Put a few games on Maiden Pro at the 1Up Lodo today. Some first impressions for the bored:

It seems fast and fun, love the four flippers, lots to shoot for, great ramp looping, and excellent call outs: “Welcome to my world ... under glass” (Aurich I hold you responsible for that one!) Playfield art and sound is great, from a guy that neither knows nor cares for Iron Maiden the band.

Don’t like the translite much, I’m sure there will be aftermarket options. The LCD animation is spotty, some pretty decent, some amazingly bad (“dumpy guy with beard being stalked through the woods at night” mode?).

Overall I’m looking forward to playing more and figuring out some rudimentary strategies. But so far so good!

Ha! That is pretty funny, if totally random. Regardless, it’s also poorly animated so hopefully they’ll spruce it up if they’re going to keep it (maybe have Gary Stern stalking him with unsigned HR forms?)

Whatever it is, it's not "basic looking." I think some Iron Maiden fans (and apparently WWII plane aficionados) are disappointed because it doesn't look like the reference art/pics they have in mind, and that's fair enough. But it's a detailed and technically proficient piece of artwork, not the scribbling of a middle-schooler.

Imagine if Stern re-re-themed it into an Archer pin! I'd be more into that, personally ...

Time to head to the Quick-Pack for another sixer!

The $5k IMDN or your Pinside game ratings?

Right, a distributor is probably not going to get sued by Stern for selling below the price floor, but would you risk your livelihood if you knew you might lose access to the biggest (by a huge margin) manufacturer’s goods if you don’t respect their pricing rules? I doubt many distributors would take that chance, especially in the tiny world of pinball where news of any pricing “discrepancies” would get back to Stern quickly.

So I’m betting the $5k Pro price was also a “joke.”

Free-standing urinal in the game room there? Very convenient.

Looks about right to me, use all those other useless gameroom objects as work and storage surfaces for pinball ...