dothedoo's ratings

A fantastic game with an awesome sound package for 1980. The rythmic, deep pulsing that increases in pitch as you collect more letters, then changes completely to let you know you have just one letter remaining to complete Quicksilver. If you do manage to spell Quicksilver the sound changes again and increases in speed the longer you keep the ball in play. Add a subwoofer to the game and the sound is just that much more incredible, especially the sound of the saucer. Then of course there's the Stern spinners that seem to spin forever. And when you nail one when lit it screams, giving people little doubt about what just happened.

The placement of the center drop targets and the asymmetrical pop bumpers is nothing short of genius. A perfect shot sweeps the drops. A little off and you hit the edge of a target or the bottom post and it's bye-bye down the center. A sucker shot for those that play the drops for the big points they can award or as their primary means of spotting letters. And those pops! Those plastic ringed pops. So fast, and lethal! Their arrangement can keep the ball inside the nest, with hopes of spotting letters. Or a couple lightning fast pops and they can send the ball flying past your flippers or careening towards the outlanes.

The Doug Watson artwork on the playfield and backglass were taken directly from Heavy Metal comics. The colors are weird, to be sure -- green, pink, yellow and silver -- with no congruency throughout the art package. But when you know the story behind these choices....again, genius.

And finally, the light show and bonus feature. Spell Quicksilver and max the bonus multiplier at 5X and the game flashes all the lights in a sweeping sequence with a siren or klaxon sound alerting people to the huge bonus countdown you're about to receive. And then once again afterwards to remind them how great you are. Spell it again and listen to it count even faster as you collect the extra 75K bonus.

Every ball starts it all over again. The play is so smooth and flowing that it begs you to play it over and over again. A true masterpiece!

I always felt Stern put a lot of thought into their early 80's pins when you consider what they had to work with was drops, pops, slings and spinners. The game plays smooth and has plenty of action and what can you say about those Stern spinners? The sounds are amazing for this period especially since Stern sound boards contain NO SOUND ROMS. The artwork is nice....not Sterns best, but it fits the theme well and the backglass is absolutely beautiful. Star Gazer's weak point is the ruleset. It is easy to spot Zodiac targets with the flipper rollovers making it too easy to obtain objectives and high scores. It's similar to the center loop on Silverball Mania. There is a custom ruleset available if you are able to burn new ROMS for your game which makes it more challenging and fun to play. Overall, one of the best classic Sterns and I can't wait to have one in my permanent collection.

EDIT: And now I have one!