Hawaiian Pinball Quest Part III

After snorkling, the wife and I decided to do some shopping before dinner. We heard of a good Italian restaurant in Mililani (North Central Oahu) called Assagios in a nice shopping center so we headed on over. While walking around, my wife noticed an arcade called Fun Factory next to the movie theater. GO WIFE! I poked my head in and sure enough, they had two pins, NASCAR and High Roller Casino. I told the wife to come get me when she was finished shopping. I'm so nice.

This place uses gift cards you can recharge to pay for the games. Pretty cool idea I think. Now parents can make sure thier kids spend the money on video games instead of booz. The kid behind the counter said "You can use the card at any of the other stores." Other stores? Did I just hit Pinball Jackpot? I will have to check on this.

I stroll on over to NASCAR, since it looks cooler than the HRC, swipe the card, and start playing. I always play a game first before reading the rulesheet. What can I say, I'm a guy. It's like reading the instructions before assembling furniture. Who does that? But basically I try to get a feel for the game, it's difficulty and funness before going for high scores.

I pull the plunger and Vroom, Vroom, Vroom, the ball starts spinning around the perimeter of the playfield like a racetrack. Pretty cool. But after that the game starts to dissapoint. I just wasn't getting into this one. The rulesheet didn't seem very deep. I'm not a big NASCAR fan but that shouldn't matter if it's a good pin. Personally, I thought it was pretty boring. There was nothing really wrong with the game except the Test Car ball eject would routinely send the ball straight down the center drain. I hope this was just a setting issue and isn't normal. It got to be I would avoid shooting the ball in the hole when not necessary. The side lanes rarely drained, which is good. After a few dollars I moved on to High Roller and didn't come back.

The High Roller Casino had a sticky left flipper and the pop bumpers didn't work but I was able to work around these issues. The Roullette wheel was kinda neat but the slot machine was really cool. As also were the multiple Video modes. Slots, dice, Hi-lo, Black Jack and a couple of others. They kept you busy and gave you a bit of a break and allow you to look at the nice artwork. I put about $10 or so into the game before the wife came back and dinner called. All in all, I had a lot of fun on this machine as there was a lot to do. I'm not sure if the drop targets weren't operating correctly but they only reset when the ball drained. If this is normal then I think it could have been better. I give props to Fun Factory for keeping the arcade action going. Especially pinball. I only wish they had one in Anchorage.

Oh, and the food at Assagio's was really good. Their garlic roasted asparagas was awesome. Get there early or make reservations because it was packed.