Hawaii Pinball Quest Part IV

I did a search and it turns out there are eight Fun Factories on Oahu. Only three of them have pins though; Mililani, Kapolei and Waikiki. I went to the Kapolei store in the South West part of the island since I didn’t feel like trying to find my way around Honolulu in the dark. This store is right off of the H1 next to Safeway. In the back of the room was Elvis. The cabinet artwork was good and the translight has multiple pictures of the king in all his high necked jumpsuit glory. The playfield itself didn’t have a lot of artwork on it. There didn’t seem to be anything broken so I got out my game credit card and started playing.

The plunger skill shot is pretty lame. Just pull it back about half way and drop it in the lit lane for a bonus. Too much or too little and the ball doesn’t make it. There is a dancing Elvis toy in the middle of the playfield singing See See Rider which is really cool. There is a good mix of easy and difficult shots. The hardest for me was the Heartbreak Hotel on the upper playfield. I think more could have been done up there as this one shot is pretty it. The music was about 6 or 7 of his more rocking songs; Jail house rock, Don’t be Cruel, Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog and others. There is a video mode which is basically Guitar Hero with the flipper buttons.

My only real complaint about this game is how easily it drains down the outlanes. The out lanes are wide open from the top and it seems the ball goes there from every conceivable angle on the playfield. Even with the posts set in the smallest opening, the ball would drain 9 out of 10 times it went to the sides, which is often. It didn’t help that this particular machine had the Tilt set to full sensitive so bumping was very dangerous. With a lot of scoring available during the bonus, you don't want to tilt this game. Also, the Ball Save feature was turned off. There were a couple of games where I never even hit the ball with the flippers. Drains down the middle were thankfully not common. When lady luck was with me, I could get some respectable scores and “Popped” enough to keep me playing.

Overall I did find the game fun and if I found a good deal on one I would buy it. Turning on the Ball Save feature and adjusting the Tilt setting would definitely help cope with the drain problem. I would really like to play another one of these machines with different settings to make another assessment.

Update: I went back about a week later and now the upper right flipper doesn't work and the lower left flipper is weak. Elvis doesn't move his hands now either. I played it anyway because it was a 30 minute drive to get there, I had nothing better to do and I had to use up the credits on my game card. Maybe I'm getting better, but it didn't drain down the sides as much as the last session. Even with the upper flipper inop I was getting scores over 100 mil. The girl had to kick me out of the place I was having so much fun. Oh See, See See Rider.