Capcom Pinball's Big Bang Bar Review!

Here's one of the games I knew I wanted to play the most when I visited Flippers in North Carolina. It's a game that almost never happened but due to a little company called Pinball Manufacturing Inc, they where able to bring this game out for a small limited run. That game is Big Bang Bar!

In the mid 1990's Capcom had a pinball division made up by many ex Bally and Williams members. They only released four games, Airborn, Flipper Football, Pinball Magic and Breakshot. Three other games where in the works, a game called Redline Mania that never made it out of whitewood prototypes, Kingpin which only had 9 copies made and this game, Big Bang Bar which they only produced 14 units. Even though both Kingpin and Big Bang preformed well at trade shows Capcom decided to leave pinball and thus Big Bang never saw the light of day...until 2004.

Gene Cunningham opened up a company called Pinball Manufacturing Inc (PMI) and he was able to secure the rights from Capcom to reproduce Big Bang Bar. After a lot of hardship the games finally came out three years later in 2007. In all PMI produced 190 new Big Bang Bar machines. The one here at Flippers is the 9th unit handmade by the PMI team.

It's a shame that Capcom decided to shutter their pinball business. While I haven't gotten a chance to play Airborn yet I can say that Pinball Magic and Breakshot are a lot of fun while Flipper Football really isn't much of a pinball machine since it plays more like a soccer game based on time. (Wish I got a video of it when they had it at Modern Pinball!) If for some reason you ever see one of the 14 originals or one of the 190 reproductions make sure you try it! It's not as deep as other pinball machines but it's still a hell of a lot of fun.