Location: High Street, Teddington, West London, UK

This is a big pub; it's got lots of seating, two fruit (slot) machines, a pool table, a quiz machine and a Revenge from Mars pinball

I came here straight from The Cabbage Patch in Twickenham but despite the similarity in size, this pub and its pinball could not be more different. For starters, the Revenge from Mars has so many faults it produces an entirely new game. On starting the first game, the ball was launched but wasn't kicked out strongly enough to make it all the way round, falling into the jet bumpers where it was suddenly joined by two companions to form a three ball multiball. Not a very encouraging start. Whenever one of the balls was lost, another was kicked out into the shooter lane, but not auto-launched. In the end, three balls were in the shooter lane (well, two were, and one was hanging out of the trough).

Eventually I managed to persuade the game to return to single ball play.

The centre ramp doesn't work and for some reason there is a rectangle of black electrician's tape about 2 inches from each edge of the ramp. The ball managed to get stuck on this a couple of times.

The lock lane registers about half the time, the left rollover never works and the outlanes are set to their maximum width. Also, the tilt is very sensitive and seems to operate at random. Wisely, the operator has not put their name on the game.

When you complete a mode by hitting the centre targets (remember, the centre ramp doesn't work), it doesn't matter if you lose the ball or not. Either option is fine, as a lost ball is returned to you, but not auto-launched. In fact you have to wait for a ball search until you can continue.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of the game is the scoop, which fires balls out at all angles - right flipper, left flipper, straight down the middle, left inlane, even the left Martian target bank, they were all recipients of scoop kickouts.

So the game is in a poor state, but is the bar any better?

Well, no. The choice of drinks is not great; one real ale (although it's a good one - London Pride) joined by Stella Artois, Carling and Budweiser on draught. There was also Olde English cider and Boddingtons but the most interesting beer was Staropramen from Prague.

Overall this was a somewhat disappointing pinball experience. The game is in desperate need of maintenance and the pub lacked any kind of atmosphere.

On the positive side, the owners have clearly gone to a lot of effort with the external appearance of the pub with some superb floral displays so it would be very pleasant to sit outside on a summer evening.

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