Video pinball is probably enjoying the most successful era of its existence. The lights and sounds pulled us in, but the gameplay is what kept us coming back.

Because even though there’s an unquestionable component of the game intrinsically tied to physical sensations, the games themselves have strong merit on their gameplay. But for those of us who love them, if we can’t wrap our fingers around a real machine and build the callouses on the palms of our hands by slamming them into the side of a wooden box to nudge a steel ball a half-centimeter off its course, we’ll take what we can get. I wouldn’t be shocked if many of our readers have never laid eyes on one in their lifetime. For most people, there haven’t been any pinball tables around their locale since Clinton was in office. They’re sort of like those homemade recipes for Ecto Cooler that you can find around the internet: a shadow of the real thing, an attempt to replicate an incredibly tactile but now nearly-extinct experience.

Much as I love it, I have to admit that video pinball is a very, very strange thing.

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