Scramble for the skies — Bally’s Air Aces is an electromechanical dogfight of a machine, wrapping an aviation-and-combat theme around a busy reel-scoring four-player playfield. Designed by the prolific Jim Patla with striking art by the legendary Dave Christensen, whose bold, psychedelic style defined the look of so many great 1970s Bally machines, it carries a healthy confirmed run of 3,085 and the kind of energetic layout that made the era’s games such reliable arcade earners.
The playfield is a proper aerial battlefield: four flippers, two pop bumpers, a pair of slingshots, two kick-out holes, and a big nine-bank of drop targets that dominates the action. That generous drop-target bank is the star of the show, giving a sharp-shooting pilot a satisfying wall of targets to clear, and the four-flipper setup opens up angles and shots that keep the ball moving across the whole playfield. It’s an aggressive, target-rich design that rewards accuracy and keeps the relays chattering.
Air Aces is a wonderful example of Bally firing on all cylinders in the electromechanical era, pairing Patla’s solid design instincts with Christensen’s unmistakable artwork to create a machine that’s as handsome to look at as it is fun to play. The combat theme captures the derring-do spirit of the age, and that nine-bank of drops gives the game a clear, rewarding objective without a single microchip in sight. For the collector who loves the golden age of EM pinball and the artists who made it sing, Air Aces is a high-flying treasure. Clear those drops, ride the bumpers, and take to the skies. The dogfight’s on, ace.