Thought I'd share this excellent vid by
gizmnoic. He has many vids from different arcades and pinball shows in many places. You can check out the Gizmnoic Channel at
http://www.youtube.com/user/gizmnoic/videos.
As someone who didn't get to attend the Expo this year, I thought this walkthrough vid was very interesting and enjoyable. Unlike some of the other walkthru vids I've seen, gismnoic takes his time looking over the sights in detail, getting closeup and personal with it, so that you feel like you were there, walking around with him, as you toured the various booths and displays. To me, it gives me a general sense of what it was like at the Expo this year.
Here are some of the things I saw in the vid that I found of particular interest.
* Alvin Gottlieb MemorialOne of the things you'd see near the registration table is a little Memorial for Alvin Gottlieb. It was really sad to hear that he had passed away just days before the Expo started. That might've put a little damper on this year's festivities. But I'm sure he might've just wanted us to enjoy the Expo all the more. At least I think so ...
Alvin must've had a very interesting life, being the son of the founder of one of the major manufacturers of pinball. And at its day, Gottlieb was a very prolific manufacturer at that, making table after table in rapid succession. Alvin was 20 when they first introduced flippers into the Humpty Dumpty table. What stories he could dell about how pinball developed from then on, from the vintage woodrail days, into the classic EM tables like King Of Diamonds. Fast Draw and Royal Flush, and on into the early SS tables like Sinbad, Close Encounters & Joker Poker.
It would have been a real pleasure to meet such a guy at the Expo. It would be fun to buy him a beer or something and hear him tell some of his stories about the trade.
Alvin Gottlieb will be certainly missed!
* The Tournament AreaOne of the first things you see upon entering the Expo is the Tournament Area. There are several tables in a row here. You can't help notice the cameras over the playfield, others pointed at the DMD to display the score, and still other ones that watch the players' reaction when they slip up & drain the ball.
The tables in this tournment are a good representation of modern pinball in this brave new Stern era: AC/DC, Avengers, Metallica, Avengers LE, Star Trek, Spiderman & Lord O The Rings; most of the latest and greatest in pinball these days.
It might be interesting if next year, or maybe the year after that, if they started having tournaments with the Jersey Jack tables. What a spectacle that would be to see a WOZ table in the competition ... or maybe even The Hobbit! But then ... are JJPs tables even in the same class? Or are they a step or two above the Stern tables? Interesting thoughts ..
* Hercules, 1979 AtariIt was very cool to see Hercules, Atari's massive 1979 table, in this vid. I would like to have played that awhile had I been there. Its sheer size is awesome, an obvious favorite among the kids. But what a thrill it was, back in the day, to see these massive flippers and bumpers shooting a cue ball around the playfield! That brought back many memories. I would have probably hogged the table for some time if Id been there. Sorry, kids!
* Exhibition AreaI would definitely felt like a kid in a candy store! So many things to see. Backglasses and playfields from my favorite tables. Lights, ramps, bumpers and assorted parts. Even circuit boards, sound & ROM cards, and all maner of electronic controllers.
Many of the vendors had their own banks of pinball tables with them, some with old classics like KISS, Gorgar and Playboy. , Others had foreign tables I'd never seen before, like the Zaccaria tables from Bologna, Italy, or various other manufacturers from Spain. Some vendors even had their own custom built pins, cabinets made by VirtuaPin, of course.
* Rare Custom & Foreign TablesThere was one bank of tables in particular that I would have found very interesting. These were tables that I'd never seen before. Most of them were made in the mid 90's by Spinball SAL, from Fuenlabrada, Spain. It's fascinating to look at the artwork on the backglass and playfield. It's very intriguing to see how these tables were laid out. And I could be there all day checking out how these tables played!
Fast Track, a 1989 remake of Mr. Games' Motor Show table . There's a color monitor in the center of the backglass for keeping score as well as for playing different video modes. It appears that this may be a custom table. The playfield looks cool, a race theme of course, but it reminds me a little of F-14 Tomcat!
Verne's World, a very imaginative take on the works of that very prolific fantasy author Jules Verne, made in 1996 by Spinball SAL of Fuenlabrada, Spain. The Balloon in top center playfield captures balls, ascending as it does this. When three balls are caught, it ascends further to release a 3-ball multiball. The Volcano erupts for multiball. Watch out for a moving giant octopus ball-capture toy in the cave behind the right ramp. Theres even a submarine for your underwater adventures.
Jolly Park, another 1996 Spinball SAL table. This is a very unusual table in playfield layout and in the specal features. The gameplay reminds me a lot like The Pinball Circus with its up-kicker and habitrail along the upper playfield. And the thing on the left is described in the IPDB as a "Magnetic House" which has a very unusual way of capturing and releasting the multiballs.
Next to that was
Aaron Spelling, one of only 2 1992 Data East tables based on their Lethal Weapon design. IPDB says that was commissioned by his wife, Candy Spelling, as a gift for him. The artwork features Aaron with his family.
And finally on the far left is
Flip-Out! Data East's one-off creation for the 1991 Chicago Expo. The backglass and playfield are original. But they used the ROMs from their 1988 Time Machine table. "Return to the 70's!", "Fer Suuuure!" and other phrases like that happen as well as the same sounds and music from that table.
If you're ever at a future Expo, or maybe a different pinball show, you might want to keep an eye out for these and possibly other tables, certainly like me, if you've never seen them. The artwork looks completely different and the gameplay must be very different.
* Jersey JackOf course, Jersey Jack Pinball was there at the Expo. There are 3 of the WOZ tables in here when he walks by them, but gizmnoic said that there were at least 6 of them at the Expo? This would have been very cool to get a chance to play. But as you can see, it was very popular, maybe one of the biggest attractions at the show. It would be hard to wait in line for a game.
JJP had a banner there advertising his next masterpiece for 2014, The Hobbit. It's supposed to be released late in the year next year to coincide with the next installment of The Hobbit movies. Hopefully they'll have some tables at the show, if, indeed, it's released in time for next year's Expo.
* The White Stern Galaxy TableHere was a very different sight, an all-white custom version of Stern's 1980 Galaxy table. The sign says that it was built to commemorate the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, NY.
Maybe it's just me, but I really dont see the point. It doesn't look much like a special version of a table. Rather, it looks incomplete, like one that's still in production. If it were me, I'd at least have some artwork in there that somehow related to the Olympics. Maybe it should have a wintery scene of the Olympics at the bottom of the backglass, with a starry nighttime scene above it, and a trippy, dreamy view of all the planets? I dunno, it just seems "naked" to me without the art, a whiteboard table, not quite ready for prime time.
Rogue Pinball
