Alkmaar
The Marketing blurb
Stern Pinball, Inc. is releasing its newest pinball machine,
Spider-Man. Designed by Steve Ritchie, Lyman Sheats, and the engineering staff at Stern Pinball, the pinball machine takes the movies Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 and puts them all into one fast-paced pinball machine that will excite both operators and homeowners. In the SPIDER-MAN™ pinball machine, you are Spider-Man™. Your goal is to defeat the villains from all three movies: Green Goblin from Spider-Man, Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2, and Sandman and Venom from Spider-Man 3. There are detailed, vibrant toys of each of the four villains on the playfield with an associated shot. Defeat all four villains and experience Battle Royale!
Another Spiderman?
With the third version of the big Hollywood blockbuster Spider-Man coming our way, Stern has yet again decided to create another big-license machine. Unlike the original concepts we saw coming from Williams in the 1995-1999 period (JY, TOTAN, CV, MM, TOM, WD, CP, MB, CC to name a few) the 2000-2007 period is dominated by licenses, ranging from Poker to Nascar, and from Hobbits to Amazing Ripleys. Now that must be quite hard, deciding what part of a movie or serie goes into a pinball machine, what will be the toys, the storyline to follow, etcetera. but Stern sure are getting the hang of it.
27 years later...
This isn't the first pinball machine starring the famous Marvel comic. 27 years ago Gottlieb released "The Amazing Spiderman", which was a beautiful machine (to look at, I've never played it). What's the difference after 27 years? Spider-Man hasn't aged a bit, but aside from that, quite a lot actually:
Although the old Spider-Man was a widebody game and the new one isn't, the new Spider-Man has its playfield a bit more occupied. There's three flippers, two regular and one upper flipper. Some of my friends would argue there's a fourth "flipper", but that's just a metal post between the flippers. 
There are four villains puppets in the machine: The Green Goblin on the left with a beautifull green theming around it (which reminds me a bit of the Swamp in Blackwater 100), A mean looking Venom puppet on top of the upper-right ramp and a huge Sandman puppet, in the top-center of the playfield. 
This whole sandman area reminds me a lot of Attack From Mars: It's a funnel-shaped design, with a motorised bank of droptargets in front. A good concept and I'm happy to see stuff like this come back to todays pins. On the right side of the playfield is the last of the villains: Doc Ock (the weird guy in the first movie, with the snakes growing out of his back). Now he's got somthing cool for us to play with: a magnet set in the playfield, like the ones in Twilight Zone. It grabs the ball for you to 'kick loose' again. 
All in all, this looks like a fun machine with some nice, high paced, Steve Ritchie action and a solid piece of software, coming from Lyman Sheats. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these babies!
More info at Pinballnews
The villains photos were 'borrowed' from Pinballnews. They have made a far more exhaustive review of this machine, including a video. Go check that out! Thanks for the photos guys!
The machine is now open for ratings: spiderman on the pinside.
HELLODEADCITY
Inactive member
15y 72,650 5,822 8
I played this 'pin' not too long ago and thought it was great,
what I remember most was that it had a very good sound track .
Had no idea that Steve Ritchie worked on it