The Minnesota State Fair is one of those annual events that I look forward to each year for many reasons. You’ve heard us talk about the “Great Minnesota Get-Together” before, so I’ll spare you all the reasons why I think it’s an event not to be missed. Instead, I’d like to talk about one of my favorite new events at the fair, Pinball on-a-Stick.

It’s no surprise to those of us who grew up in the arcades and behind the flippers of a million wooden cabinets, that things are not what they used to be. What once was a forest of local arcades sucking the quarters out of millions of teen-agers pockets has been slowly destroyed tree by tree. Even the amusement-park simulators that were all the rage in the late 90′s and early 2000 have gone the way of the dodo as once-thought stalwarts like GameWorks close their doors.

So it is that in every county or state fair I manage to attend, one of the first things I do is look for an arcade. Like an Indiana Jones with a nose for electronics, I hunt the fairgrounds for the familiar tent with the million power cables running to a giant junction box. It’s the surest sign of late 80′s coin op machines in the wild. Last year, my hunt bore some delicious fruit as the dreaded Butterfly Garden (which had threatened to kill the arcade space the past few years) gave a precious slice of it’s fairground real estate to not just an arcade, but a room dedicated to classic pinball games.

It’s called Pinball on-a-Stick and it’s the brainchild of Brian Millard, a resident of Farmington, MN. Brian is a collector of classic pinball machines and has filled a section of the arcade with a solid set of machines from his own personal collection. With the aid of friend Ryan Marincovich and a volunteer team of pinball collectors and enthusiasts from the area, a room right next to the Grandstand becomes one of the best spots for pinball for a week and a half.

From some of the classic machines such as Adam’s Family, Black Knight and Whirlwind to some of the best modern Stern machines, Pinball on-a-Stick really satisfies the old school pinball fan. Not only is the selection great but the machines are in top notch condition and play like a dream. Prices are reasonable at .50 a play and the spirit of the old school arcades is there in spades. Fairgoers young and old stop by and drop a few quarters into these classic machines. Each time I’ve walked into the room, there seems to be a machine or five in action. It’s a great time.

You can find more information on Pinball on-a-Stick over at their website, which can be found here: Pinball on-a-Stick.com.

More pictures after the break.
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Fellow PanicBot5000 lover, Jocelyn, sent in this lovely piece from Slate.com. I’m not sure if this is legit or staged, but it’s funny either way. It’s an interview with the 916th greatest pinball player in the world. My kinda guy. My kinda interview. Enjoy.

Our thanks to Jocelyn for the map to awesomeness!

During my daily stroll through various gaming forums, I stumbled upon this video. Check it out:

Pretty bad ass, eh? It’s called “HyperPin” made by Hyper…Spin. Hurm. Anyway, here’s a bit about HyperSpin and what they do:

HyperSpin is an animated arcade frontend for Windows for use on Home Arcade Machines. HyperSpin allows you to create custom menu systems to run most executables with that arcade look and feel. HyperSpin takes a more artwork oriented approach to creating menu’s. With this tool you should be able to make interesting menu’s for your games, movies etc..

HyperSpin is a very easy to setup and operate system so that even the novice of users may have a great looking front end. Using the HyperHQ configuration application, and our customized theme creation application HyperTheme, users will be able to quickly and easily get started using HyperSpin.

Lots o’ “hypers” there. Either way, you can find out more about HyperSpin at their official website here.

We’re all big fans of pinball here at Robot Panic. In fact, it’s safe to say that most of us are pining for a table of our own and have been so for a long, long time. So, when anything even remotely pinball related comes our way, we have to share it with all of you.

Our latest find is The Pinball Blog, brought to us by the UK gentleman who writes the blog, known simply as Nick. The Pinball Blog is UK based and it bears mentioning that Nick is the man who organizes the UK Pinball Show, which has become a huge pinball event since it’s inception in 2004. Like I needed another reason to visit England. The blog is very, very cool and worthy of your precious internet time. One of the best parts of the blog is the Pinball Heroes features. Nick has this to say about them:

“I recently started a feature called Pinball Heroes where I ask leading pinball personalities a bunch of random questions. Already a few have been published on the blog. I’ve interviewed Pinball designers Steve Ritchie & John Trudeau, Las Vegas Hall of Fame owner Tim Arnold, LTG : ) from SS Billiards (and rec.games.pinball legend), plus pinball author Gary Flower. The latest interview is with the man possibly responsible for there even being a pinball hobby. Roger Sharpe, who argued to the New York city council that pinball was skill and not luck, and subsequently had the long-term ban on pinball lifted. And more pinball heroes due each weekend.”

All the Pinball Heroes articles are fantastic and it’s especially nice to see our friend from SS Billiards talk about his vast knowledge. Be sure to hit those up and throw Nick some love while you’re over there!

Thanks Nick, for pointing us to your awesome blog! Long Live Pinball!

“Y’know, things break,…”

-Peter Moore

I heart pinball. I like the real thing. Do you know what’s almost impossible to find? A public table that isn’t busted. Do you know what I also like? Modern Video Pinball. Why? That shit never breaks. I don’t boot up Pinball FX and find the left flipper don’t work. Hell no.

Hey, you know what would be kinda cool? A pinball cabinet that would frikkin’ work no matter what day of the year I walk up to it. That would be a crazy idea, wouldn’t it? It’d be like somebody took a Pro Pinball game for Playstation, hooked it up to a pinball cabinet, made the TV HD, then tate’d the screen.

I walk into Lucky Strike in Novi, MI., A friggin’ leprechaun appears and he’s all like, “Bam! Ultrapin! Go play it!” ‘n I was all like, “Werd! ^_^”

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Mark sent us a link to a story that is simply too horrible to contemplate. In this day and age of economic trouble, where businesses are falling apart and the bottom line is falling out from underneath us all, certain things suffer.

RetroBlast.com has a post saying that Stern Pinball has laid off many of it’s line workers and a few designers as well. I guess with money being tight, the rich collectors and celebrities who buy their tables just had to make some cuts to their budget.

Stern Pinball is near and dear to our hearts here at Robot Panic and you can find a story we did on them here. Suffice it to say that Stern is the last bastion of true pinball in the world and that it’s loss would truly mean the end of pinball as we know it. And I mean the end.

My hope is that the company can see it’s way through this crisis. They’ve done it before when the videogame market crashed back in the 80′s. With plenty of market savy, Stern rose from those ashes. So let’s hope they can hang on.

You can find the story in it’s original form here.

We’ve posted a few articles here on Robot Panic that should give you all an indication that we’re big fans of pinball. From the Midwest Gaming Classic to awesome arcades like SS Billiards, our lives are blessedly filled with avenues in which to play them. Which makes it all the more sad when you notice just how few new pinball experiences there are these days. Sure, the classic games still hold all their power but it certainly is nice to get a new board to play on every once and awhile.

Those that continue to have an obsessive love for pinball all know that there still is one company (and I mean that. Only ONE) still holding the torch aloft. Despite the glory days of pinball going the way of the dinosaur, one company is still giving fans of the silver ball something to look forward to every year. And that company is Stern Pinball.
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The arcade, my friends, is not dead. A bold statement, considering the condition of arcades in places such as GameWorks or Dave & Busters. While those complexes may appear to be arcades, the corporate stench permeates them and the entertainment provided inside is more akin to a roller coaster ride than the arcades of our youth. The truth is, however, those neon lit rooms that rang with the sound of flipper hitting metal ball still exist. They are havens for those needing to spend a few precious minutes or hours dropping quarters into coin slots and challenging physics. They are rare, they are prized and they are sadly known only to a few.

Hiding away in a strip mall in the Minnesota suburb of Hopkins, SS Billiard is just such a place. It’s a room that is almost frozen in time. I had the privilege of visiting SS Billiards for the first time last week and the moment I stepped through the door, it was as if I were back in the arcades I loved as a kid. Pinball machines lined the walls from various generations. There were old favorites that I loved, such as The Addams Family and The Twilight Zone. New Stern pinball games such as The Dark Knight, Spider-Man and The Lord of the Rings stood as the last men standing; champions of a classic genre too long beaten yet still fighting. Even some classic machines such as Eight Ball Deluxe and the rare Capcom machine, Big Bang Bar, were in attendance. Each stood, tempting with classic lights and sounds and the elegant beauty of a wooden surface worn from years of play. While there were a few video games in attendance, they felt strangely out of place in this pinball mecca. It’s as if SS Billiards has one love and video games are simply a token gesture, as if to harken back to the 80′s but not to relive them.
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