PinFest 2013 - Allentown, PA - Pictures (lots of 'em!)

[dsheinem]

I spent yesterday afternoon at PinFest in Allentown, PA. It was the second year I went and it is one of the most fun pinball-related experiences one can have in my opinion. 200-300 machines on freeplay for a $17 door fee with hardly ever a wait to be had (or at least no more than waiting for one person to finish a single game). Well worth the cost! Here's a dump of pictures covering a sampling of some of the machines I played. Enjoy!




Bandwidth warning: there's about 70 pictures or so underneath this spoiler tag!

[chupon]

Nice man! Super jealous - always wanted to go to this. So when are you getting that real pin again?

What's your take on the recent Stern games compare to the 1980s pins and DMD 1990s? I'd argue they're almost too complex with too much stuff happening. They feel kinda cheap and plastic to me. I still have a soft spot for LoTR and a few others though.

[dsheinem]

So when are you getting that real pin again?

It's really a problem of space more than anything. If/when we convert the barn to a bar/den, then I'll pursue this. In the meantime, I'm probably not going to try and shoehorn one or two into the house. I do live about 5-10 minutes way from 7-8 newer/older tables I can play regularly, so for now that's the best option.

What's your take on the recent Stern games compare to the 1980s pins and DMD 1990s? I'd argue they're almost too complex with too much stuff happening. They feel kinda cheap and plastic to me. I still have a soft spot for LoTR and a few others though.

I like them for different reasons, much as I like the classic Bally and Gottlieb tables from the 70s for others. I do think the complexity is a bit high on some, but sometimes that's what I'm looking for!

Some favorites from yesterday:

Captain Fantastic (this would be purchase priority #1 for me for several reasons)
The Champion Pub*
Fire!* (my son's favorite)
The Getaway*
Earthquaker!
Bone Busters*
Jack Bot*
South Park*
Star Trek*
Star Trek TNG
Pinball Pool
(*new to me)

I skipped some stuff I've played many times before (e.g. Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, etc.), but I still got in about 50 games or so in the 5-6 hours I was there.

[Hobie-wan]

Awesome. Makes me want November to come faster so I can hit the arcade show over here again.

[ExedExes]

Wow. Great pics. Thank you for sharing.

Some of my experiences -

- TMNT was the first game I played that had a DMD. I forgot until recently DE's DMDs were a bit shorter than the industry standards now (they also released the first DMD game, Checkpoint from 1991, but Williams had the first DMD game designed before they did, the soon to be Terminator 2 from the same year)

- The Chicago Cubs machine I was about to date that from the 1970s due to the use of white all over and even the simplistic playfield which a game from that time period would have, but it has the classic 2-line display from Gottlieb/Premier titles of the late 80s.

- I've got Party Zone, Getaway, and up until a while back , Terminator 2 machines to play not too far away, but PZ is totally in bad shape.

- One of my best scores ever is on Attack from Mars, over 6 billion

- Was the Terminator 3 machine made to look nearly identical to T2?

- That 2001 machine has a very WIDE flipper gap, I'd date that to late 60s early 70s.

- A Godzilla machine inside a Monster Bash body? You don't see that type of conversion work in pins, in arcade games it's more common.

- I only saw, and played, Fire! once, in 1996. Hard to find.

- 90% of Earthshaker machines I find are in terrible shape. Only *1* I played had it all in place, even the machine shaking as it's supposed to!

[dsheinem]

. I do live about 5-10 minutes way from 7-8 newer/older tables I can play regularly, so for now that's the best option.

I just got home from visiting the free amusement park that's 5 minutes from here to check out this year's lineup. My spring-fall selection is:

Avatar
Pirates of the Carribean
Lord of the Rings
Spider-Man
Theater of Magic
...and new for 2013: Twilight Zone!

These are almost all $5000+ machines which it would be tough to justify paying for (I'd need to play them multiple times a day for many years to get my money's worth of credits). Those last two are arguably two of the top 5 or top 10 pins of all time...and I get 3 credits/$2 almost all year

[dsheinem]

Wow. Great pics. Thank you for sharing.

Some of my experiences -

- TMNT was the first game I played that had a DMD. I forgot until recently DE's DMDs were a bit shorter than the industry standards now (they also released the first DMD game, Checkpoint from 1991, but Williams had the first DMD game designed before they did, the soon to be Terminator 2 from the same year)

- The Chicago Cubs machine I was about to date that from the 1970s due to the use of white all over and even the simplistic playfield which a game from that time period would have, but it has the classic 2-line display from Gottlieb/Premier titles of the late 80s.

- I've got Party Zone, Getaway, and up until a while back , Terminator 2 machines to play not too far away, but PZ is totally in bad shape.

- One of my best scores ever is on Attack from Mars, over 6 billion

- Was the Terminator 3 machine made to look nearly identical to T2?

- That 2001 machine has a very WIDE flipper gap, I'd date that to late 60s early 70s.

- A Godzilla machine inside a Monster Bash body? You don't see that type of conversion work in pins, in arcade games it's more common.

- I only saw, and played, Fire! once, in 1996. Hard to find.

- 90% of Earthshaker machines I find are in terrible shape. Only *1* I played had it all in place, even the machine shaking as it's supposed to!

I shit you not: the Cubs machine I chose to play (there were two) broke on the first launch (an alley gate snapped) making the "season" literally dead out of the gate. I suspect this is an intentional part of its design

They had two Fire! machines and two Earthquaker machines, both of which were in amazing shape. Both are a ton of fun

That 2001 gap is why I took the picture. Fastest game of pinball I've ever played...and that's with 5 balls per credit

The Monster Mash body is housing a video pinball table (emulation). I learned at Pinfest that amatuer emulation is not for me.

[chupon]

I did note all the pics of captain fantastic above. Make sure when you finally get one you get the proper "no stars" one and don't let the kids see it.

[dsheinem]

I did note all the pics of captain fantastic above. Make sure when you finally get one you get the proper "no stars" one and don't let the kids see it.

Yeah, those are much harder to find...and usually the owners know what they have an its value

[ExedExes]

That 2001 gap is why I took the picture. Fastest game of pinball I've ever played...and that's with 5 balls per credit

The Monster Mash body is housing a video pinball table (emulation). I learned at Pinfest that amatuer emulation is not for me.

I was right on 2001, it's from 1971. Big Shot (1973) was on the PHOF collection -- the gap was slightly shorter, but not by much

I didn't even see the video on that emulated table. Wow.

Finally, I found out Steve Ritchie did the design work for T3, which is why it looked exactly like T2 -- he did that one too