Theme is fine, artwork is nice, overall package looks terrific with the crate.

Fun to play. Overpriced. Will not have any significant impact on whether people purchase EMs.

Overpriced indeed!! It may cause more people to look for EM's. You can certainly buy 6 or 7 nice ones for that, depending on price/condition.

Don't want to buy any EM pins, ordered this one from Countaker. Should make a great trouble free
addition. The entire package is worth buying. Nobody pays retail.

I personally hope not. If they didn't want one before, there should be no more reason to want one now. Leave them to the guys that can keep em goin'.

Ha haha, the NELLIE effect.
I love how it has the purists and tech heads conversing.
I don't look that deep, I have ordered mine and think it will be a hoot, especially next to Surf Champ and BBH.

Not a chance!

The Nelly effect will be that Stern will have several poor sellers such as Mustang, WWE, maybe TWD so they should need a nice VE to bring out the sales.

Love the look of it. I have never played it but price is for sure way to high for what it is. IMO

Of course...particularly because Stern was counting on selling thousands of WNBJM's.

Actually, I'm happy with Stern. They keep cranking out games...I'm happy to see them, and I can always count on them to come through.

Pete

I thought that was because of the EM Hangout?

Played a few games on it and I think the price is on point, yeah it's not a dmd but people put some love into it , and besides you can always find nib games way less than the MSRP.

The game is meh I give it a 6/10 or a C- overall. My first impressions of gameplay Thursday and Friday were that the game was a flaming pile of dog excrement. There was no Nellie impact on the EM row at TPF. There was never a line for any of the EM games. In fact it was crickets most of the time unfortunately in the EM row. Here is my score on the 4th game I ever played on Whoa Nellie. (6403 for those grabbing for their glasses)

_WN.jpg

maybe we need to fake that we are vicious and nasty and mean so we can keep prices down...

I played it a few times at the TPF.

1) Great looking game! They did a fantastic job with the theme, graphics, and cabinet design. I would like to have this game just to look at it.

2) Too easy to play. I'm not a great player but I could keep a ball in play much longer than I'm used to for a real EM. Even though that sounds like it should be a positive, the game difficulty felt like it was dumbed down for bad players. It just felt weird to play each ball so long on an EM without using any typical EM skills like nudging or planning shots. Especially with the old fashioned shorter flippers.

3) The score reels appeared to be the stepper motor driven type, which I understand for modernization. But it totally lacked the real EM look and hard sound of the sudden advance jolt of the scoring numbers as they are counted. The score reels moved smoothly and slowly. I miss the deliberate action and sound of a real EM score reel.

4) A very fast action game. The power of all the pops and slings are definitely higher than conventional EM's. Does make for a very lively game which is different.

Overall it looks like an EM but doesn't feel like an EM.
But it looks great!

Al

So with that scoring on a new game. Whoa Nellie might need a 10,000 point light, or another score reel.

Or 12+ fixer-uppers.

Keep in mind this is a bit more of a SS machine. Music, electronics, snappy flippers, etc. While it's themed a bit older with the 2" flippers I don't know if the same people would find the same amusement or want to work on EMs, I mean those things be scary right, with all those switches and coils and mechanical bits (slight sarcasm). If Mission Pinball keeps going strong though I could see an interest in EM conversions though. So if anything I'd say the Nellie effect would be conversions.

The "Nellie effect" will mean countless more threads debating the price point of Nellie.

Maybe, but I can tell you one thing...folks won't miss the repair work that goes into the original EM scoring reels!

Seriously though, great review. Thanks.

I like working on the score reels - even 16 in a 4-player. I also like working on the steppers, score motor, relays, knockers , flippers, and all the other bells & whistles. Come to think of it, that's why I like em's so much!

Yes, but you're a stud when it comes to this stuff. Most of us sadly...are not

Only a one player game?

Stud no, but while I may like em's, you don't want me tinkering around with your Metallica and Ironman. I'll leave that up to you

Is the mpu processor smart enough to allow 1 to 4 players?,
with memory to reset the score reels after each players turn,
not unlike the retro King of Diamonds remake a few years ago.

I believe that's exactly what it does, yes.

I played this game at the Ohio show 3 or 4 years ago. I'm not sure if anything has changed with it since then (looks the same), but it didn't strike me as anything special. It seems like more of a novelty for the uber collectors. It's almost as if Stern is deliberately keeping their production numbers low right now in order to move over their factory and finish MMR.

Now we needs mods ! Topper

It runs SPIKE just like WWE. There's a lot of speech, sound FX and you can play 1-4 players.

Time to blow minds... it DOES have a DMD. The cable runs from SPIKE down to a very small LCD on the apron. This shows the scores and is also used for menus, etc.

I forgot to take a photo of the little screen, did someone else grab one?

IMG_20150327_145033603.jpg

Nellie ends up having as much in common with an EM as Break Shot.

Well, it does have 4 legs (when the crate isn't used...)

It seems there the similarities end.

It'd make a cool piece of "living" art in a foyer of a trendy apartment.

rd.

Personally I'd rather have several EM's. Especially some of the classic Gottliebs than just one Nellie. However, if this game increases some interest in EM's in general, that's a good thing.

It played alright and was fun
Not 7k fun but fun enough
I liked the passive bumper and the score reel tech was neat. The wood cab was nice as were the beer can levelers.
-Jeff

WP_20150328_19_09_19_Pro.jpg

But Jeff you are 500 dollars closer to owning one! LOL

Sounds like you can get it for $5.5k shipped. Which isn't cheap, but it's better than $7k!

I played "Whoa Nellie" at TPF 2015 a few times and watched others play as well.

My assessment on a 1-10 scale along with a commentary:

I really wanted this to be a big hit all around but it failed IMO. It should have been a great new age SS retro EM look/feel/play but came up short in key areas. It is one of those pins I really wanted to love, but could not.

Artwork: All around a solid 10. If I was into collecting pinball for artwork only I would be all over this. The characters and colors just pop and feel right on this one.

Mechanical look and sounds: About a 7. The sounds were satisfactory but what was up with the uneven Score Wheels? A properly built EM straight out of the factory would not have Score Wheels that did not line up or are we to believe that this is supposed to be an old EM that has not been properly shopped and serviced

Gameplay/Ruleset: Not great at all, a 6. For getting the younger crowd on board and keep some of us oldsters happy with an EM/SS hybrid it should have had Drop Targets, even a bank of 3 would have helped quite a bit, but 5 or more would have been great. The flow was OK but the Ruleset was too simple mimicking an EM, especially for an SS system. Being a game originally based off a 1957 Gottlieb Continental Cafe 2 player that had a rating of 5.4 on the IPDB they should have instead based it off a 1 player to begin with that had at least the complexity and challenge of say a 1975 Gottlieb Atlantis, but did not even come close to that. To me it was a great opportunity that was completely missed. It was as though that the Artwork was the major point for the creation of the machine, and the machine itself then just being a vessel for it.

Price: WTF? It is saying a lot when an EM guy like me would rather buy an "Americas Most Haunted" at $5995.00 that has a much better Gameplay/Ruleset with good Artwork over the EM/SS Hybrid "Whoa Nellie" any day of the week especially given the price point. At $6495.00 "Whoa Nellie" should be priced at least $2000.00 less IMO and then maybe some SS/DMD guys who want an EM type game but with SS components so they can work on them. Folks wanting their first pin that looks like an old EM that reminds them of the good old days will want it as well in part that the machine is new and has the dependability of the newer SS systems will buy it.

Overall thought: I feel this game will fail for Stern's expected sales projection because of the previous observations stated and that is sad. After the failed "King Of Diamonds" Retro EM/SS flop I feel this game will set back the EM/SS Hybrid pinball machines for yet another 5 years before someone else tries their hand at it and I am pretty sure Stern will not be the one to even touch such a project in the future. Who knows, Maybe it will be Jersey Jack next up at bat, just a guess though and hopefully the 3rd attempt will be a successful EM/SS Hybrid, but for now we wait until that time.

Ken

Ken Whoa Nellie.jpg

Ken just hit 100% of how I feel about Whoa Nellie. I couldn't express words better than Ken just did.

Why was King of Diamonds such a flop? Was it priced too high? Bad marketing? I wasn't into pinball at the time, so I don't know any of the history about that, but I did play it at PHOF recently.

Retro King of Diamonds was different. It is not an exact replica of a King of Diamonds. The cabinet is larger the playfield is also larger. It is a hybrid game. I personally would not mind having one, but was a hard to sell to EM guys. The DMD crowd did not appreciate it that much.

The pics I saw showed it was a small motor unit. Even smaller than the Bally ones. I'm guessing an Electric motor with some sensors. Not the ratcheting mechanical ones we are used to. But all things considered I hear the wood is good. But just like anything else, that might be subject to change.

A lot of people complained that the playfield was an overlay instead of screen printed too.

Yes they have. The overlay plastic makes for a very smooth surface, so a fast ball travel will occur. Unlike the roll of the ball on a wood playfield.

so is it a Stern or a Whiz-Bang?

did I miss something posted

yeah its a "EM" but the person who buys this isn't buying it for the playability factor...

I thought I wanted the Retro KoD until I played one.

Appreciate the hell out of the technology (hats off to Cactus Jack) but it's not an EM, and it doesn't play like one. I would assume, not having played this game and unlikely to ever play one, that it's pretty much the same.

The only one way I'd own it......is if someone else paid the depreciation. I'd played this at TPF, still just couldn't get over the price