Pinball by Stern. There’s no reason for confusion! If you want to avoid all the pinball pinball puns, just call it Pinball by Stern. That’s what it says on the backglass after all.
So… Nobody has rated or reviewed this game in five years, and then not that many in total have ever rated or reviewed it. Kind of sad it’s forgotten.
By way of comparison, there are only two copies of “The Pinball Circus”, with only one in the world available to play, and yet it’s got numerous great reviews! Just goes to show you, how an unproduced machine with many huge news stories can make a game famous and how everyone seems to have gone to play it. Then again, people are liars.
Back to Pinball by Stern.
I bought one recently, in Charlie Brown Christmas tree condition and Linus was right, all it needed was a little love, and $60 in parts. I’d like to go into more detail but that’s a pinball story and not a review.
Gameplay:
Deceptively easy looking, incredibly difficult if going for all the scoring opportunities, and can be a high scoring or low scoring game, all depending on your plunge of the ball and your skill with aiming the shots.
There are leaf switches hidden behind every rubber ring, except the five separate drop targets. These switches change all the scoring and bonus values with every touch, and they get touched a lot! Two, just above the slingshots on opposite sides of the playfield change the values multiple times with each hit, which is insane. All these switches also cause the playfield target and pop bumper lighting to go into strobe effect! NICE!
The pop bumpers kick the ball like mad and the slingshots can hit the ball all the way up the playfield on occasion! Slow the game down by catching the ball and you can get some skill shots in, but once any coil touches the ball, it’s rocketing everywhere again.
Yes, this is Stern Electronics first solid state machine, with Pinball (EM) being their first all original game.
Stern’s first games, Rawhide and Stampede, were initially released by Chicago Coin (CDI) before the bankruptcy buyout by Sam and Gary Stern. The third game, Disco, was designed under CDI ownership but not yet released.
Pinball (EM) was released, and then Pinball (SS), and finally Stingray. The next game would be their first big seller, “Stars”.
Pinball by Stern is rarely seen in the wild or otherwise. With a little over 1600 units made, it was probably even a rare sight to see in 1977.
History lesson over, it’s time for the sound and artwork:
Four chimes attached to a hollow wood box! If clean, adjusted, and tuned just right, they are awesome. They make Williams’ dings seem blah and Bally’s four piece chimes are really close, but a bit weaker with their plastic box. A good set of Stern chimes can almost put 1970’s Gottlieb with its amazing three chimes to shame… almost!
Artwork:
Ever imagine a giant pinball rolling down the street at you, taking out buildings and crushing everything in its path?
Someone at Advertising Posters Inc. did. And they made it disturbing and funny. CDI (Chicago Dynamic Industries) thought it was good too and circa 1974 or 75 commissioned this concept to appear on their Chicago Coin promotional posters. After the buyout, someone at Stern (possibly Sam) saw this old poster and said, “That would be a great theme for a Pinball machine!”
And it was!!!
Funny enough the playfield expands further on it, in top down view.
There were few made, and fewer that have survived. My Pinball was a rescue of a game nobody else wanted which is a shame. Then again, if I hadn’t been walking around saying “Good Grief” all the time and talking to my beagle, I would have missed out as well.
And now it’s one of my favorite games ever.
A true hidden gem.