News: Best of ZapCon winners announced!

NEWS,Zapcon

ZapCon 3.0 was amazing! Thanks to everyone for all their hard work, especially Wes, Rachel and Zack. Thanks to all those who contributed a record number of games. And thanks, especially, to the folks who brought down the following games, dubbed the best of the best by fans and judges alike.

Check out the winners of Firebird Pinball’s Best of ZapCon 2015!

Brandon

Congratulations to Brandon Kinchen! His Walking Dead LE was voted Best Pinball Machine by fans. Brandon took home top honors last year, too.

SpaceParanoids

Congratulations to Wes Sparks, Chris Spaseff, and Wes Cleveland! The trio was the creative force behind Space Paranoids, dubbed Best Arcade Game by fans. For non-Tron fans, this is a realized version of the game Jeff Bridges gets sucked into in the movie.

ZapConEve9

Chris Spaseff also took home honors for his Xenon pinball game, on the far left in this shot. It was voted Best Restored Pinball Machine by our esteemed panel of judges. That makes three well-deserved Victory Monsters for Chris!

Paul

Congratulations to Paul Santa Cruz! This second-year winner brought an urban legend to life with his Polybius. It was voted Best Custom Video Game by our judges.

Ariel

Congratulations to Ariel Bracamonte! One of the awesome guys behind the soon-to-open Cobra Arcade in downtown Phoenix, Bracamonte restored this Tapper game to great condition. It was voted Best Restored Video Game by our judges.

Zack

Congratulations to Zack Johnson! His Star Wars video game was voted Best Unrestored Video Game by our judges. Thanks for everything you do for ZapCon, Zack!

CW

Congratulations to CW Goss. His Flash was voted Best Custom Pinball Machine by our judges. Goss took months to re-imagine the artwork in this machine, creating an overlay and new backglass art.

Flash

Here’s another picture of CW’s machine. See IPDB stock pictures of the machine here and here.

Ben

And congratulations to Ben Baraldi! His Swords of Fury was chosen by our judges panel as Best Unrestored Pinball Machine. While Baraldi was part of the panel, it was his peers who chose his machine. He voted for the BK2K you can see behind him. Obviously, this made victory even sweeter for our Celebrity Judge.