How about a Mademoiselle K Pin ? - now there's a lady who knows how to rock (and play guitar) !

I only know the song « ca me vexe » and « jalouse » that I find cool.
I think I got an issue with hard rock or metal rock songs even if I can like some of them. It is too much brutal for me.
Aerosmith, Acdc, GNR ...are fine rock bands for my hears and I don’t consider them as hard rock music

Agree that this should make this game have a more compelling, modern ruleset than RZ has.

Depends how much creative output he is given I guess.

OK, for those of you that have played both at MGC, what are your early impressions?

Both are amazing looking pins. Maiden has the edge in game play. Alice has the edge on the lcd game graphics. You really can’t go wrong on either Pin.

personally, I love the direction the rules are going for ACNC. Basically, it's like a dungeon crawl board game. There is a map in the center lower part of the screen. You can move from room to room. In each room there are items you can collect or advance to another room. The more items you collect on your way to fighting the monster at the top of the room, the easier it is to defeat the boss. Basically a pinball version of a dungeon crawl board game. Fantastic. Love that aspect of it.

Game shot well as well. Everything was smooth.

How about sound and LCD animations?

unfortunately, I could barely hear the sound. the animations and how things are laid out on the display are fantastic. Easy to read. Enough info to let you know what's going on, but not too much that it's confusing as all shit. From what I could hear, it sounded great, but would like to play it in a quiet room to really hear it.

Both are really good. I'll start with Iron Maiden. I was interested in seeing how that far right spinner would work. It shot very well. For some reason, I was thinking that abrupt stop in the pop area would feel unsatisfying, since most spinners are on orbits, but it still felt right to me. The left ramp felt tight through the pops, but it seemed fair. The only shot, I was disappointed in was the counterclockwise upper loop. I thought there were perhaps too many shots off of that small flipper. I just couldn't make that shot with any regularity. Still, I was very impressed.

In my opiniom Alice Cooper just looks more fun and I think the music in it is a bit more enjoyable then Iron Maiden. I just can't get into a majority of Iron Maidens music. In regards to AC I'm surprised that Poison isn't in the gam.

It's a also a bummer that the shot on the backboard of Iron Maiden doesn't allow the ball to pass through and / or hold it. Instead you have this cool looking glowing area to hit from a jump ramp and then the ball falls down after hitting it...Also, I think Alice Cooper easily has the edge in cabinet and playfield artwork.

When it comes to either pin I could see my family and friends enjoying Alice Cooper more then Iron Maiden. I'm surprised how many people I've talked to that have never heard of Iron Maiden.

could you expand on this? like, what are you considering to arrive to this conclusion?

Which is better depends on what you're looking for. I could make a case for either. The ball locks on Alice Cooper are much better "toys". The one on the left ramp can scoop up the ball from either direction, which is something I've never seen before. The guillotine on the upper playfield holds the ball and then chops it like it's chopping off a head. In terms of Iron Maiden, I think I prefer the shot layout. There is more variety in the dept of the shots. Some of the shots remind me of Congo. Both are very good.

The castle molds and upper playfield create a world under glass in Alice Cooper. When I play Iron Maiden I don't see a world under glass representing the Iron Maiden theme.

I love spooky. I love Alice. Alice is very good. However, Iron Maiden is excellent.

Maiden has more flow and intensity.

AC looks nice, great lighting but too many posts and also bit shocked how flat the call outs are...... need intonation!

I like a pin that has soul, i.e. it needs to get my blood pumping.

I was seriously considering ordering ACNC until I played it at TPF. I understand the code is VERY basic right now, but the call outs left me feeling meh.

In contrast, as soon as I saw the twitch stream of IMDN, I ordered.

I think both look good. Can't wait to play both next week. I will give my thoughts next weekend.

After getting some extensive time on Iron Maiden and being able to see some 20? plus units at MGC I have some more thoughts I can share.

Some may be useful for future owners on things to look for and tweak when setting up.

Lots of cabinet issues on the ones that were at MGC. Be sure to check you bottom panel for putty and "fixed" issues. Looks like they cut bottom panels too large and had to pound them in and then putty to fix screw ups. First one I opened had gobs of tan wood putty all over and actually holding in the bottom panel. I was told to grab another game thankfully. That one also had some minor issue with bottom panel and a few others I saw when opening were the same story.

I suggest buying inside leg brackets and outside corner brackets as you will want to swamp out the junk Stern is using. Saw 2 games with legs stripped out and ready to snap by the end of MGC since they are using the crappy inside bracket and plastic leg protectors.

I suggest buying these
https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=2711
and these
https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=144

Check your playfield for sunken inserts and ink smudges under clear. 3?/30 had issues at MGC. One game had lots of sunken inserts. One game had really fuzzy ink and smudges (like it was cleared before the black line was dry)

Buy a higher tension shooter spring as they come with green which is not strong enough to make the pull orbit plunge so players will start smacking the knob on route.
https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=125

Ball times are VERY VERY long. Even set up hard, players will have longer ball times. Default is 20 sec ball saver for most multiballs and add-a-balls. I suggest stepping this down to 5-8 seconds at most since this is a multiball heavy game.

With 500 plays at MGC ball times were very long even with the game set up tough from the clock chaos tournament. Over 4 min average.

Game shoots amazingly well, art is great, music and theme are very 'meh' for me personally, but the code is really fun out of the box (code will need refinement to bring down defaults for ball time and leveling scoring but that will come as more people play and find the exploits over time.

AC artwork just blow out IM’s artwork for me. There is even no match. As I find IM pretty nice, AC is just awesome. Just my tastes.

Disappointing they haven't moved to put better brackets in. Thought that would be a given, especially as they added back rails.

Agreed, at minumum the inside corner brackets are needed

At this point I think that the video artwork is very lacking, almost along the lines of an early 90's Gauntlet Legacy and then divide that in half as there seems to be limited/no appreciable background scenes (that might just be too early). I have a soft spot for GL but only from a nostalgia perspective and not what I want on a 2018 pin.

...and it is available in the extra buttery edition!

To anybody that cares... played both this weekend, walked up and congratulated Keith on a great first game (and I mean that, it is), and I really hope to park his game right next to ours one day.

Having said that, ACNC won the trophy for best new game, so HA! Lol... the fact we are even in on this conversation makes me proud of our team.

Great days for pinball to have this many good choices. Nuff' said.

alittle off topic but is there a song list somewhere for ACNC?

Here you go...

https://open.spotify.com/user/joelreeves/playlist/6pU2XNBKwqJFtKSfJyXZ6q?si=XmYcr9BoSga_UfmNevPqUA

These are just the Alice Cooper songs though.

Thanks! But didnt want to listen but just wanted the names of all the tracks??

Here you go...

1. Feed My Frankenstein
2. Cold Ethyl
3. Lost in America
4. Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever
5. No More Mr. Nice Guy
6. Brutal Planet
7. It's the Little Things
8. Billion Dollar Babies
9. Go To Hell
10. I Love the Dead

have to sign in... lol copy and paste for me?

I played Iron Maiden and ACNC yesterday at PATZ. Both great pins! The Stern Maiden flippers have a light action just like my Stern Sharkey's Shootout. Some people think this feels "Cheap"? I don't. It's just a light action and I like it. I am considering buying the Pro, but am waiting to see how it develops. Still may go with a TNA.
BTW, I think the LCD animations are cool! I'm not a Maiden fan, but the music goes with the pin.
I also have a deposit down on an ACNC. This cab is awesome!!!

enjoy maiden now. acnc wont be available anytime soon, isnt spooky busy with tna?
you can always come back to this title.

Which one feels more worthy of the dark lord and master?

Asking for a friend.

I started liking ACNC more this weekend at PATZ On Saturday when I could make some UPF shots, the flippers seemed very weak which doesn't help first impressions.

Also there needs to be a hint for when the ball comes from the left scoop. It needs a big incandescent flasher ASAP. Killing these and going to LED is a bad trend. The shots are tight but after a while I started to find them.

The ball times on iMad are way too long and there are way too many multi-balls. There needs to be more strategy based single ball play that builds up before the game puts out.

ACNC needs another voice call out since its way too much AC talking all_ the time. He needs a sidekick like the stiff in the coffin to Elvira ratio. It needs tweaking in voice and lighting choreography, I like it over Imad for home use of these tweaks are made.

The Playfield coloration needs some tweaking, it's like there is a missing screen of reds or orange missing and looks drab compared to the cabinet... Or there needs to be a black light that lights things up..

I really want to like both games. Just not there yet.

-c

Wow! It sounds like somebody stayed at a Holiday inn express last night

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Exactly, ACNC is very early in code right now and much is yet to come. Same for IMDN.

As far as incandescent light, I just compared two 89 flashers side by side on my F-14. One was an incandescent, the other, a WARM WHITE Cointaker Super5 LED. My wife and I could not see any difference between the two at all! Notice I said WARM WHITE. COOL WHITE is too bright and annoying and sucks IMO.
Cheers!

I haven't played either game in person yet - just watched numerous videos. However, in the category of callouts, IMDN wins hands down for me so far. Its lady and demon voices are a great combo with lots of energy, whereas I'm somewhat shocked how lackluster Alice Cooper sounds in ACNC.

The problem with pinball out in the wild is that you never really get to hear them in a quiet environment. I was lucky at PATZ. They had it separated from the others in a quieter area and I got to really hear it better. I loved it. I thought it was well done and it will only get better.

Yep - most videos shot at shows are fairly worthless audio-wise due to the overriding din of the surrounding games. However, the following videos shot at MGC (nice job Pinball Mayhem!) capture the sound of both IMDN and ACNC pretty well by use of a microphone next to each game's speakers. Draw your own conclusions as to which one's callouts sound better.

“Don’t leave so soon your nightmare has just begun”

It sounds like he is reading a book to a bunch of preschoolers? I am hoping they are going re-record some of those call outs!

NOPE!
This is the video that started the dilemma in the first place! I was also fooled by it at first. See my full post here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/spooky-pinball-3rd-game-500-units/page/53
That video gets the audio all wrong. The mix is way off and the fidelity is not there at all!

**I went to PATZ yesterday and had a lot of play time on ACNC! I was lucky that they had the machine separated from all the others and I could hear the sounds very well. As stated by others here, that video above does it absolutely no justice! Alice Cooper is great! The call outs sound right and it is with out a doubt one of the most beautiful pins I have ever seen! The cabinet and playfield art are awesome! In hearing the sound in real life, Alice's voice is much more full bodied and resonant. The audio system on this game is killer, just like TNA, (which I also played, and it is awesome btw). So with all the fidelity, especially low end frequency, and the fact that the back round sounds and music are present, it sounds great! I have no complaints and I was skeptical after hearing that shit video as well.
So I hope this puts to rest the Alice call out dilemma!

I don't see how - unless they use different recordings - that Alice Cooper's voice callouts are suddenly going to have more energy, but that said, I am reserving final judgement until I play and hear ACNC in a suitable listening environment.

In the meantime, the game LOOKS very cool!

OK, I'm glad you're reserving judgement because all you have to do is look at that mic setup on that video. They have one mic on one speaker. How is that supposed to capture the proper mix and fidelity? I know it's hard to understand, but Alice's voice sounds far better than this video suggests. This is why bands record in professional recording studios and not with one mic hanging from someones basement ceiling.

I don't know if you played a diff'rent one than I did there, but I would have to think hard to remember a worse playing game than that. Guess what, new game, new show, the weakest flippers known to man. Why do we have to live through this every time? The callouts make Dirty Harry sound like he's interested. The game explains nothing to you, with like 2 lights lit in areas, repeatedly hitting those shots didn't do anything; broken switch? Hole pop outs? No idea I couldn;t tell what the hell was going on. I got to lock a ball once, and never started a mode. The 4 player game we played one person once got it in the upper PF.
Looks cool, interesting payout, rough start.

And yet, IMDN's callouts sound so good with the same apparent mic setup.

Please. It's not a matter of fidelity here. It's lack of voice variation, emotion, drama, and energy.

From what I can tell, Alice Cooper is just not a very good voice actor, or the director of voice at the company is inexperienced. Coopers call-outs do sound like he's reading them, not acting them. To be fair, it is early, and bad voice acting can be helped with background sounds and music. I'm sure in the end it will sound okay, but unless they re-record these, they are never going to have that professional, polished sound.

Here's a William's sound director directing the woman who voiced the "car girl" in Creature. Super cool:

Uh no, it doesn’t!

In context this means nothing. There is no HV section for flashers on the game and nothing to tell you the ball is coming out of the left scoop except for a feint smattering of green leds under the plastic that can't be seen in a bright room. Compare this to the left scoop kick out on whirlwind where the game clearly lets you know what is going to happen.

Yeah, you're amusing for a new kid. .

yeah, pretty hard.

do you mean to say that stereo adds tonality?

I think Spooky said that ACNC gets a software update for Allentown. It will be interesting to see how it progresses.