|
California
Extreme Presents:
Chris Garcia's Top Ten Timewarp Tips!
I've been
doing CA Extreme for five years now. It's grown, shrunk, the
selection has changed, and it's always been a good time. With
Marin covering all the review,
I thought I'd throw in my Top Ten Things About CAExtreme 2003
 10)
The Class of 1978- According to many pinball experts,
the best year for pinball games was 1978, when Bally's, Gottleib,
Williams and Stern were all putting out great games. CAExtreme
had the year well represented, with the classic KISS pibball
(My favorite tie-in for the Knights In Satan's Service), the
great Superman pinball (Fast and Huge, easily Atari's best
work), and Future Spa (Beautiful women adorn the classic fast
game that I played over and over). Great games from the best
year in pinball history and a bunch of them made their appearance.
9)
720- Atari made a bunch of great games in the early
and mid-1980s, and 720 is one of my faves. You can find it
all over, but set on free play, it's a gem. The machine was
in good shape, too.
8)
Kingpin- A prototype that was released, or so legend
goes. It's a fun late 1990s pinball, with all the graphics
and sound effects that make for a fun game, but a better field
than most, which makes it challenging. CAExtreme always has
a few extreme rarities, and they alone are worth the price
of admission.
7)
T-Mek- Klabooie! Bam! Boom! Oh yeah, Mech's firing
missiles are always a great time, and playing head to head
is always fun. Getting to blow up your roommate is even better.
6)
Rebound- Another rare machine from Atari. A sort of
vertical Pong, where two folks have paddles, the ball is a
bouncing square, and you have to make it over a little net.
Pong is great, but Rebound is my favorite Atari game ever.
5)
The Pinball Hall of Fame- There is a Hall of Fame
for everything, and now Pinball is getting its own. They've
raised a ton of money, more than a hundred grand so far, for
the Building Fund. They're still a long way off, but they
are on the way. They auctioned off a Classic Pinball dealing
with Laurel and Hardy on the backglass. It was sweet, another
1978 creation, and played like a dream.
4)
The New Simpsons Pinball Game- Wow, the loudest pinball
ever, but another fast pin that manages to work on a crowded
playing field. Something for pinball fanatics, Simpsons geeks,
and the kids who are neither and both, but like things that
go beep.
3)
The Big Hit- No, not the Mark Wahlberg vehicle that
lit up the screen back in 1998, but a baseball pitch and hit/pinball
game from 1975. It keeps track of both traditional score and
how many runs you make. A lot of fun, even if one of the upper
flippers hasn't worked very well over the last three years.
2)
APB- The best law enforcement game ever was NARC,
which was nowhere to be seen at this year's Expo. If you don't
have NARC, at least you can have APB. The classic little sit-down
game where you're the cop trying to arrest litterers, hitchers,
honking taxis, and more. Better than any driving game made
in the 90s, it is both funny and exciting. Well worth having
to wait for Joker to get his lazy ass off so I could play.
1)
Pinball girls. Oh yeah. There is nothing hotter than
a hot chick playing a pinball machine. This year, they were
everywhere. I mean twenty-five or so women who could cause
men to steer into the rocks. Playing a pinball, that sort
of babe is amazing.
|
