Kaonashi Ga Suki

So on a whim, my boyfriend and I went to Vegas this weekend. Sure, we did the usual -gambling, buffet, shopping- but we actually did something a little different this time.

Outside the strip (about 4 miles away) is the Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame and Museum. Since my boyfriend is a huge pinball fan, he had been dying to visit this place for a long time, but whenever we go to Vegas we seem not to have enough time. This time, we did.

The Pinball Museum is home to about 200 pinball games, many of which are from the 1950’s and 1960’s. We are talking old school here- no fancy shmancy video backgrounds and cool figurines that shake when the ball bumps into them (though there are plenty of those kinds of pinball games too, to satisfy younger players). There are some really old games that would make people nostalgic.

Granted, the museum itself is not located in the best place. It’s in one corner of an old strip mall, adjacent to a movie theater that shows older movies (as in, the previous season. For example, they were showing Click and Nacho Libre) for $2.50. But it doesn’t matter once you step inside.

All the games are in perfect condition. They are well taken cared of, and that’s because the people who work there are passionate about preserving these games. They’re pros in maintaining them. They’re not a bunch of clueless teenagers who work at an arcade and could care less.

At first, I thought that it was an actual museum in the sense that you look at the inactive games behind glass. But what fun would that be? No, all the games are playable, even the 1950s games. It’s amazing to compare the old games with their newer counterparts, to see the evolution of pinball.

There are also a couple of old, non-pinball games available. Two of them are driving games that were mechanical, rather than relying on a microchip. One was literally composed of wooden cars on wooden tracks, and your car was a hologram. The trick was to weave your “car” in and out of the tracks without “crashing” into them. Unlike modern racing games in which speed is the key, you often have to slow down and wait for the other cars to pass so you don’t crash into them. It looks pretty tough.

Another cool game was called “Hyperball”, and it looks straight from the early 80’s, maybe even later 70’s. There are all these ramps, and you have two triggers to squeeze. The object of the game is to aim for the ramps and fire hundreds of little silver balls towards these ramps when the path towards them lights up. It’s really fun but hell on your forearms since you’re squeezing the trigger like crazy…that is, until my bf told me that I didn’t really need to keep squeezing the trigger and could have just held down on them.

The next time that you’re in Vegas and want to go a little bit off the beaten path, check out the Pinball Museum. It’s really fun!

Las Vegas, Pinball Hall of Fame, Pinball Museum