Stern have just released information about their new game! Most of you probably already figured out what it'll be, but for the sake of completeness...

It's Batman!

Yep that's right, after the fabulous first batman machine (Data East 1991) and the pretty incredibly sophisticated second batman machine (Sega 1995) it's now time for Stern to make a pinball machine out of this superhero. But Batman (or Bat-Man as he was first called) has been around quite a bit longer than that! He first appeared as a comic in the late thirties of the previous century (almost 70 years ago) and has been going strong ever since! More info about batman  here.

Press release

But this is a pinball site so we'll be looking at the pinball machine now! Let's start with a look at Stern's press release:

The THE DARK KNIGHT™ arrives in Stern Pinball’s new BATMAN™ pinball machine.

Available through a partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products, on behalf of DC Comics, BATMAN™ is based on the action-adventure movie, THE DARK KNIGHT™, to be released in theatres July 18th.

Stern’s own Lyman Sheats designed the rules for BATMAN™ pinball, and the game designer for THE LORD OF THE RINGS™ created the playfield layout.

BATMAN™ is a perfect pinball machine for fans of DC Comics’ BATMAN™ comic books, as well as the DARK KNIGHT™ and BATMAN BEGINS movies.

BATMAN™ pinball is also a great piece for homeowners, resellers and game operators.

BATMAN™ pinball offers many exciting features, including: The Joker’s Reveal Mechanism, a mechanical cylinder that rotates to reveal and fight a taunting Joker; Scarecrow’s Crane, a mechanical crane featuring a spring-attach pinball which the player can strike with the pinball; the BATMOBILE™ Bridge, a teeter totter mechanism that races a pinball against a Hot Wheels® BATMOBILE™; an upper mini-playfield; and lots of multi-ball action.

Pinball Hall of Fame artists Kevin O’Connor and Margaret Hudson created the artwork, and Ken Hale did the sound.

Click for a nice big view of the machineGary Stern says, “BATMAN™ was a great brand for us when we made games in the 1990’s. This new BATMAN™ game could be the best game we have ever built.”

The BATMAN™ pinball machine will begin shipping in July 2008.

The follow-up to BATMAN BEGINS, THE DARK KNIGHT™ reunites Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of BATMAN/BRUCE WAYNE in his continuing war on crime.

With the help of LIEUTENANT JIM GORDON and District Attorney HARVEY DENT, BATMAN™ sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good.

The triumvirate proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces the DARK KNIGHT™ even closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante.

Warner Bros. Pictures will release THE DARK KNIGHT™ to theatres on July 18, 2008.

The License

The crane reminds me of a combination of Last Action Hero and Junk Yard (although the ball is not suspended by a chain but by a spring this time)

That sure sounds good. But what's the new Batman all about? After  the highly successfull 2005 movie "Batman begins", acclaimed director

Christopher Nolan takes Batman for another spin with an 'early batman' movie. And not just any movie it has gotten to be! It premiered just four days ago and was received extremely well by the critics and moviegoing public.

With a 9.5 IMDB score, this has to be one heck of a good movie!So well in fact, that the 1972 movie The Godfather has lost their IMDB #1 place in their movie top 250 to it. Yes, that's a 9.5 with currently almost 70,000 votes for it. That must be one heck of a movie?! So it seems the license is another good choice by Stern in a growing series of great licenses which also includes Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones.

Funnily enough, in the press release, Gary Stern refers to the 1991 Data East release Batman, a game which was pretty succesful (in its time (and one of the first pins with a dot matrix display).

So what about the pin?

Not all that much is currently known about the game. We know that it was designed by George Gomez
All the characters of the film are nicely laid out here

(Lord of the Rings, Revenge From Mars, Monster Bash,  NBA Fastbreak, Johnny Mnemonic, Corvette), whose name is somehow missing from the press release (?). Artwork comes from  pinball art masters Kevin O'Connor and Margareth Hudson. Initial pictures show a fast, open playfield with (not unlike Spiderman) loads of gizmo's. There's a big
The Joker can appear and dissapear because of a moving platform'glass' tube, in which sometimes a joker figure appears.  We see a crane called "Scarecrow's Crane" (a bit like the one in Last Action Hero but then shorter and on the rightside hand) featuring a suspended pinball (Junk Yard anyone?). An then there's an interesting feature called the BATMOBILE Bridge, a teeter totter mechanism that races a pinball against a Hot Wheels® BATMOBILE?

Hmm, can't wait to see that in action!

The machine has been added to our database - We're ready for your photos and videos to be added! The photo of the machine in this story was provided by Jason from PinballsInc.

Update

Two videos were posted on pinballmadness.net. I have uploaded them to youtube.