My Legendary Pokémon Pinball High Score

I can't reminisce about Pokémon without fondly remembering the many hours I spent playing Pokémon Pinball for Game Boy Color. I still pick it up from time to time, and it's just as fun as it ever was.

:)

But that's not important. What is important is my utterly freakin' epic high score.

THAT IS 81,532,998,600 POINTS, SON

The game has a save feature, and this saved game went on for over 6 months. I didn't tally it, but I'm pretty sure I got at least 50 extra balls. I never did complete the game's PokéDex (even though it was technically possible to get all of them in just the one game—even Mew), but who cares? I got 81,532,998,600 points.

I've never been great at action video games. I suck at Smash Bros. I run into gophers all the time in Mario Kart. Duck Hunt...forget it. In fact, 99% of my video game experiences before the age of 12 involved me mashing buttons for a few minutes, losing, then hurling the controller to the floor before tearfully declaring, "I hate this!" and walking away with the bitter taste of shame on my palate. Even though it didn't happen until I was well past the age for it to actually matter, getting this epic high score helped heal a lot of that old hurt.

(By the way, if someone feels like emailing me with evidence that they got a much higher score than mine, just be aware that you are going to ruin a fairly large chunk of my life.)