Category Archives: Travel

2013 Houston Arcade Expo walk-thru

Posted on by
Reply

I just got back from the Houston Arcade Expo and have posted a video-walk-thru of the event. It’s always a fun time and this year was no exception. Although I actually did not pick up a game this year… I’m determined to finish my existing projects before adding any more. Any way, check it out:

A video tour of the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas

Posted on by
Reply

A recent discussion came up on one of the online forums about the Pinball Hall of Fame and I was prompted to dig up some footage I shot in 2009 so here it is.

For those of you who don’t know, the Pinball Hall of Fame is located in Las Vegas, Nevada, just off the main strip, run by an eccentric but brilliant and generous guy named Tim Arnold who is a long-time operator and has one of the most impressive collections of vintage pinball machines in the world.

The PHOF houses at any given moment, several hundred vintage pinball machines, including some extremely rare games you will not likely find anywhere else. Here’s a series of videos where I walked the rows of the place in 2009 not long after it moved into a new building. Enjoy!

How many rare and unusual games can you spot?

A quick look at three 70s era classic EM pinball games

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a look at playing the vintage 1976 Williams EM pinball game, “Space Odyssey”.  This is a classic Williams electro-mechanical game that featured a sweeping stationary target across the middle, and ball kickers on each side of the flipper.  It’s especially exciting when you can get the timing just right so the kicker fires the ball into the moving target.  This is the 2-player version of the same game, “Space Mission”.  There were 4,300 of these produced.

And as a bonus here’s a quick look at a vintage 1975 Gottlieb “Fast Draw”, the 2-player version of “Quick Draw” – another classic EM:

But Wait! There’s more… here’s a look at the 1977 Gottlieb classic “wedgehead” EM game, “Centigrade 37”:

A quick peek at a very cool pinball collection in Texas [pbh10]

Posted on by
2

Just north of Houston, there’s a very cool guy named Dan who has been collecting pinball machines for many, many years.  We came out to visit him this year while in town for the Houston Arcade Expo and I took a moment to grab the video camera and make quick walk-through of his museum, which houses hundreds of games from the earlier pinball eras.

I know it would look better if all the machines were fired up, but we weren’t staying long and I didn’t want to trouble him to flip everything on.  But you can get a feel for how many old games are in the museum, covering the earliest of eras in the 1800s and early 1900s to pre-flipper woodrails, bingo machines, EM woodrails and lots of classic 60s and 70s electro-mechanical games.  Distinctions in the collection include all four versions of Bally’s classic “Fireball” game, Atari’s gargantuan game “Hercules”,  rarities like “Spectrum”, “Asteroid Annie” and “Solar Fire”, and many very early games for which there’s very little information on how many were made.  There are also lots of vintage EM baseball, shooting and aviation games.  I plan to post more details in the future including some high-quality pictures.  Once again, a huge thanks to Dan for his hospitality!