We got our James Bond 007 LE machine from Stern today (we ordered in the mad scramble back in September 2022) and a professional installed it. There is a scratch on the underside of the glass, exactly where the ball comes up from the Aston Martin. I am wondering if this got scratched during Stern's own check-out plays and if it is inevitable given the design of the game. Fellow owners: Do you have a similar under-side scratched area?

(In case anyone is curious, the other problems we've noticed after about 10 balls: (1) the shooter was misaligned such that it imparted only a feeble kick to the ball. Even if pulled back all the way, the ball wouldn't even go into the playfield. The installer took it apart twice and realigned it and now it works as expected; (2) the ball return just below the flippers might be mounted at the wrong angle. My very first ball drained into the ball return and didn't move after that. The machine responded to this by kicking everything, thinking that the ball was stuck somewhere. The ball came loose when I jostled the machine. This happened 2 or 3 times in just 10 balls.)

First impressions of the game: (a) one ball spent about 10 seconds among the pop bumpers near the top and emerged headed straight for the center drain; not a great ball when you don't get to do anything other than pull back the plunger, (b) it needs a lot more variety in the music. Playing the James Bond theme over and over and over won't work. In the movies the theme returns every 20 or 30 minutes, right? And it is when Bond is doing something impressive. You don't hear the theme if he is just walking around, going into a restaurant, etc.

Thanks in advance for any answers. The software is currently updating to 0.84 (came with 0.70). If anyone has questions about the machine I would be happy to try to answer!

Let me add that I think Senior Management in our household will appreciate that the configuration pages allow for "adult content" to be suppressed (the boys are 7 and 9 and won't be ready to watch a James Bond movie until they're 21 or maybe older, according to their mom). Also, I tried out the game this morning with the 0.84 software. It still plays the Bond theme over and over and over and over, but it stopped.... when the machine completely crashed (flippers disabled, playfield dark, "initializing" screen on the TV). I've never seen a pinball machine hard-crash like this. I guess that's why it is not tagged 1.0 or greater!

Guys who say that kids can be exposed to James Bond: our household operates under a "one woman, one vote" system for all important decisions. (i.e., my opinion is not solicited nor relevant)

Update: I've played this about 20 more times since writing the above "first impressions" and am enjoying the game much more now that I'm less incompetent at it. For less-than-professional players I think it makes sense to set the machine up for at least 5 balls/game because there are a lot of ways to drain. I'm sure that it will be better once the code is finished, but the only way that I will see all of the modes is if I bump up the number of balls to 10 per game!