Have Fun!

Williams Fun-Fest is a four-player electro-mechanical pinball game featuring a nice mix of targets, rollover buttons, and bumpers. The swinging target in the center of the playfield provides a nice challenge and an opportunity to score bonus points.

A center post between the flippers keeps the ball from draining when activated. Rollover buttons on the playfield raise and lower the post. Be careful through, sometimes the ball can slip between the post and the flippers.

The game also feeatures a ball-save gate in the right drain lane that diverts the ball to the shooter lane when open. The gate closes each time it is used and players need to hit the swinging target at the right time to re-open the gate.

A cluster of five jet bumpers in the upper playfield keep the ball in action. The bumpers score differently depending on whether or not they are lit. Targets, also located in the upper playfield, light the jet bumpers.

Please e-mail or call with questions or for more photos.

Party Time!

Keith Johnson’s Simpson’s Pinball Party for Stern brings Simpsons in a pinball format to a new generation. The game carries classic elements from the Data East Simpsons pinball, such as the cooling towers, but also greatly expands on the concepts with timed drop targets, a mini-playfield of the Simpsons living room & garage, and Quik-E Mart.

The game is loaded with features, including: five flippers, jet bumpers shaped like cooling towers, a color LED TV, various ramps and wire forms, and a whole mini-playfield.  The game offers great background music, speech recorded from the original Simpsons voice-actors, and Matt Groening artwork. Key characters from the show, including Apu, Comic Book Guy, and the Duff Beerman make appearences.

This game specfically is home-use only (HUO), meaning that it has never been located in a bar, theatre, or other public area. The game has only had two owners and maintained in immaculate condition. Please call or e-mail us with questions or for more details.

The object of the game is

Twilight zone is a very complex and challenging game with deep rule sets.  While most pinball games contain eight or nine modes to reach the end, or “Wizard” mode, Twilight Zone has an incredible 15 different modes including FIVE different types of multi-ball play! Twilight Zone challenges players with a six-ball multi-ball utilizing both the main and mini playfields.

In addition to FOUR regular flippers on the playfield, Twilight Zone’s mini playfield uses magnetic flippers. Using the flipper buttons, players must push the ball using magnets under the surface to defeat the Power.

Sample TZ Backglass Image

Twilight Zone is the ONLY game ever created with a special ceramic “Powerball” pinball!  The speed of gameplay is increased dramatically  when this ball is in play. The game senses when the Powerball is in play and changes the music, speech, and game features to match this unique ball.

Two classic toys included on the game are the working gumball machine and clock. Loaded with balls at the begining of play, the gumball machine dispenses balls into play during multi-ball and is one of the objectives during game play. The clock is used during several modes and its hands move backwards and forwards as players race against time to complete the various modes.

Midwest Pinball provides delivery and installation throughout the greater Chicagoland area. This game is in our workshop and will be ready shortly. Please call or e-mail with questions or for more details.

Judgment Day - 2011

Williams changed the pinball industry forever with their 1991 release of Terminator 2.  It was the first pinball game created with a dot-matrix display, and is also the first pinball game created with a player interactive video mode.  The game designer Steve Ritchie also designed the playfields for High Speed and Getaway, as well as the newer Stern Spiderman and 24.  Steve’s games are always hot items for collectors because of their superb “feel”, innovation, ball flow, and wonderful playability.

T2 features plenty of speech clips from Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the sound effects and music are all top notch creations! T2 has a novel, player controlled canon that launches pinballs at blinking stationary targets, and THREE different types of multi-ball play!  T2 is a pretty deep game with a complex storyline, and an awesome Wizard mode.

Here is a picture of the restored playfield for a 1979 Astro Black Sheep Squadron.  With the feel of a classic Bally pinball machine from the same time period, the Black Sheep Squadron is the only game from Astro to make it into production. The playfield was covered in old wax that required a lot of work to clean up.

We spent the last few weeks working on a 1992 Gottlieb Premier Super Mario Bros. The game was in rough shape and had all of its stand-up targets broken. We rebuilt the flippers, installed new targets, and cleaned up a lot of lighting issues.

The game still has a little playfield wear but otherwise looks and plays great. One of the keys to working on Gottlieb Premier games is to have the right lamps on hand. Unlike Bally/Williams games, these games use #67 and #904 flashers.

Welcom to Mega-City One!

Based on the British comic-book character (also the source for the Judge Dredd movie with Sylvester Stallone), the game features characters and artwork for a grim futuristc New York City. Judge Dredd battles crime and deals with four Dark Judges.

Judge Dredd is a challenging and complex pinball machine. As with other Bally SuperPins, the game is a wide-body that is packed with toys and features. In regular play, it offers nine modes plus the “Ultimate Challenge” wizard mode. In addition, the game can be played as a SuperGame with four additional modes.

At the back of the game is a rotating “Deadworld” that traps balls for multi-ball mode and a robotic arm with magnet assembly to pickup and move the balls. The game also has four flippers, three captive balls and a drop target bank concealing a secret passage.

A golden ealge topper is not picutred on the game, but is available. Please call with questions or for more details.

Based on the adult cartoon, South Park, the game is not exactly family friendly. Follow the adventures of Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny (until he gets killed) as they interact with other characters from the show, including Chef and Mr Hanky. The game features a wide range of options and an open center playfield providing long shots to the left and right. A clear plastic upper playfield runs along the left side.

The game provides video clips, including numerous death scenes for Kenny.  Please e-mail us for more pictures or details.

Recently Midwest Pinball has worked on a number of older games. In january 2009, we picked up an old game from a customer for repair and restoration. After a little research we determined that is was a 1935 Bally Traffic (Model C). It looked like the cabinet had been repainted and the playfield was very dark. (The picture below shows the impact of a little Novus #2.)

We dis-assembled and vaccumed out the game to search for any older parts that may have been trapped in the cabinet. The game olny uses one coil, which was working fine. We took the metal pieces off (including the playfield traffic lights) to be placed in a parts tumbler and worked on the playfield for several days.

Once the playfield was finished, we replaced the bulbs with new ones ordered from Steve Young at The Pinball Resource and replaced the brittle gels inside the traffic lights with new color films.

Fast and furious pinball, the F-14 Tomcat challenges the player to defeat Yagov by destroyinf enemy planes. This is a fast game with a ton of wire-form ramps. The game features five banks of standup targets, vertical upkickers, a spinner, and a single jet bumper.

In addition, the dreaded Jagov kicker returns the ball at high speed towards the flippers. Fortunately F-14 was the first game to have an auto-save mode that returns the ball if the players loses it to quickly. Did we mention, the game has four flippers? This keeps the action going strong for both short shots in the upper half of the playfield and long shots from the lower flippers.

This game has two 7-digit alphanumeric score displays and two 7-digit numeric-only score displays. Numerous flashers on the playfield provide brilliant red lighting and the three beacon lights (red, white,  and blue of course) atop the back box are almost blinding. These lights rotate during the multi-ball mode.

Please e-mail us for more pictures or details.