Passage IV

Pinball and Chance

[1]

Doesn’t anyone play pinball anymore? I was disappointed the other day when I took my kids to a game arcade. Afterwards, I went to the movies. Not one of the many colorful machines with flashing lights were a pinball machine. Video games filled the room.

[2]

[1] I can understand why video games might seem more attractive than pinball. [2] Video screens which have been populated by movie stars, monsters, and heroes. [3] You can blow up cities, escape from dungeons, and battle all sorts of villains. [4] Pinball machines, on the other hand, are essentially all the same. [5] Some machines are bigger and fancier than others, but the object of pinball never changes: you have to keep a steel ball in play long enough to rack up a high score and win a free game.(49)

[3]

The attractions of video games, however, are superficial and short-lived. As you guide your character through the game’s challenges, you come to know exactly how the machine that’s built to last will respond to your every move. He or she learns where the hazards lurk and the special weapons are hidden. Pinball, though, can’t be predicted with such accuracy. You never know when the ball will drain straight down the middle, out of reach of both flippers. Then again, you can sometimes get lucky, and a ball you thought was lost, will inexplicably bounce back into play.

[4]

It is the element of chance that makes pinball more interesting than video games. Most video games are designed so that your main opponent in these video games is a predictable computer program. Once you have mastered a game, the challenge is gone, and you must look for a new game to conquer. After you learn the new game, you get bored again. The cycle keeps repeating. But in pinball, you have three factors to consider: you, the machine, and chance, which is sometimes your enemy sometimes your ally. No matter how many games you play on any pinball machine, the various times of each game is different. That’s what makes pinball a continually challenge.