Bought this from Sports Authority for a hundred dollars delivered. Assembly was easy, and legs have levelers which is a plus. The graphics on the sides and in the center of the playing surface of this game are kind of lame really. I guess someone else owns the rights to the word "Foosball" so it's got Bart and that kid with the crush on Lisa and "Table Hockey" emblazoned on both sides, and on the center of the green playing surface (which I found particularly unfortunate). Personally I bought a dozen or so of the best Simpsons decals I could find here and on EBay and covered their graphics up, and am much more satisfied with the results.The styling on the players, Homer versus Bart, is also a little bit disappointing. Specifically one has blue shorts and the other has red shorts, with a tiny corresponding 'ring around the collar' of their team color, but otherwise it looks like they're wearing plain white T-shirts. I really would have expected a little more detail here, as playing Homer versus Bart is the whole 'cool' aspect of this game, and their isn't much color difference to tell the two sides apart while you play.
As purchased, this game is definitely sized for the youngsters and the diminutive of stature, but plastic 'bed risers' lifting it up seven inches make up for this. I bought mine at Target and they're available here. Eventually I'll probably permanently cinch the risers to the legs with bundle ties and fill the inside of the risers with pea gravel to give the whole setup a sturdier feel, but it's fully playable by adults now.
Outfitting the house I sublet rooms in I decided to compromise with this table pricewise, but thought I'd go for the best foosball balls available, which review indicated were Tornado brand that are reddish-orange and cost four dollars each. But it turns out that this table it's much smaller than standard so the balls would often stuck between the striker and the playing surface when struck, plus it turns out the included balls are actually surprisingly good quality and you get three or four of them. The grips are acceptable, nothing special, small enough for kids, not too small for larger hands. Also you can tell from the picture this game has one fewer row of players on each side than a standard sized table.
I'm not even a particularly big fan of the Simpsons anymore, but there are dozens of witty decals of major and minor characters available and they now cover all four sides of my table. To really get the wow factor though, I now have full-page fluorescent stickers in half a dozen colors from Amazon, and will be black-light outfitting the game. The plan is to cover Bart and Homer's white T-shirts and bottom ball strikers with opposing colors, most likely Orange for one, Green for the other to go along the Oregonian 'Civil War' color scheme I'm working on for all my black light games. Then outline the edges of the playing surface, goal box, and center line, with strips from other colors. So far the black-lit air hockey, darts, and ping pong in the garage are a hit, though I should point out that if you wanted to buy this table, lift it with bed risers, pimp it out with decals, and add black light reactive stickers it'd double the price all told.
Save 32% Off
0 comments:
Post a Comment