Back to Next Level Pinball Museum

 Portland, OR

All Day Pinball

Today we had lunch, set Francis up with everything he needs for the day, and headed back to Next Level Pinball Museum.  We were going to be there most of the day so we brought some food and water to sustain us.  We arrived at 1:30pm to play and then the tournament started at 7pm and went until 9:30pm, so a long day of pinball.  Donna decided she was going to stick it out the whole time rather than take a trip back mid day like last time.

The stay officially started with lunch at Magna, the 11th top rated restaurant in Portland according to  Oregonian Newspaper.

It has a few awards to go along with the newspaper recommendation.

The menu is limited, but the Filipino dishes are fantastic. 

When we arrived at Next Level, we went straight to the back room.  The Boss Level area is a new 7000 sq. ft. area that just opened yesterday. It brings the number of pinball machines to 300 and the number of arcade games to about 300.  

It's just as cool as the rest of the museum.

Tons of great arcade games but I am here to play Pinball!

Most of the machines in Boss Level are machines that have been in storage for a long time, so I got to play a lot of machines I have never played before.

Wow, the glare on this one is bad.  It's Gottlieb's Freddy: A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Look at that Mario themed castle!

They had a whole bank of Spooky Pinball machines.  They are kind of known for being unreliable and not the most fun playing modern pinball machines.  

"Pinball" by Stern is one of the most generic machines I have ever seen.

She's talking about The Rolling Stones!

At some point I had to Wee so I found this appropriately placed Wii sign above a Urinal 

Another machine I have never played before

This is NOT Rambo!

I don't think you would see this today.  Pinball machines themes, for good or bad, remind us of what used to be acceptable and how far most of us have come.

This Gottlieb James Bond 007 is a unique machine.  The play is timed, so every time you drain you lose a bit of time.  You have to be careful on this machine to make sure you don't play out of turn during a tournament.  From The Internet Pinball Database, "Originally released as a time-based game, it proved to be so unpopular with players that new software was released allowing it to be set for 3/5 ball play."

The tournament was fun.  It was a Flipper Frenzy format so I got to play 17 games in 1.5 hours.  I finished right in the middle of the field, so kind of my target.  There were a few spots where I could have won and moved up to top 1/3rd.  I am learning that a few small adjustments will make a big difference.

Here are the rest of the machines I played that I didn't play in the tournament.

I ended up playing 105 games of pinball.  Each play was less than 22 cents.  What a bargain!  You just have to be there for 9 hours to get that kind of value.  I also got to play about 21 machines I have never played before.

That's it for today.  If you missed, "Playing Pinball at an "Abandoned Mall" check it out.

Playing Pinball at an "Abandoned" Mall

 Portland, OR

The Lloyd Center didn't look hopping from the outside.

Visiting A New Pinball "Museum"

Today Donna and I drove over to Lloyd Center, a near abandon mall, to visit Star Tropics, a brand new Pinball "Museum".  Star Tropics opened March 1st and is only open during mall hours (9-7).  It's just pinball, there is no bar.  It's pretty minimal but the owner is working on filling it out with cool machines and cool stuff.  He told us a bit about his plans while we were there.  It's $8 for an all day visit and I was happy to pay them a visit to help out.  

The "museum" is set up to look kind of "Street" and gritty.

He has CRTs set up and he is hoping to have them all showing 90s shows.  Right now he is showing a lot of anime, which is cool.

I spent some time on Capcom's Breakshot, a cool pinball with a cool "Trick Shot" mechanic.

I also played Roy Clark The Entertainer, another Cocktail Table Pinball machine very much like Star Shooter, which I wrote about here. Apparently 2 different companies made these.  They seem so similar.

Since it is a museum, he has a 1979 "Tilt" movie poster staring Brooke Shields.  Maybe I can find this streaming online and see how bad it is.  Oh yea it's here.

After playing for a bit I needed to use the bathroom and check out just how abandoned this mall is. The only restrooms where in the food court so I headed upstairs.

The bottom floor had very little going on.

The food court also had very little going on.  There were 3 fronts open out of about 11 or so.

There was a single ice skater taking advantage of the empty rink.

This guy gets it.  Where is the food?

It looked like all of the action here was contained in about 4 storefronts all next to each other.  There was this interesting Lego store where you could buy, sell, and trade individual bricks, an Anime Store, another store that was sort of Anime and Games, and the pinball museum.  It seems like they could turn this mall into an Anti Mall if it didn't have so many store fronts.  If it had 10 or so I think they could fill it with cool stores that generate business for each other.

I had my best game ever on Foo Fighters, which was great.

That's it for today.  If you missed, Our Last Week in Portland, check it out.