You mean the ball search Hulk surround by flat plastic flexing ramps, borked shooter, pot metal tesseract & flat plastic figurines? I wouldn’t put those efforts on a pedestal or use that game as a benchmark.

I tried to mention the zip-tied GI Joes & Bobbleheads on an $8K toy without sounding too negative but it’s hard.

Last I looked I am a Stern fanboy. Not an apologist tho. Sorry if I rained on your parade, the game looks fine enough to me aside from zipties & bobblehead.

By the way I don’t want to sound overly argumentative as that’s super easy to do in threads. I’m just thinking out loud with other pinheads.

to me it seems like a pretty standard fan layout. All 7 of the main lanes to shoot are evenly placed around the pf and the nearly exact same entry point.
The stand ups are similarly placed on the sides and similar depth of field.
The drop bank is a bit of change form the norm for location, angle, and depth.

I perceive this will shoot similar to all standard Stern layouts in over all feel.

I think the success/failure of the shot feel is going to largely depend on the cleanness of the right orbit/loop over ramp to sword feed and speed of this.
If the design works reliably regardless of game pitch (so it is consistent) and ball maintains speed for the return then that is going to feel cool. It seems to also then allow for some crisscross combo of ramps to alternate flipper.

deadpool (resized).jpg

Was that song on the Stern video an existing song, or one made for the pin? Pretty catchy.

I think you have that job covered

I like the passion, not sure the track record is so strong in your marketing dept.

I actually love the look and layout of the game. Just wish these guys would keep up with the code. I'm still waiting for a Ghostbusters code update.

IMO i think we are seeing better more exciting competent marketing because of Zach Sharpe.

Competitive pinball guys (besides me) take this pinball sh*t seriously !

Looking forward to seeing the disco light effect and replacing whatever disco music they present.

So, am I understanding this correctly on the Pro model - all left orbit shots are going to be stopped by the gate and feed the pops? Only right orbit shots have a controlled gate to let it through from time to time? If so, WTF.

For once i don't seem to mind that. If their is a mode that is pop bumper specific you shoot left orbit to gain access = Right orbit cannot access bumpers. I think it gives more coding options. We will see what that looks / feels like on the dead flip stream in the next few days.

The one liners will get old real fast but thats pinball, art is amazing and the layout looks solid, looking forward to trying this pin.

Yes. I think this is how it has to be since the left orbit shot can't be a clean shot all the way around since I don't think there is a rail on the right side due to the shooter lane not having a jump ramp. if you look at the whitewood you can see this better. i'm kind of curious on the Prem/LE how well the ball will actually "hug" the right side of the playfield and go up the small ramp without being assisted by a rail of some kind? Hopefully the geometry of both the right ramp and left orbit shot (that goes up the small ramp to the sword) work better in reality than what it looks like in pictures.

Deadpool Whitewood (resized).jpg

My general feeling about Pro vs Premium is if the shots change then I favor Premium (for example Hyperloop on SW or ramp/subway on GB), otherwise Pro. For this I'm not sure... I like the art on the Pro best. The other add ons for the Premium seem like an easy mod. So the question is, how important is that lift ramp on the Premium/LE and does it improve gameplay?

The backing track appears to be this:

I think Stern maybe added the vocals?

Wasn't Iron Maiden a game that Keith Elwin brought fully conceived and prototyped, in the form of Archer, to Stern, so not part of their usual design cycle?

I agree that "If their is a mode" or another particular reason that it's cool that the shot will specifically feed the pops, but if it's 100% of the time being stopped by that shot I would think it's gonna get old quick. Many games use two control gates for this - Transformers for instance, another Gomez design, allows for clean shots through the left or right orbit, but has modes like Devestator that direct the ball to the pops. By not having two gates, we are stuck 100% of the time with the pops and that sucks. Balls screaming around orbit shots is a big part of the fun in pinball for me.

I can see how they wanted to have another "feature" on the Prem/LE to justify the extra cost, but it just seems weird to me that they wouldn't have added a half rail on the pro like they have on every other game that lets you feed the ball from the shooter lane onto the game but still allow for orbit shots to go around clean.

Maybe I'll have to disable the gate and make my own mod (either put in a half rail or make my own spring loaded ramp to feed the right ramp return...)

Wow good find. Thats pretty cool! Thanks.

In a lot of regards, there are some steps back if you think about it. No engineered toys. Flat printed plastics now in place of figures for pros. But hey, the Sterns are super fun to play, so as long as code is good and the layout clicks, I'm good.

Like, "OK, who brought the dog?". One of the main reasons I sold Ghostbusters.

From TWIP: "In looking at the metadata of the image, we know the leaked image was taken on November 15th, 2017. The former designer was terminated on August 25th, 2017." George also confirmed on C2C that the leaked whitewood was his work. Certainly seemed to have a lot of his design hallmarks.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5RAUeI9Pz0CFtW2OzNTGRg?si=Ht1dCTduTVeH3fR31JqLLg

But apparantly without lyrics?!
Did Stern really produced music specifically for this game?!

OTM. Show me a modern two-flipper game that isn't a fan layout. Basic geometry & physics require it.

My initial thoughts are that the art is busy but looks outstanding. ZY is doing some great things at stern. Layout is fanish but definitely has some new elements or at least some stuff that hasn't been done is a long time. I really like all of the drop targets and the unique ramp feed. I really like that it is comic book based and that stern just completely did their own thing with it. The only negative is there are no real interactive toys on this game. Some people will hate that but I'm not a 90's B/W person and am more worried about the shots and code then toys. We sort of saw the same thing with IMDN which feels more like a modern version of a classic 1980's game and I like that Deadpool is sort of headed that same direction with all of the drop targets. Looks like a blast to play to me.

just dont play the pro then if you want drop targets

Hmmm....flipper gap looks wider than Gomez usually uses but not quite as wide as JT.

Yeah, but you can have a standard, "everything returns to the flippers" layout or you can get a little creative and add some randomness in. It's really hard to make randomness from shots feel good though.

I have nothing against fan layouts, but the extremely samey nature of a lot of the fan designs makes the shine come off a lot of these games quickly. Aerosmith, GOTG, KISS, etc. are all pretty forgettable. Not enough dynamic elements or even variation in where the shots line up. I think this is why Alice Cooper intrigues me. It's a bit oddball, but not totally off the wall.

Yep, if I couldn't attenuate the hillbilly in TWD to non existence it wouldn't last but i guess the sound packs take care of that as well. Perhaps the talented pinside folk who re sound these games will do a R Renolds version with movie one liners, not that they wouldn't get old as well but I doubt quite as quickly

Have to say that I just love the way KISS shoots - satisfying as hell.

Love it
Just ordered a pro.

Is this a mechanical ramp like Mustang?

It's just a standard drop ramp. On the Premium/LE a ball can go from the left orbit back into the shooter lane. There's an upward facing (ball comes down to it, rather than being shot up it) drop ramp that, when down, puts the ball up on to the sword ramp.

Yes, that is the song. It's a royalties free beat and they most likely used an unheard of rapper to put lyrics over the beat for the pinball soundtrack

Yup. The sword ramp is all Gomez. This was never JT’s whitewood. Hell, JT might not even have gotten to the whitewood stage.

ummm...

phrasing

Either way I like it.

Looking forward to hearing all of their tracks.

Um, you left off the word "stage" from my post.

ghostbusters came out in spring 2016, would be a pretty safe bet JT had a whitewood of something by the time of the accusations against him and his departure from the company.

it doesnt really matter, just look forward to flipping this game and see what the codes all about. I am kinda over the whole "x" shot thing and looks like its back again tho.

Oh, jeez. Please no moving multipliers with the action button. That stuff sucks.

I hope they implement 3 lock bar buttons that randomly change which one is lit that you can use to change a multiplier that can max out at 500x just to piss everyone off that still whines about the SW multiplayer.

I'm curious how the multipliers will work, but either way I hope they aren't movable with the button and flippers. That is a horrible mechanic that removes shot accuracy from assigning the x, imo, but whatever.

Anyway, the inserts suggest a 5x playfield multiplier, but then the shot multipliers on top presumably light for 2x at least, so 10x total?

And per the instruction card the PF X is lit by a ricochet shot off the wolverine stand up target, to the rear ramp? That's awesome if truly a semi-repeatable shot...

Stern is really grabbing this industry by the balls.

Alice Cooper , Kingpin and Total Annihilation take Texas Pinball by Storm
Voila - Iron Maiden ( appears without mercy to take away steam )

Chicago Coin ( Announced Monster Bash )
Voila - Deadpool released

I bet the code is subpar like the last couple releases.
Lets face it Stern is muscling the competition out. Who can keep up

I've seen more machines come up for sale lately in this market than ever before.
(I even sold an old favorite to get on the MB LE release wait ) now I'm ever so conflicted

Iron Maiden was subpar at launch?

I'm more of a fighting game player than a pinball player these days, went back to my roots. One thing that sucked was the recent Marvel vs Capcom game had corny graphics, they lost the comic book feel, it had no X-Men, people speculated that Marvel wouldn't allow that stuff. Game is dead now.

I know some folks are sick of the comic stuff, but I personally find it refreshing to see the things people wanted here. Hand drawn, completely comic based, no movie nonsense, X-Men out the wazoo, works for me. I'm never going to be mad to see a comic book come to life, that's the kind of thing pinball should be doing. It's nostalgia without being musty. The Munsters stuff is ancient feeling if you've seen the leaks, hard pass.

I'm not buying Deadpool, the prices are dumb, but if I see one on location or in a collection I'm definitely curious to play.

are they really?

From what I see, Stern has less market share and more costs than ever in total. They appear to be strong but not muscling anything around.

In the past few years Spooky has produced over 1000 games and has at least another 700 on order (450+ACNC, 250+TNA and counting). That alone is 6mil in sales. and other couple mil in the wings.

JJP has a couple thousand games for probably 10+ mil

CGC a couple thousand for probably 6+mil

That is over 20mil in sales that have come out from Stern pockets compared to when they were the only one in the game.

It appears to me that all the major players are doing just fine. I mean... prices keep going up so something is working out for them and no real hints of things turning. If Stern starts dropping prices, then I would say that something is happening and they are either needing to increase numbers or trying to muscle things.

Right now, they all seem to be good. If anything the market being taken by other companies is forcing Stern to increase churn of new titles to keep the monster running.

There is literally another thread that you are active in were Stern just muscled Spooky around.

Stern has continued to see growth each year so those sales are part of pinball growing. You act like they have lost 20 million in sales. The pinball market has grown a ton and stern is growing with it. I doubt they could have made that many extra games to fill the demand anyway. JJP and CGC have struggled consistently in being able to deliver a new product. Every upcoming release is going to be different with JJP but it's just the same old debacle. CGC is definitely improving but still nothing near sterns level. Spooky is operating at a tiny scale and while they might steal a few sales they can't make enough games to compete with stern. Dutch is dead, Heighway is dead, Thunderbirds might as well be dead, and you have American Pinball making a few games but not getting rave reviews either and they certainly are not selling like hotcakes.

Stern utterly dominates the pinball maket, it's not even close.