In the past year and a half or so I’ve become reacquainted with and obsessed with pinball. The game that got me back in was Stern Pinball’s Family Guy game. Stewie Pinball is awesome, and I generally loved the layout of the ramps, etc. In contrast, Stern’s Pirates of the Caribbean was also around, and I didn’t like it at all.

Any who, a few weeks ago they both went away - it was kind of a sad moment. However, Stern’s Shrek game was put in to replace them. While Shrek is not nearly amusing as Family Guy, especially the constant playing of the Smash Mouth “All Star” song, it is laid out exactly like Family Guy.

So, knowing everything in the game is a leg up - then, the game is just more generous : points seem larger, the ball saver (then Death, now Pinocchio) seems to stay up longer and it is certainly easier to maintain it, and the multi-balls seem to come more frequently. Put all that together and I can score WAY higher on Shrek. For example, before tonight, my highest score on Family Guy was approx. 79 million - on Shrek, 198 million … that beat 196 mil., and man was I irritated that I didn’t bust 200 mil. on that game.

Back to tonight - the first game I played was golden. It took me around half an hour for four balls totals (I earned my only extra on the 1st ball). Around the end of the 1st ball’s extra ball, I had approx. 203 mil.:


and here…

I “dropped the ball” on the 2nd ball, then finished off wonderfully on my 3rd ball. Final score…


also here…
That turned out to be approx.:

• 1a) 168M
• 1b) 35M
• 2) 10M
• 3) 126M

And I titled on 1a & 3 b/c the balls got stuck…. both of those were during Donkey (Stewie) Pinball - yes, I actually finished it a 2nd time, one letter at a time…

I’ll be amazed if I get anywhere near that again.