Tacoma Trip

GAMERS DELIGHT: On Sunday, we made our annual trip down to Tacoma for the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show. 

CJ will tell you a bit more about it. ... 

From May 31st of this year to June 2nd, the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show was held at the Tacoma Convention Center. The event has been held annually since 2008, so this year marked the 12th iteration of the event.

As with previous iterations, there were over 400 different pinball and arcade machines, according to the event's official website. The machines themselves were held in a large auditorium, where countless attendees (likely more than the number of games) played the plethora of games available. Many of the machines from the previous events (example: Joust) returned from previous Pinball and Arcade Shows, while other machines (such as Contra) were newcomers.

I played a few games, but truth be told, I'm really more interested in the artwork on the machines.

This old "Faces" pin has always been a favorite. 

This year I noticed a couple of vintage pinball machines that seemed to be made to try to appeal to female players, like this Flip a Card machine (1970).

 Who wouldn't want to hang out with those groovy girls?

 This bumper with a typist on it cracked me up.

And this snow-racing themed pin seems to be urging girls to get in on the competition.

Naturally, there are also always PLENTY of pins that are trying to appeal to hetero males.  Annabelle took one look at this machine's artwork and said, "That's not how a shirt's fabric works." Astute observation.

 Not sure exactly to whom Alien Poker was supposed to appeal.

 Bizarre.

I'm always interested in checking out games I've never seen before. One such case this year was this one, Chicken Shift. It had an interesting game play concept. You used two controllers to flip levers to get eggs into crates and such. 

We watched a pair of guys play it for awhile before Christian gave it a go. It looks so simple, but it actually gets pretty tricky pretty quickly.

While Chicken Shift was an old (1984) game we'd never seen before, there are always brand new games at the show, as well.  One was a Primus pinball machine. 

I really don't like the band Primus, after whom the machine is themed, but I did like this pin. I loved its old school analog/rolling counter. (I am weary of newfangled digital machines where even terrible players score 47,000,000 points in a round. It's ridiculous.)

I also liked the Primus plunger.

Turns out there were only 100 of these machines made. Each one is autographed by all of the band members.

CJ played the enormous Hercules. The pinball was the size of a pool ball.

I think my favorite game of the day was the re-imagined PONG. Lordy, how many hours I spent playing that in my youth, when the oh-so-simple game was 'cutting edge.'

This new 3D-version is fun, with game play just like the old school one.

All in all, the show was a very fun way to spend a couple of hours.

OPEN AT LAST: We made a stop for lunch after the show, finally getting to check out the new McMenamins Elks Temple, on the Tacoma waterfront.

Over ten years in the making, this place is five floors of "WOW!"

We didn't come close to seeing all of it. This visit was limited to their front lobby (complete with an eclectic collection of regal chairs and couches).

And we only saw a little of the artwork on site.  

The place as absolutely crawling with people. We'll go back on a more sedate day to check it out from top to bottom.