Eight Ball Champ

The Eight Ball Champ is a licensed German edition of Bally Midway's 1985 pinball of the same name. It was produced by Bally Wulff of Berlin, West Germany, under license from Bally Midway between 1986 and 1987. Aside from backglass and cabinet text noting the licensing arrangement, and a more heavily silkscreened backglass that lets through less light than the US original, the game is essentially identical to its American counterpart.

Gameplay is where Eight Ball Champ shines, with three flippers, two pop bumpers, two slingshots, five drop targets, five standup targets, a kick-out hole, and a spinning target providing a solid array of interactive elements for a mid-1980s solid-state machine. The billiards theme carries through the playfield and backglass artwork.

For collectors, the Bally Wulff edition offers an interesting variant of a well-known Bally Midway title, notable chiefly for its distinct backglass printing and European licensing history rather than any difference in gameplay.