As we sit down with Martin Robbins over some home-baked banana almond muffins, we notice a glint of excitement in his eye. You see, Martin was recently in the US and attended Arcade Expo 2.0 at the Museum Of Pinball in Banning, California. This is part one of Martin’s experience at one of the biggest pinball and arcade machine expos in the US. Take it away Martin!
Wow, where does one even start with an event like Arcade Expo 2.0? When I decided to head over to the US for Arcade Expo 2.0, I went without any expectation other than to experience the event first hand and have fun for three days. I was looking forward to seeing pinball and arcade machines that I hadn’t seen or played in years. I was also excited to be participating in the ‘It Never Drains In Southern California‘ pinball tournament and to see the world’s best players like Keith Elwin and Karl DeAngelo in action. I was also looking forward to checking out new pinball reveals and wasn’t disappointed after seeing Keith and Randy Elwin’s Archer pinball whitewood demonstration. Let’s just say that Arcade Expo 2.0 didn’t disappoint.
Immortalised on the Arcade Expo 2.0 Signature Wall!
The big reveal, Keith an Randy Elwin’s Archer pinball whitewood!
Playing on the one of a kind
Upon arrival at the Museum Of Pinball, I was immediately struck by the enormity of it all. The vibe was great, even outside the venue was surrounded by food trucks, indie musicians and chiptune artists. Everyone who entered got to autograph a giant wall on the way in, and once inside you chose right for the arcade machines or left for the pinball tables. Of course I turned left. I was met by a glorious sight – rows and rows of pinball machines from the early 1960s through to modern tables, all assembled in order of manufacturer. There were pinball tables from Gottlieb, Williams, Bally, Atari, Game Plan, Zaccaria, Data East, Alvin G, Sega, Capcom, Midway, Spinball and Stern. Even though I had 3 days to enjoy, with over 550 machines to choose from I knew I had to be selective and focus on the machines I really wanted to play – I was not disappointed with what I found.
Glorious pinball!
A sight for sore eyes
Flippin action, old school style
What did surprise me was the number of extremely rare machines in great condition such as the two Joust machines that were side by side, an Atari Hercules and a row of Game Plan machines including my bucket list game Cyclopes – it lived up to expectations. Other rare games I managed to play were Spinball’s Verne’s World and Jolly Park which were loads of fun, Alvin G’s Pistol Poker and Al’s Garage Band Goes On a World Tour were also great! Special mention must go to Time Fantasy from Williams (1983), this machine has really strange but awesome art design including what I can only describe as an “Acid Snail” – look it up! To think that that majority of these machines were all from the private collection of one person, John Weeks, is just staggering. I also kept finding myself coming back to the Electro-Mechanical (EM) machines which were in fantastic condition. They really helped me fine tune my nudging skills and ultimately helped me with my ‘other’ reason for attending Arcade Expo 2.0.
Evel Knievel!
Seeing red
Electro-mechanical magic
Apart from immersing myself in this great expo, I was also there to compete in the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association (PAPA) Circuit Event: ‘It Never Drains In Southern California’ (INDISC). Having played a number of local pinball tournaments in Australia, I was looking forward to experiencing a tournament of this size. With a mix of modern and classic tables, ‘It Never Drains In Southern California’ was an awesome experience. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous as I had only decided to go over the week before and hadn’t researched the format of the tournament nor did I know the list of machines till I was due to fly out. When I arrived at the tournament area I was greeted by INDISC organisers Karl DeAngelo and Jim Belsito whom, with the help of software created by Karl, had created a very accessible format. There were 12 machines in the Modern Tournament including well known machines; The Walking Dead, Demolition Man, Dr Who, The Getaway and Lord of the Rings and some really unique and less often ones, including; Godzilla, Hoops, Twister, Laser War, Grand Lizard, Torpedo Alley and Waterworld! To make things more interesting, a lot of these machines had been made challenging by removing the rubbers on the outlanes and centre posts, as well as some additions to make certain shots harder like the massive rubber on the lock shot on Grand Lizard – only a precise shot would work. It was also great to see my fellow competitors sharing gameplay tips and hints. Their positive encouragement and sportsmanship provided that extra confidence boost.
Oh yes, Joust in the flesh!
Atari’s Hercules – world’s largest pinball machine under lights
The Big Bang!
So how did I go? Not knowing the rules meant that I did much better in the Classics (pre 1990) Tournament where I relied on flipper skills and nudging alone. Having qualified equal 16th in the A division, I had to compete in a play-off, which I lost, but the upside of it was that I qualified 1st for the B division. My high B division qualification afforded me the choice of machines we would play (or not play – yep, I am looking at you Skateball!). I ended up coming second but felt a great camaraderie with my fellow Classics B division finalists and was really happy with my experience.
Tournament Play!
Calling the tournament action
In Never Drains In Southern California intensifies!
I would absolutely recommend going to Arcade Expo in 2017 and to participate in the INDISC pinball tournament. I often hear that pinheads are the friendliest people in the world, and I can safely say, this was made abundantly clear at the expo – everyone was accessible and helpful, especially when it came to the format of the tournament and the table rules. I promise I’ll be better prepared next time, so watch out!
Rather than tell you more about Arcade Expo 2.0, I thought I would share my album and let the photos speak for themselves. Oh yeah, in part two of Arcade Expo 2.0, I’ll be sharing my arcade experience (with heaps of pics) – so stay tuned!
They say that a picture tells a thousand words. Based on that adage, this article would be over 42,000 words! Luckily for you all, we won’t bore you with too many words and allow the photos to speak for themselves.
We’ll start this by thanking Twitter. I know, it is a strange way of starting an interview piece, but the context must be set. If it wasn’t for the social media Goliath, we would never had met so many fantastic people in the retro gaming community, just like our very good friend from the UK, Richard Evans (aka: Retro Rich). After many conversations, limited to 140 characters of course, we decided it was high time we got Rich in the ausretrogamer interview hot seat! Grab your favourite snack and beverage, kick back and let’s see what Rich has to say for himself…
Christmas is always a great time to reflect. We usually reflect on the year that had just gone by, but for this year, let’s change that and go back a bit further, like back to the 80s when Atari was still king of the video gaming market.
This past weekend pinball players from all around Australia descended on Supanova Brisbane to compete in the grand final of the 
Have you always wanted to make your own mini arcade tabletop machine? Are you a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) hack just like me? If you answered yes to both questions, then the 
When Marty and Doc visited October 21 2015, they failed to tell us that the venerable Commodore 64 was still going strong, even after 33 years after its release. In episode 8 of 
Oh how I miss the days of big boxed games. I remember walking into our local entertainment store and making a beeline to the games section to check out what was new. I loved picking up boxed games off the shelf and checking out their beautiful cover art. I would then turn the box over to check out the graphics and read the blurb. Ah, those were the days.
image source: 
At the recent PAXAus, we were lucky enough to have two Game Of Thrones Pro Edition pinball machines placed in our 
Yesterday we celebrated the Japanese release of the Mega Drive, today, it’s NEC’s little pocket rocket, the PC-Engine’s turn to bask in the glory of its awesomeness. On this day (October 30) in 1987, a little white unassuming console, the size of a chip packet, burst onto the Japanese market and caused an immediate stir. Within its compact size was an 8-bit (CPU) heart with twin 16-bit (GPUs) eyes, which resulted in beautiful looking games that were equally packed with great sound and gameplay. It’s games came on cute little cards called HuCards (Hudson Cards) or Turbo Chips in North America.