By Todd Russell
Happy flipping you over the hump, it’s that time of the week again where we skip the drain and outlanes and punch that ball back into the playfield, covering all things pinball.
What is the most number of pinball games you’ve played in a single session? Prior to Saturday, I never have kept track, but now can tell you that number is 104 games. Maybe I played something like 50-75 games before, when playing all day, but maybe not even that many.
During the PGM 3rd Birthday Party celebration stream this past weekend (see: LIVE EVENT Tonight starting at/around 8pm PST the PGM Twitch Stream 3rd birthday celebration starts with 17+ hours of pinball), after playing 13+ hours at that point in the stream — 17+ hours overall — of Iron Maiden pinball, I reached the best score to date on the machine of 570,360,100.
Also, for first time reached Can I Play With Madness and 2 Minutes to Midnight. This game takes about 24 minutes from start to finish and the entire game can be watched here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2438326876
To recap the event, I ended up playing 104 games in 17+ hours and met all goals except one. You can ask me what the one goal I didn’t meet was in the comments.
This isn’t my personal best on the game. That score was made on location at Next Level on their Iron Maiden machine, but I didn’t get nearly as far in the game as I did during this one game. I actually had 2 GCs during the event on stream, with this one being the best one. Here’s the pace I needed to keep in order to play 100+ games in 17 hours:
I doubt I’ll ever again play this many Iron Maiden pinball games in a single play session, but never say never. Whatever happens in the future, I’ll at least be able to say: I played a single pinball game 100+ times in a single play session standing up for every game. That alone seems like an accomplishment. This was a very fun time, but exhausting, no doubt. The stream event went well and made some new pinfriends as well!
During the PGM 3rd Twitch Stream Birthday Party, we also ran a virtual pinball tournament for Fish Tales. We’ll recap the leaderboard for that on today’s Humpday Wednesday S2E3 stream.
Overhype for King Kong: Myth of Terror Island? Of course
It’s the internet in 2025 and of course there can be overhype for a new game. Yes, even a new Keith Elwin game and this past week I’ve seen some. Nothing wrong with customers that buy Kong being excited about their purchase, but when pinball media is called into cover a new game is it too much to ask to dial down the hyperbole? Comparing a game like King Kong at launch to an established game like Godzilla is silly. Wait until Kong has been out awhile, until the code is complete. I’ve read reports that the code as of this writing is at 0.80. That’s a long way from the 1.0 finish line. Keith Elwin himself has admitted there is much to be added to the game before it’s finished.
Here’s an idea: compare Kong at launch to other games at launch. There are plenty that are unfinished at launch to compare to, especially within the last year when the only game that has gone code complete is Metallica: Remastered.
Can list several examples, but check out this Wired article for starters: Stern Pinball’s Brand-New King Kong Game Is Totally Bananas | WIRED. I’m all for getting excited about Keith Elwin launched pinball games, the guy just keeps hitting it out of the playfield park, just wishing for some substance among these fluff pieces.
Skullbox686 Zaccaria Pinball of the week: Supersonic EM
Played Supersonic EM a fair amount and it’s definitely got that “just one more” feel. There is a ton of bounce around those brutal outlanes, frequently dropping on the wrong side, but that contributes to the charm.
Meanwhile, Magic Pixel cranked out another Thursday update on April 17 (https://steamcommunity.com/app/444930/allnews/), dropping another new deluxe pin: Moon Flight Deluxe, a 2011 unfinished project Gangsters and a mobile port of a game Wild Games.
These Thursday updates adding new games are great. Yes, you need to buy them, but if you have the Platinum Pack, it’s like less than a $1 per new game being added.
Has Steam always showed the total play stats for friends on games?
This might not be new at all, but I don’t remember Steam showing total play stats for games for friends next to time in the last two weeks.
Have these stats always been there? Pretty cool, I must say, it helps me at a glance see how much my friends are playing a game. In the above case, it’s Zaccaria, and a lot of hours are being poured into playing that lately .. and historically.
PGM Weekly Tournament Game: Knight Rider – Pinball FX
SEARCH ID# (will be updated here after tourney is created)
What’s Happening in Your last week of Pinball?
Your turn. What have you been up to the last week with pinball — real, virtual, whatever pinball you’re playing? What are you playing the most? What do you want to play that feel you’ve neglected, if anything? What news has happened that turned you on … or off? The comments await on anything pinball-related and/or stop by the live Humpday Wednesday Pinball stream from 6am-11am. We sometimes will start earlier, so watch for it at: https://www.twitch.tv/playgamesmoredotcom
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