Brisbane Pinball Adventures

Having a blast at Sunshine Coast Pinball!

It's been a while since I have done a good road trip! Last weekend Fiona and I headed up to Brisbane to attend a friend's wedding. We decided to drive up to give my new-to-me van a good road test. The advantage of this was that we could drive wherever we wanted to in and around Brisbane as well. I have read a lot about the pinball and arcade scene in Brisbane. It's huge. There are a lot of venues, a lot of operators, and a big competitive scene out there as well. Strange, for a relatively small capital city with half the population of Melbourne or Sydney. So, I decided to check out a couple of pinball locations that I had been wanted to see for a long time while I was there!
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The first place was 1UP Arcade in Morningside. I most recently saw this arcade featured in the Still Standing documentary. It looked fantastic. We rolled into the carpark on Friday just after midday, which gave us a good few hours to spend here before we had to check in to the hotel. The place looks unassuming on the outside, and sits in a small industrial complex on a fairly busy road. Once you walk into the building and past reception, however, you enter a huge warehouse space filled to the brim with games. The thing I remember is the heat I felt when walking into the room for the first time. All of those CRTs and lamps burning all day every day generate a huge amount of heat. So much so that you can actually feel it. It felt... beautiful. I wondered straight over to the wall of pinball machines to see what there was to play. 
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The wall of pinball. A beautiful sight.

1UP have a fantastic selection of pinball machines ranging from the 1970s to the modern day. Most of the collection at my time of visiting was focused on 90s machines, which was right in my wheelhouse. I actually made a conscious decision to avoid some of the popular games that I had played to death already like Terminator 2 (Williams, 1991), World Cup Soccer (Bally, 1994), The Addams Family (Bally, 1992) and Lethal Weapon 3 (Data East, 1992). This gave me time to dedicate to some of the more unusual games that I rarely get a chance to play. 

Having a blast on Banzai Run!

I had a good go of Banzai Run (Williams, 1988), Harley-Davidson (Bally, 1991), and Batman  (Data East, 1991). I love Banzai Run, and play it any chance I get. It's always a blast getting the ball up to the top of the upper playfield. I had never seen a Harley-Davidson before, so I was keen to give this one a go. It was really fun to play, and I actually enjoyed the street-level, simple style of playfield with no ramps and no complex mechanisms. It flowed really well with satisfying shots. I was really keen to play Bad Cats (Williams, 1989), but unfortunately it was down for the count. A couple of older Bally solid state games were also present and looked fantastic, with new playfields and new cabinet artwork, but I didn't have much time to play them.

The newest game in the place was Eight Ball Fury (Vector Pinball, 2023). This is an Australian made game by Jason from Pinball Classics under the name of Vector Pinball. The game's design reminds me a lot of Breakshot (Capcom, 1996) and Celts (Haggis Pinball, 2021). It's their first game, and is a simple playfield with drop targets and standup targets associated with a pool ball number. The basic premise is to knock down the drops, then hit the standups before the timer expires. A fun premise for sharpshooters, but I found it frustrating. The timer is relatively short, so if you don't make all of the shots the game resets to the beginning and you lose all of your progress. Other than that, the game looks nice and plays well.

Of course, I had to try my hand at a few of the arcades as well. I played a few classics like Galaga (Namco, 1981) and Space Invaders (Midway, 1978). It was great to experience some interesting control panel games like Heavy Barrel (Data East, 1987).

​Definitely stop in to 1UP if you are ever in Brisbane. We had to leave after four hours, but I could spend a few days in here easily.
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Spending some time on Galaga.

After the wedding, we drove back to Sydney via the Sunshine Coast. Of course, that gave us the opportunity to check out Sunshine Coast Pinball. This was an example of good timing, because Sunshine Coast Pinball had been open for several years but were about to close up shop for good. Their last day of operation happened to be the day we were driving back to Sydney! So, I had to make the most of the opportunity. Sunshine Coast Pinball had two walls lined with machines, which owner Vaughn Jones advised me was much less that what they had a few months ago before they started downsizing. But, that didn't mean I ran out of things to play! There were plenty of new Stern machines which were cool, but didn't hold my interest for long. Jaws (Stern, 2024) was the highlight of the new Sterns as I had not seen or played one before. It's a nice game, with lots of throwbacks to the original movie. The moving chum line target is a cool mechanism, too. It's a nice game but I don't have any particular attachment to the theme, so it's not one I'll play much of. 
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Sunshine Coast Pinball on closing night!

The 90s and earlier games were where I was excited to go! There were a few classic Williams games to play including Taxi (Williams, 1988) and Mousin' Around! (Williams, 1989). Taxi had some issues with the drop targets resetting, but was otherwise functional. I love hearing the bell topper go off. I had an absolute blast on Mousin' Around! It worked well, and I may have played more of it than any other game that night. Something about the simplicity of the shots and the cheesiness of the theme really makes it a fun game to play. I definitely want to own one someday. 

I had a cracker of a game on Congo (Williams, 1995) and got my name on the high score table. A few games of NBA Fastbreak (Bally, 1997) were also fun; it's a quirky game and a nice break from the typical pinball scoring and playfield layout. I played a few other favourites including Doctor Who (Bally, 1992) and Creature from the Black Lagoon (Bally, 1992). Some Dirty Harry (Williams, 1995), Baywatch (Sega, 1995) and Medieval Madness (Williams, 1997) rounded off the night nicely. 

It's unfortunate that this place had to close. It was a fantastic pinball location run by an owner who clearly is passionate about pinball. I'll always have respect for people who have the courage to open up a business venture as challenging as an arcade. It's certainly a labour of love!
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Having a cracker of a game on Congo!

Unfortunately that was all we could do on our short trip through Brisbane. I also wanted to visit Netherworld and Pinball Haus, however these two venues were both closed on Mondays, which was the only day we could have seen them. Maybe next time! All we had to look forward to for the rest of the day was the eleven-hour drive back home. Time to start planning for the next pinball road trip!