The Top Twelve Most Insane Custom Pinball Machines

Custom Metallica Pinball Machine

Editor's Note: This is an old article and it is funny to see a few of these became actually produced for real.

So what do you do when you have extra time on your hands? My mother likes to go to Party Bingo, some people spent time watching television, reading books, playing with their kids.

But then there are a special category of people that are driven to do special things with their free time. They are goal-driven and talented people and frankly different from most of us.

Those are the people that I would like to highlight today.

Custom Pinball Machines for the Ages

In the game room world, these kind of folks might make custom pinball machines.

A custom pinball machine is a one-of-a-kind machine. Often featuring a theme that is outrageous or unlikely to ever be featured in a mainstream pinball machine from Stern, Jersey Jack, or anyone else.

Typically these custom machines use a production machine as their base canvas. Then they go about recreating playfield art, cabinet art, playfield plastics, and in more extreme cases — new sounds, DMD animations, and more.

So let’s go through the list of The GameRoom Blog Top Custom Pinball Machines of All Time (well at least up until today).!

Note these are in no special order as they are all awesome.

Ghostbusters

It’s surprising that there never was a “real” Ghostbusters pinball machine made. This one will have to do for now…until the inevitable Ghostbusters sequel comes out eventually.

Rush

Legend has it that this was actually owned originally by Alec Lifeson, the Rush virtuoso guitarist himself. Later is ended up in the hands of pinball collector.

Custom Rush Pinball

Skittles

This may not be the greatest custom pinball machine. But I think Skittles deserves high praise for incorporating it within a great marketing campaign. And who does not appreciate the bizarre stylings of Keith Apicary.

The Evil Dead

Hollywood Heat is a neat game trapped in a fugly and dated skin. So what to do? Customize it!

The spinning backglass is inspired and the overall look of this game is very sharp.

The Three Stooges

This one now resides in the Three Stooges Museum. That is good enough for me!

Batman Pinball 2000

What an undertaking. This is not just a “re-skinning” and superficial touches. Adding holographic Pinball 2000 effects is not something most people would take on.

Pinball 2000 Batman Pinball

Black Hole 2 Cosmic Chaos

I like this angle. Forget about tweaking the art or theme, but just take a cool old game and make it cooler!

Metallica

What happens when a true artist works on a creating a custom pinball machine? Something amazing…that is what.

Futurama

Stern has given us a Family Guy pinball machine and a Simpsons pinball machine. Clearly they forgot about Futurama.

The Addams Family: The Widebody Edition

I could list a ton of other projects done by George from Germany, as he has made some other amazing custom games. His TAF machine is one of my favorites. The topper alone is worthy of accolades.

For more of George’s amazing games go to: http://www.specialpinball.com.

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