1978 Bally
Bobby Orr
"Power Play"
Random Thoughts and Pictures
Jeffrey Zweizig Jeff Zweizig Jeffrey Zweizig Jeff Zweizig
I acquired this game from a friend of a friend of a friend in May, 2007. My interest in Power Play goes back a few years to when I first started going to pinball shows and discovered Mara Hari. I like Bally games from this era and liked the symmetrical playfield layout of drop target banks. After a little research, I also discovered two similar games in Night Rider and Power Play. Having had the opportunity to play all three machines, I decided I liked Power Play the best with its arrangement of four flippers and center "Play-More" post. I'm mostly indifferent to Power Play's theme. I could care less about Bobby Orr, ice hockey or sports in general. Nevertheless, it is a colorful game, has a mirrored backglass and is pleasing to look at. Who doesn't like red, white and blue? 
Cosmetically this game arrived in excellent condition. The glass has only minor flaking around the edges and a few small scratches. The playfield has the usual three wear spots in front of the kickout saucer and slingshots. However, the spots are small, barely noticeable and covered with Mylar patches. There's the tiniest hint of insert wear. The top left plastic has a chipped corner. And that's about it. This is the kind of game you have to stare at for a minute or two before you start noticing the imperfections. 
I consider myself to be a solid-state person. But early attempts at solid-state sound were pretty pathetic. Although Power Play is a solid-state game, it still employs an old-school mechanical chime unit for sound. This is one of the coolest features of the game. The chimes are far more charming then what was to come. 
 
The game came with a modern Alltek "Ultimate MPU" board as well as a modern rectifier board. One of the score display modules was also replaced with a modern offering from PinLED. The remaining original boards and wiring appear to be intact and un-hacked. The right coin acceptor and the cash box were missing and the game was ready for a thorough going over. But what a great starting point! Drop target games don't lend themselves well to memory recall. And granted the software possibilities of the new solid state technology were still in their infancy. But Power Play completely fails to take any advantage of the features offered by the new solid state technology. Power Play "feels" like an EM game. The digital score displays are the only hint that you're playing a solid state game. I suppose that the game designers were still thinking in terms of EM and that their EM ideas were simply translated to the new solid state architecture. But interestingly, an EM version of Power Play was not produced. Many other solid state games from this era did have a low-production EM counterpart such as Black Jack, Evel Knievel and Mata Hari. I believe that Power Play is the only Bally transition era game that plays like an EM, but does not have an EM counterpart. 
Drop Targets: blue or red? Apparently blue is the "official" color for Power Play drop targets. But I've seen just as many games with red. Mine is red. Even the Power Play promotional flyer shows red. I think I'll stick with red. |