Archive for June, 2008

Mis-spending my youth part II

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

While video games are all well and good, and some of them are very good indeed, I actually get more fun out of playing the silver ball. There’s a bit of an analog component there that rewards skill to a higher level than a lot of video games. So here are my favourites.

Class of 1812
This is a fairly simple game without too many rules too remember and cast of chickens clucking the 1812 Overture while playing the easily lit multiball. It spend a fair bit of time in the corner of the cheap bistro of the Mildura Workingman’s Club and so we would go in for lunch and a beer or two while blasting through a few round of this table. I think this has a place in my heart more for it’s location and memories rather than its; outright qualities as pinball.

Jungle Princess
My good friend Karl actually owned this one. We would play it far too much and although it was a very simplistic game it never really got old. From 1977 it was probably light on for features even then, but that just made it easier for the home enthusiast to maintain. The sounds were generated by 2 glockespiel notes that a magnetic coil would throw a metal rod at. Drew used to cheat by essentially disabling the tilt function. I’m calling you out here mate. Those records of yours remain suspect even to this day.

Car Hop
Another one that sat in the Workers’ club at times and in hindsight it was junk. I did spend a lot of time playing it though and got to be pretty good at it. From memory it was loop/spinner, loop/spinner, loop/spinner, bullseye. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Star Trek TNG
Big, complicated, lots to do and some pretty cool features like the cannons on top of the slingshots. The licence was great too as you had all the actors doing their lines. I am a trek nerd and pinball nerd so it combined two of my life’s passions. I would have bought one (pre-children) if I hadn’t seen how hard it was to maintain in good working order. So many tricksy little things meant it wouldn’t take much to have a single feature out of play for a while. When it was working properly it was a joy to play and I will still seek one out whenever I can.

The Addams Family
This is probably on a lot of lists like this and rightly so. It sold a lot of machines as it was staggeringly popular in the mid nineties. I’m not sure I will ever tire of this one. So much to do and very easy to set up the various games within the game. A game made of win and awesome.
Addams Family

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Mis-spending my youth. Away edition

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

Desci asks and of course I comply. She names Point Blank as one of the great video games of our time and I agree with her. But what others have taken my fancy over the years? Plenty. Especially on the home computer, but today’s list is about the ones I fed my 20c or $1 or $2 coins into over the years. In no particular order I give you my favourites.

Point Blank
As Desci says this is a lot of fun. No storyline of any kind, just skill tester after skill tester with a nicely ramping difficulty curve. There were times when I was on song that the single shot missions like the falling leaf or the William Tell were a piece of piss. Others where they were nigh on impossible and I blame dodgy calibration for those.

Point Blank

Gyrus
This was the first one I was any good at. I even made it to Earth once or twice. Double fire was king here as it was in Galaga and you needed to base your play around getting it. The soundtrack was pretty cool too.

Gyrus

Gauntlet
This game had a near endless appetite for coins. Mistakes made on any given level could counteracted by sticking in another couple of credits. I liked playing the Valkyrie which, in hinsight, was foolishness. All the best players would fight for the Elf and take the Wizard if that were already taken. Don’t shoot food is sound advice for any situation.

Guantlet

Moon Patrol
I was never very good at it. I would get lazy and complacent in playing it. But I would always want to play it. I think it is the catchy game music that kept me coming back. I had it as my ringtone for several years in the early part of the century.

Moon Patrol

Spy Hunter
Another catchy tune and an impressive looking cabinet to play at. Machine guns, smoke screens, oil slicks at the ready. I almost wished I had a tuxedo to wear while driving it to get the full spy feel.

Spy Hunter

Super Sprint
This may not make too many lists of other people’s favourites, but if you could find a friend (or two) to play with it could be awesome. There was steering wheel lock, like so many of this era, so you would spend the race with your foot to the floor spinning the wheel hard to make the turns then grabbing it to straighten out again, drifting like crazy around the track.

Super Sprint

Star Wars
The sit down version of this came to Mildura and was the first ‘premium’ game that demanded 2×20c to play instead of 1. And it was totally worth it. The sound was amazing, the graphics were in an unheard of 3D. There were queues to play this game that required more than just putting your 20c on the machine. A blackboard was set up to keep track of who was next to play. I’m not sure I will ever be as impressed with a new game as I was with this one.

Star Wars

So these are the arcade games I have loved. But I have a stronger passion. The silver ball.
A new post for that I think

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Greatest Grand Final

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

The AFL tribunal is a joke but it errs on the side of forgiveness. Imagine the hue and cry if they punished anyone as severely as this. The story comes from my Grandfather of the Grand Final of 1938 in the Millewa League.

The Millewa, as the area was known, was settled by pioneers. They had small areas so there were a lot of families. After the railway arrived there was a siding every 6 miles. Every siding had a football team. Over the years huge rivalry emerged between Bambill and Werrimull. They had strong teams and many times fought out the grand final.

Werrimull had an oval that was notorious for grazed elbows and knees as it was covered in small pebbles. Bambill had less gravel but often had bindi eye prickles. This year it seemed pretty certain that Bambill and Werrimull would again fight it out for the premiership flag.

There were only 4 matches left before the finals. Bambill was playing strongly as usual when the umpire Mel Brown gave a free kick to the opposing half forward. “Round the neck” said Mel, “round the arse” said Maurie. He was reported for obscene language and abuse.

The Millewa League had as a tribunal member the Catholic Priest who resided at Werrimull. Mel was unable to attend so Father Leyden ruled Maurie was ineligible to play for 6 weeks. Seemed a bit harsh when the season was nearly over.

Bambill and Werrimull were to play out for the premiership. Maurie still had 2 weeks suspension, and without his strength at half back it was looking bleak for Bambill. Tension was such that Bambill would not agree to Werrimull having the home ground advantage. Then Werrimull refused to play at Bambill. The League quickly decided a neutral ground must be found. Yarrara was chosen and working bees were arranged. Cleared by the locals, rubbish was heaped here and there and burnt. Not to worry about the patches of ashes on the playing area.

Grand final day arrived and Bambill were worried how to cope without their star match winner.

The result at the end of the day was a draw.

The following week interest was enormous and a big crowd arrived. Bambill still had to line up without their star. A hard fought match was played and to everyone’s surprise another draw ensued. Bambill were delighted as their star player was now out of suspension.

Interest in a third grand final was enormous. Time for the teams to run out on the ground, so where was League Secretary Paddy Murphy with the new football. In the excitement of the day he had left the football back at Werrimull. That was a round trip of 24 miles over a dirt track with pot holes, corrugations and sand patches. Maud Lowe the Werrimull publican’s wife was a talented car driver having won many competitions. She offered to take Paddy back to get the Football. In record time they were back, Paddy was white as a sheet and shaking.

The match progressed, I do not know the scores, but Bambill were the victors.

This is the story as I remember it. May not be totally accurate. I am the younger brother of the Star back line player at the centre of this amazing story.

A map of the towns in question. The Yarrarra oval only existed for this game and is now overgrown. Scrolling eastwards Bambill is now only a crossroads and further east again to find their arch rivals Werrimull.


View Larger Map

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