How to Pass Ball in a Pinball Machine

Video Transcript

Hi I'm Leo Daniels, world champion video game and pinball player, here with Expert Village. Now for this segment we're going to talk about flippers and control. Because the main thing you want to do is control the game. You want to learn how to manipulate the ball, and you want to look at the layout on the machine like we talked about earlier. Some machines have just the basic two flippers down at the bottom. Other machines have more flippers. They'll have flippers in the upper levels. Sometimes they'll have them in a separate section. Just look over the machine; learn where your flippers are, and 90 percent of the time it's going to be a left button for all the left flippers, not matter where they're located. Right button for the right flippers. We're going to talk about holding the ball, aiming the ball for the targets, and I'm going to show you how to do the different, various shots. Now also, first thing you want to do when you first start playing pinball, is do not flip both flippers at the same time. That makes you look like a novice, and it makes you miss a lot of shots. In order to play pinball, the basic thing to do, is if the ball is coming down the left side towards the left flipper, just hit that left flipper. If it's coming down the right side, hit the right flipper. The only time it's acceptable to press both buttons at the same time, and to make both of the flippers flip, is if the ball is coming directly down the middle, and you want to kind of nudge the machine a bit and flip both flippers. And that's the only time it's acceptable. Other than that, let button for the left flipper. Right button for the right flipper. You want to try to keep the ball alive for as long as possible, scoring as many points as possible, and we're going to go in to that when I show you the different shots with the flippers. Hi I'm Leo Daniels, world champion video game and pinball player, here with Expert Village. Now we've talked earlier about flipper techniques such as drop, catch and hold and the drop, catch and shoot. Now we're going to talk about passing. A couple of techniques for that. There's the dead flipper pass, and there's a flipper pass when you pass it from right to left, or vice versa. From left to right and I'm also going to show you the possible death save. It's kind of hard to do, but it can be pulled off. Basically what you want to do, for the pass. First you have to do the drop and catch. I've caught the ball now in the right flipper, and I pass the ball from the right flipper to the left. That was perfect. Now I've passed the ball from the right to the left, and you can do the same thing. There's two different ways you can pass the ball. You can do it by either catching the ball and barely flipping the ball so it passes over to the other side. Or you can backhand it up and let it go off the end and to the right flipper. Or vice versa. The dead flipper pass, basically what you'd want to do, is with the ball coming down the left side, you wouldn't want to flip the left flipper. You actually let the ball bounce off of the flipper over to the right side. Same thing if you want to do it the other way; let the ball bounce off the right side, over to the left side without flipping the flipper. That's what's known as the dead flipper pass. Now for the death save, it's hard to do, but it can be pulled off. On most machines, when the ball is coming straight down the middle, what you want to do is flip the flipper up, and bounce it off the back of the board back here where the ball drains. That's known as a death save. If you can pull it off, that's how it happens. The ball drains, bounces back up to the play, it comes back into play. Now if that happens, even in tournament, that is legal. As long as it bounces back in to play. Like I said, it takes, death save is something kind of hard to do for a novice, but once you play for awhile and get the feel of the machine. Just knowing when to nudge the machine at the right time, bounce it up, get it back to the flipper, get the ball back in to play, and use that death save to your advantage.

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