Steve Wiebe and 250 pinball and arcade games!

Thousands of pinball and arcade game fans from across the U.S. will be attending the 2009 Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show this weekend at the Seattle Center. The show is the biggest of this type of event in the Northwest. The 2008 show featured over 100 games and drew 2,000 visitors. This weekend's show will have over 250 games all set on freeplay, including one of mine. Along with unlimited play on 250 games, there will also be tournaments, raffles, guest speakers and over a dozen top level players competing for new world record scores.

On hand during the show will be many special guests from the arcade and pinball world, including:

• Steve Wiebe, star of the hit documentary “The King of Kong.” In the movie Wiebe waged an epic battle against Billy Mitchell for bragging rights to the world record high score on the game of Donkey Kong. Wiebe will be attempting to unthrone Mitchell and take back the Donkey Kong high score this weekend!
• Bill Carlton, star of the award winning documentary “High Score,” which was released in March 2009. “High Score” follows Carlton’s attempt to beat the 20 year old world record on Missile Command.
• Dennis Nordman, pinball designer of games including Elvira and the Party Monsters, White Water, Wheel of Fortune and Pirates of the Caribbean.
• Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies and score keeper of the world’s gaming records, from ‘80s arcade games to modern Playstation 3 and XBOX games. Day is star of the documentary “Chasing Ghosts” and was the enthusiastic score keeper and classic game activist in the referee outfit in “The King of Kong.”
• Greg Feres, pinball graphic artist and the man behind the artwork of Fathom, Medieval Madness, Revenge from Mars, Speakeasy, Scared Stiff, Strange Science, Dr. Dude, Star Trek: The Next Generation and many more.
• Clay Harrell (AKA Shaggy), star of the hit pinball restoration series “This Old Pinball.”
• Brian Schmidt, who has done the sounds and music for such pinball games as Apollo 13, Back to the Future, Batman Forever, The Simpsons, Frankenstein, Star Wars, The Who’s Tommy, The X Files, Black Knight 2000, Banzai Run, King Kong, Hook, Jurassic Park, Independence Day and Guns N’ Roses.
• Todd MacCulloch, ex-pro basketball player (Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets) and local game collector who is now a nationally ranked pinball competitor. Ask MacCulloch what it was like playing against Shaq in the NBA playoffs while he kicks your butt in the pinball tournament!
  

There will be seminars and autograph sessions during the day on Saturday featuring many of the special guests. Saturday night, Walter Day of Twin Galaxies will publicly host the inaugural Video Game Hall of Fame awards ceremony. The ceremony will honor world record players from the past and present.

The show will be held in the Northwest Rooms of the Seattle Center, located at 305 Harrison Street in downtown Seattle. For information about hours and what games will be at the show, go to: nwpinballshow.com

Skill Shot pinball zine

Skill Shot... In the game of pinball, a skill shot generally is a shot that scores bonus points when your ball first enters the playfield. Pulling the plunger back just the right distance can land the ball in precisely the right place to score maximum points, be it Rudy's secret hiding place on Funhouse or the ball getting grabbed by Thing's hand on Addams Family. It's a shot that takes practice and skill by playing the same machine over and over. Even on the same game at a different bar or arcade, the skill shot will be slightly different. In Seattle, however, Skill Shot can mean something different, for it's also a fanzine dedicated to Seattle pinball.

Skill Shot, like most zines, has a sloppy homemade feel to its layout and is published fairly irregularly. When you spot a new issue at Shorty's or in a record store on the shelf of free publications, it's like a special treat. And it's free! Upon opening an issue of Skill Shot, you can tell it's a labor of love. For pinball fans, it has a guide to the various neighborhoods of Seattle and the pinball machines that can be found in their bars, coffee houses and clubs. For the pinball fanatic like me (geek alert, I own and collect pinball machines and am currently ranked as the 890th best pinball player in the world), it's also got pinball news, trivia, graphics, game reviews and playing hints.

The latest issue to hit the streets is #6, pictured above, which features two different covers (both from the same pinball game, bonus pinball fan points to any of you that can name the game the artwork is from and/or the pinball machine I set them on for the photo shoot). Issue #6 has reviews and breakdowns for playing Champion Pub and the new Dark Knight games, Seattle pinball locations, pinball news, and suggestions for new ways of playing pinball with your friends. What's amazing is how positive the writing is, which in zineland is pretty unheard of, zines far too often are a platform for whining and melancholy. It's a cool little zine for pinball fans, keep an eye out for it! More info on Skill Shot can be found on their MySpace page.

Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show!

This is a photo of my basement. It started with me picking up one $100 arcade game about 8 years ago at a garage sale and blossomed into a full-blown hobby of collecting arcade and pinball games. And I'm not alone, there are thousands of game collectors around world with basements or gamerooms like mine. Here in the Northwest, a bunch of local pinball collectors and fans are throwing a festival of sorts for the hobby this June and you should come. The 2008 Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show takes place at the Seattle Center June 6-8th. There will be over 100 pinball games to play for free with price of admission, arcade games, pinball designers and artists, local vendors, a pinball tournament, prizes and more. For more details and a list of the the games that will be there, check out: nwpinballshow.com