Space City Pinball League Season 6 Week 4: Tilt switch madness

Note: Due to recent events, Shawn no longer recommends participation in Space City Pinball League events until further notice. Please see the Bayou City Pinball League website for alternatives.

The games this week: AC/DC, Star Wars, Medieval Madness, Transformers, Metallica, Star Trek, The Walking Dead. My group mates this week: Erich Stinson, Ken Graham, and David Pollock. Yes, the same David Pollock that, just the previous Saturday, placed fourth in the Texas Pinball League qualifier for Houston. Would he do as well this time around? Would I get some form of redemption for the performance that, in all likelihood, stunk up Austin Knight’s house well into Sunday morning?

We would begin the night on Metallica. If I remember right I didn’t get much going in the way of multiballs, but I did wind up putting up a quite respectable 19.9M+ good for second place to Erich’s 24.0M+ (the score was before he plunged his third ball which is why it still shows ball 3). And for the curious, David came in last.

Next up would be Transformers. I had what I felt was a decent game. I did get a couple of multiball rounds going but didn’t really make as much of them as I’d have liked. Erich, on the other hand, blew it open with a 19.7M+. I would sign off with 9.3M+ good for second. Ken would eek out third with a 3.868M+ over David’s last-place 3.795M+. So I’m up to two second-place finishes on the night. Not too bad.

We would continue on AC/DC. I put up a 23.5M+ which ordinarily would be a decent score. Ken made a contest of it with a score of 35.8M+, which Erich would top to take first place. David, once again, finishes last with a 6.8M+. For me, two seconds and a third, which is eight standings points after three games. Not too shabby, all things considered.

Our fourth game would be Star Wars. This is a game I barely know what the hell I’m doing on. I managed to eek out a third place with a 133.7M+ over Ken’s 129.9M+. That’s not a huge score margin on this very high-scoring game. Erich, of course, would take yet another first place with a 533.6M+ (it never was a close game at least as far as first place was concerned) and David would finally finish out of last with a 220.0M+ good for second. I have two seconds, two thirds, which totals 10 standings points with one game left to go.

Finally, last and certainly least, is Medieval Madness. Again, this game is set to a ridiculously tight tilt, tighter than it’s ever been. So much so that when David nonchalantly decides to move the game over a few inches before starting, it tilts on him as soon as he launches the ball. We start the game over.

Amazingly, despite my normally just plain terrible luck on this game, I get through the entire game with only one tilt warning and a 13.6M+ score, good for second behind Erich’s 23.5M+. David would eek out a third with 5.7M+. I finish with 13 standings points. Erich took first place across the board and becomes the first player this season to pick up a perfect 25 standings points in one night. (Of course, he had to be in my group when he did it…)

It’s not like I did that poorly. I think the 13 standings points do not tell the whole story, just that another player or two in the group was/were able to outscore me every game. I’ve done better on just about all of these games (Medieval Madness being the exception), but it’s not like any of the scores I put up are shamefully bad. I’ve been the guy finishing with 10 or fewer standings points on the night like David did (with a total of eight), so I know how it feels. In a way, I’d rather have laid an egg tonight and done better at the Texas Pinball League qualifier than the other way around. The way things actually happened, though, at least I am not distracted by the imminent Texas Pinball League final while trying to qualify for A division in Space City Pinball League.