Avatar is a decent game.

The layout is about average and reminds me of Indiana Jones (2008). But I think this layout has a bit more to offer. Especially the Link shot is very satisfying to make.

The rules are alright but nothing special. At least the Amp Suit Multiball is fun to play.

As on most of this era's games the animations aren't very good as Stern mostly incorporated movie scenes. The cabinet and playfield look alright considering the time when this game came out.

All in all, this probably one of the best machines for a cinema as the theme will attract many people. But I think this game will come as a relative disappointment to most of the casual and advanced players.

Just bought an Avatarin quite nice condition, fixed a little and put leds. I like the game! It is a bit shallow, but for a quick play it is perfect and very good for casual players. It is just beautiful with colored leds and gives Pandora's forests' mood with some work. Overall Im satisfied and this game fits well into my collection. I was thinking that beside my deep ruleset sterns, sometimes I just dont feel to start an AIQ game, because I know it will take a lot of time. This one will be perfect for quick plays. Just one thing bothers me: really just a little bit more effort during creating the code and this game could be easily better. F.ex include combos, have 2x-3x point when you hit the skillshot without moving the target, etc. Just the basic things. And some more/better animations. Like this it feels a bit like the budget was not so high and/or the code was finished in a rush.
Anyway, it was very good bang for the bucks, I don't really see it leaving my collection.

I took a liking to this game at a pinball expo which had something like 145 machines. To me, it stood out as a beautiful, fast-paced game. Blowing apart the amp suit and dealing with the magnet throwing the ball around after hitting it was immediately fun. Having owned the game for a couple months, that aspect is still fun, but it's rather linear and shallow. There's just really not all that much more to it. It's also a short game, with top score plays still taking far less time than even mediocre games on my other machines. Outlanes and the SDTM gap are all hungry! Even good shots up the pike at the amp suit tend to go SDTM. It can be frustrating to be punished for good shots pretty consistently, but in general, it's still enjoyable to play. Just keep your expectations aligned.

Being the Pro version, you do lack some playfield characters and all, which I added. I also modified the lighting a bit by putting blue behind the Na'vi targets, and purple behind the Seed targets. Comets all the way around. The back portion of the playfield got a couple blue, green, and purple just to fit the Avatar theme, too. I added the lighted speaker kit and the acrylic cutouts, and it is truly a beautiful game. The sound integration is also very good, with relevant call-outs directly from the first movie being appropriately used. I can't say enough about the light, sound, and other "feel good" things this game offers. It's spectacular.

I consider this to be a very underrated game which is definitely worth some play time if given the opportunity.

Played at Pinball Republic in Croydon, London. I tend to gravitate towards it when I’m supervising my five-year-old son on the pinball machines because it’s in the same row as pins he likes (Spirit, Genie and Black Rose).

It’s the epitome of mediocre. Visually, it’s got that horrible Stern combination of uninspired movie art, inserts that don’t colour match, plastic ramps and toys that look literally like toys.

The gameplay feels like it’s missing something. Maybe a ramp? There’s a couple of ramps and a suit of armour to shoot. I’m sure it has deep rules, blah blah, but it feels like I could be playing literally anything else and it would feel either be the same or better.

Love this game. Played alot out and about.

This game is woefully underrated. A typical Borg design with fast punishing play coupled with a great Lyman ruleset. Artwork on playfield, meh. But I quite like the gameplay. I attribute its low standing to it’s difficultly level which is unfortunate. People should play better. Any game seems boring if you can’t get s#it rolling.

This game is alright, it has rules similar to iron man where you hit the same shot over an over to start a mode. A few multiballs and other modes. It can be fun at times but there is nothing special and I don't care much for the theme or art. Basically just decent across the board.

Love the theme and the 3D backglass is killer. Some cool shots for sure and decent movie integration. I love the movie but just kind of liked this machine. I think they could have done a little better. Fun to play on route but not enough to own one.

Satisfying multiball, toys okay, would be nice to have another ramp and the inlanes on the bottom left can be a bit mean if it hops and skips to the outlane. Looks good. Good tie in with the movie. Not 'easy', and satisfying when you get it going. Feels like it's missing something - another flipper/ramp would be good. Link Multiball lock is cool.

Always my go to game for a quick play. Avatar has Great flow and I enjoy those pops hits right on center stage top. Banchee ramp is satisfyingly fun when you hit it just right. Side by side with my Metallica pro and I realized how close Avatar is terms of playfield layout. This is good thing because metallic is a fan favorite as well. Hitting the amp-suit multi-ball with the magnet throwing the ball around is cool.
Good sound effects, overall a super fun game.

Played this over a few days at a local pinshop with my 11 year old daughter who loved it. I found it boring & repetitive. It needs at least one more ramp or something to give any sort of sustained 'fun factor'. Beautiful 3D backglass, though.

for its value it is a great option of fun ... there are much more expensive machines with the game much worse.

This game grew on me the more I played it. Decent layout and toys and good art. I would consider picking one of these up for the right price.

Very nice pinball machine, I had it and when I find it around I play with it willingly, to fully enjoy it you have to do it with LED, it really rocks! .... The only flaw of this game is the lack of interactivity with games on the dmd, I love games in the dmd but here they are missing, if there were these too I would have given it a 10

Game is to hard for reg. players. its very tough.

Cheap toys and lackluster design have done this pin in. It isn't bad by a long shot, but there are certainly better pins for the era. The price is pretty fair, but I still feel there are better games to be had around that same range.

It's a god damned masterpiece. Live the Bond, Know the Bond. Seriously TWD and Avatar are GOATS.

An average game from my experience. I played on location for a while but could not get into it at all. I was bored at the time and would have been happy to play just about anything but I struggled to keep playing this one. I wanted to like it because I love the movie and hoped it would be epic but I didn’t get any of that epic feeling coming through in the game, maybe my expectations were too high going in. It seems to have a deep rule set which might peak some peoples interest to keep playing but not for me.

I recently picked this game up. I personally find it pretty hard, which i think is good - keeps me coming back for more. wish there was another ramp, 1 is never enough for me. decent game overall, i think it will be a good addition to our league.

Not a good pin at all, done nothing for me I'm afraid, poor design, poor layout. A try once machine.

A beautiful pin - especially if you swap in some colored LEDs. Artwork, sound, music, and DMD animations are superb. Gameplay is merely adequate. The playfield is quite bare, though the ruleset is pretty deep and interesting, and this compensates somewhat. It's an average-ish game in beautiful clothing, so to speak.

Thought I'd add a more detailed breakdown.

The Good:

1. Cabinet and backglass art is among the best Stern has ever done. And it is, bar none their absolute best that isn't hand-drawn. Only the new Zombie Yeti stuff can compare.

2. Playfield and plastics look amazing if you convert to color-coordinated LED GI. Teal/Cyan, Purples, and Blues work great. Again, some of the best playfield art Stern has done that isn't hand-drawn.

3. Music is excellent. Very unique for a pin. Really captures the theme well.

4. Callouts from the original actor who played Colonel Quaritch are spectacularly well done. Very engaging, with enough variation to avoid becoming annoying as a home use pin.

5. DMD animations are good for the era - but definitely go Color DMD with this pin.

6. The rules are pretty deep, and you can stack scoring modes, which adds some strategy as to when you want to engage multiball modes. Stack Bomber Battle or Seeds with Amp Suit multiball... or hit Link multiball, and then slam Amp Suit multi ball or vice versa, when you need more balls. Definitely update to 1.1 code, though, if your machine doesn't have it. A lot of problems were fixed in that release.

7. It flows well (provided you have the spring to prevent SDTM drains - some Avatars came with them factory, others did not and it had to be added). Borg designs are like that, I feel. Good flow, though a bit empty. The ball lock is really clever, too. The magnet is engaging and challenging.

The Bad

1. The biggest single problem with this pin is obvious to anyone who sees it: the playfield is just bare. This was from a time when Stern was fighting cost-cutting measures, there was no competition, and pinball was at a very low point in popularity. The ruleset tries to make up for the general emptiness, but it only succeeds in part. The design of the playfield - given the bareness - is good, provided you have the version which has the little spring below the pops to prevent SDTM drains. If you get an Avatar Pro and it doesn't have the spring (look it up to find the part), get it. It changes the whole game experience from frustratingly annoying to pretty good (but not the best). You'll know if you get constant SDTM drains as soon as it leaves the pops. A little $5 part does make that big of a difference here.

2. The toys are so-so. They could have done a lot more. The Amp suit is very cool, and the motorized crash when you defeat it is great, but the Colonel's figurine should have been in the pro as well as LE. It's like a $5 thing. The Banshee and Navi figures in the LE improve things - and you'll find most modders will add those (as I have done with my Pro). But it's still just... so bare, in terms of gameplay and toys. The Link with Jake Sully's figure is cheap-looking, too.

The Ugly:

1. This game is HARD. You will fight to get to the wizard mode. Having to light all modes - and modes dropping if you drain unless you complete them - means it's a very difficult machine to fully play out. Casual users will have a reasonably good time - the action and callouts are engaging and fun for them. But for pinheads, you will find yourself cursing at this machine sometimes. This is both good and bad. It's good in that, despite the bare nature of the playfield, I still have this machine in my collection after 7 years, for the times when I want a challenging game. But bad in that it can often suck the fun out of a long game when, right at the end, after fighting the pin for half an hour, an unlucky drain happens. It's brutal. Sometimes I like that, sometimes I don't.

In the end, it's like I said in my initial short review. This is overall an average playing pin in beautiful clothing. A worthwhile game to buy for the pinhead who has everything else, or for a fan of the movie. Or, in my case, if you want a pin that pisses you off and challenges you from time-to-time. And it really is beautiful...

Beautiful game. Excellent rule set and very very addictive.

some cooldude wrote a rulesheet for this game: https://papa.org/wp-content/uploads/Avatar-Rulesheet.pdf

I enjoyed this game while I had it, though it was too difficult for me, so I moved it on within a year to someone more competent at pinball than me, before I got around to modifying Jake in his sunbed (he was gonna get a Borat mankini and some sunglasses). the best parts of the game for me were the custom speech by your enemy Major Quadrich, the overall blue hue appearance, and the freaky backglass with those blue monkeys looking at you. standard fan layout. one for the purists.

ooo Eywa!! spray your seeds of life on me! sploosh

Fun fast game that is good to add to any collection for a while. Only thing that hurts is only 1 ramp. Sounds are fantastic.

Avatar is a fun game. I don't like this game in tournaments because all you do is go for link. However if your playing it for fun, it can be really intense to get final battle.