Zapcon 2015 - Day Two Pinball Wizard

For the second day of Zapcon I suggested to my significant other - Vanessa that she should come along. While hesitant due to her relative lack of gaming skills and perceived “dude’s day out” she relented and eagerly tagged along. Day two will be a bit of a couples outing conquering some games together and competing to see who will wear the pants in the relationship. Neither of us are very fond of pants so there may be some attempts at throwing matches to avoid wearing them.

Zapcon 2015 - Day One the Wizard

When arcades first started, pinball machines dominated. Then came Pong and its ilk that drove out most pinball from the arcades. Home consoles started matching and eventually exceeding the power of arcade video games, causing most arcades to shutter. I grew up in a time when there was a resurgence of arcades thanks to Street Fighter II and the fighting game explosion it created. However I didn’t frequent the arcades as much as I’d like on the basis that I lacked income and a vehicle on account of my very young age.

Pinball was still not generating the revenue that video game arcades were doing but it hadn’t died completely. That is why I’m glad that conventions like Zapcon exist. Here is a new annual event that takes machines, both pinball and video game, from collectors and vendors and allows people to experience some of the classics and even some of the obscure titles from the dimly lit arena of arcades past.