Our recent New England trip culminated with us visiting this legendary place in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The Electromagnetic Pinball Museum is both arcade and history, with the downstairs area being a fully playable collection of some of the most important and noteworthy pinball machines of all time, and the upstairs having a large collection of display pieces that are slowly but surely being restored to operational status. Upon arriving, we were welcomed by one of the museum's co-founders, Mike Pare, who gave us a very thorough and comprehensive guided walking tour of the many different rooms and machines that make up EMP. With his permission, we've included the majority of it in this video here (with some minor edits); don't worry about spoilers, because when you visit, you will probably get even more facts about many of the other games!
While I wish more of the machines up in the workshop had been up and running, especially considering they've got some older, obscure pieces that you just don't see anywhere else, it's absolutely understandable that the majority of their efforts are keeping the downstairs games up and running. And for the most part, they were excellent and in great shape! Some of my personal favorites included the Zelda-inspired "Gladiators", the beautifully restored "Black Hole" and "Genie" machines, a fun baseball game named "Home Run", and a 70's Williams obscurity named "Fan-Tas-Tic" that was so much of a joy to play, I ended up picking one up for my own personal collection!
If you're in the North East, this is definitely a place worth checking out. Entry is only $10 and allows you unlimited free play on all of their operating machines for the entirety of the day. An absolute bargain. Definitely stop by if you're able to do so!
00:00 Intro
00:15 Guided tour with co-founder Mike Pare: introduction
01:00 Guided tour: Green room
03:49 Guided tour: Main room
09:49 Guided tour: Long hallway
11:54 Guided tour: Truck bays
12:57 Guided tour: Party r