To each their own but AS is a ton of fun I think. Pretty much everyone else thinks so too that’s played it.

AS is terrific.

I can't believe Stern is going to nickel and dime the LE buyers again. This time it's the side rails.

I can’t believe that Stern doesn’t put lollipop rails on the Premiums either.

It's fun but after a while I couldn't keep it around. It was a cookie cutter effort but it was a lot better after getting bent over by stern previously at the time with bm66le.
Really concerned about code. I hope its killer. I really do. Everyone's saying it's like Metallica which Is okay with me because I never liked the heavy metal music.
I've lost so much confidence in Stern. Alien blows away AS, BM66, Kiss when it first came out, by a country mile.
But I'll buy one more for the hell of it. Stern needs to get their shit together though.
I don't want another cool looking box with lights for a year taking up real estate in my house until a "code update" comes out again.

The AS code is very good already as it stands. I’d say one update to polish a couple things off and it’s finished.

Yeah but I wasn't even talking about "smoothness" anyway. The GOTG ramps sway up and down as the balls roll across them.
Makes it look flimsy and cheap but the problem may be the "joiners" where the ramps are pieced together when they come out from the backboard.
You can see the ramps flopping around in the video. Maybe someone will come up with a way to add some support.

Great idea! That add a nice mode/reason to shoot Rocket, tie it together with the Prison escape sequence on the LCD from the first movie and it should be a lot of fun!

$499 extra in your pocket Stern!!

(We already know this is the way they do things, and we bought them, so it will continue. A vocal campaign won’t change it. Only a drop in sales would change it.)

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(This is right from the Stern Shop)

I thought about buying that KISS armor until I read the orange stars are just stickers!!!

Say what? lol.. and that rail is *hideous*.

Ice I think the problem with your AC/DC is that you had it loaded up with Pat Benatar music!

I like Aerosmith, but it definitely isn't the type of game to hold my attention long term. I think it's a great location player. The theme/music is terrible, but the layout is challenging and you can pick up fairly quickly what you need to do.

I thought it would be a good location game, but one of the local barcades already pulled it cuz no one played it. I found it a bit boring and...sterile. It's weird how a game with such loud art somehow has such little personality. I think the Steve callouts in AC/DC & band + Sparky & Snake in Metallica go a long way, plus the music in those games is just more jammin' for pinball.

I was watching GOTG 1 last night and during the prison break, Groot yells out a huge “I AM GROOT!!!!!” If that’s not in the game cause of Vin Deasel licensing or whatever, then it’ll be a huge miss especially with Groot being the focal point.

The next scene with Rocket on top of Groot firing machine guns and them yelling was classic! Needs to be in the game too.

This game is going to be a real challenge to bring the theme integration to life if stern is in fact being restricted by licensing.

Has that been posted anywhere, that Stern are struggling with the licensing? They seemed to do well enough with access to SW assets.

The 1st movie is the the main reason most people are familiar with the theme. Pretty much only Marvel comic book fanatics knew anything about these characters before the movie came out. If the pinball machine does not have some of the movie content that blew people away then it would seem to be a tougher sell because that is what many are familiar with.
I had never heard of them until the 1st movie came out but surprisingly really enjoyed the movies.

https://www.dallascomedyhouse.com/blog/guardians-of-the-galaxy-a-most-unlikely-blockbuster

Every movie has different production company & actor deals.

No - those figure will work just fine. Just cut a hole in the playfield for the legs to fit through like Stern did on the 18" figures for XM.

Lol...Zing! Good one.

Do you have the turd brown model?

I have the cut rails on my GB, and they look great in person, thank you very much.

I am happy that you believe that.

Fact, buddy. Fact.

Star Wars was much easier - those movies were made 30+ years ago, back when the studio owned everything.

GotG, being a modern Disney movie with modern likeness use contracts and every separate thing needing to be licensed individually, I'm betting there is a lot less video clips and speech in this game.

How does it work with digital actors like Rocket and Groot? Would Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper have to sign off on having film clips of Rocket and Groot on the screen? Not talking about audio, just video clips.

I think I gather from all the other licensing talk that for someone like Starlord to be on screen, Chris Pratt would have to sign off on it. Does anyone know how that works with CGI actors? Is it just Disney that has to sign off on it?

They are both Disney. Lucasfilm was purchased Disney in 2012. Disney is a HUGE pain to work with. I have two separate friends that own companies that have to deal with Disney for licensing , and both had said dealing with the Mouse is so much worse than LFL ever was. Doesn’t matter that SW is 40 now. It’s Disney. They don’t make things easy for ANY of their properties, which is a little surprising considering how long they’ve been around. But doesn’t mean the people in charge of those areas have been I guess.

I can’t speak for STERN in this matter. My point though is just because SW is 40 and GOTG is 3 (cinematically), wouldn’t make a difference.

So u are the authority on this, did this get decided at one of the elite executive pinsider meetings where it was deemed fact that GB cut trim is crap, SW is garbage and I'm not taken seriously? Thank god for you sir, thank sweet baby jesus for u and ur way. Ur not going to get away this stuff while I'm around, and I'm like a weed Jerry.

Part of the reason Disney properties are so timeless and valuable is because they are very cautious and controlling of their brands. It's not fun for people to work with them, that's for sure, but it is more valuable to Disney to protect their value over the long term than what they can get by loosening the reigns for short term gains.

Licensing is super weird in the digital age too. There are so many more levels of likeness, distribution, and usage rights. I would hate having to work with licenses on a regular basis.

From stern of the union "The music package will include pop songs and if you happen to be attending the IAAPA show in Orlando (starts November 14th), we will be at booth #2013 where you can come check out the game in person. Otherwise, set a reminder on your personal calendars as we will be having the official Dead Flip gameplay stream with Jack Danger on Monday, November 20th at 6pm CST!"

Hopefully this means there will be a lot of the songs from the movie.

From Stern’s Instagram account. Not sure if this has been posted...

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Jeff, why do you always feel the need to s*&t on everything?

- Star Wars (though I'm still trying to like it)
- Colored LEDs in GI
- GB's awful laser cut armor that is hideously overpriced
- The Hobbit
- South Park
- Fish Tales

That really hardly qualifies as "everything" in pinball.

I should probably add that KISS armor too. I hadn't seen that. That's pretty bad.

Edit: And Batman '66, but that's legit the dumbest thing I've ever seen in pinball from a real company. So that's fair game.

Looks like GOTG will get some pop song tracks!

http://www.sternpinball.com/community/stern-of-the-union-address-november-2017

Guardians of the Galaxy:

In case you haven’t already heard or seen the news, we have just announced our newest game based on the popular movie franchise, Guardians of the Galaxy! https://www.avclub.com/exclusive-the-new-guardians-of-the-galaxy-pinball-mach-1820005613

https://news.marvel.com/games/79865/stern-pinball-announces-guardians-galaxy-machines/
The music package will include pop songs and if you happen to be attending the IAAPA show in Orlando (starts November 14th), we will be at booth #2013 where you can come check out the game in person. Otherwise, set a reminder on your personal calendars as we will be having the official Dead Flip gameplay stream with Jack Danger on Monday, November 20th at 6pm CST!

Code and sound will likely make or break this game for me. I like GOTG as a theme much more than Metallica. The art is nice. I like the layout since it is similar to Metallica which I enjoy the gameplay. I like that they took some of the best features from IM (the cannon kickback) and ST (locking drop target) and added magnets, so hopefully ball times will be a little shorter than MET having the kickback and magnets add more randomness. Also, it appears that the Groot head is positioned similar to Sparky with a guide on the right side where the captive ball is located in MET that greatly reduces SDTM drains when shooting the center.

I do worry about the Spike system node boards and feel Stern needs to make them available much cheaper or have a board trade-in policy for a reasonable cost. It would also be nice if they were made easily repairable and all the same.

If the code is up to par with Metallica, they'll sell a ton of these. I am not a big Metallica fan either. In fact, their music is kinda grating to me, but the game is undeniably fun and one of the best modern pinball games. That's a tough task to try and make something that is coded as well as Metallica, but it's a worthy goal to shoot for.

I have to imagine with each release they're getting a bit more experienced with Spike. I hope that leads to fewer problems. It's kind of a scary platform.

Timeless is one thing, and you can keep a strong brand, but trust me, with the stuff they pull (stuff completely unrelated to quality of items produced), they are one of the worst to deal with...which is truly a shame.

But anyway..back to GOTG!! YAY for the pop songs included!!! Now...to get the laser rails added to the LE!!

Love the photoshop job of Gary and Jack Danger

Some of it is just "don't forget, we're in control" BS. Pretty infuriating. Remember when Stern got the Rolling Stones license and they gave them the same art assets to work with as the Monopoly board game? That was a bummer.

I'm interested to see how they'll use the songs in the game. Some of them could be pretty fun for pinball. I wonder if you can select your track, or if they'll be triggered by modes and game state.

that's a pretty solid list that's hard to defend as not being shitty.

Thou, I do understand SW better now, and like it a little more now that I understand how it works. But the layout and playfield art still piss me the hell off.

MET has several huge things over GOTG:
1) Lyman
2) SAM

One pretty awesome addition to the Premium / LE is all inserts being RGB color changing. We haven't seen this since Game of Thrones (and Star Trek before that), and I do believe this is the FIRST Borg game with 100% RGB inserts.

Full RGB inserts are great. I wish all games had them as standard. They can do so much to help indicate what to do.

I agree with you 100%, it should be standard now for all pins regardless of model to have full RGB lighting inserts and GI.

Is this the first Stern game with both full color changing led inserts and tri color GI? Usually it's one or the other.

Unless GOT Pre/LE had RGB GI then yeah.

Yes good point - A first for sure. Pinball historians update IPDB!

Is filming allowed at IAAPA? I know sometimes certain exhibitors allow it and others don't. I'm wondering if you have to be there to see it in action or if we might get a bit of cell phone video.

I can't wait for video of this deck/table/pin being flipped.

+ 1 for SAM...... Hell. Wish it was Whitestar actually. I"ll take whitestar even over SAM. But Spike they can stick up their ass sideways.

The biggest problem with Spike is that it's not named Son of SAM. Oh, and the node boards.