Skillshot 13

By Chow Chow Productions
myspace.com/skillshott
PO Box 20204
Seattle, WA
98102
USA

(Moving countries caused me to miss a review the other day, be prepared for more missing days coming soon!)

I've read a couple of issues of this pinball zine, but it still blows me away every time I read it just because I have a hard time imagining a pinball scene. It's not something I've ever really played, yet these people organize monthly tournaments that have dozens of people showing up! It all seems kind of strange, but also makes me want to start playing pinball more (last time I played was at a new year's eve party, where I was completely terrible at it).

This zine includes news and rumours about the Seattle pinball scene, telling what happened at recent tournaments, who's setting records on the machines, where the new machines are, a complete (?) list of every pinball machine in Seattle, tips and strategies for specific machines, high score contests, rule variations, and more. It reminded me of the video game magazines I read when I was a kid, and while I barely understand a lot of the strategy in here I'm sure you could write the same sort of thing about Street Fighter or poker and I also wouldn't understand it (I might like it more if it was Street fighter because hurray punching people!).

If you're into pinball and live in the Seattle area you have probably already read this, but if you're into pinball anywhere else in the world it's worth giving a read because it's pretty interesting and fun.

(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)