I want PINBALL!

When I first arrived in Paris, jobless, clueless and - for all intents and purposes - mute, I spent a fair amount of time in amusement arcades playing Raiden or pinball, pretending that a new life was going to happen to me without me really seeking it out. With the advent of home game consoles, business became tough for the arcades, and the places I used to frequent have now become:

- A musical instrument megashop
- A pasta restaurant
- Starbucks, etc.

Next, all the pinball manufacturers went bust. Only Stern has seen a gap in the market and started things back up again. Such is progress.

Anyway, once I got established in Paris, I bought a few pinball simulators for the Playstation, and although they weren't all bad, they weren't particularly good either. It just wasn't the same. Then in 2006 came a game for the PS2 called Gottlieb Pinball Classics, which recreated some actual pinball tables from the past for the digital generation. At last I could play some of the old favourites I'd known!

The only problem was that there weren't many of my old favourites in there.

Since then, I've been waiting for the release of Pinball Hall of Fame : The Williams Collection, which does have some of my old faves, like Funhouse, Whirlwind and Black Knight (a real classic). Unfortunately, although the game was released in the US inFebruary 2008, it still hasn't come out in Europe. So not only can I not play my favourite pinballs in the real world, I can't play themin the virtual world either. Bah!

I suppose that in the meantime I'll just have to drool over this gamplay video. Hmpff!