New pinball: Star Trek (Pro)

Star Trek was my next new-in-box machine, right after the Tron. It is a Steve Ritchie design built around the J.J. Abrams reboot films, and Steve Ritchie games are known for their flow, so it played fast and smooth.

That photo is actually a fast-forward to the end of the story. It is the day I was trading it in for something else.

I genuinely liked this machine, but two things worked against it.

The first I will keep brief. Around the time I bought it, I was in a rough spot with a friend who did some pretty hurtful things and, honestly, used me in a way that did not sit right. I am not here to drag anyone through the mud, so I will leave it there. But that association quietly clung to the machine and made it one I did not love having around.

The second is simpler. It just got a little old for me. I am a huge Next Generation fan, and a Voyager fan, and I went in fully expecting to love a Star Trek game. And I do like it, it is genuinely nice and well made. But for whatever reason it never pulled at my heartstrings the way Next Gen or Voyager do. The theme just was not quite my Star Trek.

It was also the last machine I bought before the big basement rehab began, a project I will write about another time. When the rehab kicked off, most of my machines got folded up and tucked away in the downstairs garage to keep them safe and dust-free. Star Trek, though, I folded up and carried up to my office, which is really just a standard single bedroom in a three-bedroom house. So for a while I could spin around from my work-from-home desk and play Star Trek pinball whenever I felt like it, which was pretty great.

It was only ever meant to be temporary, just keeping the games out of the dust while the basement got torn apart. Around the same time I had Lord of the Rings in the living room and another machine upstairs too. The place genuinely felt like a bachelor pad, pinball machines scattered all over the house.

Moving them around like that was a ton of work: out of the basement, onto the street, up the driveway, into the living room, all of it. And I did every bit of it by myself. Looking back now, I think, wow, I really should have asked for help.

Star Trek eventually moved on, traded for something new. No hard feelings toward the game itself. Sometimes a machine just carries a little too much of one particular moment with it.