The laws of physics demand a fan layout with two standard flippers, but Stern has some interesting 3+ flipper layouts. Maiden & JP2 come to mind.

I thought POTC was pretty cool. His only other Sterns are WOF and Whoa Nellie, which are definitely not cookie-cutter.

I blame our downfall on unnecessary capitalization.

SMH @ those snowflakes downvoting your post. People are so sensitive these days.

Monday morning quarterback time!

I hope the premium cabinet art is a placeholder. It's like someone saw the Luci cabinet and said, "you know what this needs? Less lady and more xmas." Stern usually does a great job of having multiple, completely different cabinets where each looks good in its own right. This is more like they pulled a Wonka, where the budget cabinet is just an inferior version of the limited cabinet.

Playfield layout seems fine, if uninspired. I'm sure it will shoot well, but KME has raised the bar on playfield geometry, and my standards have gone up as a result. Can't see myself ever buying another game with a snooze-inducing layout. Munsters and BK3 come to mind. Disappointing when legendary designers phone it in. That said, hopefully E3's ball-interactive toys make up for the vanilla fan.

Those ramps don't look like Nordman's work. Seems like someone borrowed a pair of flat, straight, no-nonsense ramps from Star Trek. I wonder if they were simplified after Dennis left the company. Can't imagine those are his original design.

Good point. Excellent smooth shots, fun simple rules, and great theme/humor/voice work put that game over the top. Hopefully E3 follows suit!

Yeah, I'm more a fan of the game's literal acronym EHOH, but it's mob rule on that kinda thing.

Jesus fucking christ, dude.

Because pinside! Here's my scientific logic:

What's different about these two titles?
SS.pngEHOH.png

...I mean, aside from the fact that one is an awesome, custom hand-drawn logo and the other is a generic spooktacular font rendered by a computer.

Rejoice, clip droolers.

itsonlyagame.png

Some of you guys take this whole "world under glass" thing a bit too literally.

Sure! I complain for free.

Crazy talk.

If that's true, maybe they needed something to keep the line moving while new JP2 playfields are made. Pure imagina... I mean, speculation.

edit: manadams beat me to it

People seem to think a ridiculously high price tag is a deterrent. To people with substantial wealth, it's a feature! They're looking for something to blow money on. Any toy that costs $15k must be awesome. And don't forget, it's (artificially) limited, ooh!

I'm looking to get the most bang for my buck; rich people often enjoy the simple act of spending money. Value is secondary, if not the outright enemy. Some of them will feel more pleasure buying a massively overpriced $15k collectible than the same item for less money. And god forbid someone thinks they're cheap (a cardinal sin among the wealthy).

They worked hard for that money, they want to spend it! What fun is letting it rot in a bank, or passing it all down to your spoiled punk kids?

Maybe once it ships, since it can't possibly be in your literal collection now?

Do you guys want a cheap game, or do you want 26 classic horror movie licenses?

It's not cheap, is my point. But what would people like to remove to make it cheap? You can't have "all the stuff" and cheap.

The reality is you have no idea how much it costs to make this game.

Movie copyright in the US lasts for 95 years, which easily covers all 26 films in EHOH. It's possible some of them have lapsed due to non-renewal, but I definitely wouldn't assume they're all free.

No, but the cost of development might've. You know those video screens everyone demanded? It takes a team to do graphics now.

It has all the stuff it has, was my point. If you want all that stuff, pay for it. If you want it cheaper, which stuff would you like to remove? Personally I would like to go back to DMD and subtract the cost of custom hi-res animation from every game. But it is what it is.

Wasn't trying to imply the game has EVERYthing, because there's no such thing. It's never enough for the peanut gallery.

Correct! Turns out if you lead a horse to water, you CAN make him think.

I don't watch TV while I'm playing pinball. Or look up at the display very often. But when I do, I appreciate the creativity inspired by the constraints of dot animation. Same reason I enjoy classic cartoons more than DreamWorks CGI. I'll take TWD's display over GOTG every day and twice on Sunday.

Also, DMD score fonts were huge! Trying reading your score on a Spike2 or JJP game from more than a couple feet away.

Mostly I'd just rather have the money in my pocket than tied up in graphics. Your mileage may vary.

Wait 'til tonight for the reveal stream. Then we'll have a hundred new things to gripe about.

Nice! Just need to use pinball browser to add the Brian Setzer Orchestra version of JJ&W.

Yes for sound, no for video.

Looks like it shoots smooth and easy, maybe a bit too easy for great players. No dangerous, tight or close shots that I can see. Accurate shooters will be on this thing all day, like BM66. I hope tourney directors are all stocked up on lightning flippers. And don't forget to pull those outlane posts.

yup.jpg

It's also possible the drop targets were bricking from kickout shots, a la AC/DC. Nothing more frustrating than having a huge song jackpot lit with 3x running, nailing the target, and watching it bounce off.

No attract mode, lol. That's a new low for underbaked code. Does it at least have end of ball bonus yet? That was missing on the reveal stream.

Should clarify, I'm not faulting the design team. They don't choose when a game hits the line.

Hopefully we'll look back at this and laugh in a couple years when it's all done over wifi.