Story dated 24th January 2002

Without doubt the star of this year's ATEI show for pinball fans had to be the worldwide launch of Stern's new Playboy game.

We've covered that in our exclusive World's first game review so let's take a look at what else was on offer.

Playboy was on show at the Electrocoin stand. Electrocoin are the UK distributors for Stern, so they were also showing Stern's previous efforts.

Two Monopolys and an Austin Powers were available to play. There haven't been many Monopolys on site in the UK which is a shame, though Austin Powers has done better.

And that was it for pinball fans. For the first time in the many years I've been visiting the show, no other companies were exhibiting pinball games. Amazing but true. That, more than anything, shows how pinball has declined across Europe.

There were several companies showing bingo machines.

These Golden Gate games were from Seeben/Sirmo Games.

How about this for a great idea? Table football (or foosball as it's sometimes called) has to be one of the simplest and most basic games to be found. So why not make it vastly more complicated?

Yes, it's a virtual foosball game from Eclipse Gaming Limited. In association with Artworld Animations, the company has created a new video tournament
concept with Foosball Crazy. Obviously the real thing was far too easy.

As always, video game fans were well catered for. It was noticable, though, how there were fewer videos there compared to previous years and the number of new products was also down.

Sega were showing a number of games but their big display was devoted to Club Kart - European Session with many large and smaller screened versions.

It's difficult to convey the scale of ATEI if you've never been but even if you're just browsing at the stands and playing the occasional game or slot machine, it can take you all day to see everything.

 

And that's it for this year. Once again, Electrocoin and Stern made the show for all pinball fans. Thank you to both of them and let's hope next year is as good, if not better.