games. m
    When I arrived i noticed most if arcade games there were not what I was into (space invaders, outrun, street fighter 2, ect) so I tried a few pinballs... can't remember what ones.. just what ever ones looked cool. (Batman, stranger things, addams family.) All my games seemed to not last that long or had nooooo idea what was goin on... so I was just about to give up when I noticed the street fighter 2 pinball in corner......I'm not a fan of arcade game but I figured its just a theme....3 hours later im still trying to beat all the fighters(got down to 2 before wizard mode)....and that was it... I was hooked... I came back the next day and spent another 4 hours on machine. Thought it was best pinball around..until I joined pinside.....everyone knows how the rest goes... couple months later I had a pinball machine

    #2 3 years ago

    Nip It. First time I had ever seen More than one ball in play. I was 11. It was utter amazement! My quarters were gone so fast because it was a brutal game.

    #3 3 years ago

    Cosmic Gunfight, my parents bought it when I was 8/9 years old!
    They did sell it after a few years and bought a Flintstones.
    The pin that replaced Flintstones is still here to this day after 11 years: Twilight Zone!

    How I hope to find a Cosmic Gunfight of my own someday

    Cosmic Gunfight (resized).jpgCosmic Gunfight (resized).jpg

    #4 3 years ago

    Aladdin's Castle. Played it at Myrtle Beach in 1977 with my brothers on our last family vacation before my older brother was killed in a farm accident. Check out my story "Be back by dinner"

    https://pinside.com/pinball/community/pinsiders/readypo/stories/be-back-by-dinner

    Pic below is an earlier game room pic when I still just had a reasonable number of pins

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    #5 3 years ago

    Firepower. I got multiball by mistake and that was the first time I'd seen it.

    #6 3 years ago

    For me, it was Addams Family back in the day when malls still had real arcades. I used to go to the arcade in the Southern Park Mall in Boardman, OH (a suburb of Youngstown) and dump quarter after quarter in Addams Family. At the time, the call out “It’s Showtime” was the coolest thing ever and exhilarating to hear. To be honest, it still grabs me. Anyway, I’ve been playing pins ever since.

    #7 3 years ago

    Really it was getting deadpool two years ago. I wanted ONE pin to complete my basement and you know how that goes. I have 5 now.

    #8 3 years ago

    A 64 Williams Soccer at a bowling alley. Loved that backglass animation!

    #9 3 years ago

    My friend had a Data East Simpsons. We would go to his house to shoot pool but always ended up playing pinball instead. He has had that one and only machine for probably about 15 years. I now have 10 and owned many others. I don’t know how he can just have one? Haha

    #10 3 years ago

    My wife and i usually go to our local pizza shop to have pizza and subs. When we arrived in the winter of 2010 they had a HighSpeed so we decided to drink hangout and play some. 3 hours later it was getting to be some serious competition on our scores. Next day we found a cyclone on craigslist 2 weeks after that a Road Show. You know how goes after that!

    #11 3 years ago

    Gtb SPIDERMAN, over 30 years ago. Never remember playing pinball as a kid
    but was always curious. So when Spidey showed up the the classified, took
    a chance on a non-working machine. After fixing it up my new wife enjoyed
    it as much as I did so more followed. A lot more. 51 to date.

    Gtb series 80 and series 1 pins will always have places of honor in my
    collection. Still have Spidey and it gets played regularly. Game play has
    never gotten old!

    #12 3 years ago

    Two machines got me hooked to pinball: Lord of the Rings and South Park.

    #13 3 years ago

    T2 at the bar with my Dad as a kid. Shooting the ball to start the game. Immediate hook for me. Some day I’ll pick one up......I just recently went back to play Street Fighter. Really is a fun shooter

    #14 3 years ago

    Pinbot for me, I played it around the time it came out. I really liked the layout and the ‘eyes’. Back then I never thought I would have one at home. Before pins I was into arcade machines but that tide has changed, still have a couple multicades to play when I get the itch for Donkey Kong or Dig Dug but the pins are my go to now.

    #15 3 years ago

    It would be 1968 for me, as an 8 year old walking to elementary school.
    I stopped into the corner candy store, luncheonette on Atlantic Avenue in Baldwin NY, to grab some
    wax lips and wax bottles before school.
    I saw them setting up Shangri-La, and was late for school, watching the set up.
    I skipped spending my lunch money, and headed over after class.
    For the rest of the school year, I was hooked!
    It had a Gate that opened and returned the ball to the Shooter Lane!
    OMG! That was amazing!
    I became good enough to rack up credits with the special when lit center spun by.
    I remember the first few times, my parents went looking for me, even calling the police, because I didnt come home,
    only to find me grunting at the game!

    #16 3 years ago

    2nd time around it was Scared stiff. Was in a local sports bar...... played that game all night long...... next thing you know I’m on eBay.... looking for one..... bought it..... been I here ever since.

    I would also give credit to visual pinball..... which re kindled my interest...... playing haunted house for the first time since I was a kid was awesome.

    #17 3 years ago

    I'm pretty sure the bug started with South Park. It was at a restaurant down near a beach somewhere, i ended up playing it more than the Stern Star Wars right next to it lmao.

    #18 3 years ago

    Anything available for play in 1984 was what got me hooked. Summertime at the midway arcade in cedar point Ohio.

    Gorgar!

    #19 3 years ago

    Data East Guns N Roses.
    We still stay up all night drinking beer and playing it when my in laws are in town.

    It’s a classic masterpiece and family favorite.

    #20 3 years ago

    A LOTR in a bar in Breckenridge. Had to own one.

    #21 3 years ago

    High Speed, I was 15. Until that time I was an arcade game only guy and thought pinball was slow and clunky.

    I played a game and managed to get the police chase started (I had no idea what I was doing). The siren was wailing and the beacon was flashing, it was such a rush! I even managed to get my father into the arcade to see it (he was very anti-arcade).

    Shortly after that Pinbot came out and the rest is history.

    #22 3 years ago

    Growing up “The Gateway Arcade” had a great pinball line up, but EBD always called my name. They closed and we would ride our bikes to the Sheraton Hotel and they had a Black Knight that would devour my money. As we grew older we rode to King of Prussia mall “Spaceport” always had the latest and greatest:Space Shuttle, High Speed, BK2K and then the DMDs came. With all that in mind, “Chalk up!” Eight Ball Deluxe!

    #23 3 years ago

    The 2012 Stern Avengers. One day my boss came in and said they were putting a pinball machine in the corporate office, and whoever had the high score by the company Christmas party would get a Nintendo Switch (which was impossible to find at the time). I had a key to the company office and could come in anytime I wanted. With unlimted access to a single pin, I had time to explore the rules and really understand strategy on it. I got my switch, discovered the local pinball arcade, and a few years later got my first pin so I could have my very own. 2 years afterwards I've got 3 downstairs (and 2 more on the way) and have rotated through about 20. Such a fun hobby.

    #24 3 years ago

    Slugfest. I used to love collecting cards as a kid.

    #25 3 years ago

    GTL Buckaroo is the first I remember playing - McConnell AFB Youth Center, Wichita, KS

    #26 3 years ago

    Fireball,so different from the friendly Gottliebs at the time. The multi-ball, ball return kicker, boop ball and return gate had me hooked.

    11
    #27 3 years ago

    Remember as a kid being in a dark pizza parlor arcade intending to play Space Invaders - then this thing spoke - absolutely scared the living crap out of me.
    I confronted my fear, hooked ever since.

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    #28 3 years ago

    Jokerz! Put so much money in it that i could have bought 3 times

    #29 3 years ago

    Definitely Attack from Mars when I first saw it in 1996. I was 14/15, and I absolutely loved it. It was in the arcade of a laser tag place called QZar. There was AFM and TOM. I tried TOM and it seemed "meh" to me. AFM though.....seeing that saucer light up, hearing all the cool call outs, the music when MB started up, hearing the martian bellow "JAAAAAAACCCKKKPAAAUUUTTT!!!" with the guns going off or the missiles whizzing by on the DMD. Man, I missed entire laser tag games cause I was playing it so much.

    Took me another 20 years to finally buy one, but I did just that in March 2016 at 34/35. Done two PF swaps on it since, and I came to realize I enjoy working on and getting them working again over playing. Don't get me wrong, I can hold my own, but bringing them back to life brings me a joy I simply cannot explain.

    #30 3 years ago

    I played for years on electro-mechanical or early solid state machines, but when I found out you could get multi-ball on Black Knight with magna save on the outlanes, that did it for me. Firepower was a close second. During that time period, it was all about achieving multi ball. Prior to that, it was all Mata Hari, Riverboat Gambler and 8 Ball Deluxe. When video games came on the scene at arcades, I was interested, but I still went to the pinball machines first.

    #31 3 years ago

    Jacks Open. Back in my college days.

    Classic Gottlieb EM with unique progressive drop target poker hand goals. Great rules, very challenging, and so addictive!

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    #32 3 years ago

    Does Pinball Arcade count? I started playing that online and couldn't stop. I purchased all the available tables.

    In real life I started playing Ripley's Believe it or Not (RBION) and kept getting free games. I loved it because I could put in 50 cents and play for 30 minutes easily! This was only like 6 years ago.

    Ahhh..... memories.

    #33 3 years ago

    Twilight Zone for me. The Aladdin's Castle at Brookfield Square mall had one as well as one at a comic book shop in Pewaukee that I would go to about once a week back when I was in middle school. Getting the powerball and multiball was so cool on that game. The mini-playfield was great too. I also played a bunch of DE Star Wars and Jurassic Park, but TZ really got me hooked.

    TZ was the first pin I bought back in 2004 and I still have it.

    #34 3 years ago
    Quoted from Hammerhead:

    High Speed, I was 15..

    I remember playing this when I was little. I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11. I played at an arcade while my mom was in a bowling league. She gave us $5 and that was that.

    Anyway, I always avoided pinball because I didn't understand it. But I thought the siren was cool so I gave High Speed a shot. I plunged and watched the ball go around and it drained right away. I thought right then and there "pinball is stupid! never again!"

    I tried to play the other two balls but never really hit anything. I gave up and didn't play pinball again for 15 years haha. Now that I realize how awesome it is, I wish I had given High Speed a few more shots. I might have been hooked, and I'd surely be better than I am today.

    #35 3 years ago

    Bally Kiss and night rider.

    #36 3 years ago

    Black Knight 2000 at a pizza place around 2014. Other games they had were Pinbot, and Dr Who.

    #37 3 years ago

    Gorgar. I decided I wanted just that one machine. When I was bringing into my house a city employee was working out front and told me there would be more. He was right.

    #38 3 years ago

    I remember Space Shuttle, High Speed, and Pinbot when I was little. Then Addams Family came out and blew my mind. That’s the moment I thought pinball was the coolest thing ever.

    #39 3 years ago

    For me, it was the summer rotation at a campground we went to for family trips. Hurricane, F14, rescue 911, space shuttle, STNG, T2, and Adams family are the ones that I remember the most. Finished the basement in the old house with plans to add a few games, but starting a family took priority. Now I have to find places to put them after 8 years of collecting.

    #40 3 years ago

    About 20 years ago I stumbled upon a YouTube video of a guy restoring a Gorgar. I was amazed by the mechanics of the drop target assembly.

    A few months later a gorgar popped up local and I bought it. Unbeknownst to the seller, I showed up with some cash and a check. I was new and didn’t know it’s generally an all cash deal.

    Nonetheless, I carted that gorgar home and the madness began.

    #41 3 years ago

    Summer of 1978, I was 13. Bally Eight Ball in a college cafeteria, 2 blocks from my house. They kept the college unlocked, but usually, no one was inside in the Summer. I fed quarters to that pin everyday, from June to August.

    #42 3 years ago

    T2, STNG, and Taf all at the same time! Would love it if they would remake TAF and STNG. Cant afford to buy 30yr old games and constantly trouble shoot

    #43 3 years ago

    Space Shuttle at Show Biz pizza circa 1985. Totally hooked.

    #44 3 years ago
    Quoted from A_Bord:

    Space Shuttle at Show Biz pizza circa 1985. Totally hooked.

    Haha, my first memory of pinball was SS at Showbiz, the game that got me hooked, no pun intended was Fish Tales at the local bowling alley.

    #45 3 years ago

    Addams Family in the 90's - had a hard time playing other machines until recently... rented a machine during COVID, now own two of my own, including TAF...

    #46 3 years ago

    My pinball curiosity grew in college in early 90's. TZ probably grabbed my attention the most. I didn't have a clue how to play so didn't get to into it. Always kept an interest but rarely if ever saw a pin. Around 2014 I was looking for something to do on my ipad. Found Pinball Arcade and discovered all these pins I never knew existed. Thought pinball just died in my 90's. Thought it would be cool to get a real pin and bought a Getaway.

    #47 3 years ago

    Big Guns when I was a kid. Sopranos when I was an adult.

    #48 3 years ago

    Well the pin was cheap the profit got me hooked. Now of course umpteem thousands later I would say STTNG got me started and 90s Bally is taking my coin

    #49 3 years ago

    Williams Grand Lizard, got it in trade from a dane for a Sega Hang-On deluxe arcade i had bought. still own GL aswell LOL

    Although i ah played pins way before in the late 80's and the 90's as a kid, but they never stuck on like it did having my own one.

    #50 3 years ago

    Best pin ever.

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