We’ve got two items for you on pinball today, one of which is a nice surprise. Let’s start with that one.
Weird Al’s Museum of Natural Hilarity Coming Soon
While I have covered the P3 Multimorphic Pinball platform before, I honestly have not kept up on it like I probably should. It’s a hybrid of video pinball with real targets, allowing owners to change out the games with relative ease. I’ve not heard of how these do in a commercial setting, apart from one being tested at a Dave & Busters before, and due to it’s unusual nature, knowing how it earns would be rather important before investing in one. It would also be nice to see them at a tradeshow that covers more than just pinball but I have no idea if they ever have plans to expand in that way.
I’ve read that collectors seem to enjoy it, but one thing it has lacked that tends to turn heads in the genre is a licensed theme. Until today.
Having grown up as a big Weird Al fan, this is something that really entices me, although it would be nice to find out more, such as which songs it’ll include. He has a larger-than-you-would-expect catalog of original music so I imagine it will feature more of those than the parody ones, although it would be nice to have a few of those parody songs. It’s definitely got elements from things like the UHF movie and the old Weird Al TV show, so it’ll please fans regardless. At the moment the website just says “Coming Soon,” as far as availability goes.
Cactus Canyon Remake Now Shipping
I saw from a few pages that I follow this weekend that Chicago Gaming’s Cactus Canyon Remake is finally shipping. As the name states, it’s a remake of Bally’s Cactus Canyon game, but the advantage it has is that it comes with modern tech (new computer, color display, warm, not-too-bright LED lights,etc.) but it also comes with completed code – something that the original never got to enjoy thanks to production being cut short due to dismal sales.
You can purchase this from any Chicago Gaming authorized pinball distributor, in case you are interested.
Much as I love “UHF” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHF_(film)) I think Weird Al isn’t the best choice for a pinball licence. I can see a lot of people passing the machine just not knowing who he is. I had a look at https://www.multimorphic.com/ as I’d not heard of it before, and it kind-of looks neither one thing or the other; it’s not a “proper” pinball table nor is it a virtual “screen only” one. I can’t see myself playing it much if it ever came to the UK. Just my 2 pence / 3 cents / 2 Euro cents…
Given that he has had Gold and Platinum selling songs spanning 4 decades (a very difficult and rare achievement in the music biz), I don’t think that there would be any problem with name recognition. That’s the brilliance of being a parody artist as versatile as him, he covers so many genres and songs that it broadens the appeal. He’s certainly got more of that going for him than some of the rock band themes out there, since he also has pop, rap, polka…
The P3 platform on the other hand, it’s hard to say how this will turn out. Hopefully it doesn’t suck, but I imagine that for Al to have given it his blessing, it’s not going to be terrible. Here’s hoping.