Details supplied by Mariolle Germain.

Japan may be better known for its numerous pachinko parlors, but real pinball is going strong as the recent pinball tournament demonstrates.

Held three times a year in the Omoron arcade at 1-8-1 Nishi-Shinkoiwa, Katsushika-ku, in Tokyo, the most recent tournament in November attracted 30 players who tested their skill on 6 games selected from the location's 15 games.

The chosen games were:

• Congo
• No Good Gofers
• The Lord Of The Rings
• Black Rose
• High Speed 2 - The Getaway
• Jackbot

All competition machines were set to tournament mode for the event and competitors played on all 6 machines with their score ranked alongside all the other scores on the game. Points were then awarded depending on position with 1st place winning 1 point, 2nd place 2 points and so on.

Players could try as often as they wished from the start at 2pm to the close of the tournament at 7pm, although in practice the queues to play the games restricted the number of attempts.

Points from all 6 games were then totaled and the player with the lowest number of ranking points was declared the winner.

There was a close finish as just 5 minutes before the end of the tournament, Toshiaki Koide came from behind to take 1st place on the Congo game and become the overall champion.

Flip Out Tokyo takes place approximately every 4 months at the Omoron arcade, more details of which can be found here.

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