the Sopranos machine at Mathews,,,,,

Mathew's bar is for regulars.   I mean, the guys who come in at ten o'clock on the dot to get it done right.   I walked in and every eye shot to me.    every guy in the place seemed to know each other and knew i was just there to play pinball.   well, i was.   and i got the highest human score on the board!   dudes were pissed.  

I went in on the fifteenth of December cause a friend told me thats when all the guys getting benefits get their check.   sure enough, the place was packed.   the bouncer told me he had the best machine in town.    he also came to check on my progress three times during the half hour i was there......

the machine was in fact, awesome.   i'll be back to play it.   

I thought for sure that this machine was going to be dilapitated and crooked, but to my delight it was fast, acurate, challenging and out right fun to play.   for two bucks you get five games - i also got two free replays out of it making it a very affordable machine to get into.

Check out the strip joint in the top left hand corner.....
the trucks that you rob throughout the game in the top right.....
in the upper center is the safe you repeatedly rob.

As you might expect, the point of the game is to climb the ranks of the mafia from grunt to top-boss - you do this by completing tasks: selling stolen goods, offing people, exchanging money and my favorite, managing a strip joint.   there are lots of profanities and random acts of violence in the gameplay, but its pretty mild really.  

I killed it.  on my third game i scored the highest human score that the machine had played.   it was like walking on water.    zen and the art of pinball.   magic. 

In all honesty, Mathews Pub was quite a lovely spot.    I grew up at Bruno and Rico's up in Belfast and have grown to appreciate an establishment like Mathews.   Though its got a bad rap, the bar was clean and had new jukeboxes and a dance floor - not to mention the pinball machine was top-notch.

Now i just have to beat the computer score.........