But the initial Godzilla code was miles ahead of what we've see so far in the Bond videos.

Gomez has stated on Facebook that they have secured use for 10 tracks to be used on the machine. He did not specify which ones.

The livestream has been up in the air because there are license approvals pending. The gameplay on the stern site has audio muted for the same reason. I would wait to see how video and music are used once we get to the official livestream or have more info on the approval holdups.

Never get sick of the Bond theme, so good.

I have Ghostbusters, I've never got sick of that theme.

The code looks horrible so far. The screen is not being used well for the assets. Lonnie phones it in all of the time. It sucks as this layout looks great and code will make of break the game.

Posts likely need moved up and no ball save.

It is good, but it shouldn't be overused. Right now they are using the James Bond Theme music for both the Jetpack MB and for the Bird1 MB, and that's not great IMO.

Imagine if Godzilla MB, Tank MB, and MechaGodzilla MB all used the Blue OC song. Would be crazy. And that's what we've got right now on Bond. So I'd imagine they'll change for release.

Agree, too much gambling casino bs.

Same thing with BM66. Not sure which had less code at launch.

That was Lyman, but to comment on the current status of the code is ridiculous.

But it’s what happens every time. No worries.

It will end up phenomenal with the assets they have to work with.

And Mike V. is on board as well

I think bm66 had less code, it wasn’t even playable at the initial reveal.

Hopefully Lonnie is doing the coding and Mike is on the rules, I remember a lot of Lonnie games just being shoot this shot so many times to start a mode then repeat those same shots to finish the mode and most modes being a rinse and repeat of that.

Hopefully Mike with Lonnie can make each mode and action feel unique, with their own unique shots and shot numbers the way Lyman did on bm66. One of my favourite shots in bm66 and pinball in general was the VUK (batpoles) to left orbit (batcave) shot at the start of a villain mode, brilliant theme integration and it felt nailing those shots back to back to get x2 multiplier.

Word

No doubt, follow the winning formula! And with Mike on the rules, interview with Gomez and Mike, I’m feeling good about where it will end up.

Not worried. Early code.

I agree though, too much of a good thing is always possible and not good.

How long did BM66 take for the code to be done?
Was it 2 years?

A month shy of 3 years. Dec 2016 to Nov 2019 (not counting the recent IC update to give it that functionality). It had the WORST AMOUNT OF CODE for the longest time of any modern Stern. Gomez promised new code every two weeks "until we getcha there" then bailed for 140 days with NOTHING. I bought the $15k SLE (back when LEs were $9k) and watched it collect dust for about a year since you could finish the whole game in about 20 minutes. There was almost nothing in it to do.

Geezzz
Perhaps the smart thing to do now is make purchase when code matures

Smarter from a logical standpoint, but with the pinball bubble, that sane approach can cost you $2-3K more on the secondary market if none are made when you're ready to buy. FOMO rules pinball. Stranger Things Premium is a good example of this. Code turned out okay eventually, but Stern just abruptly stopped making Premiums and people were caught off-guard. Good luck finding one for a decent price on the secondary market.

And of course you forget (a) the time Lyman spent to totally redesign the game play from the original vision and (b) you bought the SLE AFTER the code announcement was made. Not Stern’s fault.

With Mike V on rules and Lonnie’s doing his special, the game code will slam dunk. In six weeks I’ll bet the code will be up to .90 level. Progress seen before then is irrelevant because it won’t be then until that the first games start appearing. So many assets to work with it is a little exciting to consider what might be.

Anyways, everybody remember to watch 24 Bond films on Amazon Prime between Oct 5 - 31st(?). Daniel Craig was the best Bond by far, While Sean Connery was second best and that’s still amazing. Rodger Moore is the classic Bond and most like Fleming’s super agent.

It’s almost like some of you want the game to be bad.

Not every game is going to have deep code.

Depending on my mood I love my Fish Tales as much as my Godzilla as much as my Monster Bash.

It’s all relative. Can’t wait for my LE, and the journey the code will be on between now and done.

Lonnie and Mike have done great work together. They have plenty to work with here. And, there’s a huge list of names that don’t get talked about as much but have a significant impact on the game, especially so in the LCD era.

Most of you have no idea how much work goes into collaborating with an IP licensor like Bond.

Think its good fun, but maybe is more to the fact that the guy playing is a real good player. Watch his nudging skills to see how well he controls the ball. Would think average players will bounce the ball into the slings a lot, which he did not do most of the time. Shows advanced skills, so would not say its a long player. GG himself said its not one of his easy shooting games, rather on the tougher side.

Im all chopped up and whacked out for this game. I think the goofy sausage is going to pipe bloom the cheese sauce. Honestly I say yoooooo it’s all up in there with the code and I see the hot topics of the gravey baby!

No, but fast rising prices almost require it as part of the value equation.

I don’t dispute this at all. That said, we have no idea where Bond will end up.

Constant negativity just clutters the thread and turns people off from participating.

There will be plenty to discuss when there’s more to see.

Agree with this....maybe just me, but it's been a pretty tough hype thread to stay engaged with.

Rough reveal and a mystery version....hope clarity is achieved soon....

Hate to break it to you… but there is a lot more than approvals keeping these things from being revealed.

They are making these huge disclaimers because it’s not there yet

Major villain modes were there… mb… and the bat mobile mode was too iirc. It actually filled the screen too

No, blowing deadlines and still taking people’s money and still having a reveal with a game in such bad state is ridiculous.

Stern got mounds of hell for it in the past and rightfully so. So when they regress and do it again the scrutiny is warranted.

Right. Martin is not just good--he was the number 1 ranked player in the UK for literally years, until he decided to step back from competing as much. So to say he's good, would be an understatement.

I watched the Pinball News video again, and there is a lot to like here. A few quick thoughts:

-Code is obviously super basic at this point--I don't think we can even call it 50% coded yet by what I saw.

-Layout seems like a winner

-I like the use of other parts of Bond movie scores besides the main theme-song. The high-score entry music is a really great piece of music from one of the Connery movies (can't remember which off the top of my head)

-Seems to have some voiced movie clips, so that bodes well for theme integration once the game code is farther along

-As has been beaten to death, Spinner sound needs to go! It's so out-of-place.

Adding to the music here..Bond would not be BOND, without the late, GREAT JOHN BARRY..he totally rocked the soundtrack genre for most of the 60ies/70ies/early 80ies..not to mention his other works.."Dances with Wolves, Out of Africa, Black Hole, etc etc..I only say this because I'm also a film composer (used to be..now just doing pinball, lol)

Same jokers telling everyone how much they know on new game threads spreading a negative vibe.
When the game shows up they bounce over to the next new game thread and tell us how much they know.

Wow that’s really cool.

Very little hype, lots of gripe. Can’t wait for the owners thread

Me too, I am sure the game will be amazing!

In Pinsides defense, Stern haven’t really given us much to fill the vacuum. There was a huge amount of hype on here until Stern began “launching”, then all we’ve had in 3 weeks is some crap amateur hour gameplay footage on super barebones code.

This is why a good launch is important. A half baked launch leads to a half baked reaction. If you don’t fill the garden bed with healthy plants it’ll fill with noxious weeds.

Why Martin filming with a vhs camcorder doe?

It's hard to look past the super early code and rules (why would stern even show it in this state, even unofficially?), but it looks like a fun shooter with some interesting shots. I'm personally hoping there are more occasions where the drop targets stay down so you can directly bash the rocket - they seem to reset immediately all the time currently. Though the gate shot that circles the rocket looks fun, and I like the one-way gate feeding the orbit/upper flipper that the drops being down would negate.

Also, I just can't see where the jetpack mech will ever be much fun, as it doesn't look like you'd be able to bash the ball or figure (why would you bash Bond anyway?). It's early code obviously but when he's at full extension where he stayed a good bit you're just staring at the side of the thing. Dropping on the pops or single standup just looks boring, especially after the 100th time. I'm not in the market at $10k for a premium, so I guess it doesn't concern me - Pro honestly looks better without the jetpack at this point though. If they come up with some way to make the jetpack fun then my hat will be off to them, as-is it looks really feeble and lame... Sorry to join the negativity.

On-brand retro vibe. Just be glad it wasn't black and white.

Thanks for letting us know. When I saw him play and then comments that JB has long ball times, I thought sure it does, when a real pro is playing! Let one of us mere mortals play and watch the draining commence, lol. JB is an excellent layout design! Top notch by one of the industries all time great designers George Gomez. JB is going to be a stunner to own, with all those fun kinetic interactive toys, like were playing a Q movie set.

Watching Martins hand nudging skills in the video when the camera was pulled further away was a real treat too!

Think he used Betamax

I was thinking button controlled for dropping the ball statically during gameplay. Second use use if possible, would be having the Jet pack load and then quickly reload balls for multiball and dropped in one at a time .

Or at least begin multiball from the Jet pack. Wand swings out with a ball, stops, music and light show builds, ball drops and its game on with balls kicking in from other locations.

Or with a strong enough wand and magnet, load and carry out 2 or 3 balls, magnetized together daisy chain style, and drop them all at once.

I think the current multiball does drop from wand. Ball gets picked up then moves out over tank, it sits there waiting for you to hit a shot near the tank and drops on tank to start multiball

IMO this whole mess was caused by running out of time before the big shin dig in the UK. So they did what every company does when caught with their pants down, they went for “make it work”. Does this mean this code is anywhere near finished, or even, well started? I think they got to code and said, fake it using Stranger Things code, just throw a pile of crap against the wall and what sticks is what we reveal, we can catch up after the big 60th blow out. Then we rework this into a sellable title once we get past the weight of this very visible and “dick swinging in the wind” disaster of a release that, honestly, feels just like what it probably is, a hot mess waiting for IP owner approval that ran out of time before the big dance. I expect to see a better showing at expo, at least hopefully they will have fixed a few things by then. My take on layout and flow is, it seemed to shoot ok, but it isn’t a Godzilla, nor do I get the feeling it will be anything as thrilling as GZ or JP, or for that matter even Rush.

I am not sure if anyone has posted this... by I'll venture my guess.

Eddy's Venom was the game the was supposed to be released, but it was pushed back behind Bond, for one or all of the reasons below

1- To tie in with the 60th anniversary - that way the new SLE could come in and make loads of $$$ despite utilizing very few supply-chain parts
2- Because they knew they could push a huge price increase through on the Bond LE.... I guess they knew interest in Venom was less... so selling 1000LEs at the new price would be more challenging. Now that the price is established, they can *hold* the price for Venom, and people will be more accepting.

Sooo.... I think that is why they are so far behind on Bond... but I bet when Venom is released, it will be much, much closer to completion than what is typical.

No insider info.... but from a business stand point... #1 lines up with the MO while #2 is a pretty standard business practice.

Franchi talks about Bond art in the podcast he released yesterday. Good listen.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-super-awesome-pinball-show/id1491095159?i=1000581281530

Thanks. Is there an approximate time to skip to in this podcast for the Bond discussion? I don't want to listen to a 2 hour long thing.

Right at 30 minutes in. Good listen. He confirms he did no pulp fiction art. Also interviews Cassandra Peterson (Elvira) and Greg Feres.

I think portions of these scheduling theories are likely, but how does that explain the separate Elwin Bond game? Did Stern really push TWO games up in the release schedule even though it's a single theme? If they didn't plan for the 60th anniversary ahead of time and needed to scramble, they seriously dropped the ball.