Good News Everybody!

Lotsa good news coming right up. New machines have appeared and others are back up and running! Also, courtesy of my girlfriend, we have some high quality pictures of some of the machines and many more to come!
I dropped in at Unlovable at 1415B Dundas St W to check up on their Data East Star Wars machine and was pleased to see it working once again. 

I noted how Community 54 recently picked up a pretty nice Gulfstream. They added to their pinball collection with Stern's Family Guy!

Personally, I'm not too big a fan of the subject matter but it's a Pat Lawlor machine with a pretty wild gimmick (plus the other version of this table is Shrek. Not quite that appealing either). Family Guy features "Stewie's Pinball", a literal mini-playfield on which you have a miniature pinball, flippers, loops and ramps.

The machine is in great condition and plays fantastic. One loonie will get you four credits. One thing I did notice about the table is a mode called "Remember When...". I find it pretty funny that there is a mode modeled after what many people criticize Family Guy about. Pretty meta! I wasn't able to activate the "Remember When..." mode but I look forward to trying it out!

 My buddies and I dropped in at Pegasus Bar down on Church and Wellesley. There resides Stern's Lord of The Rings and CSI. Last time I had played LOTR, the eject on the far left was broken and wouldn't recognize when the ball landed in there and made you have to wait until the machine searches for the ball by activating all the moving parts. When we stopped by on Friday, that part was fixed and would now recognize when the ball falls in. Lord of The Rings was a ton of fun to play; hitting the ring to activate each mode is way too much fun and a real treat to see.

We then stepped over 2 feet to the right and played a little bit of CSI. This is one of my favourites of the tables in Toronto. Another Pat Lawlor design with the trademark third flipper, this machine sports a bunch of fun gimmicks. There's the Skull, the Centrifuge, and the Microscope. Hitting each of these leads to multiball which is really easy to stack and get 3-5 balls going at once.

Stern's World Poker Tour is turned back on and chillin' out at Mezzrow's. Nothing new to note except that it's available for play again. I got word that WPT is owned and operated by a collector so that means it is in good hands and hopefully won't be down for an indefinite time in it's future. If you dig Steve Richie machines, you owe yourself to check World Poker Tour out. It has some really outta sight ideas on it, specifically the SIXTEEN drop targets and mini-playfield. It's an unusual design and not much at all like most Richie designs.

My girlfriend and I were down in Kensington Market at Blue Banana, checking out all the various goods they have when I heard the sounds of an old pinball machine. Now that iPhones have a ol' skool pinball ringtone, it sometimes throws off my pinball senses. Well, I was wandering around the Blue Banana and I heard the sounds. Noticing that the sounds continued and sounded different than the ringtone, I hunted down the noise and found Gottlieb's Buccaneer!

The machine is in pretty good condition. It plays really well and is a ton of fun for an older table. There are a lot of fun shots and lots of bumpers so the ball is always bouncing around. 1 loonie gets you a single credit with 5 balls.

Pinball Cafe has switched it up again! the AC/DC machine has been sold and Mata Hari has taken its place. Gottlieb's Genie has taken up residence at the Cafe... And when I say "taken up" I mean it has taken up some SPACE! DAMN Genie is BIG. 

Genie is a widebody from 1979 and , like its brethren Roller Disco and Haunted House, this table is a beast. There is plenty of room and things to do on this widebody Solid-State. It's hard as hell to nudge seeing as it's so dang big. A centipede machine has also shown face at the Cafe for those who are into ol' skool arcade games.

That's it for this round of new and re-discovered machines! I recently caught wind of some more rumoured pinball machines in the area so I'll have to go hunt them down. Keep tuned in for the most happenin' Pinball news in Toronto!