Pinball March Madness 2015 – Round of 32 Voting

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Round 1 has come to a close and we enter the round of 32. A few upsets should make for a pretty interesting round 2. Voting is now open and will run until Thursday night and closes at midnight Pacific time. All votes must be sent to either pinballpodcast [at] gmail.com or sent via PM through Pinside or KLOV to jar155.

Here are the match ups for the round of 32.

Modern Bracket

  • Theatre of Magic vs The Champion Pub
  • Wizard of Oz vs Star Trek (Stern)
  • Bram Stoker’s Dracula vs Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • Dr. Who vs AC/DC
  • Monster Bash vs Family Guy
  • Spider-Man (Stern) vs Creature From the Black Lagoon
  • Guns N Roses vs Metallica
  • World Cup Soccer ’94 vs Indiana Jones (WMS)
  • Lord of the Rings vs Cactus Canyon
  • Iron Man vs Tron
  • Revenge From Mars vs Cirqus Voltaire
  • Congo vs Tales of the Arabian Nights
  • The Addams Family vs Road Show
  • No Good Gofers vs The Simpsons Pinball Party
  • High Speed 2: The Getaway vs White Water
  • Indy 500 vs Scared Stiff

Classics Bracket

  • Whirlwind vs Phantom of the Opera
  • Xenon vs Eight Ball Deluxe
  • Mousin’ Around vs Centaur
  • Sorcerer vs Bride of Pinbot
  • Elvira and the Party Monsters vs Comet
  • Haunted House vs Meteor
  • Black Hole vs Diner
  • Skateball vs Fire
  • Funhouse vs Embryon
  • Space Station vs High Speed
  • Mata Hari vs Fathom
  • Space Shuttle vs Black Knight 2000
  • Earthshaker vs F-14 Tomcat
  • Vector vs Pinbot
  • Swords of Fury vs Fireball
  • Rollergames vs Taxi

Pinball March Madness 2015 – Round of 64 Voting

Voting is now open for the first round of Pinball March Madness. You can vote by emailing your picks to pinballpodcast [at] gmail.com or by sending a PM to jar155 on either Pinside.com or KLOV. You can still submit a bracket to compete in the contest up until round 1 voting closes on Sunday night at 11:59pm PST. After votes have been received for round 1, bracket submission will be closed. Brackets are available here: https://www.thepinballpodcast.com/2015/03/16/pinball-march-madness-2015-brackets/

Remember, you don’t need to have submitted a bracket to vote! Here are the Round of 64 match ups:

Modern Bracket

Theatre of Magic vs NBA Fastbreak
Judge Dredd vs The Champion Pub
The Shadow vs The Wizard of Oz
Star Trek (Stern) vs Corvette
Bram Stoker’s Dracula vs Ripley’s Believe it or Not
Star Trek: The Next Generation vs Kingpin (Capcom)
X-Men vs Dr. Who
AC/DC vs Safecracker
Monster Bash vs Stargate
Big Bang Bar vs Family Guy
Spider-Man (Stern) vs Terminator 2
Creature From the Black Lagoon vs Junkyard
Guns N Roses vs The Avengers
Metallica vs Black Rose
Fish Tales vs World Cup Soccer ’94
Indiana Jones (WMS) vs Star Wars (DE)
Lord of the Rings vs Who Dunnit?
Pirates of the Caribbean vs Cactus Canyon
Iron Man vs Tommy
Tron vs Johnny Mnemonic
Revenge From Mars vs Tales From the Crypt
Cirqus Voltaire vs America’s Most Haunted
Congo vs The Walking Dead
Tales of the Arabian Nights vs Batman Forever
The Addams Family vs Wrestlemania
Road Show vs Pinball Magic
No Good Gofers vs Maverick
The Simpsons Pinball Party vs Jurassic Park
High Speed 2: The Getaway vs Batman: The Dark Knight
White Water vs Mustang
Indy 500 vs Transformers
Scared Stiff vs Demolition Man

Classics Bracket

Whirlwind vs Pharaoh
Phantom of the Opera vs Magic Castle
Barracora vs Xenon
Mousin’ Around vs Flash Gordon
Centaur vs TX Sector
Sorcerer vs Gorgon
Bride of Pinbot vs Catacomb
Elvira and the Party Monsters vs Jokerz
Star Gazer vs Comet
Haunted House vs Flash
Cyclone vs Meteor
Black Hole vs Quicksilver
Diner vs Joker Poker
Skateball vs Grand Lizard
Black Knight vs Fire
Funhouse vs Harlem Globetrotters
Embryon vs Seawitch
Space Station vs Time Machine
High Speed vs Class of 1812
Mata Hari vs Flight 2000
Fathom vs Solar Fire
Space Shuttle vs Paragon
Black Knight 2000 vs Al’s Garage Band
Earthshaker vs Frontier
Medusa vs F-14 Tomcat
Blackout vs Vector
Pinbot vs Bad Cats
Swords of Fury vs Spirit
Banzai Run vs Fireball
Rollergames vs Firepower
Taxi vs Genie

Pinball March Madness 2015 Brackets

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Pinball March Madness is back, and this year we’re doing two brackets instead of one. We’ve split modern and classics into their own fields of 64, so there are a lot more match ups to vote on.

As we’ve done in past years, you will download the brackets, fill them out, and return them to us via email. To enter you just need to get us a legible bracket back to us. You can edit the file and re-save a copy, print it and fill it out by hand and send it back by taking a picture or scanning it, draw your own bracket and send that to us, or sculpt it out of clay and send it via FedEx. Just get us a completed bracket that’s legible and you’re set.

Voting will begin on Friday, March 20th. Your completed bracket must be in before first round voting ends on Sunday, March 22nd at 11:59pm PST. Votes will be entered by emailing us at pinballpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. We will also make voting via Pinside and KLOV available via private messages to username jar155. You do not need to enter the contest in order to vote.

The brackets (available via download at the top of this post) are in Excel format. They will open in Google Docs, Excel, OpenOffice, or several other spreadsheet programs. If you have issues entering, please email us for help.

Prizes will be awarded to the most accurate brackets and we will announce the full list of prizes soon.

Good luck, and have fun!

The Pinball Podcast – Episode 50b – Interview with Barry Oursler

Jeff and Joe Zenkus got an opportunity to talk with Barry Oursler about his current projects, his return to pinball, and his possible future in the industry.

barry-oursler

We’d like to thank Barry Oursler for joining us and hopefully we can have more opportunities in the future to get regular updates and insights from Barry as his projects get a bit deeper along in development.

Enjoy!

Episode 47b – Wrestlemania Interview with Tommy Skinner

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Wrestlemania LE (click to enlarge pic)

 

Don was able to catch up with Tommy Skinner to discuss Stern’s upcoming release, Wrestlemania. Don and Tommy talk about the game’s features, the art, and even some behind the scenes info about the game.

Tommy is a fellow podcaster that has done some great work on the One and Done Podcast that we’ve discussed previously on the show. You can check that out at the links below:

Thanks for the time and the great info, Tommy.

Mod Review: Sparky Pinball’s Micro Display Mod

Sparky Pinball (https://sparkypinball.com) has joined the mod scene recently and one of their coolest new additions to the hobby has to be the Micro Display Mod. Available for a growing number of games, I gave the Creature From the Black Lagoon  MDM a test run, and I like what I’m seeing here. Read on for the full details.

  • Cost – $119
  • Install Time – 15 minutes
  • Install Difficulty – Easy
  • Fully Reversible Mod? Yes
  • Solder-Free Installation
  • No Additional Parts Needed – Complete Kit

For your $119, you get a DK Power Tap for drawing power off of the driver board to power the display, the Micro Display, an SD card with included video files, wiring, zip ties, and detailed installation instructions. For the price, this is a well packaged mod, and extremely simple to install. I spent about 12 minutes from unpacking the box to wrapping up installation.

The end result is quite charming. Yout get looping video of classic drive-in movie clips, including snippets from Creature From the Black Lagoon itself. The border around the screen looks like the Starlight Theater from the game’s art. It’s well executed.

The mod is available for Bally, Williams, and Stern games. More games are being added over time, so check out Sparky Pinball’s site for a list of current games and to follow what is coming out next.

Pinball March Madness 2014 – Winner!

It’s over, and we have a champion for 2014’s Pinball March Madness. Without further delay, I’m happy to announce that the Brian Eddy classic, Attack From Mars has won the competition. A great game by any measure, Attack From Mars now joins previous winners Twilight Zone and Medieval Madness. Thanks for all who voted and submitted brackets. Winners will be announced on the next show!

Attack From Mars – 2014 Pinball March Madness Champion

 

The Pinball Podcast Live From The Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown

We were lucky enough to be asked by the show organizers of The Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown if we could do a live show on Saturday. Of course we agreed, and we had a fun conversation with attendees, including the legendary pinball artist, John Youssi! The audio might be a bit rough, but we just had a single mic to work with. Hopefully you all enjoy our live chat.

Pinball March Madness 2014 – The Championship Round

We’ve arrived at the end, the last two games left standing are ready to duke it out for eternal glory. On one side, we have Attack From Mars, a Brian Eddy classic. On the other side, we have AC/DC, a newer effort from Steve Ritchie. Both games had to step over some tough competition to get here, so this round should be a great way to finish off 2014’s competition.

To vote, email us at pinballpodcast (at) gmail.com or PM Jeff through Pinside (jar155), KLOV (jar155), or RGP (Jeff Rivera).

Attack From Mars vs. AC/DC

For those who entered brackets, winners will be announced after the final round concludes. Voting will end on Friday night at midnight (PST).

Pinball March Madness 2014 – The Final Four

We’ve made it to the Final Four, and it’s time to find out which two games will be going to the championship round. In our two match ups, we have Lord of the Rings facing off against Attack From Mars while Monster Bash and AC/DC duke it out in the second match up. Two modern Sterns versus two ’90s games from WIlliams. It doesn’t get much better than this.

  • Lord of the Rings vs. Attack From Mars
  • AC/DC vs. Monster Bash

To vote, simply email us at pinballpodcast (at) gmail.com or PM Jeff through Pinside (jar155), KLOV (jar155), or RGP (Jeff Rivera). Thanks for voting!