I have 3 STERN games, they are fun to play. I love the GB theme. But enough is enough. GB could be packed wih awesome toys and great artwork. No STERN I own or ever owned was polished and perfect with it's final code. Every new STERN game looks good and makes fun but leaves something that could be done better if they would finish the code. The JJP WOZ code is perfection even when I thought it's finished, Keith added something that made it even better. And I am sure it will be the same with TH. I don't like the WOZ theme. Couldn't stand it. But the game was awesome! STERN should put LCDs in their games long ago. GOT is fun, has great gameplay. But there are so many things missing to connect it with it's theme. And the DMD animations are an ugly mess. Sometimes I think they put so many lights in it that blinds you so you can't see the ugly and sometimes dump animations on the DMD.
Don't get me wrong I think it's one of the best STERN games ever.......but for the money...........I am getting angry everytime I watch the dmd. I won't buy any more DMD games NIB. So perhaps there will be a used GB sometime in the future for me but for know I am very happy to have a TH on order and even so I haven't played one. I bet my money on TH.

to 1: Yes you are right here and I would buy the game that has 4 year of programming put into it. I have enough games with ok/good code.
to 2: Color DMD dots in Metallica are the best DMD dots but are nothing against HD LCD video animations in the Hobbit. GoT is just a pixel mess, no color dmd can help here.
And I just don't think that the layout of TH is "meh". Once I thought that about WOZ it is just "meh" but Keith did his magic and after a few updates this game came to life. Perhaps I am wrong but I bet in a year we all will still be speaking of the great and fun TH ruleset and the GB owners are still hoping for the final update that would make GB complete but will never come, cause there is the next big STERN thing and GB is old news. I am no STERN hater, I have fun with my STERN, I like them a lot. But for me at this moment in time, JJPs TH looks like the far superior product to buy. STERN is on a good way, they are learning. They are putting more work in the code and in the artwork of the games. Perhaps Star Wars with LCD will be a game I will buy again. But no GB NIB for me for now I want a Hobbit!

Perhaps I am wrong in this hobby. Sure I like to play pinball games with a few friends for fun to compete about the next beer round. There is no pinball game that can't produce this kind of fun when it has short playtimes and fair rules. You just need a display for the score. But when I buy a game for home use. I want to play it alone. And I don't play it to beat my own highscore. There are tactics when I play against others that I would never use at home. Why should I play "Hells Bells" over and over again on my AC/DC when I want to just have fun? I play the other songs and want to reach the final mode. For some people everything that distracts them from the goal to get the next highscore could be taken out of the game.

Not for me! I like the flashing lights on GoT. I like loud music and callouts and I want the best show possible on my games. Because when I start a game I want to be captured by the theme and the world under the glas. When I play GoT, I don't want to beat my highscore, I want to see "Iron Throne". When I play AC/DC or Metallica I want to have the feeling that I am on a rock concert. And a LCD Monitor with high res animations, can help to deliver this kind of show. From my early youth on, pinball games were something special for me. My grandpa had a Bally Lost World in his pub. And it was way more than just a game for me. The artwork was a journey into a fantasy world. Now as an adult, my ability for fantasy is not the same as it was as a child. It is harder to be sucked into a game. The show has to be better. Other games than pinball can deliver better forms of competition but there is something about pinball games I can only describe as magic. And Keith is a magician he can bring worlds to life, he can tell stories with his games. LCD has way more potential to do this. So I think it's a very simple thing I want to say. If you want to have a game to compete with others. You need fair rules and funny toys, the theme and the show don't matter. But if you can understand what I mean with the magic I decribed above. Than LCD is the next important step. That's why this is more important for some of us than for the others.

The LCD can be used in a new and innovative way. It's all about to give the player the feeling they have accomplished something special. Steve Ritchie can do those things with cool shot designs. Doc Ock on SM or even on mediocre games like 24 the sniper or lock shot feel right to be hit. It's just cool to smash things or end a combo in such shots. You see a smile on almost every players face when he is hitting sparky on metallica.
When I got my WOZ with early code I missed all those things. I thought there are not enough good shots. And I thought the witch model is ugly. But Keith used the LCD in a very clever ways. So as a player you connect the witch animations on the display with the ugly figure on the playfield in your mind. And so this figure on the playfield comes to life in a way that would never been possible without the LCD and so the game interacts with the player. You can say, in a good game you don't have time to look up there, but even when you could just look in tiny moments up there it gives you this illusion. I have very high hopes he can do this magic again with TH.