Arcade Review #5 Dutch Pinball Museum

For some, a pinball machine is not an arcade machine, but pinball machines and arcade machines have always been close together. That’s why I’m writing a review about this. I’m with some regular customers of the arcade "The Zone" went on a school trip to beautiful Rotterdam… to sit inside all day. I have to say, what a fantastic harbor building for a pinball museum. So this is a museum like the arcade museum in Zoetermeer, you pay entrance and can play freely on everything (that is not behind a red ribbon). A day pass at the weekend costs €32, a 2-hour pass will cost you €18. Honestly, if you’re already making a long trip to be here, I recommend going for the day pass, in 2 hours you won’t even have touched every cupboard. And there are many, there are around 160 pinball machines here. That doesn’t mean that all 160 will work, but at least 120-130 of them will be playable at any time. Pinball machines are even more difficult to maintain than arcade machines, so that is certainly understandable. There is also a large parking garage not too far away, but since it is the Netherlands, you will have to pay something for this.

When you walk into the store and pass the pleasant owner who is sitting at the cash register, you enter the real museum part of the store. Here are the history of pinball and also some very expensive and exclusive cabinets. Definitely interesting to walk through and read the signs. If the gentleman at the front has the time, he will certainly be willing to give you some explanation if you are interested in something. They also have a one-of-a-kind transparent pinball so you can see how such a thing is put together. I was there now with the owner of that other arcade I wrote about before "The Zone" and he put in a good word for us, allowing us to play on the 007 anniversary edition with a few people. Quite unique cabinet of which only 500 were made and it has an authentic roller system to keep track of your score.

Once past the Museum section, you will have an area on the left where you can eat and drink something small, which is logically not allowed in the rest of the building. On the right you will find some lockers and coat racks, but there are not that many. If you come a little later in the day everything will be full. After a nice staircase full of quotes, you enter the place you really came for. Here where all the pinball machines are located. However, don’t forget to look at what else is there because the store is very nicely decorated with various memorabilia that has something to do with the theme of the cabinets or simply tidbits that have a link with pinball.

For my own convenience, I am going to divide the pinball cabinets into different categories and if you ever visit them yourself, you will have to decide for yourself what you want to play on. I do this because even though the cabinets are somewhat divided by theme, there is a fair difference in quality if you don’t care about the themes of the cabinets.

De Stern pinballs

Stern is the company that saved pinball from extinction. They have modernized it and it is now considered the standard in pinball. They focus entirely on making cabinets that are connected to well-known IPs. They have made cabinets of bands such as The Beatles and The Foo Fighters, but also of well-known franchises and films such as King Kong, Stranger Things, Deadpool, Venom, Godzilla, Dungeons & Dragons and recently they were the first in Europe to inaugurate the very latest Pokemon Pinball. Stern has an ingenious system where you can log in to their cabinets via an app with a QR code and take all your high scores with you everywhere while you unlock achievements. With their latest Pokemon cabinet you can collect a lot of Pokemon (if you can play pinball a bit) and since these cabinets are connected to the internet, they also receive updates all the time, allowing more and more content to be added in the form of more Pokemon, new missions, etc. The nice thing about their app is that it also gives the opportunity to display leaderboards, there is a large screen in this store where you can view all the top 10’s of the Stern cabinets. These are reset annually, but in The Zone, for example, they have monthly leaderboards.

The competition

Jersey Jack Pinball is by far Stern’s biggest competitor. The cabinets they release are more expensive and more complex. Which also translates to a more impressive playing field. They have cabinets such as Toy Story, Avatar, Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. The game itself is a bit more difficult, but they look fun and are often considered the best pinball machines available to play. The only pity is that they don’t have an app like Stern, which is something they only put in their cupboards. They also don’t release as many cabinets as Stern so there is less variety. There are also smaller companies that make nice cabinets such as Spooky Pinball and Dutch Pinball with a very beautiful Alice in Wonderland cabinet and The Big Lebowski which is in a separate room. The cupboard even contains a bowling alley with which you can throw a strike if you aim the ball correctly.

From classics

These are the pinball machines that everyone knows from the past, they look a bit simpler and they will mainly be Bally and Williams machines. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t good games! The Addams Family, Indiana Jones, Twilight Zone, Theater of Magic and the like are certainly fantastic films that can hold their own against some contemporary Stern films. Of course, there are also cabinets that are nice for a while but are not wow. Nice if you are a fan of the franchise, of course. You have The Matrix, Terminator, Batman, Godzilla, Space Invaders, Rocky and many others. There are also a lot of cabinets with a band or singer as a theme. Dolly Parton, Elvis, Kiss etc. I personally don’t have much interest in these types of cabinets and they usually attract a certain older audience. I previously thought the Funhouse with the moving head was a cool cabinet. Also an honorable mention for the Starship Troopers cabinet, which you should definitely try if you are a fan of Helldivers 2. The only downside, and that ischgt to the cabinet is that the playing field at the back is quite dark, making it difficult to see what is happening at the back of the cabinet.

Conclusion

If you’re a fan of pinball and are looking for the perfect day trip, look no further. This is where you need to be! You won’t easily find a place with a bigger and better collection than here. And they are constantly adding new pinballs to their collection. Now, I have to be honest, sometimes it’s quantity over quality. Not all cabinets are great and not all are perfectly adjusted, which can make it difficult to hit certain shots correctly. However, that does not take away from the quality of the case itself. Cabinets are also continuously fixed or put out of action. However, there is just so much choice that it doesn’t matter if a few cabinets don’t work or play less well than others.

In the morning it was nice and quiet so you could play freely on everything. Around noon it became a bit busier, so sometimes you couldn’t immediately play the game that had just caught your eye. But then you just wait a while or ask if you can’t participate in a game. In the evening it was just fun again. In short, make it a day trip and then have a nice meal in Rotterdam, which is certainly what we did with the group.

Final score

I’m just going to give this thing a 9.9/10 purely on the pinball part. Although I am not in favor of the "a 10 does not exist" crowd, there is always room for some improvement in terms of adjustment of the cabinets or some more pinballs, but that is actually just bullshit because on such a scale it is simply not really feasible. Whether this place is an arcade/museum or not depends on what you consider an arcade machine. But you put a coin in the pinball machine to play a game where you can get a high score and it has 2 buttons. Anyway, here’s a link to their site: https://dutchpinballmuseum.com/ If you click a little further you can see their entire collection.

Next review

I think I’ll drive by The Gaming Factory in Tilburg soon. I would also like to visit Activ in Tongeren, but apparently you have to be lucky that they are already open. We’ll see. And perhaps Atom City in Lille next month and perhaps also the Game-Inn in Waregem. There’s still a lot to play!

Previous reviews:

Gamestate (Antwerp): 3/10 https://www.reddit.com/r/belgium/comments/1o3vu9r/arcade_review_gamestate_antwerpen/

The Zone (Pole): 8.5/10 https://www.reddit.com/r/belgium/comments/1oi6dvp/arcade_review_the_zone_paal/

National Video Game Museum (Zoetermeer NL): 9.9/10 https://www.reddit.com/r/belgium/comments/1owte4l/arcade_review_on_tour_nationaal_videogame_museum/

Free Play (Lanaken): 8.5/10 https://www.reddit.com/r/belgium/comments/1pq06jg/arcade_review_4_free_play_lanaken/