Where else are you going to get a pin with a witch riding a broom in a thong.

Mic drop!

I think the bucket of chicken on a spring is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a game. I was actually pleasantly surprised the few times I played this game.

oh I know. The lighting is really bad. this is one case where pinstadium (set to white only), really comes through. Also, really nice with ACNC as well. Again, set only to white. Why they even sell pinstatdium with the option for color is beyond me. should be white with variable intensity control. It's all you need.

Standard owner groupthink response.
For me Spooky can influence people more negatively by letting early games leave the factory than "pinside influencers," whomever they may be.
Releasing such a substandard game into the wild can be a huge turn off forever tainting it to people. Happened with X-men, happened with ACNC, and maybe it happened with RZ. I know I have no interest in in finding xmen/ACNC to play again even though I hear nothing but good thing aboot ACNC.
I don't know if the RZ I played was early or not. I know it was not a fun experience but that coukd have been set up and all sorts of things.
I play more than 1.5 balls before walking away the next time

I like it. Perhaps one for a larger collection when you want some variety. Layout reminds me of avengers.

My 2c was given from just a handful of games at a pinball party (other games that I know weren’t set up well either so maybe my experience was from a poor set up and maybe early code).

I do know that first hand I changed my opinion of WOz and TWD after playing them many times over years when code was finally developed and game was set up. Both examples went from dud to hit so it’s possible my early opinion on RZ one specific game might not hold up if I played more.

Aldo I know people that Hate hate hate TNA which I love so it’s also a good matter or personal opinion. I love SW also same desk, others don’t like it.

i like ACNC. does need better GI lighting though.

I've scored two EBs in the same game from this skillshot. Hit the first sling exactly where the arrow points and you have a good chance of getting all three.

The game has issues that need adjusted but is also quite fun once you learn how to play.

RZ is a fun pin.....shoots awkwardly, but I think ACNC and R&M do as well, that's part of the Spooky appeal, very unique feeling games. Once you adapt, they're a good time...

Owned AMH and RZ, and felt RZ was a big step down from AMH in every respect except art. Wouldn’t mind owning AMH again one day. Rules are much better now on RZ but it’s just not a fun shooter IMO.

It's not a bad game but it's not all that great either. I like the art and music. Ended up getting a MET pro and never regretted it. I like my old TFTC way more. I've played AMH and would consider buying that before RZ.

Went down and fired up my game tonight and had a good bit of fun. House of 1k corpses multiball is damn fun.

Game is tough as hell and a tough shooter but if you can get her going it’s a good time.

I like it.
Great cabinet art, exceptional play field quality, came stock with a color DMD, excellent sound package.
The play field is a little bare right out of the box, but Medisinyl makes some bad ass mods for this game that really fill out the play field and look killer.
I never played really early code so I can speak for that if it was glitchy or not, but mine plays awesome.
Game is definitely not for everyone though.
Very fast, chaotic and sometimes hard to get control of the ball.

It's funny though because this game gets a lot of hate, but it also has a bit of a cult following.
Personally I like the dark play field as it goes with the hard rock/horror movie theme of the pin.
It has some of the funniest call out of any pinball machine (what other machine tells you to shoot the ball chicken fucker?).
Some of the animations are hilarious, for instance when you get a ball save and it's a pair of testicles.
It's definitely a raw, gritty, evil adult themed pin.

I would tell people to play it for themselves and form their own opinions.
Maybe you will like it, or maybe you will think it's a steaming pile of shit (thats up for you to decide).
Familiarize yourself with the rules first though.
If you don't understand the rules, you really won't get anywhere in the game and it will feel like you're just hitting random shit.
Charlie did a pretty good tutorial video on some of the basic rule sets.

On a side note if you look in the Rob Zombie owners thread, there seems to be new people/owners discovering this game who really like it.
I've seen quite a few people wind up with one of these from someone who "it wasn't for them" and the new owners really dig the game.
Quite a few times new owners have posted things like "I'm not sure why people hate on this game, I'm really digging it".
Like I said, its definitely not for everyone, but has its following.

Little by little these seem to be making their way into the hands of people that really enjoy them and I suppose thats all that really matters.

Out of how many tries? I’ve played two different machines and those were minutes I’ll never get back in my life.

You spelled “horribly” wrong

It’s a difficult pin in a good way, it’s total chaos and if you can’t control the ball you don’t stand a chance. It’s a game that forces you and teaches you to play better. It was my “warm up” game before heading to league, it makes almost every other game feel like it’s in slow motion. I’ve owned 75~ pins and I don’t think any improved my play more than RZ.

But it’s also difficult in a bad way, the orbit shots (one of which starts the mode and is unreliable to boot due to bounce outs) are just too small to hit with any real regularity. I’m a pretty decent player and I usually just smile and nod when someone says a game / a shot is too hard. But those orbit shots? I think I had a 20% success rate on the left with half of those not at the right speed to start a mode) and probably 10% on the right. It can frustrate you into avoiding those shots altogether which makes the game pretty one-dimensional.

All in all it’s a beautiful pin and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it’s not for everyone for sure.

I wouldn't own one as it is now, but if it had the rules and mode love that Alice Cooper is getting now with the new update and the screen was cleaned up from that weird dot-emulation blurry mess it is to something more crisp and engaging, I can see it turning into a desirable pin. Can't easily fix the ATROCIOUS playfield art, but Lyman took a disaster of a pin in Walking Dead and turned it into a masterpiece, so there's hope for RZ IF SPOOKY CARES to fix the mess it currently is. I think the layout's fine overall.

Well... as the game designer and 5 plus years later removed, it was never meant to be a fan layout crowd pleaser. It was meant to be challenging, a great vs good player equalizer, and DIFFERENT. If you want normal feel good fan layout games they are out there in abundance.

We aimed to make Rob Zombie fans happy and provide something unique. I'd like to think it got there or came close. It sold out so fast it never really made it to the Zombie fans sadly. I can tell you every horror convention we took it to, it was the hands down favorite in the booth sitting right next to other horror based pinball games rightfully considered classics. Casual players don't give a s**t how pinball fans feel about its complexity or standing on the top 100 list... they like it for what it is, not isn't.

As a Zombie fan, it's got Rob, Sheri, all the original music, film content, and every other Rob reference you could possibly ask for... not to mention a ton of speech from the late great Sid Haig, whom we still miss dearly.

Play it and pick one up if you like it... if you dont, that's fine too. 300 are out there. No more will ever be made.

Remeber when House of 1000 Corpses came out and everyone hated on it? Universal literally dumped the film... now they hire Rob to make House of 1000 Corpses a feature attraction at their Universal theme parks at Halloween.

My favorite Rob Zombie quote ever is "if everyone hates it now, wait 10 years".

Spooky is not afraid to take chances. Never have been, never will be.

Well, while you're here, what's the deal with the screen on RZ? Why are the graphics so chunky-looking and blurry? I assume it's a regular LCD panel with like 1024 or 1200 or 1600 pixels horizontal resolution, but with the way the video is, it looks like 320 pixels of horizontal resolution.

It was made at a time when everyone but JJP was still running a standard dot matrix. We basically put our version of a color DMD in it for zero upcharge. RZ shipped as a license with the color screen upgrade at the same price as our very first original theme game.

Only in hindsight do the graphics look dated. It was a first for a production game... proud of that.

It doesn't look dated, it looks bad. Very different. Like botched emulation of a dot matrix. If you put an ultra-low res screen in there, I understand why it looks like that. But I don't think that's what the screen is. I think it's normal laptop resolution and the graphics for the game were run through a de-res emulation filter or processing or something. What I'm asking is, is the screen in there capable of much better-looking graphics if the source graphics were not low-res (or de-res filtered, or whatever).

It's probably the worst thing about the machine. Cabinet art is boss, playfield art is bad, but I can live with it, backglass is nice, layout's fine (in need of some finessing of the code, but fine), music is great.

Is there any other DMD machine that shipped standard with color?
This is the only one I can think of other than CGC remakes.

Keep doing what you’re doing, Team Spooky. I was a NIB RZ buyer and there’s something about supporting the boutique company that makes pinball fun. I owned TNA and loved AMH and ACNC (lit translite still hanging in my gameroom).

Congratulations on R&M and looking forward to the next games.

I don’t know if the hardware would support a more of an HD graphics I presume it doesn’t or it would have been done but this would be awesome if it could be done. Hell I would probably be done to purchase an HD kit if made available and the graphics were redone.

While I know it wasn’t a Spooky product it would also be awesome to see what the apron mod could have done if fully finished.

You can adjust how the LCD views in the menu. I prefer the more traditional DMD look. In either case, it's what the system could handle at that time, a first, and I'd make the same decision if I had to do it all again.

That is no joke. RZ is pretty good. TNA is pretty great. And I’m of the opinion that ACNC is a solid top 5 pin all-time, though it probably won’t ever achieve its well deserved ranking due to a combination of rarity and difficulty.

The display looks great. There are some digitized clips but lots of hand drawn art, and very macabre...

Doesnt that same witch bust out her titties on the dmd? It's a blurry display, but i'm pretty sure I saw some bouncing titties.

And the call outs on RZ were MUCH better. Don't forget that.

Yes, and the animations. Guess the cabinet and backglass art left the strongest, positive impression. Just didn’t like the shots - or early rule set.

Spot checking some of the files they seem to all be 128 wide by whatever. Are there higher-res source files that were reduced to 128 by X?
MCB_Sample (resized).png

Love the company and direction, and would have likely bought a R&M if I could have played it first.

As for RZ, I liked the art and sounds a lot. I like RZ tunes as well. I love different approaches, but they must be good approaches. I wanted to love and buy this game, but it was a clunk fest for me. I played it for about an hour in total and found it frustrating in a bad way. All my games are set up to be very difficult, so I love a challenge.

Can't fix a poor shooter, and a game does not have to have a fan layout to be a great shooter. Talk to Pat Lawler and Brian Eddy about that.

That’s the sad part. After reading this thread and watching the video I want one. Although more than 10 years on, the memory of that film House of the 1000 Corpses still creeps me out. And that short film about the guy cutting his fingers off - I kinda wished I hadn’t seen that one. Yes, ol’ R.Z. has some “interesting” ideas. Decent music, too.

After all this talk of Rob Zombie I went and played it for about an hour or so tonight.
Couple brutal and unforgiving games but got on a roll with one that was awesome. Completed Dragula and got to the video mode. For those of you that haven’t played it, in the video mode you drive a hot rod running over demons and witches and what not. It’s actually pretty rad and I always have a hard time getting it.

After playing it for an hour or so tonight, I walked away scratching my head thinking about this thread.
I really genuinely like this game quite a bit.
It grows on you once you get a good feel for how to play it and even then it’s really challenging.
I have to wonder how much time some of the people that bag on it have actually spent playing it?
I know for me there have been several pins I didn’t like at first and then wound up playing the at a friends house or convention and found a whole new respect for them.
I have to wonder if that’s the case with some of the hate.

I watched an interview with Rob once where the interviewer asked him what makes a good rock show. His reply was 3 parts and very simple.
1) pyrotechnics.
2) scantily clad women.
3) giant monsters.
His answer said nothing at all about good music or anything like that. It was simple and all about putting on a good show.

My wife and I have been to see him several times and it’s always and awesome show. And when I say “show” I mean show. It’s not just a concert, it’s performance art and it friggin awesome.
I really think this pin captures that as well as the aspects of Robs films into one package deal.
I also think Charlie is very humble in his responses to people about this game.
He’s always zen like a Buddha when he posts.
Truth is, he should be proud of it pin, it’s a good friggin game.

I want more pins with rock and roll, scantily clad women and monsters.

I agree!
It fits in well in my medium size collection.
Most guests to my game room love it because it’s different.
Best game ever ...No
Fun to shoot ... Yes

Man i really miss Sid Haig. He was the sh*t in the House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects.

Captain (resized).jpg

So do we... he was a legendary character actor who had no reason on earth to help us and be as kind to my family as he was. We became friends and spent the rest of his life setting up this game at every convention we could in his booth to pay him back. I have no idea how many of those little chicken buckets from the game he autographed, but it was A LOT!!! Matt and Ryan From Back Alley Creations always helped us take care of Sid with those... we owed the man much.

He did a great job on the game speech, as did Rob & Sheri. Was a wonderful life moment that I will never take for granted.

Well said. It was tough to see him in the shape he was in in 3 From Hell.

Pins I would rather have over rob zombie if they were the same price.Raven,shaq attack,Hollywood heat,a broken em,thunderbirds,any cocktail pinball,Motordome.heck I would take an anal raping over rob zombie.

And as mine won't be going anywhere, that leaves only 299 or less for people to fight over

While I had some disappointment that the code didn't get to where Ben was promising in posts/podcasts (mini wizard mode and mode re-works), once I came to terms with what the game was going to be, I do love it for what it is.

Truly a gem of a game in a sea of pins that often offer similar experiences--RZ completely stands out on its own. Absolutely love the crazy pop/sling action, callouts, and dots. I did need to swap in some different switches to get the ball rolling over them smoother and trigger properly, but I don't experience the game to be clunky at all (as some are suggesting).

HD Graphics, mini wizard modes, completed apron mod, and a sick topper like what was done for ACNC and I’m set.

This isn’t asking too much is it lol.

Given all the chatter on this topic, I am going to toss in my two cents. RZ is not a bad pin - not even close. With that being said, not everyone may like the pin. In my humble opinion, there is a big difference between those two concepts.

Rob Zombie has the best callouts in a pin hands down. I'd even argue some of the best mods thanks to Medisinyl.

We have a Rob Zombie and a TNA in our house and the Rob Zombie gets considerably more play. It's hard and brutal and brutally hard. That being said I always feel like I can play better so I keep going back time and again.

TNA is a great party game for people who love pinball. Rob Zombie is a great game for people who aren't into all the minutiae of the pinball hobby and just love to play games. All our non pinball friends love it.

Last game leaving our house for sure.

Like any pin, play before you buy and make your own judgement. I like Avengers and was happy to find one at a bargain price.

You're doing great charlie. You will not please everyone. All your games have great variety and nothing copies another. No matter what you make, someone will love it and someone will hate it. Keep doing what your doing.

Come ON. There's honest critique, and then there's flat-out buffoonery. RZ is nowhere near any of those.

Huh, strange.
I read that as he liked being ass raped on top of cocktail pins.
Everybody has their own kinks I guess.

Trending up this week cocktail sodomy

no judgement here.

btw, there is nothing wrong with raven. Sure the Backglass is terrible, but the game is actually not bad.

Raven is one of those pinball machines that's soo bad its good.

Not for me, but to each their own. I liked the callouts, how the modes had decent variety, the cabinet and translite art, and the music. The retro-style video mode and the "dirty pool" easter egg made me smile.

Playfield art didn't blow me away. Felt like the upper playfield could've had more going on...in my opinion, Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle improved upon it, at least giving the player more strategy and variety of things to shoot at. I do personally believe Spooky is improving more with each game.

In the end, if you like the game...cool. If you don't like the game...also cool. Best of wishes to Spooky regardless.