Mentara's ratings

I was looking around for an early 80‘s solid state machine to go along with my 2 system 11‘s and one wpc95 machine. At one point a Devil Riders was for sale on our forum, and being relatively new to the pinball scene i haven't even heard of Zaccaria before, let alone know Devil Riders.

I did a little research and pretty much blindly bought the machine. The person selling it was well known so i trusted him when he said the machine played very well and was in very good condition. Boy, was i in for a treat. I really like this pin, a lot!

First of all there's the exceptional build quality, you can easily tell this machine was produced in an era where quality was very important. A few examples. The playfield, it lacks mylar. But still, this cabinet has the nicest playfield in my collection. The colors are very vivid, and i don't what they used to protect it, but it has some sort of very thin coating (no clearcoat though) on it that makes it very resistant against wear. You can also see the build quality inside of the cabinet. The woofer is protected by a box, and so is the tranfo. Never seen that before. And the coilsleeves are made of some kind of metal (brass?) instead of plastic. Don't know if that is standard, but i assume so.
The only flaw i seemed to notice is on the flippers itself. They come in two pieces, a bottom piece and a top piece. So they are very easy to detach but the upper part of the flipper fails to stay clicked in after you reinstall them. Sure you can use a few drops of glue. But chances are that they will break the next time you need to unmount them. So for now i just use a little clear tape to hold the cap on the flipper.

The game itself. I was stunned by the deep rules for a game this age. At first sight there is not much to do. However, once you get to know the pin, there's tons of stuff to do! The main goal is getting the ramps down by hitting those targets underneath. That alone is a cool concept. Once on the upper playfield you can score extra points (20,000 points) , advance the red special (spelling d.e.v.i.l.r.i.d.e.r.s.) or hit the orange special when lit. You can lit the orange special by clearing 3 drop target banks in one play. Both the red special and orange special awards can be adjusted and vary from extra points to an extra ball or a free game.

Than there's the bonus multiplier. 5x, 10x and 20x. You can increase these by hitting the outer lanes. There are 3 switches in each lane that you need to hit to light the “advance multiplier” hit them again to advance. This is a good way for scoring big points. It's a relatively safe shot and the ball ends up in the popbumpers where it can lower droptargets without the need for actually hitting them.

Another cool extra feature is the react flipper. Each of the outlanes is equipped with a vertically positioned flipper. When the ball enters the lane it activates a switch giving you one shot at flipping (actually scooping is a better word here) the ball back into play. You can relight the react flippers by knocking down a drop target bank.

One more thing i would like to mention is the backglass. This pin has by far the nicest looking backglass i ever had in my modest collection. The neon in the backglass is near impossible to replace i think, but mine still works and it really makes the backglass and the plastic mouldings inside stand out.

All in all, a very nice addition to any collection really. Especially for those who are looking for an older pin to go with their wpc's.

JD was the first widebody in my collection. And while it's already moved on now (traded for NBA Fastbreak) I hope i get another widebody in the collection soon or later. Allthough the difference in size might not be that big, as far as playing experience goes, it really shows the extra space. JD is no exception, the playfield is full of stuff to do.

First thing i thought when i got this was “Ow, no pop bumpers?” But after a while, i realised i didn't miss them at all. On the contrary, i think pop bumpers would have taken out the flow of the game. And this machine has got some flow i tell you.

The gameplay is so so, it will keep you busy for a while. Getting to the endgame isnt to difficult. (I am talking factory settings here) Destroying all four judges however, is. Personally, i never got further than destroying 3 and losing the balls on the fourth. But after a while i kind of had this feeling that the pin was missing something, but it's hard to describe what it is. I think it's the software, rather than the hardware. I once saw an alternative rules set for JD written for that computer mod to play your own software on your pinball machine. And while i never played with that rules set, i think it'll make a big difference on the gameplay and the durability.

Another feature worth mentioning is the supergame. It's a totally different game where each ball starts with a mini multiball. It's got new missions and a 6 ball multiball (when hitting all the drop targets) A feature that is much appreciated by kids or at non-competitive pinball parties.

The cabinet and the artwork. Both are one of the main reasons i wanted this pin. And thank god the pin is based on the comics rather than the crappy Stallone movie. Therefore the colours match the theme perfectly, the sideart is very nice and bright, and there's the golden eagle to (literally) top it off. It's a machine that really stands out. As do the sounds and the speech. 80ies hard rock tunes and Dredd's dry speech. I love it! And the supergame begins with one of the coolest sentences in pinball history. “I'm Anita Mann...” Brilliant. :-)

This is a heavily underrated pin if you ask me. Must be one of the cheapest DMD pins out there. Out here you can pick one up in nice condition for around 850 to 1000 Euros. I actually traded my average conditioned Judge Dredd for this very nice condition NBA fastbreak. And i got 150 Euros on top of the trade.

It took me some games to adapt to the basketball scoring system. But should you not like this, the latest roms have a option to set this pin to regular pin scoring system. Personally, i like this basketball styled point system, it fits the theme perfectly.

One of the first things i did was placing leds underneath every insert. And waw, does this game benefit from leds! Especially the series of inserts for the Stadium Goodies really need leds. Otherwise they hardly light up. For the GI and the backbox, i left in the regular bulbs, cause they help keeping the warm, gym and basketballfield kind of lighting.

The lightshow in general is pretty heavy on flashers, not “F14 Tomcat heavy”, but still. Some friends that came over and played NBA Fastbreak for the first time complained they were partially blinded by the flashers when they launched ball one. From ball 2 on it's a lot less, until you start multiballs or reach the Trophy Match.

The backbox. Not the best ever, but it fits the theme perfectly. There's a flipper built in the backbox and a light weighted ball to shoot in a hoop and rack up extra points. You really need to be good at this if you want to go for big points. You can easily gather 15 to 20 points from this feature.

Another big plus is the amount of high scores you can set. Each team has his own highscore, so 29 teams, means 29 highscores. Add a grand champion and a M.V.P. (most valuable player) and people can enter their name very easily, great for parties and kids.

I wouldn't call this pin a sleeper, if you ask me it will never be very popular. But if you are looking for a budget DMD pinball machine with nice gameplay, fun at parties and easy to maintain, this is the one!

Before I owned this machine, I played this pin once, on the Belgian Pinball Championship during recreational play. And honestly, i hated it. I didn't know where to shoot or what goals i had, and i kept hitting those two damn targets in the middle of the playfield, bouncing back the balls sdtm. Played 2 games and headed for another pin.

A little later I saw that the person i sold a bartop arcade to was selling his F14 Tomcat for more or less the same price I had asked for my bartop. So i proposed a trade. His F14 for my bartop. Why? Guess i thought the pin deserved a second chance. Besides, the cab was a little beaten up and perfect for a first attempt at cabinet restauration. Because of the few colors the cab is painted in. (mostly black, with a little of red, white and yellow) And otherwise the machine worked perfectly, so no need for technical fixing, just esthetically.

Since then, this machine really grew on me. With leds in the right places, it looks superb. And the two frigging targets in the centre of the playfield? Simple: dont shoot them, unless you have to. (eg to relight your rescue kickback)

Gameplaywise this game makes very good use of all four flippers. You really need those upper flippers to spell out TOMCAT asap, and start locking balls. And that one pop bumper on the upper playfield is very well placed,so after some training you can really put that bumper to work, and help getting all the letters of ‘TOMCAT'.

The sound. Boy does that sound slingshots you right back to the eighties! I love it! For me, this pin wouldn't even benefit from new, high end speakers. Because the standard, lower quality, speakers really enhance the cockpit feeling of the speech and the music. But again, that's totally my opinion. :-)

short:
- looks very nice with leds
- perfect cabinet for people that want to try cab restauration
- needs some time to get used to the feel and gameplay
- cool eighties soundtrack and speech

Johnny Mnemonic was my second pin. It stood for about 4 months next to my Whirlwind. JM is a lightning fast, but very enjoyable pin with a high sense of flow. (you can pair up those ramps and loops a couple of times in a row when you get used to this pin)

JM is a typical example of “the pin is better than the movie”. People that care for the theme, you should definately read the book, it's way better than the movie. The pin would have been even better if they used the original voices for the speech. They are close the the originals, but you can tell it's not Keanu Reeves talking. Close, no sigar. The rest of the sound is pretty decent for a WPC95.

If you happen to have a cabinet that is not faded, be happy. They are well wanted amongst people that look for this pin. Mine was slightly faded to a dark orange instead of the deep red it came in when they left the factory.

As far a maintenance goes, that's where the pin lost me. The hand mechanism is so sweet when it works. But if the damn things breaks it's a true pain in the *ss to break it down and fix it. I must say that i do not have any form of training in electrical or mechanical stuff. So perhaps for the more skilled people this might not be a big problem to maintain. Also, the bulbs underneath the matrix, where you drop the balls with the hand mechanism, do not have easy acces. So I would suggest, when you need to change one of the matrix bulbs: open it once, and change all the bulbs with leds for longer lifespan.

I ended up trading it, with the broken hand mechnism, for a working Judge Dredd in average condition. But honestly, when i see one on location, i will definately play it!

I own this pin for a little over 8 months now. It was my first pin ever. And I still reach out for it every time i want to play pinball. Currently it stands between an F14 Tomcat, NBA Fastbreak and a Devil Riders.

I organise game evenings from time to time, and the Whirlwind is a very good pin for newbies. Easy rules, fun with the topper blowing wind in your face, pretty colourful cabinet, and when tuned correctly the amount of ball drains is very doable for beginners. My friends tend to reach out for this pin rather than the NBA, because of the more complicated rules and modes in the NBA.

All in all, a very well balanced and fun game. Perhaps for the more skilled and experienced player it might get boring after a while. But honestly, this pin isn't going anywhere for now. (not only because it's my girlfriends favourite pin, but it helps)