I know about this machine! So I was a senior in high school when I had to head out to Chicago to get a passport for a trip to Mexico over the summer of 2002. My mom was really naive talking to a lot of the guys on the streets passing out pamphlets, coupons and flyers. I remember snatching the papers out of her hand, telling her that made us a mark for con artists and hucksters. One of the flyers was for an arcade promoting a brand new pinball machine from Stern. We had to wait four hours for our passport to be expedited, so we decided to check it out. The Arcade's name was "The Black Gate," and it was down a dark, poorly lit alley. Black lights framed the dilapidated door and I was sort of unnerved by it, but my mom told me it was all part of the theme of the arcade and we went in. The arcade was devoid of any arcade games with the exception of a single platform with a spotlight on it and a headset connected to a weird machine of twisted wires. Standing on the dais was an exceedingly tall man in a gray suit. He must have been around seven feet tall. He introduced himself as Mr. Franklin and ushered us onto the dais. He explained that this headset was for an immersive pinball experience that they were testing. My mom immediately volunteered to play it first and the man gave a very crooked smile before placing the headset over her head. When the machine whirred to life, it made a cacophonous sound, like a vacuum cleaner mixed with a screaming squirrel. I looked at my mom and her mouth was agape and contorted in an almost unnatural way. About 15 seconds in, the machine began to smoke and Mr. Franklin rushed to remove the headset off my mom. She sat there with a glazed look over eyes and it took a few minutes to rouse her from her stupor
Mr Franklin profusely apologized for the inconvenience and told me that the machine was out of order, so we left and got my passport. While we were walking I was talking to my mom about what she saw and she talked about playing a pinball game from the ball's perspective and that it was hypnotically dizzying. She didn't remember much, except for what happened right before the game shut down. She had shot the ball into the wide open mouth of a young girl with half of her face ripped off and sinew exposed. Instead of a neck, she had more than a dozen spider-like legs. I thought was wild and a bit disappointed I couldn't play. Never saw the game come out to retail though and forgot about it until you brought it up!