Jack and team have been busy working on the new Hobbit pinball machine as well as completing orders for WOZ in order to get ready for the next release. Read the update after the break.

Pinball may be a bit of an underappreciated art, but that doesn’t mean it’s lost and forgotten. Even in the increasingly expensive New York, pinball enthusiasts have found a way to carve out a part of the city for themselves.


The folks over at AnimalNY went and visited Modern Pinball NYC, a combination showroom and arcade, and talked to the top-ranked player of New York Steve Zahler about the current state of modern pinball.


via www.kotak_u.com.au

The Pinball Arcade has had a fantastic run through its first two season of tables on console, PC and mobile devices and, according to a massive update over on the official fan blog, 2014 will be another epic year full of new tables, tweaks, fixes and features across all platforms. 

Pinball Arcade Fans site writer PIN WiZ posted a huge update to ring in the new year, relaying info directly from the development team at FarSight Studios to Pinball Arcade fans (Oh, NOW I get the site name!) concerning the next year’s worth of updates. 

“2013 was another successful year for FarSight Studios’ The Pinball Arcade, which saw the addition of 22 popular and classic tables…” the post reads. “FarSight plans to greatly improve the user experience in 2014 with new featuers, game modes and even more highly anticipated tables such as Black Knight 2000, Junkyard and WHO Dunnit!” 

For those unfamiliar with the game, FarSight emulates real-world pinball tables and makes them available on all manner of digital platforms, including the most recent release of Season One tables on the PlayStation 4. From long-time favorites and more modern classics to licensed tables they had to Kickstart just to get the opportunity to recreate, The Pinball Arcade’s collection of top-notch virtual tables has grown pretty dang impressive over the years, boasting tables like Theatre of Magic, Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Terminator 2, The Twilight Zone and more. 

But while the game is already boasts an impressive virtual arcade, FarSight has set its sights even higher in 2014, gearing up to deliver 10 new tables for Season Three, alongside a host of new features like Challenge Mode, which gives players additional goals to shoot for after they’ve mastered existing goals, and online head-to-head play that features multiple payers tackling the same table at once, with your opponent’s score visible on your own screen. 

The 2014 update promises additional online modes, too, as well as a brand new user interface (praise the lord) to make navigating your table collection and getting in a game easier than ever. Existing tables will also receive new emulation tweaks for better play, and the game will also boast support for Linux, home cabinets and DirectX 11. 

Perhaps the most surprising addition of all is Pinball After Dark, which will likely be a separate game entirely that will allow FarSight to emulate more mature tables that would not be appropriate for the family-friendly core game. 

For those of you gaming on consoles, FarSight is planning a complete re-launch ofThe Pinball Arcade for Xbox platforms while the content train keeps rolling on the PS3, PS4 and Vita. The PS4 should get all Season 2 tables sometime around April, with Season 3’s first table, Fish Tales, available sometime in March. The final two Season Two packs are slated for January release on the PS3 and Vita. 

Via cinemablend.com

Legendo Entertainment's Pure Pinball is now available on the App Store. Players can download the game for iOS devices for $1.99. 


First introduced on PC and Xbox in 2003/2004, Pure Pinball returns to iOS devices with the newly created table T-Rex Savage that pits players as a savage dinosaur hunter during the Age of Reptiles. Jam-packed with nerve-racking game modes, special rewards and a daring multiball mode, Pure Pinball: T-Rex Savage lets you experience a slice of steel ball magic, not unlike real-life pinball. All you need is crazy-mad flipper fingers, a decent war-cry, and the attitude to play a mean game… the hunt is on! Additional tables are planned for release throughout 2014. 

To learn more, visit the Pure Pinball App Page. 

At Pinballz Arcade, people can hear the clanging of tokens in hands and the pinging of pinballs whizzing through machines — sounds of a seemingly bygone era that continues here
in Austin.

Darren Spohn and his wife Mikki opened Pinballz in 2010 and have provided Austin with its pinball fix ever since. Spohn has run tech and IT companies in town for 15 years, but his love for pinball machines began long before that. 

“I asked my wife ‘Do you mind if I get a pinball machine?’ and she said ‘Oh, that’s fine,’” Spohn said. “I bought it and I said ‘Well, I actually bought two,’ and then like a week later we’re out at lunch, and I said ‘Hey, I’ve got to tell you — I have seven of these now,’ and it just kind of blossomed from there.”

What began as a personal collection has now grown to more than 100 pinball machines and a cadre of old-school video and ticket-rewarding games. 

“We really felt that the town needed something different like that,” Spohn said. “It needed a kind of cool, ‘Cheers bar’ approach to running one of those. And we figured we’d give it a shot, and we opened it three years ago, and it’s been very successful.”

Pinballz is family-oriented during the day, but when the sun goes down, the atmosphere gets downright adult. Gamers stay late into the night on weekends, which may or may not be aided by the casual BYOB policy for those 21 and older.

A specialized arcade such as Pinballz did not exist in Austin outside of giant family entertainment centers. 

With more than 200 games, the biggest challenge facing the arcade is simply keeping everything running, from AC/DC pinball to Dance Dance Revolution and from the classic Skeeball to a custom-built big screen Street Fighter.
“We have over 100 games and things go constantly wrong on those,” Spohn said. “We don’t charge a lot of money for our games, so it’s a challenge with what we charge to keep everything running at 95 percent or higher.”

William “Billy” Renquen has worked on these games since the arcade opened. A certified master auto-mechanic by trade, Renquen keeps the flippers flipping at Pinballz in addition to running his own auto-shop.

“When we first opened three years ago, they were running maybe 60-70 percent, and I was fixing five to seven games a day,” Renquen said. “It took me about a year to catch up and have all of them running at once.”

Machines go down daily at Pinballz, and it’s up to Renquen and his team to get them back up.

“The machines are high maintenance,” Renquen said. “They vibrate a lot. There’s a lot of movement going on, so they fail pretty constantly — some more than others. You just work as fast as you can and as hard as you can … It’s a pride thing for me to keep them all running.”

Pinballz harkens to the early days of arcade gaming. It’s not merely the games that bring back nostalgia for an era the college generation missed.

“To us it’s rewarding that we brought in a place like that — that really ramps up Austin,” Spohn said. “It’s that really cool feeling that we brought something unique to Austin.” 

via www.dailytexanonline.com/2013/11/03/pinballz-arcade-provides-a-nostalgic-gaming-experience

Without sight of a press release Stern pinball today leaked out a video for their new pinball machine based on the previous two Star Trek movies directed by JJ Abrhams that have been a huge commercial success. 

Designed by the legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie who also designed the 1990's Williams Star Trek pinball this game has been a long anticipated title release. At this point there is no actual video gameplay footage of the game but rather still images cut into a pinball trailer. There is lots to be gleaned from the video so use the pause button frequently to see the details of the game.

You can also follow a thread on the pinside pinball forum if you desire more details and commentary.

Let us know what you think so far in the comments below.

Live long and prosper......

In yet another assault on the pinball senses Stern Pinball has released a new video from several events related to the launch of the Metallica pinball machine. From launch partied hosted throughout the country to footage from the Comic Con convention hosted last week there are lots of enthusiastic people that had a chance to play and enjoy the game. 

Here is the second and final part of our walkthrough tour of The Pinball Wizard's Arcade in Pelaham, New Hampshire. This final part of the tour shows off more of Sarah's arcade game collection as well as the ticket redemption games. Some games to note in this video include a really rare Atari game called Arabian, Atomic Punk 2/Bomberman World. Nudge-It! from Gottlieb (Be sure to check out both video reviews 2600 did!) Super Mario Mushroom World, Mr. Driller inside of an 80's Taito cab and Hot Rod from Sega.

Also at the end of the video I show off what's behind the prize counter. When I got there Sarah and her crew were working on two games and you can even see the very rare Williams tester board that she can use to help diagnose any problems on any late 80's game. She also has a Data East one in her workshop as well. Unfortunately I missed out on one area of machines. On the first part of the tour you'll see the back "party room" that also doubles as storage. The back room is massive and has almost the same amount of machines that's already out on the main floor. Sarah told me if she had the room to put out all of the games she owns she'd have over 600 games!  The back party room has a Pump-It Up machine (the only music game in the whole arcade) Stern's Rollercoaster Tycoon, William's Terminator 2 and a very rare home use only version of Fireball that was sold in the 1970's in the good ol' Sears Wish Book for 700 dollars.

Hope you enjoyed this look at The Pinball Wizard's Arcade. We've still got tons of videos from FunSpot, and one more from Pinfest that will be uploaded soon! Thanks for checking out the video and be sure to like, subscribe and follow us on all your favorite social media sites!

Via www.arcade-hunters.com

To purists, the mere concept of video pinball may be wrong. But darling, Zen Studios makes it feel so very right. Time after time, they release detailed, deep, bright and blingy tables, and Marvel Pinball [$0.99] features some of their best work.

Their version of video pinball has 3D graphics, characters, stories, dialogue, twists and/or turns, and the kind of bonkers mechanics that just aren't possible in real life. Sure, they're defying the laws of physics, but if you're going to imitate real pinball, why not do it with some pizzazz? (You can't see it, but I'm typing with jazz hands.)

Before continuing, there's the IAP. Stay with me, it gets a bit obnoxious. So: Zen Studios has already released Zen Pinball [Free], which (in addition to one free machine), already features 14 out of 15 of the Marvel tables. Marvel Pinball only comes with one table, Marvel's The Avengers, and if you already own that table onZen Pinball, then the only reason to get Marvel Pinball is to buy the Spider-Manmachine, and it seems unfair to penalize diehards with a pointless admission fee. Every additional table is $1.99, the same price as if you'd purchased them on Zen Pinball. So the purpose of Marvel Pinball is dubious. That being said, you do getMarvel's The Avengers at half price, so that's something.

Read more via toucharcade.com

The first high Quality video of the new Metallica Limited Edition pinball machine in the wild has surfaced courtesy of Pinside member MnHotRod. The new video highlights features of the LE model including the moving cross, hammer of justice, coffin ball lock mechanism, controlled led lighting and more. The video is  10 minutes plus in length so be sure to make some time to watch it. Unfortunately the sound is rather lack-luster so we still do not get the full experience the the game but more footage is sure to start rolling in soon as customers start to take delivery of their games.