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Goodfellas Pinball: Become A Silverball Gangster

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What special gift do you get for someone close to you that loves pinball?

Well, Kirk Sadler (aka: Tilt_Birmingham on Pinside) tells the story of his friend’s kids that got an old Bally Silverball Mania pinball machine and re-themed it as a Goodfellas for their dad’s birthday. We bet the dad would have been pleasantly surprised!

We wish we could have gotten a hold of the peeps responsible for this re-skin, as we bet the story would be intriguing! Anyway, we reckon this unique re-themed machine looks pretty darn cool!

Before the re-theme – Silverball Mania

After the re-theme – Goodfellas Pinball

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story source: Tilt_Birmingham via Pinside

 

Midway Gaming Box: The Perfect Christmas Gift

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We reckon we have just found our Christmas present!

If you are a retro gamer or know someone that is a retro gamer / classic arcade gamer (Midway, Atari, Bally, and Williams), then this USD$29.99 Midway Gaming Box is the perfect Xmas gift. This nifty gaming box includes a Rampage journal, Defender Teeny Tin, Joust Bumper Sticker, Defender bumper sticker, Paper Boy sheet magnet, Joust Boingler vinyl figure, and a Spy Hunter pin.

Pre-orders are now open, with the Midway Gaming Box landing in November – great timing for Christmas!

 

Thrill Of The Chase: Attack From Mars Remake

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image source: Chicago Gaming Company

It’s not often that the stars align for us, but when they do, oh boy it’s exciting!

Speaking of celestial bodies, we have always had a fondness for space and the cosmos at large. We are fascinated with our planetary brethren in the family of the solar system, especially that red planet not too far away from us and its inhabitants.

So what the hell has space and Martians got to do with this thrill of the chase? Glad you asked! Put simply, when you mix pinball with Mars and its Martians invading our little blue marble, you get a very special and top rated pinball machine – Attack From Mars (AFM)!

This is no ordinary AFM though, it’s Chicago Gaming Company’s ‘Remake’, which comes in three different editions – Classic, Special and super duper Limited Edition. With the feature list as long as our arm (our arms are long!) on the Limited Edition, like the jaw-dropping 19¼” XL HD colour display that has to be seen to be believed, shaker motor, enhanced DCS sound system, cabinet side mirrors, RGB lighting to name just a few, this machine was always going to tickle our fancy.

Naturally, we gravitated to the fully blinged Attack From Mars Remake Limited Edition (AFMR LE) version! We have never been one for pinball toppers, but the custom Doug Watson one on our AFMR LE is absolutely damn awesome! Doug Skor and the gang at CGC should be immensely proud of producing yet again a beautiful and faithful classic pinball machine.

We sourced our brand new in box AFMR LE from the Australian distributor, Mr. Pinball. We were kept up to date on the freight by keeping track of the Maersk Line ship that was carrying our precious cargo. The container landed in Melbourne in late December, giving us the rare opportunity to have the machine up and ready for family and friends to enjoy for Christmas! Oh yeah, she was quite heavy, so thank you to Lucas Bardin from Bayside Pinball Club for delivering the machine and Stacey ‘Dr Curlytek’ Borg for helping us set it up – you guys rock!

As you may have already guessed, this is a very special machine which we love and are thrilled to have in our ausretrogamer fun factory. If you ever get the chance to play one of these Remakes, do yourself a favour, have a go, they will give you an enormous endorphin rush!

Off the shipping container and ready to go home!

There is a hole in the Fun Factory that needs to be filled!

AFMR LE has reached its destination

Unboxing the beauty – she is quite heavy!

The sublime topper is well packed too

Ready to be turned on for the first time…

What a turn on!

Attack From Mars Remake Limited Edition in full martian green glory!

Mesmerising playfield

A saucy saucer!

Returning to the battle!

Destroy that pesky saucer!

CGC and Bally present….

Attack From Mars!!!

There is finally a Limited Edition addition in the ausretrogamer fun factory

The detail of the theme is exquisite

The custom Doug Watson interactive topper is the best topper we’ve ever seen on a pinball machine!

The glorious playfield. Gotta save them cities!

What a view for the ruler of the universe!

The entire art package makes us smile

The RGB LED lighting needs to be seen to be believed

Even the little one approves of this classic machine!

 

A Brief History Of Pinball

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If you ever wanted a quick reference guide on the history of pinball, then you have come to the right place. Those Silver Oak Casino guys aren’t just about online gambling, they also create awesome and informative infographics, like picking the right video games and indulging you in a brief history of pinball. Check it out, you may learn something.

Pinball_Historysource: Silver Oak Casino

The Thrill Of The Chase: The Bally Holy Grail

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Bally_titleFor the first holy grail of 2015, I had to travel all the way to the U.S. Of A! Well, I wasn’t travelling there in person, I was merely scouring the superhighway for retro gaming goodies when I stumbled (Ed: more like screeched!) upon a Bally Astrocade!

The Bally has been somewhat of a white whale – the obsession of finding one in a workable state and at a reasonable price was proving quite difficult. But, to my surprise, I found a boxed Bally Astrocade that had just been listed on eBay. The seller was unaware if the unit was in a working state (it does work!), so they priced it accordingly. I had to rub my eyes to ensure I wasn’t seeing things, but there it was, still available. With the heart-rate up at a phenomenal level, I could not press the ‘Buy It Now’ button fast enough! Finally, the white whale had been tamed and had not destroyed me.

They certainly don’t make them like they used to – that gorgeous wood veneer and awesome shape of the system, and those gun-like ‘control handles’, they double up as an 8-way directional joystick and also as a rotary knob (Ed: Gunfight, here we come!).

The Bally has been welcomed with open arms into the ausretrogamer family – it will be well loved, especially playing The Incredible Wizard (aka: Wizard Of Wor), among other classics!

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For those of you that want to know what is under the hood of this gaming relic, here are the specs:

Circuit board and cartridges

  • CPU: Z80, 1.789 MHz
  • RAM: 4k (up to 64k with external modules in the expansion port)
  • ROM: 8k
  • Cart ROM: 8k
  • Expansion: 64K total
  • Ports: 4 controller, 1 expansion, 1 light pen
  • Sound: 3 voices + noise/vibrato effects (played through the TV)

Video

  • Resolution: True 160×102 / Basic 160×88 / Expanded RAM 320×204
  • Colors: True 8* / Basic 2
    *The bitmap structure of the Bally actually only allows for 4 color settings. However, through the use of 2 color palettes and a left/right boundary control byte you could have the left section of screen (this could be the play field) use 1 set of colors while the right side (this could show information such as lives and score) used an entirely different set of colors, thus 8 total colors were possible.
  • Graphic type: Bitmap, 2 plane bitpacked

Specification source: Wikipedia