South Park II

It has now been four or five trips to Pinball Pete's to play South Park. I have not gotten anywhere close to the high-score, which I don't believe is real. The highest score registered by a human on this machine is one tenth of the score needed for a free game. The jokes are old, the machine is loud, and I'm pretty sure the goal is impossible.

I've done some serious thinking. I'm not enjoying my trips to Pinball Pete's, knowing that I am no where close to achieving my goal. Knowing that even though my scores are going up each time I play, I've managed to turn a fun game into a horrible slog. So, I've decided to modify my quest. At first I considered finding a pinball machine not a Pinball Pete's, and substituting that for South Park. But, what if that game was super-easy like Shrek? No, I need to make sure that I'm not cutting out a difficult challenge, and replacing it with a piece of cake. I've decided that instead of beating South Park, I am going to both (a) advance Medieval Madness until I've beaten all of the King's Men and the King of Payne, and (b) advance Attack From Mars all the way until I conquer Mars. Both of these goals are actually more difficult than winning a free game on points, and I know that I like both of these machines. Plus, they're not ear-shatteringly loud, and their jokes are likely to age better.

[Edit: I've since looked up the Guinness Book of World Records score for South Park. As of 2007, the world record is 456,968,070. The score to win a free game on South Park is 4.25 times higher than the world record. I feel vindicated in my decision, and wish I would have looked up the high score sooner.]