Something I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned on this blog is that I love pinball. At the same time, I’m also bad enough at pinball that I’ve never really considered reviewing a table.
That said, my brother has gotten really into pinball over the last few months, so when he invited me down to Capital Pinball in Concord NH, I jumped at the chance to hang out and spend the day just playing a bunch of different tables.
Anyway, that’s how I ended up at Capital Pinball.
Location:
70 Pembroke Road
Concord, NH 03301
Price:
$15 per person per day, no additional fee for any table.
$50 for a monthly membership. (I believe members have 24 hour access to the venue, with the expectation of being good stewards of the space.)
Hours:
Fridays 6pm-10pm and Publicly Posted events
Note: It’s probably a good idea to double check the hours!
The Venue
Capital Pinball is perhaps the only pinball place I’ve ever been to that I’d describe as cozy. The building it’s located in feels like a Phasmaphobia map, or maybe HL2’s Nova Prospect. Despite that, the actual room for Capital Pinball is lovely, with a few comfy chairs, and a set of fairy lights strung around the room so that games can be played without glare.
Of course, someplace like that is still only going to be as good as the tables. Fortunately for me, all of the tables are great.
The Tables
Despite not having my personal favorite table (Medieval Madness), I got a chance to play on a bunch of great ones, including my second favorite, Attack from Mars. I like Attack from Mars as a table mostly for how simple it is, being maybe the only self explanatory table I know of.
Attack from Mars was also one of the only two older tables I played while at Capital Pinball, the other being Theatre of Magic.
Most of our time was instead spent on more modern tables, including a Jurassic Park table which I don’t have the exact model of, and Dungeons and Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye.
The D&D table is actually quite interesting to me, mostly for the ability save your character and campaign progression between games via a phone app. It’s an interesting feature, and while I don’t actually enjoy the table as much as others, I do find it really interesting from a gameplay perspective.
The other two tables we played a bunch of were Jaws, and Avengers: Infinity Quest. While I was a bit leery of Avengers because of the license, it actually turned out be a great table, and I’d like to play it more. I’m more lukewarm on Jaws, not because I think it’s bad, but because I had a hard time parsing what I was supposed to be doing.
Of course, this is less than half of the total number of tables available.
Overall
Capital Pinball was great, and I’d definitely go back. I don’t know that I’d want to go at a particularly busy time, where it might end up feeling a bit cramped, but it was awesome to just to get to grind attempt after attempt on all of these tables, and I’ll probably try to convince a few more friends to come down with me next time.
P.S. My brother tried to start a new game before I could take this photo of me kicking his ass at Attack from Mars, but I got it anyway.
Get dunked on buddy.