Want to Find Out Why This Pinball Is The Most Successful Of All Time?
The Addams Family pinball holds a cherished place in the hearts of many pinball enthusiasts, including our experts right here at the Games Room Company. Quite simply, it’s one of the most best selling pinball tables of all time, with over 20,000 units sold. It celebrated its 25th birthday at exactly this time last year, and here at the Games Room Company we’re lucky enough to have a special Gold Collectors’ edition in stock. With only 1000 of them in the world, it’s a true pinball treasure. Read on to find out why the original version alone is so valuable!
Truly Revolutionary – But Faithful To The Film
In many ways, the Addams Family Pinball table came at just the right time – it can arguably be said to have played a huge part in the game’s resurgence in the 1990s. Fans of the film naturally expected a game that was true to the spirit of the film, and we’re pleased to say they weren’t disappointed. The perfect marriage of theme and gameplay, the final game is wonderfully quirky, with a serious-but-spooky vibe that made the movie such a cinematic classic. The pinball even uses dialogue that was specifically recorded by the film’s cast for the game – you can’t get much more authentic than that!
As we’ve recently mentioned on the blog, the 1990s were a time when the video game market was truly booming. Instead of being cowed by that, the best pinball manufacturers were capitalising on the technological advances, and integrating them into their own games. The Addams Family lead the way in its use of these newest features – its dot matrix display is one example, and a modest artificial intelligence even plays its own role in gameplay. The table is also said to have popularised the ‘wizard mode’, even though it wasn’t the first machine to have it – it just goes to show the influence it had on the wider industry.
Groundbreaking Gameplay
Of course, while the characters of the Addams Family are appealing eccentric, they’d never be enough to carry their namesake pinball machine on their own, especially not to younger audiences all these years later. That honour goes to its much-lauded gameplay. The objectives of the game are twofold: firstly, players must explore the Mansion using the twelve windows in the centre of the playfield. Alongside that, they also need to hit the bookcase in the far right corner. Enough hits, and it will eventually unlock the Vault…
Just a few of the many features that made the game so beloved include its four-flipper layout, with a well-known shot through the bumpers (a trademark of its designer, Pat Lawlor). The gameplay has beautiful flow, with well-placed ramps leading naturally into one another, exemplifying one of the most glorious aspects of pinball: easy to pick up, and hard to master. One mini-flipper uses artificial intelligence to shoot a fascinatingly complex cross-playfield, with very little margin for error, while the Thing makes an appearance as a moving mechanical hand, which uses an in-built magnet to pick up the balls. On top of all that, the Addams Family has an enormous number of scoring modes, ensuring endless re-playability.
As you may have guessed, pinball tables are something of a forte of ours here at the Games Room Company. Other contemporary classics like the Twilight Zone pinball machine are just a few in our huge range of pinball machines for sale, Take a look round our website, and see if there’s anything you like – or alternatively, pop into our Weybridge showroom, and come see them for yourself!
