Craig Pullen, UK PInball Champion, takes us through how essential it is to be able to hit your shots with accuracy. He demonstrates a number of shots and explains what's possible. Practice, practice, practice is what's needed to perfect your game and notice a significant difference.
Written By: Andy Beresford
Video Transcription:
So I thought I would quickly outline the things that I think are really important in terms of being a good pinball player. The first thing, I think, is accuracy. If I was the most accurate player in the world, then I'd be the best pinball player in the world. If you don't miss a shot, if you're aiming for this ramp up here and you can hit it 100% of the time or you're aiming for this spinner shot and you can hit it 100% of the time without missing a single shot then you're going to be the best pinball player in the world.
So I think that we'll just briefly talk about accuracy and how that is kind of a changeable thing, each pinball machine plays differently. Two 'Star Treks', even if we have another 'Star Trek' set next to this one, it would play very differently to the way that this one plays. What you need to be able to do is you need to be able to adapt and you need to be able to feel where those shots are, and it takes a bit of time.
To be more accurate, you need to understand that it's slightly earlier or slightly later in terms of where that you're shooting the ball, OK? I'll just start a game up and we'll just kind of briefly talk about where and how early you need to hit the ball or how late you need to hit the ball in terms of hitting certain shots. We'll just get the ball, and I'll just kind of put it over here.
For example, let's say we want to hit this spinner shot, OK? I know that if I drop the ball down and hit it at the end of the flipper here, then the ball is going to be kind of in that right direction. But what we need to do is, if it's too late, then the ball's always going to go here or if it's too early, then it's going to go slightly up here. We need to understand and feel where that shot is. So we'll have a go. OK, so I was slightly too early. It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't exactly right so we'll try again on the spinner. OK, so we managed to make the spinner shot there.
Now the other thing is, as well, that's really important, it's a highlight is, this left flipper, you're thinking 'OK, so these are the shots to make on the left flipper; the right ramp and the right spinner.' But in fact, actually, with the left flipper or the right flipper, we can make a number of more shots by doing something called a backhand, OK.
So you don't always need to do the forehand, which would be this side of the play-field. We can actually backhand shots as well. For example, if I want to try and hit this spinner shot it is actually makeable off of this left flipper. So we'll give it a go. Obviously we're going to have to hit it very early in order to hit the ball up the spinner lane. So we'll give it a go. I actually hit it too early there and that's why the ball went and hit this target rather than hitting the spinner lane.
OK, I'll just demonstrate that one more time; see if we can do that. So the ball is trapped here on the left flipper and we're going to try and shoot this spinner off of the left flipper. So there we go. You can see, actually, you can make the shot off of either flipper. It doesn't necessarily just need to be this flipper here. It's actually quite a bit more difficult, but it possible to shoot this right ramp here off of this flipper as well. So we'll give that one a go. There we go.
That's why pinball is so important in terms of accuracy. You need to be able to understand that you can make different shots using different flippers. I'm sorry, we'll just get that back. This one's another particularly important shot in the game, but it's also very hard. So you've got to leave it right on the tip of the flipper in order to make this lock shot, and you do have to leave the ball very late. So we'll give that one a go. Again, I hit that one too early in order to make the lock shot. We'll try again on this flipper. I need to leave it even later. OK, again, too early. Try later, too early, too early, OK. We'll just make sure that we can make that shot. OK, so that was actually too late. I left that one a little bit too late on the flipper, rattle, too late, and there we go.
There's no real method to it in terms of accuracy. It's just a case of finding where the shot is. For example this left ramp, I was playing this one a bit early and I can continually shoot that one off of this left flipper which is probably not the flipper that you were thinking you'd make that shot off. You're thinking, oh, I'd do it on the right flipper. But in fact, actually, it's probably easier to make it off the left flipper. That's why each machine is so different to play.
I think that what I'm basically saying here is, accuracy is so integral in terms of being a good pinball player and it only really comes with lots and lots of practice. So don't get too frustrated with it. It takes time in terms of finding the right shots, in terms of finding where the right shots are, and as I play a bit later, you will actually see that I'm not a bad pinball player but I will still miss, as you saw on this lock shot. I was hitting this too early, and then I was hitting it too late. It's just about kind of finding where the right feel is.
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