Ok, since very few people have seen this yet, I should probably give a review on it. I witnessed the unboxing and played the 3rd player in the first game (4 players). Won too. Afterward we updated to the most recent ROM (1.1?) and got schooled by Trent in no time.
I didn't bring my phone in, so I have no pics, but we all have seen the pics on this machine. The face on the playfield is bigger than it looks in the pics online, but you really don't notice that, more about that not noticing in a bit. The outer cabinet looks very nice except for some strange decal work making the cabinet look intentionally dinged up. This doesn't make much sense, but the AC/DC logo is red and vibrant outside of that. Backglass.. well, it's the backglass. AC/DC, great for them.
I guess I should preface by saying, AC/DC is not my band. They are not fantastic to me, I hear it play and its not remotely special. I like some classic rock but they're not my cup o tea. That said, at first power on, the sound is fantastic. Trent said there wasn't a sound upgrade on the pro models, but this sounded much better than Transformers to me, clarity from bitrate improvements? No idea, but it sounds good.
So back to the face, initially you do see that giant head, but as soon as that ball is launched, you won't be looking around. This game is lightning fast, blindingly fast, retarded fast. The skill shot is easy as usual, but there is a super skill shot from holding the right flipper on launch, which is a bit more difficult. Just about every result from launching is the ball rocketing toward the flipper, sometimes going SDTM. Gonna need that ball save, best hope you didn't have too much time in the pop bumpers.
Once some manner of control is gained your main shots are for the ramps usually, but every song has its own set of modes that are started with it, there are separate high scores individually for each of these modes, so the ramps won't be your only target. Also, until you get a certain amount of points on these modes, you won't be getting to change the song you're listening to, after these points are reached you can hit the top jukebox target and 'play records' as it were.
The drop targets seem awfully hard to maintain control with, clearly ricocheting the ball from one side target to the TNT targets would be the safest bet. In my excitement and flailing I didn't bother to make this observation while playing and did lose balls. The ramps have 5 or 10 shots that need to be made to activate the multiball and the right ramp will sometimes go to the cannon.
Also, when hitting the ramps, there are certain familiar voice callouts on the ramps. Familiar to those who have played No Fear. The samples 'You're on Fire' and 'Do it Again!' are exactly the same from the skull. I love this, apparently there was drama at Stern over this. I don't care, the Steve Richie skull voice is awesome.
The cannon is a neat toy, not innovative or different than T2, but it is fun and worth having in the game.
The DMD is LED based, still just red, but not as prone to death as the gas displays, and looks vibrant. I also think it's worth mentioning that there isn't any 'live' video footage that has looked off on past games, so it's more purely Stern programming. No spontaneous blob of what must have been a movie clip, but not perceivable due to a muddy display.
Also, the images on the DMD are very cartoon-y in nature. Kind of wacky, but I'm not sure what else would be better in the case of the theme. I also despise the match event with the mooning Angus, but I guess that's an AC/DC thing too? Geriatric ass isn't really something I want to see but I can't have it all.
Overall, I can see this being a tournament pin easily. The difficulty level of the game is out of control with the speed of the game. None of us, not even Trent got completely through a song, but getting to change tracks could have had something to do with that. First time pinball players will hate the gameplay here, but long time players who want a challenge will like this as much as Iron Man. Did it make me a fan of AC/DC? Nope! But the playability makes me want to play it again and again.
So overall the pro, without the extra ramp or playfield is a great game, I'd give it a solid 8.5/10 which bodes well for you LE buyers.