Mike Remembers: F-14 was a fixture at the Games Room on Rideau street, and when I first played it I was blown away by the speed and incredibly fast flow of this game. Of course within a year, this was the norm, but at the time it was like hearing Eddie Van Halen for the first time before everyone else was trying to play like him too.
Four ball multi-ball, four flippers an three police lights on top, the crazy kickback feature, ball save, advanced background music and callouts, this really was a groundbreaking machine, and to this day still plays faster than most games out there.
This was the first pin I ever laid eyes on, at age 11 at a 1950s-styled diner in a less-populated region of Burlington, ON. Prior to visiting the diner with my aunt, my only experiences with pinball had been on my mom’s Windows XP desktop in her home office, which bored and homeschooled me pores over for hours, striving to beat my own Space Cadet 3D Pinball scores. Because my pinball experience had been limited to the digital realm, I was shocked to learn that Space Cadet was evidently based on a real life type of arcade machine, and wasn’t just a computer game.
The giant fighter jet backglass with its three beacons stood out to me immediately, and I just had to beg my aunt for a coin and rush over to play it. My 3-ball game was over in seconds as, without my precious computer keyboard, I quickly discovered I was useless at playing the real deal. I didn’t want to bother my aunt for another coin, and hence didn’t touch a pinball machine for years afterwards.
10 years later, I frequent the Ottawa Pinball Arcade whilst attending Algonquin College nearby, and discover one Wednesday night that Mike has installed this eye-catching machine. I flipped out immediately, and rushed over to play. I’m happy to report that I do believe I made my childhood self proud, achieving the multi ball, the colourful spinning beacon sequence, and a score of over a million. Great to reconnect with the table that introduced me to the hobby!