(Topic ID: 251565)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Stern) Hype Thread

By delt31

4 years ago


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#744 3 years ago

So these big mono-targets, I guess they were first introduced on Munsters? Little out of the loop here. I don't get it, are they some kind of cost saving measure? Or are they supposed to give new players something easy to hit? Seems like you're gonna get all the inserts lit up just on accidental bounces given the size of them.

Last Action Hero had one just like them, it's just that there was a whole bank of drop targets in front of it, and it was designed to punish bad shots, not make easy ones for you while you're flailing.

#748 3 years ago

Maybe it really is a style thing, since even the Prem and LEs have them. Not a fan, feels like it takes away skill based shots.

#760 3 years ago
Quoted from Rarehero:

Fuel target on your Metallica![quoted image]

That's true, I forgot about that. TMNT is Borg too right? Maybe he just keeps letting them get bigger and bigger each time, GOTG looks smaller than the new big ones.

I know it's cool to bash on Stern for cost cutting, and maybe that's truly all it is, but I do feel like Stern has kinda joined this general trend in gaming about dumbing down some features of games to let new players feel like things are easy. Big ol' targets on the sides that fill up the inserts, and if you can just flail around and keep the ball alive long enough to you're bound to spell one of the words, or both, and get whatever that gives you.

In a different but related vein they're doing the video stuff to show you how to plunge etc too. It could all be a program to try and get location play to reward casual players more?

Data East, long before Stern, had the pity multiball on ball 3, kind of the same sort of idea. Give you something for your quarter, even if you're not really any good.

#833 3 years ago
Quoted from Rarehero:

Ya want a blurry pic? I can get ya a blurry pic.

Pfft, that's just compressed, you're not even trying to post a blurry pic.

IMG_0766 (resized).jpgIMG_0766 (resized).jpg

#853 3 years ago
Quoted from Peanuts:

How about a sharp pic?

I would never actually leak shots of a game right before it was announced, that's crummy for all the people who worked hard on it. But I think everyone will be happy with the real photos, it's what you'd expect from Zombie Yeti, aka high quality, thoughtful work. I imagine they're coming soon.

#856 3 years ago
Quoted from epthegeek:

Way to humblebrag that you have them already.

I could be lying!

#954 3 years ago
Quoted from Wildbill327:

Looks like the pro will be missing the mech that diverts the balls.

It's right there in the screencap above, just no glider. At least as far as I can see.

These are all stills from a promo video and not really doing the colors any favors. Guess the cat's out of the bag now, but people should wait for the official shots to really judge it I think.

23
#1088 3 years ago
Quoted from aeonblack:

Stern needs to get better at putting out their own high quality press releases before people leak them. I just want to see some proper high quality pictures and a proper high quality video, not Kaneda's shitty jabs at TPN and crappy low res grainy photos.

I honestly dunno what you guys want.

Stern does put together high quality press releases. This was a bunch of professionally shot photos, and a video, ready for the press. But here's how press release stuff works, you send it out ahead time to the writers. I work in the press, I used to cover Stern's announcements, here's my old article on Star Trek for instance:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/after-20-year-absence-star-trek-returns-to-the-world-of-pinball/

I had all those photos a few days ahead of the announcement, along with details. It gave me time to write up an article, held under embargo, until the release time. Then we're able to have a story up in a timely fashion, which is good for us, and it helps Stern with their media push. Everyone else puts up their pieces too, it's how normal business is done. I'm under no obligation to say nice things, it's not shady, the agreement is simply we get early access to not have to rush to write, in return for waiting until the released date to publish.

The problem isn't that Stern is doing a bad job, it's that they're trusting some people they clearly shouldn't. I didn't leak my photos to clout whores, I can tell you that, but someone is. If I was Stern I'd be putting in some subtle watermarks to different places and figuring out who's leaking. I won't tell you who sent them to me!

But I respect Stern too much to take their images and blow them up online like that. Whoever's leaking them doesn't respect the company, and is abusing the trust. Be annoyed with them, not Stern.

#1092 3 years ago

Lots of people read it. I can tell you lots of people read my articles, and we don't have as big an audience for gaming content as a focused place like IGN.

Pinside likes to think the universe revolves around here. I can tell you that after taking a year off from posting that I was still able to keep up with pinball news just fine. You know where I got all the details for the new Elvira? IGN.

21
#1343 3 years ago
Quoted from jawjaw:

I don't get adults being into this theme

The adults on this site spend their days talking about big toy boxes that bang metal balls around, when they aren't banging the balls around themselves, or glueing action figures inside the boxes. I hardly think anybody with a single post on Pinside is in any position to judge what adults are into.

I was a fan of the original Eastman and Laird comics, that kind of spoiled the cartoon version for me a bit, but I know I watched it as a kid still. I definitely put a lot of quarters into the Konami 4 player arcade game, that was great. It's hugely popular still with the barcade crowd, and the original arcade PCB keeps climbing in price.

I think the game looks really nice. It clearly is trying to capture the spirt of that arcade game era, which is smart. That's the biggest audience I think.

I personally appreciate how bright and saturated Zombie Yeti has made his pinball art. He's got a style he uses for his Stern games that's consistent and works well. I suspect it also goes over well with the license approval people. Yes, he's capable of "grittier" looking art, and I know some would prefer it, but commercially speaking I don't think it would be as successful.

This is a tough time for pinball. I wish Stern nothing but luck with being able to keep games being made and sold right now.

#1439 3 years ago

I don't love the mono targets, but I was talking about them with a friend last night, and he very reasonably pointed out they're not really in a position to be big on skillful aiming anyways.

I think this is more of a case of not liking the principle of the thing than really seeing that much of a detraction from real gameplay.

I'd rather they were smaller, like the FUEL target in Metallica Prem/LE. I honestly have never once on my LE thought to myself "damn, I wish there were two separate targets on this like the Pro". Makes no difference to me. But when it's so wide I think it's easy to see how it could have been a real bank of targets.

#1517 3 years ago
Quoted from zombieyeti:

And as an aside - I know some of you think it's too kiddie - but if you followed the Turtles you'd realize that was a defining differentiation and unique to this version of them. THis cartoon is why we got the movies and subsequent cartoons and as a child of that era, I wanted to distill the essence of that which includes HAPPY FUN-LOVING Turtles. In this day and age, I thought other's might want that too - fwiw.

You did it right. You'll never make everyone happy, but if you're going to do "the one" that gets the most people in their happy zone what you did is it.

I'm a fan of the Eastman and Laird OG red headband turtles myself, with the scratchy linework and more expressive faces. But that's old man minority talk, it wouldn't go over well with so many people.

Bright colors, the happy go lucky turtles, you hit all the right notes imo. Be nice if people could just appreciate things when they're obviously done with love and attention. Save your criticism for thing that were phoned in and done without thought, this clearly ain't that.

19
#1603 3 years ago

After watching the stream I think this is basically like the Raw Thrills TMNT arcade game for me. I appreciate all the effort from the team, and what they were trying to capture as far as the nostalgia of an era, and I'd be happy to play it on location if such a thing ever exists again, but it's not really for me. One of those "you can't go back" things perhaps.

I think the highlights are ZY's art package and the layout looks fun to shoot. Dwight seemed enthusiastic on stream, hopefully the rules all gel nicely.

I wish Stern the best of luck, and I'm really happy for people like Jared who are getting a dream theme. This is a tough time with the pandemic and I thought the remote stream format was great, well done Jack and everyone else.

#1629 3 years ago
Quoted from DS_Nadine:

But what I don't get is, why they not just scrap making & animating a compareably (tio the TMNT themselfes) poor "Baxter Stockman" and just replace him with a 2D pic from ZY.

Quoted from Darscot:

Do they pay him half as much for the art for the LCD or does ZY not provide art for the animation at all?

The animation on the game is being done with cel shaded 3D models. I doubt ZY is involved at all, it's an entirely different process from hand drawing art.

There are some tricks to fake motion out of 2D drawings, you can rig them with a kind of armature so they can distort and layer into a semblance of life, but it's somewhat limited.

It's much more efficient to animate with 3D models. Instead of drawing individual frames, which is time consuming, you can do the work to make a model, rig it, and then pose and tween it to make it move. Still work, but less so than drawing each frame by hand over and over.

Really though, animation is just work in general. It's time consuming. What I saw today wasn't my cup of tea at all. I'd honestly take more creative use of static assets over that kind of 3D work, but you do have to appreciate that it's not easy with a small team and budget to crank out.

I think the best example of making the most out of drawings is to look at what Spooky did with Alice Cooper. They used creativity and presentation to make up for less actual animation. A work smarter not harder approach. Lots of ways to skin that cat though.

#1719 3 years ago
Quoted from Darscot:

Your lead artist should be the lead artist, it doesn't matter who does the modelling or animating its painfully obvious these are completely separate groups. Implementation is really irrelevant, if you fake it with 2D assets or build it with 3D how it comes out in the end is what matters. The pin itself looks killer just sad the animation is not nearly the same quality.

I don't know how things work at Stern these days, so I'm purely pulling this out of my ass here, and happy to be corrected.

ZY isn't a Stern employee to the best of my knowledge, he's a contract artist who freelances. Not really practical to have him play creative director and oversee the animator. I would presume that's Greg Freres' role, if he's still the CD at Stern.

Stern has traditionally relied on a network of people do do their game animations, back in the dot days. I think there were at least 4 on Star Trek for instance. You can tell by the range of styles on it too. Then I think they went more in-house with a couple 3D artists? I dunno, I'm getting out into the weeds where I don't feel like I know enough to say. But I think the same people are doing all the Stern LCD games now.

When I worked on Alien I was involved in the animation oversight, but I wasn't just a hired gun for the art, I took on the CD role, and I also brought the animator onto the team, he was a friend of mine. I agree that it's a better way to work, especially with the limited resources we had, but I don't know that it's that normal in pinball.

#1846 3 years ago
Quoted from snaroff:

Yep...couldn't agree more. In fact, the effort Stern is putting into the LCD is surprising. I'd gladly trade some new/exciting "mechs" for some of the brain power that goes into these animations.

Everyone has different things they focus on. I know that I'm definitely in the minority about things that bug me about fonts for instance, and I mostly keep it to myself unless someone really goads me into a rant.

But the continued success of ColorDMD says to me that there are people who do care about getting the most out of their displays, even if the focus during gameplay is on the playfield.

I'm not knocking Stern's efforts, because I know how much work it all really is. They're just not taking approaches that personally appeal most of the time. I haven't played enough Batman 66 to really judge, but I think that one has really smart asset use. And I definitely respect the level of effort that went into original world building on the new Black Knight screen. Was more interesting to me than the playfield honestly.

But much of the LCD stuff just feels a little like the CD-ROM era to me, remember that? Just the vibe.

I'd like to see some different style of thinking in general. You have a high rez screen, you really can do anything you want. Sometimes less is more, you don't need a lot of 3D model animation to feel good, even more static elements deployed in a dynamic way read really well. That's a lesson you can take from the source:

229e375fbf9cf13c6e01f050ca92c063.gif229e375fbf9cf13c6e01f050ca92c063.gif

#1871 3 years ago
Quoted from snaroff:

I think it's hard to say I goaded you! More accurately, you used my post as an "opportunity" to launch into a rant, which is cool, since I miss Aurich rants

I was making a reference to my rant about the letter H in the Willy Wonka logo that I only did because someone insisted that I was nitpicking things when I was studiously avoiding doing any such thing. Figured if I was gonna catch shit for something I wasn't even doing I might as well go all out and do it.

Quoted from zombieyeti:

not saying it's the best answer for everyone - but it allowed for a more dynamic central grouping of art... which selfishly I gravitate towards...

As the resident nit-picker I think it looks great personally. It's organic in a good way, feels balanced, and I bet it feels nice during attract modes to have the lights kind of scattered like that instead of being in a more constrained grid.

Honestly the entire bottom area feels great to me. The way half the turtles are mounted on the floating plastics and larger really adds to the illusion of depth. And you made two of them on opposite sides/depth looking back up towards the viewer, nicely engages and draws the eye inwards toward the scene.

#2036 3 years ago

Tell you what hasn’t changed about Pinside since I was gone, the arguing over Pro vs Premium.

52
#2083 3 years ago
Quoted from Thunderbird:

Simple game??? Then send us all a couple grand rebate, for giving us no more than a few real updates.

It's the year 2020, and people still think they can buy pinballs with some kind of expectation that they'll get more than what they paid for.

Say it loud for the people in the back, buy games for what they are, not for what you hope they'll be. You have nobody to blame but yourself if your hopes and dreams don't become reality after handing over the cash. If you're not sure, simply wait before buying to see what comes. It's not that hard.

Let's check the notes:

CHICAGO, Jan. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Stern Pinball, Inc., a global lifestyle brand based on the iconic and outrageously fun modern American game of pinball, proudly announced today the availability of a new line of pinball machines celebrating the iconic American TV hit sitcom, The Munsters.

Players will be transported to 1313 Mockingbird Lane, joining the entire Munsters family on this haunted pinball adventure. Featuring Herman, Raven, Lily, Spot and Grandpa, players will work their way towards Munster Madness in this frightfully funny and action-packed pinball world under glass. The Munsters pinball machines will be available in Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition models.

"The Munsters are iconic and timeless, and it was time to create a pinball experience around this freaky-fun family. With beautiful artwork inspired by the supernatural family, this theme is perfect for a pinball machine," said Gary Stern, Chairman and CEO of Stern Pinball, Inc.

Stern's The Munsters Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition models feature stunning and distinctive hand-drawn art. Each game features a custom sculpted Herman bash toy with magnetized ball catch, highlighting Herman multiball. In addition, all models include a pop-up Spot bash toy hidden under the left ramp, a custom sculpted Drag-U-La toy car featured near a left shooter lane kicker, as well as a metal turn-around, flip-up ramp.

The Premium and Limited Edition models both feature Grandpa's laboratory, a lower playfield that features 2 mini flippers, 2 ramps, a Grandpa bash target, a digital number display, and a multiball feature. The Premium model features an exclusive black and white custom art package in homage to classic black and white TV.

The Limited Edition – only 500 units globally – includes additional unique features such as an exclusive mirrored backglass, anti-reflection pinball glass, shaker motor, exclusive custom art blades, a custom autographed bottom arch, a sequentially numbered plaque, and exclusive custom casket-themed cabinet artwork.

Complementing the immersive theme and exciting gameplay experience, Stern Pinball's powerful SPIKE™ electronics hardware system enables high-definition graphics and innovative animations on the high-definition video display. SPIKE™ reduces system complexity and energy usage resulting in enhanced reliability and simplified servicing. The state-of-the-art electronic system also powers a high-fidelity 3-channel audio system that is three times more powerful than audio systems of previous generations.

Huh, nothing about deep code and continuous updates in there. How strange.

Just admit it, you were too excited to wait and see how the game developed and bought it sight unseen with expectations that weren't actually based on anything real, and now you're mad because your own impatience made you unhappy.

Dwight doesn't "owe" anyone anything. There were no promises made or broken. He's a nice guy, I've talked to him, I've read his extensive posts on thoughtful pinball design. He really doesn't deserve the personal bashing childish people keep dishing at him because they can't take responsibility for their own decisions. He posted in this thread already, he's clearly reading everything.

Dwight, I'm sorry you have to put up with this stuff, and while I'm sure you're used to it, there's really no excuse for it.

I made a personal remark about Lonnie once here. Called him lazy or something, I dunno, it was dumb. Well he read it and I hurt his feelings, and I found out about it. So I had an hour long phone call with him, where I apologized, and learned quite a lot about how business at Stern really works. I ended up ashamed of my childish behavior. Don't be like that, we can be better.

Nothing wrong with having an opinion, but there's no excuse for making it personal and nasty when we know the people you're talking about are reading.

#2115 3 years ago
Quoted from Thunderbird:

If that’s the case, we should all stop buying all unfinished games, till a year later, when they’re actually completed code wise.

Now you're getting it.

2 weeks later
11
#2672 3 years ago

Don't be proud of ignorance, it's not a good look.

There's nothing wrong with wanting the people who build the games we love to be safe. Hell, be selfish about it if you want, they can't make games if the factory closes down.

#2696 3 years ago
Quoted from epichoff:

Switching shells, checkout these shooter rods from tilt graphics.

I like the shooter housing shell graphic, that's fun.

I dunno if I was the first person to do that (with my Star Trek package) or not, not claiming I invented it if someone else did it first, but I'm glad to see more creative use of that space.

shooter-housing (resized).jpgshooter-housing (resized).jpg

1 week later
#2906 3 years ago

This new era is wild, I've never seen pins spaced out that far in my life.

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