Disclaimer ** If you are expecting an in depth review of the rules, you'll have to wait until Pinball News provides one, this one is strictly a flyby.
First, let me congratulate Ford TODAY, on the 50th anniversary of the release of the Mustang. Their car has made an impact on the American way of life. Don’t know what impact it may have had overseas but it has been felt stateside.
Second, I confess to being a little intoxicated and freely admit the details are hazy.
Thirdly, I had a chance to speak with Gary Stern and John Borg last night about Mustang, as they came by Modern Pinball for about an hour. Enjoyed meeting John and speaking with Gary, and he was a good listener.
Layout - This may be one of Stern’s best and is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Playfield feels wide open but has a lot of interesting features. Even without considering the rules, the playfield is fun to shoot. Particularly enjoyed the top rollovers having two rows of lights, similar to Transformers. But these are angled into the playfield in the heat of the moment and are quite challenging to remember which flipper button controls which row of inserts. The skill shot at the top of the playfield is kind of tucked away but fun to hit. The bowl above the right flipper is a good way to delay balls entering play during multiball. I prefer a smoother bowl like in CFTBL and without raised plastic parts used to endure the ball drains. Maybe someone can design something better as it kind of looks like Gary has a five year old designed it - drain hole in the bowl looked like it was hand cut and asymmetrical. The standups in center of playfield feel very solid and I liked the fact that they were not developed into a scoop, as I dislike shooting the center scoop in Nascar because it feels kind of cheesy. The mechanical action felt smooth as in ST, while the slings and bumpers were stronger than a B/W game. There seems to be a bit of everything included. A captive ball, a magnet accelerator and even a double ramp (one stacked on top the other on the left side). For these reasons I felt that the pro model was full featured and I mistook it for a LE, until I asked about it.
Artwork - was above average. Still a collage of photos but it looks clean, while the least memorable part of the design was the lower playfield. This title should have been one that gave more attention to the artwork, but at least it was not offensive. While the translite was fine, there should be plenty of opportunities for some alternate designs to be created. The colors on the playfield are pretty bland. This game could become a modder’s paradise as there are many off the shelf things that could be added and I am sure some pretty cool unique ones made. Under cabinet lighting would be one of the first things that this game could benefit from. I wish that a gear shift ball launch had been deployed but maybe someone can come up with one.
Rules - this is where I wish I could remember more but the modes were very fun and felt satisfying. They did not require one to rinse, lather and repeat, but rather each was different and required you to target different areas of the playfield. It felt more like you were on a quest to complete many small tasks rather than signing up on a quest of laborious tasks that go on forever. The rules felt complete although I didn’t get anywhere near wizard mode. The rules also really meshed great with the design, as if they had been developed concurrently. They were executed in a way that felt very consistent with the design (don’t know how to describe the fact that they felt tightly connected). Way to go Ronnie Lopp, I really like what you have done so far with version 1.2.
Sounds - Well the volume was turned way down but adjusted high enough you could tell the sounds were decent enough. Car sounds - great, but many of the music selections were weak, especially after recent music theme pins where the songs were a central focus. For a brief moment I assumed that was a standard part of Stern’s design process going forward but was shocked back into reality on this pin.
Animations - some were interesting but none ground breaking.
Lighting - This is one element that really bugs me. The color of the lights do not match the color of the artwork. I really wish Stern would spend some time to at least get them into the same palette. The mismatch between the leds and the artwork really killed the idea of buying a Transformers LE for me, since the leds were soldered to boards and not easily replaced. The same mismatch of leds to artwork occurs on Mustang and this is what I primarily chose to convey to Gary. If I had a MustangLE, I would want to find someone to remove the leds and replace them with better matches. The pro has the advantage over the LE in this regard, because you can easily replace the lighting in those.
Coming off the high of the two recent classic hits - AC/DC and Metallica and to some extent ST, most people didn’t expect Stern to show much in this game. Quite the contrary this game feels unique, and is well rounded and very fun to play. I am considering buying one, but will need to spend some additional time before making up my mind. All I can recommend is that you seek one out and give it a fair shake. Mustang has all the makings of being a sleeper. Anybody else given this pin a chance?