#53 Eight Ball Champ - The Classic Pinball Podcast
The guys start with thoughts on the newest games: Mandolorian and Fathom. They then review Eight Ball Champ and play a few games. Bonus Feature: 4 Square by Gottlieb.
Kineticist’s take
Deep dive into Eight Ball Champ: design, restoration, mechanics, and comparison to Eight Ball Deluxe.
Synopsis
George and Dave from The The Classic Pinball Podcast discuss the 1985 Bally Eight Ball Champ, a pool-themed shooter's game designed by George Christian. They explore its history, mechanical differences from Eight Ball Deluxe (including custom flipper modifications, 6803 control board architecture, and sound board flexibility), restoration details on Dave's example machine, and gameplay mechanics including the CHAMP lane change feature and upper flipper utility. They also briefly address pricing inflation for vintage games and mention the upcoming Mandalorian pinball machine.
Entities
- Bally/Midway· company
- Haggis Pinball· company
- Williams· company
- Eight Ball Champ· game
- Eight Ball Deluxe· game
- Fathom· game
- Mandalorian· game
- Pinside· organization
- The Classic Pinball Podcast· organization
- Buddy Cianci· person
- Crazy Levi (or Crazy Levy)· person
- Dave· person
- George· person
- George Christian· person
- Grant· person
- Jack· person
- Maureen· person
- Mike Sandler· person
- Suzanne Ciani· person
- Tommy Skinner· person
- Tony Ramone· person
- Fathom Revisited· product
- Grogu· product