I have a trade proposal for my Houdini for a Star Wars premium. With all my mods it’s about even trade. Advise? Houdini is tough for family and me but i am getting better at the modes. I hear Star Wars is also tough but never played it.
Love my Star Wars premium. Never owned a Houdini but enjoyed playing it on location and at shows. I'm not a fan of the voice work on Houdini. SW is a fast game with lots of flow. The Hyperloop is better than the catapult in Houdini in my opinion. And...it is Star Wars with great assets (clips, music, etc). Throw a couple of extra ships on it and it is fantastic!
SW is hard, and confusing - takes a little while to get the modes. It is WAY faster than Houdini, but has a more open playfield.
Some people love SW, some hate it. Some love Houdini, some hate it. Only real way to tell unfortunately is to play one for a while. At least watch some gameplay videos.
IMO Houdini is a far superior machine and game, but you’ve got to change up the lineup sometimes.
Quoted from sulli10:Take it!!!!!
Yeah I'd take Star Wars straight up for Houdini as well. At least the theme is way better (for resale) and you can still have fun w/it for a while. Houdini is a tough one to move.
Quoted from Guinnesstime:Yeah I'd take Star Wars straight up for Houdini as well. At least the theme is way better (for resale) and you can still have fun w/it for a while. Houdini is a tough one to move.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing Houdini’s pretty original But I swear it gives me anxiety shooting at it LOL. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan But I see somebody else posted that it’s a unoriginal fan Layout? Nothing is really open that I can play one so I appreciate all your comments.
Interesting trade proposal. I owned both and enjoyed both but I wound up selling Star Wars. Star Wars is a fast game very open playfield. The hyperloop is very cool and the modes are pretty well done, being able to play as multiple characters is a neat feature. but it didn't hold my attention as much as I thought it would being a huge Star Wars fan. I also have Star Trek and to me I enjoy that one more. I had the LE and build wise Houdini just looks so much better and feels more solid. I find it more challenging and seems to have that I need to play one more game feeling that Star Wars lacked for me.
I’ve enjoyed SW pro on location and bought Houdini after playing it a lot on location. I have no desire to buy SW or sell Houdini.
But ... Houdini is not everyone’s thing and so they come up for sale fairly often. You could always trade now and down the road trade again or change something else up to get Houdini back.
Quoted from Rdoyle1978:SW is hard, and confusing
OP, please don't buy into this. Hit the button, multipliers turn red and flippers move them left to right or right to left. Hit button again, multipliers turn green and are locked in. If you want to use them to try to get big points, then it is risk vs reward (taking hands off flippers and watch your ball drain vs big points). If you don't want to use the multipliers do what 90% of us do: lock them into the hyperloop or left ramp shot at beginning of each ball and then leave them alone and play on. You can choose to stack modes or not. Once you learn the modes, you start to realize that you can advance faster by stacking certain modes with each other because they share similar shots. I find that part fun as it adds a bit of intellectual gameplay along with the physical shot-making part. I really don't pay attention to the multipliers unless I am trying to hit the video mode shot.
Quoted from Crile1:OP, please don't buy into this.
Right. I don't find SW hard at all, and I'm not even a Mensa member.
Quoted from Crile1:OP, please don't buy into this. Hit the button, multipliers turn red and flippers move them left to right or right to left. Hit button again, multipliers turn green and are locked in. If you want to use them to try to get big points, then it is risk vs reward (taking hands off flippers and watch your ball drain vs big points). If you don't want to use the multipliers do what 90% of us do: lock them into the hyperloop or left ramp shot at beginning of each ball and then leave them alone and play on. You can choose to stack modes or not. Once you learn the modes, you start to realize that you can advance faster by stacking certain modes with each other because they share similar shots. I find that part fun as it adds a bit of intellectual gameplay along with the physical shot-making part. I really don't pay attention to the multipliers unless I am trying to hit the video mode shot.
Thank you for proving my point!
I really should have said "confusing for new players", which I found relevant since he already mentioned the family thought Houdini was a little confusing too.
Quoted from megaladon:Thanks for all the suggestions it’s funny when you’re ready to sell game and then you play in a lot of it. I feel like the game so good I want to keep it Even though it’s a challenge
That happens to me EVERY time. With a few notable exceptions - some games I can’t wait to get rid of them, and I know it 5 minutes after getting it home!
Financially, I think Star Wars is the better game.
But if you're into pinball, Houdini is more interesting. The multiplier rules in Star Wars make the game scoring feel unbalanced to me. An identical game can earn multi billions or just hundreds of millions, depending on a player's knowledge, not flipper skills.
If you don't know the strategy of the button or character, you're at a disadvantage. And the game never felt fun enough to bother learning. Plus, it did feel Stern cookie cutter-ish with long multiballs that you keep resurrecting for endless multi billion score games. It never clicked with me.
I own and enjoy both!
Houdini is fun and cool, but I think Star Wars is more fun to shoot and my Premium is one of my favorite Stern games currently. I also love the gameplay ability on SW to build up the multiplier value, strategically move the multiplier arrow(s) around, and then make the critical shot(s). AND ... the hyperloop shot isn't easy to hit, but damn - SO COOL and satisfying when you do!
If you like the SW theme and are tiring of your Houdini, I'd make the trade.
Quoted from Eskaybee:I’ll throw a curve ball into this. If the trade is for the original SW PREM, I wouldn’t do it. The new comic SW PREM is bad ass looking and will be the long term desired pin. Houdini will also be a long term desired pin. Original SW PREM, not so much.
Gameplay vs gameplay: SW all day, everyday.
I wouldn't do it for the comic art edition. NOT a fan. At all.
Houdini is awesome, and very great looking, but for me just lacked something, and I sold mine recently to a friend.
In this case I would go for the trade as long as the SW is in great shape, play it for 6 months or however long before you get tired of a Stern cookie cutter, then sell it to pick up a Oktoberfest.
But that is just me, and I doubt I will ever sell my Oktoberfest, especially now that the beer barrel is so easy to do, after the coil stops they sent out.
As far as Houdini, it was just weird with the sounds of the young girls giggling in the background all the time. Kind of drove us nuts.
Don’t see the downside of going for SW. It will continue to be worth more than Houdini so you can enjoy and sell/trade down the road if it’s not a keeper.
They both require significant skill to truly appreciate, but otherwise are very different. I didn’t find the code in SW interesting/varied enough to keep long term. Unless you’re a real SW “geek,” the real attraction is taking on the machine and going for a high score through character/mode strategy and the dreaded multipliers. This gives it the reputation of being complicated, but it’s really not that hard to figure out in the home and there are obvious paths to a high score that can make it become repetitive (similar to Hell’s Bell strategy on AC/DC).
Quoted from luckymoey:Don’t see the downside of going for SW. It will continue to be worth more than Houdini so you can enjoy and sell/trade down the road if it’s not a keeper.
They both require significant skill to truly appreciate, but otherwise are very different. I didn’t find the code in SW interesting/varied enough to keep long term. Unless you’re a real SW “geek,” the real attraction is taking on the machine and going for a high score through character/mode strategy and the dreaded multipliers. This gives it the reputation of being complicated, but it’s really not that hard to figure out in the home and there are obvious paths to a high score that can make it become repetitive (similar to Hell’s Bell strategy on AC/DC).
I have acdc. What’s the hells bells strategy?
Quoted from Eskaybee:I have acdc. What’s the hells bells strategy?
Select Hells Bells all day and use vip passes and bell hits to keep 2-3X playfield going. Plenty of other ways to play but as far as I know this is the easiest path to high scores, but you’re a far better player than me.
Quoted from luckymoey:Select Hells Bells all day and use vip passes and bell hits to keep 2-3X playfield going. Plenty of other ways to play but as far as I know this is the easiest path to high scores, but you’re a far better player than me.
Oh you’re talking about old code.
Stern Star Wars is on location ev-ery-where. Usually Pros, but still. You're almost never going to see a Houdini on location. Don't know how much you play on location, and it is still a bit covidy out there, but it's something to consider.
Quoted from JohnnyPinball007:As far as Houdini, it was just weird with the sounds of the young girls giggling in the background all the time. Kind of drove us nuts.
Yes, the giggling was an unusual choice in the sound design but thankfully the settings allow you to turn them off. I go back and forth, sometimes on and sometimes off.
Quoted from JohnnyPinball007:Houdini is awesome, and very great looking, but for me just lacked something, and I sold mine recently to a friend.
In this case I would go for the trade as long as the SW is in great shape, play it for 6 months or however long before you get tired of a Stern cookie cutter, then sell it to pick up a Oktoberfest.
But that is just me, and I doubt I will ever sell my Oktoberfest, especially now that the beer barrel is so easy to do, after the coil stops they sent out.
As far as Houdini, it was just weird with the sounds of the young girls giggling in the background all the time. Kind of drove us nuts.
Agreed on the giggling. You can turn that off in the settings.
To be honest, I think a lot of what turned people off in that game can actually be adjusted in the menus. The giggling; the weird male callout voice for the movies, the default settings are WAY - WAY - too hard. Make it easier to gain letters, or at least make the mode timers longer, and the game is suddenly a lot more fun. Drop the flippers by 1/8" or so, and you'll find yourself making the milk can loop with ease. (ok, maybe not with "ease", but it's far more makeable)
Houdini is a fantastic game the thing that frustrates me with it is the milkcan rejects I get and the catapult misses other than that modes are refreshing and make you shoot the entire playfield.
I owned Star Wars and REALLY enjoyed it. I only sold it because I got a great offer on it and it walked out the door. The hyperloop is the main feature on the game and it’s great to shoot for. It’s certainly a hard shot too think of how hard many of the Houdini shots and it’s certainly on par with those.
Star Wars is fun but for me it was all about the high scores and not game progression to something great. Houdini I feel like I’m kind of progressing to an end game (quite literally you finish the wizard mode and your game ends). I’d definitely own a Star Wars again as I really wasn’t ready to sell but the $$ I got offered were too good to refuse
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