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BURGER
ME!
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Location: Guildford is about 20 miles north of Portsmouth, and about 40 miles south of London. It is on the A3 road, southbound from the M25 at junction 10 (Wisley). In its heyday, you might find pinball games in pubs, arcades, clubs, bowling alleys or the occasional "greasy spoon" café. You might not expect to find one in a church, bank or estate agents. Nor would you think of looking in one of the major burger chains, but look in the Burger King at Guildford and you'll find not one, but two pinball games. But let's get one thing straight. This is no ordinary Burger King.
(for a start, they've got the old logo outside). It's certainly a large branch of the chain, but it's decked out internally in Americana. The pinballs fit in well alongside a couple of video games. The car park is also the meeting place for American classic car enthusiasts. On the first Sunday of every month they meet and drive their vehicles round the lot in a celebration of US motoring history. But back to the pinballs. The current line-up is a Bally The Addams Family, and a Bally Attack From Mars.
Being a burger bar, this is very popular with families. There are plenty of small children running around and they all seem very interested in the pinball games. Unlike some arcades, here you find father and son playing pinball together (ah!).
There is a drawback to this, though. While it's good to encourage what might be the next generation of pinball players, they do have a tendency to want to press buttons at the most inopportune times. Trying to attack Mars while gently pushing tiny hands away from the start button adds a whole new dimension to the game. On the whole, it's a good chance to show off to a decent sized crowd, even if they can't actually see over the lockdown bar. Both games are priced at a flat rate of 3 games for £1 (3 balls). The AFM was the game of choice this time round. The flippers were rather weak, but all the shots were possible. The outlanes were set to maximum, but the replay score was low as a compensation. I hadn't been there for over a year, so it was rather surprising to find my high score was still Grand Champion (modesty forbids a photo of the display!). Both games were being played regularly and taking quite a lot of money on this Saturday lunchtime. The line-up has been unchanged for about 18 months now. Before that the AFM was preceded by a Medieval Madness. So, if you're headed to the south coast this is a good place to stop. And the burgers aren't bad either.
© Pinball News 2002 |
