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In 1986 I headed off to college and lived in a dormitory. In the main lounge stood PINBOT and right next to it the video game VANGUARD. It was the only time in my life I had access to a pinball machine at any frequency.
Pinball was always intimidating ... to begin with, I never knew the rules so my plan was always to just keep the ball alive. Most times the rules were written in such small text on the lower right and left corners of the tables, right where people, including me, would put their cigarettes while they were playing and that resulted in burn marks all over the rule sheet. Even playing PINBOT, I wasn't exactly sure of all the rules. Anyone who has never played PINBOT, it has a large wide open space down the middle so you have to be careful while playing. It doesn't have as many targets as the machines that came after it, so you really had to aim.
Pinball was intimidating because a bad run and your quarter was gone in minutes. Quarters were not easy to come by those days, besides, I needed them to buy cigarettes and beer! Even though I could last a lot longer on Vanguard, I played PINBOT just as much. Unlike a video game, pinball has no real beginning, middle, or end. If you play a video game, in many cases, once you have played a particular part of it, you have seen that part and done it ... the next time around its the same and yet, even though the pinball table remains a constant, each time you play it, it is different and there is always the fear of loosing your ball the entire time you are playing it.
In short, pinball is a panic, and it is more difficult than most video games these days. Its that twitch game-play that used to be in video games that keeps me coming back, its the fear of death, its the electronic sounds and pings and pangs, clings and clangs, clinks and clanks, and the robotic chitter chatter jibber jabber.
20 years after college and my love of the game is resurrected with Video Game Pinball! There are no burn holes in the rule sheets but quarters are still hard to come by so thank God there isn't a quarter slot in my Wii U, 3DS, PS3, PS Vita or Nexus 10 Tab ... it gives me the opportunity to keep on playing and learning the ins and outs of the tables.
Of all the devices I have Zen Pinball 2 for, simply put, it plays the best on the Wii U ... Its the Wii U Game Pad that makes all the difference. On the other systems, the nudge control is never comfortable or convenient for that matter and when you set the flippers to the Z buttons, it is the most comfortable set up of any system ... it just feels right!
This game has inspired me to pick up The Pinball Arcade and Pinballisitik Pinball on the PS3 but the beauty of Zen is that you can do things you never could do on a real table yet all the tables feel like real tables.
In the words of Gary Stern of Stern Pinball, “The thing that’s killing pinball,” is not that people don’t like it. It’s that there’s nowhere to play it.” “This is a ball game. It’s a bat and ball game, O.K.?” ... now we all have a place to play pinball, and place to talk about it too ....to me, Pinball is a Panic, what is it to you?
