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Silver Ball Century ep. 64 - Mid-1992 - You Shore Need That Ramp Shot

In this episode: Lethal Weapon 3, Michael Jordan, Black Rose, 250 cc, Cue Ball Wizard, Doctor Who. Next episode: Star Wars, Fish Tales, Metal Man, Al's Garage Band Goes on a World Tour, Creature from the Black Lagoon.

We have three high-quality VPin Workshop recreations in our game list tonight, showing how beloved this era of pinball is.

Yes, we are beginning this episode by playing basically the same game twice. Data East was very satisfied with the playfield and gameplay interactions they designed on Lethal Weapon 3, enough that they re-themed it twice as bespoke pinball machines. One re-theme was an extremely limited-edition Michael Jordan pinball machine (7 units produced), and once to the even more limited Aaron Spelling.

Aaron Spelling is the guy who produced Charlie's Angels, 90210, Melrose Place, etc. He got a very expensive birthday present of a custom pinball machine about him, with callouts by his family members. You can kind of play it in VPX, but the recreation is too janky for me to want to put it in this episode. And playing it feels kind of like I'm intruding on this guy's family life, somehow?

I know nothing about 250 cc so far except it's another Spanish table by Inder. I always like to have a glimpse of what was going on in pinball on other continents.

Gottlieb's Cue Ball Wizard is one of their standout 90s machines. Sure, the video modes are stupid but the gameplay is actually a lot of fun. Gottlieb is committing harder to having "modes" than other companies were at the time. What really sells it is the unique feature that seems obvious when there are so many pinball games about pool -- a large cue ball that you can actually hit with your pinball.

We also see Black Rose, one of Bally's more un-sung classics, starring a badass pirate woman. There's a lot going on in its gameplay, and I think it gets a bad reputation from the Pinball FX version where its center "cannon" shot is too easy and repeatable. Bally also brings us Doctor Who, notorious for causing injuries to operators and for its potentially extremely loud Dalek topper, both of which are mitigated by playing it through VPX I guess.

Silver Ball Century goes live tonight (Thursday, July 16) at 8:30pm Eastern, on twitch.tv/arborelia.

Tables in this episode

#pinball #silver ball century