Everything got better when I became a green-haired 2D girl. I do fun and unusual things with video games and pinball.

cohost inspired me to do more. Thank you



MrSaturn
@MrSaturn asked:

Favorite and least favorite shots in pinball?

Viking's bonus collect shot (left) is cool and satisfying enough that it puts Viking in my top 10 pinball tables I've played.

A nice touch is that, if the ball didn't have quite enough energy to make it there and hits the upper left pop bumper instead, the pop bumper might happen to pop in the right direction and give the ball the extra oomph it needs to land in the bonus collect hole. Also the table has inline drops, which are also great, and multiplying the bonus with the inline drops is what makes the bonus collect shot worthwhile.

Radical's upper flipper shot (the "Tail Slider") is another of my favorite shots. It's less unique -- lots of tables have ramps to shoot with the upper flipper -- but some interesting things about it are that there's no obvious setup for it so you really have to do it when the opportunity arises, and you can give yourself a wider target to hit by holding up the upper left flipper. And the ramp it goes into is... rad.

My least favorite shot is the "alley pass" or "Shatz", and it's not just that I'm resentful that I can't do it consistently. I don't begrudge Neil Shatz for pioneering this as a way to break the strategy of a lot of 20th-century pinball games, but I sure wish those games could still show up in tournaments. I could write a longer post about this.


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in reply to @arborelia's post:

Gosh I hate the shatz.

Single handedly ruins several fun pinball games.

Gorgar? Extremely boring. Shatz back and forth, shoot the snake pit, repeat.

The Amazing Wider Spiderman? Just shatz all day, nothing more thank you.