I was never exactly a Pinball Wizard, but I was pretty good in my day. During high school I was more into coinop video games than pinballs, and if I remember correctly my reasoning was that they were more consistent and predictable in their behaviour. You pull left, your spaceship flies left. The boss on level 5 always dives down after exactly 15 seconds so get the hell out from under there, etc.

It wasn’t until I got to Uni that I came to better appreciate pinball games, and if I remember correctly it was because they were less consistent and predictable in their behavior compared to video games. Each particular table had it’s own nuances and secrets, and no two games were the same. They even seemed to change week to week either by design or through wear and tear for added challenge. For example, the left flipper might be a little weaker than the right. After pointing this out to the owner you might find it fixed the next week but at the same time you’d find the table tilted up half a degree or leaning slightly to the right. The technician may have adjusted the out-lane pins a little wider and the in-lane pins a little narrower. The challenge and fun in pinball was not only in getting a high score but in finding the secrets and challenges of the gameplay and overcoming the traps put in there by unscrupulous operators.

One particular day of my pinball career sticks in my mind. I had a day off Uni and thought I’d invest some time at LazaMaze, a Video game and Pinball Parlour on Victoria Street in Midland. They had a well worn and slightly neglected “The Addams Family” game. The flippers were pretty weak, the jets in the mid-left area didn’t register and a few of the lights and sounds didn’t work. It wasn’t my first choice TAF machine, but it was still fun. When I got there some guy was on it and he was pretty frustrated. He’d been flailing away trying to hit a very conservative Replay Score of 20 Million but couldn’t manage more than 5 Million. He lost another ball, cursed and started kicking the legs which ended his current game with a tilt.

I asked, humbly, if I could have the next game and wagered that I could score get a replay. He took the bet, deciding that it was impossible since he;d already spent five bucks on it and hadn’t managed one yet. He was a slave to Pride which, along with deep pockets, had kept him chained there getting more and more frustrated to the point that I could see arteries popping out of his temples.

I didn’t really mean to make him look foolish, but I think I might have. Not only did I get the replay score on my first ball but it took me a total of about 12 seconds. Here’s how:

1. Pull that plunger back and hit the Skill Shot for 2M
2. Hit the Train Wreck, not so much to get points because you need two hits for your first bonus, but to get your eye in and test the upper right flipper strength
3. Let the ball dribble to your left flipper. If it’s on the right flipper, perform a Flip Trap or a Falling Hold Pass to get it onto the left flipper
4. Send the ball up that nice wide ramp up the back called the Bear Kick. If you hit this enough times you can do things like light extra balls, collect Jackpots in Multiball. If you have a strong right flipper, you can sit there all day and hit 99 Bear Kicks which lights 5M per shot, but for now we only want to go up once. This is the first shot in the 4-way Combo and should have taken about 8 seconds so far.
5. Having gone up the Bear Kick, the ball will be delivered to your right flipper. Send it straight through the Graveyard into the Advance X Loop. This is quite a hard shot to pull off since the entrance to the Graveyard is very narrow, and the distance between the jets in the Graveyard means you need to be very precise. This is the second shot in the 4-Way Combo and should have taken about 10 seconds so far.
6. As the ball comes around the top of the table through the Advance X Loop, send it up the Million Plus ramp with your upper right flipper.  This does two things: gives you 1M points (the next shots up this ramp will be 2M, 3M etc) and scores you the 3-way Combo for 5M points. This is also a hard shot, since the ball will be travelling through the loop very quickly. this is the third shot of the 4-way combo. It’s also a 3-way combo itself, and scores you 5M points.
7. Send the ball into the Swamp for the final shot of the 4-way Combo and earn another 10M points.

I let the ball come out and trapped it on the left flipper and showed the other guy the score. 15M points from the 3-way and 4-way combos, plus bonus X advanced plus 1M from the ramp + at least 5M for the 5X graveyard value (small thought it was) plus the initial 2M point skill shot brought me over the 20M point line and earned me a free Replay game.  All in under 12 seconds. I let the ball dribble off the flipper, told the guy “Good luck” and walked out feeling too cool for school.