I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of the haters on this thread have not spent any appreciable amount of time on the game. These are also the same people who say iron maiden is a bad game because it doesnt have action figures all over it and think a game doesn't need to shoot well if it has Hasbro shit all over the playfield.

The game plays amazing and is fun as hell with an awesome gigantic interactive toy. Put the haterade down and play a few games on it and see for yourself.

Good points. It could also be they hate it because it's too hard for them, kind of like Houdini. BK is like a bully who takes your lunch money, but only until you get hang of it which doesn't take very long. Then it is very rewarding and fun. Even if this pin wasn't my style I still wouldn't hate on it because it's clearly very well done.

As I recently said in another topic, I am still amazed that a third game in the Black Knight series ever came into being after a 30-year intermission - the last 20 years of which elapsing since WMS stopped making pinballs - along with the less-than-stellar life support prognosis for pinball still being around now back then. I really liked the first two, but I simply "knew" back in 1999 that BK2000 was now destined to be the only BK sibling. Never thought about it after that.

Then about a year ago the whispers began. Then a few months ago they started getting louder. And louder. Then March 26, 2019 arrived. What I thought was impossible had actually just happened. Pinball had survived and was thriving. The third BK game was real. And the designer of the first two was in charge of this one too.

I'm quite thankful that any pinball company thought it was so worthwhile to make a third Black Knight that they actually did.

I don’t see very many haters here. Just frogs noticing the water getting warmer and warmer lately and starting to jump out of the pot. The frogs that refuse to notice the water heating up, or say they prefer a warmer pot, will continue to defend Stern until they are boiled.
How’s that for an analogy.

It's a terrible analogy because to this date boiling water has killed countless frogs, and Stern pinball machines have so far killed zero pinball players or buyers, or even made them physically uncomfortable in any way. Not to mention that a pot is something you put things in, while a pinball machine, well it's not a pot and you can't cook anything inside it, and even if you could, why would you climb in it?

But what else is new? Besides being Cargument Central, in general Pinside is a virtual clearinghouse of awful analogies and blatant fallacies.

Exactly

it's not revolutionary like a spinning gobstopper hole.

Very bad. I'll defend any game that's fun to play, esp. from an army of pinside peteys that haven't even hit the start button on said game.

The gobstopper hole is revolutionary in the fact that it literally spins. So does the flail. OMG Revolutionary.

I just can't over how stunningly awful this "analogy" is.

Do the comfortable frogs in the boiling water pot "defend" the water temperature to their smarter rivals, only to be boiled to death defending the water while the skeptical frogs leap out to safety?

Jeez, between this thread, a similar bash thread on Munsters, and another one on Ghostbusters, you all have a trifecta going on. I'm willing to bet Stern sees this stuff and thinks it is a wolf you all are crying about. Stern is probably thinking, "Here we go---again."

This thread proves yet once again, you just can't please everybody.
-mof

This isn’t a bash thread, it’s more of a standup target in front of a bash thread. People are taking other people’s valid criticisms way too personal. Did none of you read my comments about this Stern BK being fun, and Stern being the only company I would consider for NIB? I am a Stern fan. Just not a fanboi.

And my analogy is awesome. It’s like when dodge came out with the hellcat, but then they said, we can do even better and then came out with the Demon and the rest is history.

How can OP even put lame and BK in the same sentence let alone capitalize the words. He should be shamed off of pinside for blasphemy.

This could be different strokes for different folks of course, but because of the speed of the game I like that it's "barren" because I can see the ball almost at all times. It's like old pinball games where the ball is always visible except it plays really really fast, exactly what I was looking for. The only change I'd make personally is remove the feather from the black knight as that slightly blocks the ball in the top WAR lanes area, but I'll leave it since that's how they shipped it.

Preach.

Maybe anyone who doesn't like the Black Knight figure should replace it with the figure pictured below.
And wouldn't that give the abbreviation "BK" a whopper of a different meaning?
BK (resized).jpg

BONUS: The game would be even scarier.

I think an Alien pin fell and hurt someone's leg.

Toys and the second coming of pinball...

Most new players off the street have not seen anything but the lame toys we have come to expect from Stern, and even API and JJP (Wonka?), and Spooky

As a matter of debate, I offer some of the last cool interactive toys were in the old B/W 90’s pins and it is partly the reason the remakes are popular. They are full of toys that most have not played on in 20 years, if ever. I think JJP has kept up the desire to supply us with cool toys, if they could just get the quality issues ironed out. Stern will not step up until the end, when desparation sets in and they pull a WMS (and a Pin2K fiasco) right as they go belly up.

Have you found many others that share your views on this? I guess if you break the toy into component parts, then the torso itself is relatively boring (I assume you also count his head as a stand-alone toy, since that does have cool interactive lighting). But to my view the flail and shield also seem like part of him since they're physically attached to his arms, and are obviously intended to be his weapons.

As you say this is all subjective, but I was kind of surprised to read that anyone would view BK as anything other than the most impressive toy Stern has put out in the past decade.

Point of order, AFM has 0 innovative toys. Unless you count the reused 3 bank which Tron also used.

Can you count creech hologram as "interactive?" That would count then....drac target been used in BBH. Phantom flip counts.
MM has trolls which hobbit uses. Castle isn't an interactive toy, and if it is SPOTC basically does the same thing.

Other than that I guess we could start breaking game toys down from Stern. They've made some cool shit like the Ring & nascar track.
EDIT: I mean I would count the BK as a cool toy...but I guess we're in the middle of "torso gate" and it has yet to be determined.

Now that you point it out the Knights torso doesn’t do much for me.......

You know, on a video game you could have the knight doing double-back flips and top off the back flips with a couple of forward summersaults. On a real play field, where the laws of physics still apply and the physical parts can cost a lot to build and can result in more parts to break after some hours are put on the pin, I think Stern did a pretty good job with the knight. He looks boss.

Agreed. To me toys should be a balance of innovation and reliability. The Knight looks pretty well built to me. That’s a plus in my book. Pinball is not a video game. Sky is not the limit. More complex code? Sure. A bunch of poorly made toys just to say you are innovating. No thanks. I like the knight overall. Could the game use another well built toy? That’s another discussion I suppose.

Its definitely not lame by any stretch of the imagination

Like I said in earlier posts. I would have settled for an extra solenoid (to shake up the knights torso when he is hit/defeated) or servo/motor(to move his head side to side). Certainly even Hazoff and Levi would have welcomed this little extra put into the Knight.

I've only played the game a few times and thought the Knight toy was super cool. Really looking forward to getting more time on the game.

No, I would have said “wow that’s dumb” As I watched it fall apart before my eyes and saw the spinning flail hit the ramp and the knight torso.

Agreed but if you used the service outlet in theory you could cook all kinds of shit inside of a game. A rice cooker for instance or a geroge Forman grill. Would it work well or be a good idea... No but you could hahahahahah

You don't think Stern has the capacity to figure out how to make it work? Shut off power to the mace while the other solenoid or servo is working? Would the Knight moving his head side to side interfere with the flail? With that kind of thinking, it's a wonder that you would want any type of feature in a pinball machine of any complexity at all. And that's o.k. What you need is video pinball my friend.

Ah yes. That Frenchman was a hell of a boxer as well as an innovator with his grill.

Oh, I'm sure Stern could make it work. But at what cost? You have already added a switch to shut off power to the mace/flail, a servo has been added, or a solenoid has been added. Perhaps both. This will require extra wiring and extra work on the assembly line. It will probably turn into a warranty headache because people will be bitching about "my knight is broken. The head won't move".

The part that adds to game play is the flail; That part works. It adds to the game. How is a knight moving his head side-to-side going to add to game play. A knight like you are wanting is just expensive eye candy.

I think the head moving adds to the experience. The solenoid to shake him and with the removal of his standup target thus making him a true bash toy would add immensely to the gameplay. Honestly, the flail doesn't really add a whole lot in practice. I would have scrapped it in its current form. The constant spinning is what makes it seem to be not part of the Black Knight toy. And the mass of the pinball hitting it really takes the momentum out of the flail so you rarely get a hard shot back at you. I would have used a solenoid to operate a mace instead.

And I think the extra cost would have been worth it.

I like the idea of the head moving also but we all know if the head did move this thread would have been called BK Where all the toys at???

I’ve got a trade offer of a Black Knight LE + $$ for my JJP POTC LE and I am seriously considering it. I thought I’d see the point counterpoint arguments.
Refreshing as ever!

How? I'm curious. How can something that just moves around, beyond the silver ball add to the experience ?

This one I do not get at all. You either hit the toy or you hit a stand up target in front of the toy. Hitting either one will bring action. What difference does it make?

The flail is the only moving part and you are going to scrap it ?

Are you a design engineer? How much would the extra cost amount to? Do you have any numbers? Or are we talking pin in the sky?

hopefully its a significant amount of added $$$ to that Black Knight LE otherwise that seems like a pretty simple HARD PASS.

I’m trying to think of analogy. It’s kind of like when a bunch of frogs try to run a pinball company by making terrible decisions and the pinball company goes bankrupt in a year because frogs are terrible at math and business sense and knowing what players want (hint - it’s obviously toys that “interact” with the ball not just flop around. Remember Star Wars?)

It was a terrible decision to let frogs take over at stern.

Dude are you running for Pinsider of the year !

I might agree somewhat on BK but Munsters is a GREAT game and so is Beatles for what it is

Lol. You are the unabashed biased Stern apologist on Pinside!

Yet you don’t buy their games, just hang out with Tim and crew. Because you sell and service?

I get it. “One way Levi” is your nickname

You have ZERO ability to be objective when it comes to Stern pinball

I know how pinball machines work, and I know how dumb an idea it is to say the black knight “toy” would be improved by putting a solenoid in it to make it shake violently.

That’s the difference between people like me who get their hands dirty working on pinball machines, and people like you who just “buy” them. We understand that if your average pinsider ran Stern they’d be out of business in a week, while the “i just buy em” types can feel free to engage in speculative fantasy without considering the actual real world consequences of their poor ideas.

Dude I “work” on my games too

Put the bourbon bottle down that I sent you

The point with BK isn’t really the toy itself. Yes it’s the lack of sales and I didn’t buy BK for MANY reasons, the least of which is the stupid toy

You will be 100% Stern defender no matter what

That we all know and so we can properly discern between fake news and reality

Now, I’m going back to play my fantastic Stern Munsters LE and I’ll leave the Stern cheerleading to you

I don’t think the knight is lame at all, in fact I think it’s super cool, especially with Steve’s voice, but that being said, the game layout sucks. Steve should have designed the game so that the Knight was further back on the playfield and the layout included two ramps. The shield concept was great, but why not make it so it blocked a ramp shot. Having the lock there was just a bad idea and ended up being another element in the game that killed flow. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what happened with this game........Steve wanted an upper playfield with a loop to mimic BK2000, but unfortunately it was never going to work well on a Stern (I would have thought he learned his lesson from GOT). His obsession with recreating the best part of BK2000 failed badly. He should have just evolved the concept and created a great game, with great flow, possibly utilizing a simple loop shot without an upper playfield like Elwin did on Maiden or perhaps something similar to the Getaway loop shot that locks into a castle instead of a donut shop. In some ways, I am disappointed because they got so much “right” in this game, in other ways I just smile. My BK2000 is my baby, the game that haunted me as a child and this new BK just affirms to me that nothing will ever make me give up my baby, not even the King himself.

You paid 9K for a Munsters LE and I'M the Stern nutswinger?!?!?

Negative.

Paid MUCH less

And it’s a great F ing game that I get massive enjoyment out of. Which apparently you are clueless on

Shame on you for talking bad about your Sternies! Pinside is going to report you. That is F ing blasphemy right there you talking bad about a Stern game. Put your knee pads back on brother

And it’s not one I’d sell

So go back to playing and fixing that outdated pile of shit that harkens back to the 60s

It’s a new day. Accept it. Embrace it. Let the BIAS loose!

Try. I know it’s hard. But at least try. And have a little objectivity !

I appreciate the BK toy along with feather.
Carry on.
2CC98BF7-87CD-4F40-9183-C646DF0DD440 (resized).jpeg

Btw,

I want Stern to grab ankles on Munsters, BM66, TWD, GB, Beatles, WPT and AS

Got it? I’m not just a “nut-swinger” sycophant like you

Yeah I love it

And same thing with Elvira. I’m going ALL THE WAY IN

BOHICA

I know what the problem with the knight is. Instead is that lame stand up target in front of the knight, Stern should have outfitted the knight with a codpiece.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codpiece

Screen Shot 2019-06-12 at 10.48.20 PM (resized).png

I don’t get it and that’s ....LOL