The Boardwalk in El Cajon now has The Sopranos pinball. I managed to play for close to ninety two tokens, and finally had to leave with two credits on the machine. Helps that I hit the special twice. Also helped that I earned the high score twice, earning two free games. And as is usually the case when they get a new game in, the score requirement for a free game was quite low. And being one of the first players to take a run at it, I managed to get the "grand champion," #1, and #4 rankings on the high score list (probably won't last long, though I still have a high score on the Elvis pinball).

The game is pretty fun. The eight-ramp set-up seemed a bit simple, but after playing awhile it's a bit more complicated than it looks. Not a great deal more, but requires just enough strategy to keep things interesting. I found the game a bit too easy, especially the safe shot, which is pretty easy to make over and over again, quickly getting promoted up to "underboss." In this, my very first playing session, I very nearly completed the game, just needing to complete one more episode to light everything to begin "boss" mode. It usually takes me a long time to get close to the "wizard mode," and for many games I've played a lot I never had (I don't claim to be a pinball genius, just slightly more skilled--or at least more persistent--than the average player...but much like with my bowling ability, I'm wildly inconsistent). I don't know if they have the game set on an easy mode, or if it's just not that challenging. I guess the latter, since the game has an "adult language mode" (not on at the family arcade I was playing at), and they no doubt assume a fair number of players will be tore up. But even if the game isn't perfect, and could be more challenging, I found my initial exposure to the game very fun (I doubt it will have a great deal of replay value).

Pinball News, as usual, has a nice, in-depth review of The Sopranos pinball. A brief comment in that review led me to seek out this look back at Medieval Madness, which confirms that Miss Tina Fey of SNL fame provided some of the voices for that game (along with other members of Second City). Learn something new every day.