I bought this game on July 1st of 2015 as my third game ever and it has sat in my garage and then my basement (when pinball moved down there) set up, working and booting but not working enough to play and have fun with, so I didn't play it, as my collection grew around it. Think of an emotional time-lapse scene from a movie. Ahem, anyways. I think it worked nearly-fully when I bought it but the seller did mention it probably needed a repin of the interconnect which even as I've grown more experienced, I'm inclined to believe.
I'd like to FINALLY get back to this poor game to either put on location or enjoy in my own collection! I paid $400 from another Pinsider (probably one of those "scores of the century", 7.5/10 beautiful cabinet, 10/10 beautiful backglass with 0 issues, and otherwise-decent playfield besides the wear mark mentioned in issue D).
A) Since I've bought it: Game acts weird randomly, doesn't kick balls out of kickout holes nor lock them, etc.
I think I just need to repin the interconnect but I figured I would list it anyways. I have tried reseating it any amount of times with no change as far as I can tell.
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B) A few months after I bought it: When the ball kicks out, the outhole coil will fire 4 times in rapid succession - "CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK!". If you're familar with EM games it's about the same speed as a Gottlieb 5-time score motor trigger, meaning 50 points or resetting the units, except here it's not EM and it's only 4 times. Could be the knocker as well but I'm pretty certain it's the outhole kicker. One ball is released just fine (seemingly from the first fire as you'd expect), and it never struggles to get out of the ball trough.
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C) A few months ago (remember I go months between even starting a game because you don't get very far due to issue A, the kickout holes usually keep your ball): A new development, the game places the wrong sounds for the wrong things. For instance, the game plays the tilt sound for dropping the point score sound, etc., the attract sounds seem to be fine and I forget if the background music is what it is supposed to be. A lot of the speech is wrong as well. It's intact and sounds fine (individually, obviously mashed together it sounds pretty awful), just plays for the wrong stuff.
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D) Seemingly since brand new due to wear: When you hit the center drop targets, the ball will violently hit the glass and make an extremely unpleasant sound to where you want to avoid the drop targets while playing, which obviously isn't much fun. As far as I know the coils are factory. This looks like it has happened since the game was brand new as it left as giant down-to-the-wood wear spot in the middle of the otherwise perfect playfield which is a shame. The previous owner's "pinball owners" website entry for when he owns this game indicates that "like others say", the drop targets do cause a nasty knock to the glass. However I've never seen anybody else say this nor seen any other playfields worn this way. Perhaps he was mistaking the occasional knock to the glass that others have to this - this happens nearly EVERY time. Even in my basement arcade when the loudest EM chimes are permitted, I can't stand to play the game like this, it makes me wince.
Rochester, NY
