photo by ChazWags via Creative Commons

Pinball’s one of those classic activities that’s never lost its appeal, no matter how many other fancy, flashy games have come along to compete with it. When I was a kid it seemed like there was a pinball machine or two everywhere you went. These days you have to put a little more effort into looking, but they’re still out there and people still play. If you’re one of those people, you’re going to want to spend your weekend at the Seattle Center at the NW Pinball and Gameroom Show

For a mere $20 a day (or $50 for the whole three-day series), you get to play over 200 pinball machines plus classic video games, compete in a tournament, attend seminars on classic gaming and take part in a series of prize-awarding raffles. The pinball machine list is staggering–a few examples include the 1979 Classic Stem Dracula, the 1969 Bally Joust, the 1950 Gottlieb Bank-a-Ball and the 1998 Williams Monster Bash. If the names of games don’t mean anything to you, let me sum it up simply: there are over five decades’ worth of games and it’s worth the price of admission just to get a look at this historic progression.

In addition to the pinball machines, there will be classic old school video games on hand. Asteroids, Space Invaders, Defender, Frogger, Joust, Galaga, Q*bert, Tempest (one of my old favorites), Centipede and Donkey Kong…well, you would expect to see all of these, wouldn’t you? Reading the list of games I was excited to see games that don’t seem to get the retro-love today, games like Crystal Castles which I would play for hours and hours at Chuck E. Cheese back in 1983 when the game was fresh and new. Gravitar, Popeye, Sprint 2 (from 1976, two years before Space Invaders), Zookeeper and the so-bad-it’s good Journey game, featuring the images of the members of rock band Journey inserted awkwardly into a totally silly game.

The NW Pinball and Gameroom show kicks off today and runs through Sunday at the NW Rooms of the Seattle Center; check the website for details.