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Location:
Corner of Queensway and Porchester Gardens, opposite Whitelys, London
W1.
Nearest tube stations: Bayswater (Circle & District lines) and Queensway
(Central Line).
The
Prince Alfred doesn't look like the kind of pub to have a pinball.
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The
newly refurbished exterior and the light oak interior show all
the signs of a modern drinking establishment, and when pubs are
remodeled the pinball machine rarely survives the reopening.
And
yet the Prince Albert has not only found space for a pinball,
it looks like they made a space for it in the design.
Not
the best of spaces, it has to be admitted - right next to the
entrance to the men's lavatories - but hey, these days you have
to take what you can get.
Unfortunately, this makes it unsuitable for more than two players
at a time as you would block the toilet doorway.
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Slotted
in the space is a William's JunkYard. As you can see below, there's
not any room to spare and there's no chance of getting a wide-bodied
game in there if you want to be able to use the flipper buttons. Maintenance
must be rather problematic too - you'd have to pull the whole game out
to access the backbox.
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Although
a couple of bulbs are not working, everything else is fully functional
including the toilet switch, the crane and the magnet below the
playfield to stop the crane's ball swinging. The ball plunger
feels as if it's about to fall apart, but it works nonetheless.
There is the usual
problem with most JunkYards where a fast shot to the Magic Bus
ramp sends the ball round too fast for the up-post to stop it.
Priced at 3 games for
£1 the game offers good value which helps offset the rather
costly beer. This is Central London, but £2.70 for a pint
of Kronenberg 1664 still seems a lot to pay - you could get 8
games of pinball for that! You do get a paper napkin under your
pint glass, though.
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The
game volume is set at a good level as the enclosed space prevents the
sound spilling out of the area while during the daytime the pub doesn't
blast you with background music so it's easy to hear the game's sound
samples.
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Pinball News 2002
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