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California Extreme Arcade Show Approaches
JM writes "The 8th annual California Extreme arcade game show is this Saturday & Sunday, August 7-8, at the San Jose Convention Center, Parkside Hall. Having been to California Extreme [not to be confused with Classic Gaming Expo, being held in San Jose on the 21st and 22nd of August] once before, I can tell you this is a 'can't miss' event for the fan of classic arcade and pinball machines. For one weekend each year, a massive collection of rare and classic arcade and pinball machines are together in one place, all set to free play, including never before seen prototype games, rare laserdisc games, plus some additional surprises, I'm sure. This year will be the CE premiere of Greg Maletic's documentary, 'The Future of Pinball', about Williams' ultimately ill-fated Pinball 2000 machines, as well as some great speakers and events, including an Atari panel with Ed Logg and others." Any arcade show with a playable Akka Arrh is good by us.
But am I the only one who gets a slightly off felling when I see words like "Extreme" anymore? Everything's "Extreme" "eXtreme" "Xtreme" "Xtreem" or "Xstream" now. The word's just lost all meaning to me.
Oh my god, the selection of pinball machines alone! *drool*
It has been entirely too long since I've played pinball. This would be incredible.
I still plan on buying some pinball machines sometime in the future, and learning how to repair them to keep them working. Hopefully I'll have a place with the room to start doing so soon.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
...failed just because there was so much focus on the screen. If I wanted that much focus on the screen, I'd play a video game.
There was some pac-man themed pinball/arcade game 20 years prior and that never caught on. Why would they try again with pinball 2k?
The sad part is, the pinball playfield on a 2k machine is so sparse(no "gimmicks", not many ramps, etc) the gameplay resembles pre-1989 pinball machines!
To me the golden era of pinball started with Fun House, Diner, etc. Lots and lots of ramps to play with, and things got multi-level. I'd like to think I mastered Rudy's "Fun house" but NEVER could conquer Star Trek: THe next Generation. If i had the $$, one would be in my bar.
Williams pinball machines reign supreme(all 2k machines aside). The "hook" pinball machine by data east got so boring to me I left it for someone else to play with 4 credits I earned. I was on a winning streak where I kept getting free game after free game. Boredom won.