Pinball Wizard Arcade review

The Pinball Wizard Arcade
150 Bridge Street (Rt. 38) Unit P, Pelham, NH 03076

I think it’s safe to say that pinball wizards don’t go to The Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, NH.

Sorry, forget my camera when I went there on Wednesday, so you will have to settle for the google maps pic above. As you can see, it is located in a mini strip mall. The entrance is in the corner. A Dunkin’ Donuts, a pizza store, and a Chinese restaurant, all live in this strip mall, so you will not go hungry or become caffeine deficient if you plan on staying all day.

If you are traveling to The Pinball Wizard Arcade from Route 3, you will need to slog through the horrendous traffic of Lowell, perhaps the most hideously awful eyesore in Massachusetts. When you’re going over the river, make sure you get in the right lane and stay in it, no matter how many inches per hour you move across this bridge. Do not be seduced by the much faster moving traffic in the left lane! If you are in the left lane, you will be forced down a road that you really, really do not want to be on.

Don’t believe the good reviews you’ve read about this place. These people don’t understand pinball. Real pinball machines have their replay values either printed on the machine or displayed by the machine when one presses a flipper. Many of the pinball machines at The Pinball Wizard Arcade don’t have replay values listed on the machine, and the replay value cannot be obtained by pressing a flipper. I pressed a flipper on one machine to get a replay value, and it said “0.” This machine had been doctored. I believe all the machines had been doctored. The machines that did have replay values had astronomically large replay values that are unachievable. One other important feature doctored away from the pinball machines that I tried was the “match,” the opportunity to win a free game, through a matching of numbers that are chosen randomly by the machine. Taking away the ability to get a free game, either through skill or by chance sucks all the fun out of pinball. It is like playing poker with play money. The only pinball machines worth playing at The Pinball Wizard Arcade were priced at either .50 cents or .75 cents. This is a lot of money to pay for a pseudo pinball experience!

The only thing good about The Pinball Wizard Arcade is the video games. They had some good games, in reasonably good condition, considering their age. The price of the non-shooting video games is a quarter.

The Pinball Wizard Arcade is greedy. Yes, they have the newest pinball games, but you’re not getting the Cadillac; you’re getting the Chevette pinball experience.

Don’t be a victim of The Pinball Wizard Arcade’s tinkering. Go to Funspot instead. While the Funspot pinball selection is not quite as good, you’ll have much more fun there, because they have real, non-doctored pinball machines. They’re also cheaper, at only a quarter a game. Funspot also has a larger video game selection. If you’re coming up Route 3 and decide to bypass The Pinball Wizard Arcade, you’ll be adding another 80 miles your trip, but at least you won’t have to crawl through god-awful Lowell. You couldn’t pay me to go back to The Pinball Wizard Arcade.