Author: ThePinballPodcast

Pinball March Madness 2014 – Elite 8

Ah, one more round until we find out who ends up in our Final Four. Monster Bash squeaked by Tron in the last round by a single vote, and Attack From Mars still looks to be unstoppable.

Remember, to vote on the current match ups, you need to email us at pinballpodcast (at) gmail.com or PM Jeff on Pinside (jar155), KLOV (jar155), or through RGP (Jeff Rivera). Voting will remain open in this round until Friday night at midnight PST.

Here is our Elite 8!

  • Lord of the Rings vs. White Water
  • Attack From Mars vs. The Addams Family
  • Monster Bash vs. Tales of the Arabian Nights
  • AC/DC vs. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Pinball March Madness 2014 – Round of 16

Ah, it’s the Sweet Sixteen. We have some fantastic match ups here, including a Star Trek vs. Star Trek showdown. Remember, to enter your votes, you’ll email us at pinballpodcast (at) gmail.com or PM Jeff on Pinside (jar155), KLOV (jar155), or through RGP (Jeff Rivera). Here are the pairings.

  • Theatre of Magic vs. Lord of the Rings
  • Cirqus Voltaire vs. White Water
  • Attack From Mars vs. Scared Stiff
  • Spider-Man (Stern) vs. The Addams Family
  • Monster Bash vs. Tron
  • Indiana Jones (WMS) vs. Tales of the Arabian Nights
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation vs. Star Trek (Stern)
  • Wizard of Oz vs. AC/DC

Pinball March Madness 2014 – Round of 32

The Round of 64 has come to a close and it’s time to enter the second round of voting. Voting will be handled the same way as the last round. You can either email us (pinballpodcast [at] gmail.com), send a PM through forums (jar155 on Pinside and KLOV), or contact Jeff through RGP (Jeff Rivera).

Three of our match ups in the first round came down to a single vote difference with Taxi, Doctor Who, and Revenge From Mars all getting by with no room to spare. Here are the Round of 32 match ups. Voting is now open!

  • Theatre of Magic vs. The Shadow
  • Judge Dredd vs. Lord of the Rings
  • No Good Gofers vs. Cirqus Voltaire
  • Bride of Pinbot vs. White Water
  • Attack From Mars vs. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
  • High Speed 2: The Getaway vs. Scared Stiff
  • Jurassic Park vs. Spider-Man (Stern)
  • Road Show vs. The Addams Family
  • Monster Bash vs. Congo
  • Tron vs. Funhouse
  • Doctor Who vs. Indiana Jones (WMS)
  • Taxi vs. Tales of the Arabian Nights
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation vs. Revenge From Mars
  • The Simpsons Pinball Party vs. Star Trek (Stern)
  • Wizard of Oz vs. Creature From the Black Lagoon
  • Iron Man vs. AC/DC

Pinball March Madness 2014 – Round of 64 Voting

Round 1 voting is now open and we’re taking votes. Below are the match ups for the first round. You can log your votes by emailing us at pinballpodcast [at] gmail.com, sending a private message via Pinside (username jar155), KLOV (username jar155), or through RGP (username Jeff Rivera). You don’t have to have a bracket submitted to vote! Feel free to get friends and family to join in on the voting as well. The more votes we get, the more fun we have. In situations where a game is listed that has multiple varieties (Pro, Premium, LE), base your vote on your favorite version of that game.

Voting this round is open throughout today and tomorrow. The next round will open up on Wednesday. Here are the match ups to vote on:

  • Theatre of Magic vs. Black Rose
  • The Shadow vs. Guns N Roses
  • Judge Dredd vs. Centaur
  • Lord of the Rings vs. Firepower
  • No Good Gofers vs. Elvira and the Party Monsters
  • Cirqus Voltaire vs. Batman Forever
  • Bride of Pinbot vs. Tommy
  • White Water vs. Party Zone
  • Attack From Mars vs. Flash Gordon
  • Bram Stoker’s Draclua vs. Stargate
  • High Speed 2: The Getaway vs. Black Knight
  • Scared Stiff vs. Pinball Magic
  • Jurassic Park vs. Cyclone
  • Spider-Man (Stern) vs. Star Wars (Data East)
  • Road Show vs. Terminator 2
  • The Addams Family vs. Tales From the Crypt
  • Monster Bash vs. Ripley’s Believe it or Not
  • Congo vs. Diner
  • Tron vs. Fathom
  • Funhouse vs. Swords of Fury
  • Cactus Canyon vs. Doctor Who
  • Indiana Jones (WMS) vs. Xenon
  • Fish Tales vs. Taxi
  • Tales of the Arabian Nights vs. Sorcerer
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation vs. Corvette
  • Revenge From Mars vs. Pinbot
  • The Simpsons Pinball Party vs. Haunted House
  • Star Trek (Stern) vs. Safe Cracker
  • Wizard of Oz vs. Batman: The Dark Knight
  • Creature From the Black Lagoon vs. Maverick (true champ)
  • Iron Man vs. High Speed
  • AC/DC vs. Avatar

Good luck to everybody who submitted brackets. Participation is really high this year, so we’re looking forward to see how it all shakes out.

Pinball March Madness 2014

It’s time for Pinball March Madness once more! Last year we gave out some nice prizes for winners in our bracket contest and everybody had a lot of fun with it. Below is the download link for your official 2014 Pinball March Madness bracket. You can edit this using Excel (or OpenOffice which is free), or you can print it from your web browser and fill it out by hand.

CONTEST!

If you want to participate in the contest, you’ll need to either print and fill out your bracket and scan or take a CLEAR photo of it and email it in, or you can edit the file and save a copy of it and send it back. All submissions should be emailed to pinballpodcast [at] gmail.com. You have until Sunday night at 11:59pm PST to get your entries in. Fill your brackets out with your picks to win.

We’ll award the winning bracket with a nice prize, which will be announced later.

VOTING!

Voting will start on next Monday and we’ll start with the round of 64. After voting ends on that round, the next round will begin immediately after. A new round will begin every 3rd day. Votes must be submitted either by email (pinballpodcast [at] gmail.com) or via private message through the Pinside.com or KLOV forums. Send your votes to Jeff (jar155 on Pinside and jar155 on KLOV) and we’ll tally up the totals. Last year we had online polls, but found them to be unreliable, so this should provide more accurate results.

Download link for the bracket: https://thepinballpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/Madness/PinballMarchMadness2014.xls

Good luck, and have fun.

Note: Our 2012 and 2013 winners (Twilight Zone and Medieval Madness) have been excluded from voting. They’re now a part of the winner’s circle, resting from previous battles.

Gene X. Hwang interviews PAPA’s Mark Steinman

Mark Steinman, our recently crowned King of Pinball for 2013 took some time out of his busy travel and filming schedule to talk with Gene X Hwang. Joined by Mark’s wife, Anastasia, we get a great sit down moment where the three talk Mark’s award, some of the goals of PAPA, and what’s going on in the pinball scene.

Thanks to Gene, Mark, and Anastasia for their time!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:19 — 29.6MB) | Embed

2013’s Gods and Kings of Pinball

There’s a lot of people who make this hobby amazing. From the people who make the games to members of the community, the list of great men and women is a mile long. We’d like to recognize who our listeners and readers feel deserves to be seen as the best of the best for 2013.

There are two categories to the voting, and we’ll only have a single round of votes. You can vote for up to three people for each list, and we’ll count up the votes and announce the winners during our first show of 2014. Our first category is for the God of Pinball, recognizing 2013’s top person involved in creation of pinball machines or digital pinball games. The second category is for the King of Pinball, where we’ll find who rules within the community. So, without further delay, here are the nominees (you may also do a write-in vote).

The Nominees for 2013’s God of Pinball

  • Steve Ritchie
  • John Borg
  • Joe Balcer
  • Dennis Nordman
  • Greg Freres
  • Lyman Sheats
  • Gary Stern
  • Jersey Jack
  • Charlie Emery
  • Ben Heckendorn
  • Skit B Team
  • Matt Riesterer
  • Heighway Pinball Team
  • Rick Bartlett
  • Zen Pinball
  • FarSight Studios (The Pinball Arcade)
  • Homepin Team
  • Keith Johnson
  • Dirty Donny
  • Your Write-In Vote

The Nominees for 2013’s King of Pinball

  • Lloyd Olson
  • Bowen Kerins
  • Terry Dezwarte
  • Jim McCune
  • Nicole Anne Reik
  • Allen Shope
  • Keith Elwin
  • Gene X. Hwang
  • Christopher Hutchins
  • Josh Blood
  • Nate Shivers
  • Preston and Patrick (Gameroom Junkies)
  • Zach Sharpe
  • Robin (Pinside.com)
  • Tim Arnold
  • Molly Atkinson
  • Bryan Kelly
  • Al Warner and Paul Kiefert
  • Escher Lefkoff
  • Roger Sharpe
  • Mark Steinman
  • Your Write-In Vote

To vote, email us at pinballpodcast [at] gmail dot com with your three picks from EACH category. We’ll be doing a giveaway to go with the voting, and all you need to do to be eligible to win is submit your votes.

Saturn Rubber Rings Bounce Test

Ever since the IFPA came out and officially recognized the Saturn rings as their official flipper rubber of choice, I’ve been curious to see how they stack up against regular rubber rings. To find out, I ordered some rings of each hardness, and I compared them against regular flipper rubber. The video below shows the results.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/9jNoGbVsbCA[/youtube]

As you can see, Medium gives you the most accurate bounce as compared to regular rubber rings. Soft is very similar as well. Hard gives a decreased bounce, which would lead to more control and higher scoring, but it wouldn’t be consistent with what we’re used to with standard rubber rings. It’s going to come down to preference in feel, but I’m most satisfied with the medium rings, myself.

Episode 22 Comic – Location, location, location…

In episode 22 of the Pinball Podcast Don and I talked a little bit about manners online and the current state of pinball discussion. The comic below (click to enlarge) is actually more true than funny…

pinball comic august
This is generally how arguments resolve at a show vs in a forum.

If you’ve yet to listen to episode 22, it’s available on iTunes, Stitcher, or any other podcast feeder. Of course you can listen right here as well: https://www.thepinballpodcast.com/2013/08/21/the-pinball-podcast-episode-22-pinsider-i-hardly-knew-er/

Data East King Kong is for sale on eBay

King Kong is one of the most rare pinball machines out there. Like Kingpin, it was never put into full production, so there are very few machines that were ever produced. Essentially, Data East was never able to secure the rights for full scale production, so the game had to be scrapped even after some prototypes had already been fully assembled.

Right now there’s a King Kong up for sale on eBay. Bidding, as of the time this post was written, is up to $20,000 and rising. There are several pics of the machine, which looks to be in mint condition, available on the auction page.

If you want to bid, or if you just want to follow the progress of the auction, check it out here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/130971892352

King Kong by Data East
King Kong, by Data East