Being an older fart now I basically grew up in bowling alleys and pool halls...
I swear this is the machine I used to play a lot...
Pretty simple, pretty basic...but I knew just how much abuse that thing could take without tilting.
Like trap I migrated to pool, loved shooting pool, had my own stick...would play for hours...never anything special, but I was steady and could come up with the occasional spectacular bank shot now and then...skills proved valuable later in life...played many a game (mostly doubles) for drinks and had a lot of free drinks!
But when video games started taking off, not so much pinball anymore, if I wasn't shooting pool I was playing Space Invaders (that phase didn't last long!) Asteroids (better than Space Invaders!), Missle Command (Killed off a lot of innocent people!), Defender (Meh!), Battlezone (Weird cubist graphics but I really had fun blasting crap with that tank!), and later on getting toward the mid 80's a buddy and me would take breaks from pool to play Atari football, remember that one? It was a sit down console with the track ball, super ordinary graphics with X's & O's on a green football field and a couple of buttons for passing ans switching players...but you had to wail on that track ball to move. Had many a sore hand after playing that but it was hilarious. Now I find it hilarious I liked that cheesy crap so much back then!
Anyway, we had one of those early versions of Pong at home. Let me tell ya, there were no electronic or computer brainiacs in my family...we hooked it up to our only TV...our first color TV bought 6-7 years earlier...big boxy wood console behemouth, know what I mean? Had to hook up cheap wires to the back of the thing (to the UHF screws IIRC) and we turn it on, see the black and white display come up on our color TV (heh!) and get all giddy...then the ball is released and we realize we cannot see the paddles! Wanna know what us sub-genius' did? We played anyway! It made the game a lot harder trying to figure out where on the hidden margin of the screen where your paddle was. Well, that stupidity didn't last long. Didn't have any home games for a while, not until my borther got a Commodore 64 and got this Mule game, another simple game game kind of goofy and fun.
Now, everything is souped up, wireless, online and crazy.
Heck I even haven't played Madden football in years...just not that interested anymore...too much other stuff to do.
But hey, like Rick, I too was better at D in Foosball, could pull off bank shots and straight slams down the gut after some jukes...got really good and passing between goalie and the 2 D players.
Fun going down memory lane.