Pinball

[unixronin]

So I've just figured out part of what bugs me so much about pinball ... granted, part of it is the sheer mindlessness of pinball, but part of it is that every time I see someone hunched almost motionless over a pinball game (mechanical or software-emulated) repetitively pushing the flipper buttons in return for blinking lights and astronomical point totals, my mind's eye sees a rat in a laboratory cage repetitively pushing a lever in return for occasional food pellets.

Does anyone else see this, or is it just me?

Comments

[otherbill.livejournal.com]

Granted, I don't really see the point of video pinball. If I want to play pinball, I play pinball; if I want to play a video game, I play a video game.

However, when it comes to the real thing, I disagree. In fact, I disagree enough that I'll probably devote an LJ entry to the topic when I have a bit more time.

[tww1fa]

Most video pinball is crap... although the Pro Pinball series is about as close to the real thing as you can get, up to and including the service menus for the machine. The physics are incredibly detailed as well. It scared the bejeezus out of me when the ball got the right spin to bounce up and hit the glass.

Since a real pinball machine in good condition is over $1000, and I can get all four Pro Pinball titles for under $20, I think I'll play Pro Pinball :) Although I lust for an Addams Family or Twilight Zone machine.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

When I was a child, I wanted a video pinball game I could design new screens for.

I bet, sometime in the last 20 years, someone has come up with that. Maybe I'll look again. :)

-Ogre

[tww1fa]

What you wanted was Pinball Construction Set - it would be so nice if there were a newer version of that.

[tww1fa]

Actually - someone *did* create a new version - Visual Pinball for Windows.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I used to be a pinball wizard, and it's no different to me from playing something like ping-pong, but with a LOT more interest. However, I won't touch an electronic game. It's not the same thing at all.

Pinball is kind of like a table sport for geeks. (Back when I hung with the EE Club at Cal Poly, our two favored "sports" were pinball and air hockey.) To be really successful, you have to develop a kind of zen mind state, which goes well with relaxing after sitting staring at a terminal until sweat beads on your brow. No-mind, as opposed to mindless. It has a lot of similarity to practicing martial arts, I find, speaking as someone with years of background in that discipline. You must fall into the zen of physics, understand how small changes can effect behaviors of moving objects. Someone loaned us a PinBot machine for the Stratus rec room, and I was one of the regulars, enough that one day someone pasted a photo of my face over the PinBot robot. ;-)
If all you see are the blinking lights and point totals, you're not in the right mind state for successful playing.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Pinball for me is a challenge in real-time physics. I don't enjoy video pinball as much... but I do love a good game of PinBot or The Comet or such like...

[bbwoof.livejournal.com]

When I was in college (the first time), we played pinball every so often. It was a common observation among our group that playing pinball was an appropriate way to train for Real Life -- because the only reward for being very good at the work was more of the work to do.