When I first ventured into retro gaming, little did I know that I would meet such awesome and like-minded people. Since establishing a great bond with the locally based Retro Domination and Weird and Retro guys, we have shared many a good time, not least of all, at our annual Classic Gaming extravaganza at PAX Aus.
With family priorities keeping me away for most of the 2014 PAX Aus event, the rest of the Classic Gaming crew, including the Adelaide based Retrospekt team, were hugely supportive, which was greatly appreciated.
As a thank you, Ms. ausretrogamer and I invited our Victorian based retro gaming colleagues to celebrate the grand opening of our new games room. Between the consumption of pizzas, beer, soft drinks and Ms. ausretrogamer’s famous Black Russians, there were pinball high score challenges, Frisbee action via Windjammers on the Neo Geo MVS and a lot of laughter and reminiscing. It was also great to meet Mrs. Daz Retro and their three lovely kids.
I was humbled to receive many gifts, which were totally unexpected. Matt Cawley handed me a few custom MVS boxes, Ultimate Body Blows and a number of other Amiga CD32 goodies. As per usual, Daz surprised me with a boxed (Last) Ninja 3 for the C64 and the equally awesome, Dracula – The Undead for the Atari Lynx. However, the biggest surprise came from Mr. Mark Cassar. Without any fanfare, Mark handed me an awesome custom-made ausretrogamer C64 t-shirt. To say I was rapt, would be a great understatement!
Since the new games room has now officially been opened, I hope to host many more retro gaming parties with great friends. Game on!
The calm before the retro gaming storm!
Pizzas, Drinks and great company = perfect ingredients for a party
Matt having a crack at the Pin*Bot high score!
The great Mark Cassar taking a swing on the Neo Geo!
Daz showing the boys his flipper skills!
The next generation of retro gamers
The awesome gifts! I have been spoiled.
The classic Segasa electro-mechanical pinball table, Baby Doll, has been saved from the scrap heap and morphed into the fully fledged 
source: 
Machines and their mechanics have always fascinated me – from the brilliantly clever people that design them, to the bits and pieces that go inside them to make things work. One such machine that has brought lots of joy to this retro gamer, is the faithful pinball table. Pinball tables have a fair few moving parts – from ramps and bumpers, to flippers, flashing lights and thundering sound, so wouldn’t it be wonderful to see how this stuff works?
When I first heard about the 
As I step out of the car, I immediately wish I’d stayed home. Who the heck is going to show up to this thing? 4 people total? It’s all about those Sony Playtendo whozits now. Nobody wants to play pinball anymore. I ask the reception lady about the pinball expo and am told it’s “outside, to the left in a big tent”. Pffft, tent? I’ve come this far so I’ll begin my perilous journey to that tent. As it comes into view, my regret quickly turns to not-so-regret. “That’s a pretty big tent” I think to myself, immediately followed by “Hey! Is that Aqua Golf?! Holy crap. I should go do that!”. I approach the tent, take obligatory photos (my sincerest apologies for the quality – my phone is as old as the bands that I listen to), and make my way in. I slam my order confirmation down on the counter and demand my Ultimate Warrior neon bracelets. If I’m going to play some pinball, I have to look the part, and what better way than with neon colours adorning my wrists. I step inside and am frankly, amazed. That’s a lot of pinball and look, there’s already dozens of people here. Colour me impressed (or badd, that works too).
My first order of business was to locate the Terminator 2 machine. Oh, it’s right there. That was easy. I should take some photos and video. Clickity click, walkety walk. That was fun. Let’s play some T2. Wait, what’s that next to T2? Is that… it is… a Street Fighter II machine! My all time favourite pinball machine mere feet away from my all time favourite video game. Hold on, that’s not a Street Fighter II machine. That’s a cabinet running an emulator that just happens to be running Street Fighter II. Screw it, don’t care, I’m playing. Guile Guile Guile Guile. awww. I lost. I’ll come back and play later. That, in a nutshell, was my day. I would attempt to play Terminator 2 whenever it was available, follow it up with some Street Fighter, and fill in the gaps with the plethora of other machines available (Indiana Jones got a good playin’ too). 6 hours of standing was all that I could stand (pun obviously intended) so at 3:00pm, 2 hours before closing, I made my journey home. Even the cheapskate in me was too tired to play any longer. There’s always tomorrow.
Is the cost of admission worth the time? Absolutely! With close to 200 machines ranging from 1940 all the way to the current digital machines, there really is something here for everyone. Everything is, as far as I can tell, arranged by period with the earlier machines at the far end of the tent and the latest and greatest closer to the entrance. The old simple machines had a charm to them that the newer machines cannot replicate. The pinging and minimalistic gameplay transported me back to the good old days when I’d go down to the local speakeasy, have a few, ogle some women and come home to my wife. Good times. With that said, it was the machines of the 70s, 80s and 90s that felt right to me while the entirely digital machines were just… wrong. No steel balls, no flippers, no pinging, no ponging. If I wanted to play a digital version of pinball, I’d head to Steam and buy Pinball FX2 or better yet, go retro and play some Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies or Slam Tilt on the Amiga. Part of the appeal of pinball is the ding ding, bzzzzz, pooookh, bing, boof. You need that boof (Ed: tactile pleasure!).
As one would expect, the machines from the 40s, 50s and 60s were seldom used while the newer machines had a constant queue of people waiting to get their chance to outdo one another. What I personally found most interesting is the range of people that had turned up. Male and female, old and young. Everyone was covered. The older folk (50+) stuck to the older machines while everyone else generally played with anything that wasn’t an older machine, with the exception of the kids that would play on anything that was free. The hipsters that showed up also primarily hung around the older machines, presumably because the pinging of old hardware isn’t mainstream, so it soothes them. I did what I could to play from every period, with the exception of the purely digital machines, because they’re the poo-poo faces of the pinball world and don’t deserve my time.
If you have the opportunity to attend an expo like this, I suggest you do it. If you have to, drag your family along. Everyone will have fun and if they don’t, divorce/break-up/disown/post drunk photos of them online! The Australian Pinball Expo was a thoroughly enjoyable event – make sure you go in 2015!
Frankie!
Rolling on from the major video gaming events in October, November also gets in on the event action with the 
source: 
