Playing a Godzilla LE at 1UP in Greenwood Village, CO

By Vud18

March 17, 2022

This story got frontpaged on March 24, 2022


2 years ago

Gameplay Journal - March 4, 2022 - 1UP Greenwood Village, CO - GODZILLA Limited Edition (2022)

I decided to get out of the office (for once) for a lunch break.  A local pinball place called 1UP Greenwood Village is just a few minutes away from the office.  They have at least 3 Insider Connect Stern Pinball games including Godzilla (LE), Rush (Pro), and Guardians of the Galaxy (Pro) and a ton of other pins and video games.

I had about 45 minutes to play and dropped about $8 into the Godzilla machine. It was a Limited Edition!!!  I wanted to try out the Stern Insider Connect for the first time.  

1UP Greenwood Village has over 30-40 pinball machines and the area the pins are in is rather dark (no windows).  OK for getting the full LED color experience, but I found that the Godzilla table lighting was a bit dark and was hard to see the ball at times on the play surface.

The first thing I noticed was that the flippers didn't seem that powerful as several shots failed to clear the top of the ramp.  I think 1UP keeps the incline of their tables a bit on the steeper side.  Gaining control of the ball is a bit tough as a newb to this game.  I think a tip I heard was "don't flip so often, and you'll get better control".  Wise words, let the ball bounce off a flipper over to another flipper to slow it down and give yourself a better chance to aim your next shot.  It takes time to get used to this machine.

There is a big silver ramp on the upper right side of the table which leads to raised wire returns.   TIP:  Don't half-ass or go anywhere near that silver ramp with anything but a full power shot.  If you only go partially up that ramp it will almost always DRAIN right down the middle - very frustrating.  In many cases, this is how I lost most of my balls. Again, this may be due to how steep the play surface is kept here.  In all the videos I've seen, you gotta hit that ramp often to win battles, that and the left ramp too. 

There are 3 flippers in this game, with the 3rd being located half way up on the left side.  There's a fun loop you can hit that zooms around the back orbit.  If  you time it right, you can score multiple loops in a row.  I think there are some achievements to earn if you can loop it 5 times or more.

Without knowledge of how to start fights or special events, gameplay was a bit random.  I tried to practice lane shots.  There are some side loops to hit, a couple of flipper lanes, and a couple orbits (outer and inner), plus the big tower in the middle.  There's a sinkhole on the right side that can start some events but was not an easy target to hit.  

One problem with the lighting, besides being in a too dark room, is when you trigger certain events, the table can momentarily get dark with just red flashing lights and makes it hard to spot where the ball is.  Lost a couple balls during event triggers when I couldn't see where it went.  

Another issue I found on this machine was when I used the plunger, several balls actually went off the track and up into the top of a plastic cover and fell back into the field.  Must be a problem with the plunger alignment and may be hitting the ball low and launching it up in the air a bit.  So use a controlled half shot and not a full-on plunger.  That's going to cause issues pretty quickly if not fixed.

I tried bumping the table several times and found that the machine was very rigid and didn't budge much at all.  If must be a very heavy machine and you need to shove it pretty hard to help get saves.

I played 8 games.  On average it took about 4+ minutes per game.  My highest score was only 86,501,180 for a 1st session.  In that game I managed to get multiball once and got one major "fight" finished, although I admit I didn't know how I accomplished that - random luck during multiball.

One "gotcha" about the Godzilla Multiball from the building, is that when it releases all 3 balls from the tower at once, they all drained right down the middle every time, but then the machine re-launched them fresh from the plunger area for you 1 after the other.  In all the videos I watched, that never happened but did often in on this pin. The balls didn't spread out when leaving the building and all fell straight into the drain.  Luckily, it returneds every ball back into play.

One nice feature, is that there is a very forgiving BALL SAVED feature on many shots.  Even after a minute of play if there was a shot that went up and drained down the middle with no chance of recovery, it put the ball back into play automatically.  Otherwise I would have gotten frustrated on many shots.  I think Stern learned when a cheap drain happens to give you a bit of a break.

One other comment to make is on the machine haptics.  This LE had a shaker motor inside that vibrates the machine. Especially when Godzilla roars the whole machine shakes like crazy.  Its an interesting feature, gives you the impression of a mighty beast and being hit in battle.  Fun, but not necessary to the gameplay in my experience.

With the Stern Insider QR code reader, I managed to rack up 11 out of the 72 achievements on that machine during my first 8-game session and scored 120/1400 Play XP points.  The Insider Connected gives me a bit of an incentive to come back and earn more achievements.

As I learn more about the game rules (which I found after the fact online), I'll try to get all the other achievements earned.

Games on this LE machine were $1.00 (4 quarters) each or 3 for $2.00.  It was a LOT of fun just getting out and playing pinball for once after 2 years of pandemic.  I hope to make this a weekly event.  

I'll give the location an 8/10 - Great selection of games but the room is a bit too dark to see all the action on some games and the condition of some of the games left a bit to be desired, although I did see them working on a couple games when I was there so I know they do repair them regularly.  I'll give Godzilla LE (for a 1st experience  just a 7.5/10 due to poor game lighting, weak lower flippers and a badly aligned plunger that sent the ball flying off-track on several opening shots.

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Comments

1 year ago

Hi Vud,
I Liked your story. Well I bought a Godzilla premium and once it gets a few MODs put on it it will be delivered… I will be on the look out for the weaknesses you mentioned. I am hoping since it will be brand new everything will be tip top.
DarinSwift

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