I hope they vault avengers but make the centre ramp tighter so they can add a second hulk.

I would also like to see a Tommy remake, except that it’s a game about Tommy Floyd providing exceptional customer service to those that deserve it. The warped pf guy appears in modes etc. like the $2 kid from better off dead.

I hope you're right. Never know with Stern. It may be a stripped fan layout, with one bash magnet and LE gets drops targets. Code might come so bare that the machine is unplayable (guardians). Not hating; just telling the truth. When was the last time Stern knocked it out of the park with design, code AND toys? Maybe spider man? Xmen was pretty stacked... To me, it feels like the good old days are gone with Stern. Not saying that I don't like the current offerings - I love playing black Knight SOR and absolutely love IMDN - but them doing Jurrasic World just seems like a setup for disappointment to me. The theme could offer so much...

Good theme would be Bond the same way they did Dr. Who. Different modes/goals for different bonds.

Grand theft auto would be a great pin if handled correctly.

LoL:

"Industry analyst Doug Creutz says Grand Theft Auto 5 has made more money than any other form of media in history, with over 90 million units sold and $6 billion in revenue." - IGN

The game has great possibilities as a pin similar to high speed, but you could also add in heists etc. Semi-adult content would be cool as well. Plus it would be a contemporary theme that is still crazy popular amongst the demographic that plays and would play Pinball.

The only one I would love would be Styx. Mr Roboto should be a pinball machine on its own.

Mustang also happens to be one of the worst designs in modern pinball. People won't even play the one on location here for free. GTA has a ton to offer, even without the sex and violence. I mentioned some possibilities in my previous post. It would attract a younger crowd, and many on this forum have played the game and likely like the game.

Gobots for the poor kids!

Full agro on your 9th post. You're going to fit right in around here. Welcome to Pinside!

I heard Keith is doing Fritz the Cat...fritz (resized).jpg

If the home edition rumour is true, it's likely because Gary hired some marketing hipster that convinced him the company needs to become a "lifestyle brand" and enter the homes of average people. What an awesome idea . . . for all companies that don't sell pinball machines.

I think it's bill and Ted. The artist spilled the beans and had to backtrack (lie).

Personally don't get it. A remake of a pin that was modeled on a film from 1993.... Why?

I can see Munsters a little more as it hadn't been done and has a great soundtrack. I'm not in the pinball business, but I'd be hitting themes that are for old and young ppl. Maybe ppl still watch that film.

It has a catchy song like Addams family. What’s not to get??

Since Star Wars seems to be a cursed theme, maybe Spaceballs would work?

Original theme...

- sports in x games
- space exploration
- sci Fi
- fantasy

What happened to imagination? Good gameplay and killer art would make it work.

I find that sewers add a sense of wonderment for new players. When newbs come to my tournaments, they are amazed by the sewer magic of STTNG, even if the game kicks their ass. They also have little trouble learning sewer shots like the piano on tz and the chair on TAF. Disappearing balls via sewers is just plain cool and fun.

Good news to hear there is no ban. Keith, what are the chances of your next machine being an unlicensed theme called Sewer Madness?

I disagree that the geometry just needs to be learned by better players. I play very well, and the game, like Houdini, has geometry issues. They should have removed one of the shots to free up room or go widebody. Maiden has tough shots but also flow. Machines should have both. ACNC played like crap to me.

We need some new unlicensed themes:

- Space/rocket ship
- Cell phone/internet/hacker
- Horror/killer
- Sexy woman in the jungle
- Magic

I think themes like this lead to far more creativity inside the game...

I have IM next to IMDN. The quality difference is absolutely insane. I can touch maiden with my pinky, and the whole machine shakes. I have to use both hands aggressively to do the same to IM. I wish Stern would reverse course on the cost cutting (bring back the older PSU with button in the right place, a knocker etc etc.) as I am sad that I can't support them anymore.

I guess this is a good time to ask: has anyone added weights into the cab of newer sterns?

I think adding in the JP bash got you all the downvotes.

Stern ripped many pinheads off (including me) with a bad PFs and will not make it right. Their customer service as of now consists of IGNORING customers. If you want to roll the dice on quality with zero support toward serious issues, go with Stern. As much as I despise this company and hope they go out of business, they have improved in adding mechs etc. JP is pretty good value in the way of mechs; it's just that those mechs will likely break prematurely and Stern won't do dick about it.

I'm excited for other choices, and I wish JJP or Chicago or spooky (anybody but Stern) got the license to Stranger Things. That being said, Rick and Morty are sooooo much more fun as characters. The creativity by spooky will be great I'm sure.

I totally agree. There are so many other choices that haven't been done... I didn't want Pirates because it was a worn-out, recycled Disney license. I find GnR to be a love or hate band, and with jjps high price point, I see it as a risky choice. Baffles me too. Maybe slash had a lot to do with it, him being a pinball fan.

I'm sure there's an Avengers sitting in some distro's basement somewhere. That distro's wishing it was a Transformers...

Instant buys for me:

- Any game that's been done before
- Any game that should have been made in the 90s

I have no idea why you're pumping LOTR spike, but it would suck ass. At least it would bring down the price of the original. I could see LOTR SAM, maybe. I'd take the flipper fade any day to have a real board to work on. Just wait till the spike boards start to fail. You're a pinball guy... shouldn't you know this? Old boards fail. They need work. They need upkeep. The icting for LOTR is because it's from the era where common sense went into design. Spike vaults would be horrible. It might be unpopular now, but I'll send you back here in ten years.

I'd buy one right away

Just like the stock market: buy what you know is good, not what you "think" is good.

My barber used to only have Avengers. I didn't even like looking at it, let alone playing it. LOL. They are both just horrible games.

Well, we just had a current theme, so I guess we have to have 3 or 4 pre-1990 themes...

I'd love a tiger King pin. As a theme, it has exotic animals, cowboy guns, meth zombies, sex slaves, and murder. It's ripe for comedy, has great fake Tiger Joe music, and excellent clips. I bet Joe would offer audio over the phone from jail. Instant buy.

king (resized).jpg

Mustaine was never on the level of the other bands in your list. Megadeth would sell very poorly. I'd rather see Judas by far, but it wouldn't sell either.

At least Godzilla is an Asian culture beast that is older than your grandpa... Not another 80s theme. With Elwin designing, it would be awesome. I wish Elwin worked for jjp or Chicago or even spooky so the QC could at least try to keep up with the design.

Hopefully they put a children's style bobble head in the game too!

It would be great for jjp, but Stern would fuck it up. Making a ball do "magic" takes mechs and magnets that do neat things. In short, it would take some innovation and cost. Stern wouldn't spend the money. A Dracula magnet effect would work well with the theme.

I wish they would design an orginal theme and put all the saved cash into the game. If they did a good job on the theme integration, I swear it would sell as good if not better than some of their licenses. If Keith designed and Lyman did the code, it would do very well.

Some ideas that almost no one hates:

UFOs with humour like attack from mars
Haunted mansions
Medieval anything
Space and technology
Classic public domain stories: mythology etc. Minotaur would be a great title/theme
Generalized vehicles (monster trucks, motocross)
War/tanks/jets/bombs

There are countless untapped original ideas within these general themes that would work great. I'd rather have a better game than a license.

But Dialed in isn't an cool theme. I don't mind it, but it is, by no means, a theme I would recommend a company to try to sell. On the other hand, a theme like Minotaur or some post-apocoyptic theme would likely sell if paried with the right designer and coder. To say these themes wouldn't sell based on sales of a poorly implemented theme doesn't make sense.

Stern is cutting to the point of affecting gameplay, which is horrendous. Mono targets? I'd rather have no target there at all seeing that you don't even have to aim at them. Play munsters for ten minutes. You can't help but hit them over and over and over. Put Keith and Lyman on any game and it will sell. Save the money on the license so they can design a game with real targets and maybe an extra mech or two!

What about a Leaping Lanny Poffo pin? He could recite his poems for callouts.

Black Gallagher pin would be epic.

tenor (resized).png

Black Gallagher visits Peewee's playhouse would be epic.

In a porn theatre where touching yourself is the norm...

Just when I thought jjp's Johnny Depp mug was the worst...

You do realize IM = iron man, since 2010?

Mars 2021 would be an awesome theme! Man, I wish...

If you don't know how to adjust slings, replace rubbers, and play Riker poker, yeah the game sucks.

Just gotta adjust the switches. Mine are gapped tight, and with new rubbers, the slings are like any other machine but bigger. If you don't like Riker poker, take the 25 Mill and move on. It's been years since the last time I did the video mode.

Game crushes Stern's, but everyone's entitled to their own STTNG.

I'd bet good money against this. Market saturation and build quality will destroy resale of all SLEs. You may be able to fluke out and find a buyer that would pay what you paid, but if be shocked if you did. You'd be better off with a Stern pro for recouping more of your cost. R&M and BL are probably the only nib games that will see a price increase when sold.

How many Thunderbirds did they make again?

If that Batman price is real, which I highly doubt it is, it would be a rarity. "Rare" pins are losing demand, just like hockey cards and anything else that gets saturated by companies playing off collectability. Gary has gone to that well too many times. It's a market for suckers unless you don't care about return. But keep buying if you're sure you'll find some dude with 20 grand that is dying for a "special" machine based on a granny with juicy melons. Lol.

The discussion wasn't about hating on SLE owners, it was about one specific egomaniac stating that his EHOH SLE is going to increase in value. I can easily afford to by that POS, but I'm smart enough not to. d-bagz is the one telling us how 'comfortable' he is. You can be 'comfortable' and make bad decisions. He made one and is butthurt that some of us are pointing it out.

Buy another one; it's your money. Will we point and laugh? YES, absolutely!

Sooooo glad they did stth instead of Goonies. That 80s shit doesn't hold up.

I wish jjp had queen and Stern had gnr. Each company will screw each of these licenses up in different ways. In fact, I wish Elwin was at jjp. I'd be broke.

Money safe for a while....

Heard various versions of this a million times on here. I'd argue anyone who doesn't consider resale value seriously, especially with a big collection, is the bigger fool.

Totally, but the point was that you should definitely consider and care about resale in any hobby. When I first got in, I considered most of my W/B pins as investments, and they are easily up 35% still to this day. My IMDN LE is going to set me back 2.5k, or 20%. My DILE will be the same. In the end, I'll likely come out slightly ahead or even, and this is how I want to keep it. I won't buy any more NIB games because of this.

I can easily afford to lose money, but why on earth would I voluntarily do so?

Purely speculation. I paid MSRP from a distro, and only 10 of them came to Canada with the tournament button and Canadian mechs etc., So maybe I'll get my money back. The issue is the price. It worked out to 12.5k in Canadian pesos. That's a huge price up here. I'm banking firmly on getting at least 10, but who knows... I'm pretty sure it will be a loss. Don't know if I'll ever sell though as the game is so damned good.

If Stern bought any competing manufacturer, it will be the saddest day in pinball on a very long time....

The best part of this release is Kaneda arguing with himself for stealing info from himself and that he'll run out of legit info if he stops releasing information to himself. Reminds me of Steve from Gameseum. Good times!

Keith has broken through the no subway Stern era. Good job, man!

The premium looks crazy awesome. Wish the build quality matched as I'd buy this in a second! I'll pick one up in the secondary market in a few years.

ehem... Maybe you should list the price of the "pinball machine" you're referring to?

Not true. You just need to sell furniture or remove your stove. Hotplate is good enough. Dining rooms are sooooo 90s.

I'm hearing Mork and Mindy or One Day at a Time. Schneider multiball wil be epic!

Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Insta-buy!

There is clearly a love-hate for this game. I'm proudly in the absolute hate. I think the layout sucks ass. The shots are boring. The annoying tie fighter crap is awful. The multiplier rules DO suck. The mode selection sucks. Pro has a ship on a spring, typical ramps and three mid-pf standups? The LE at least has the death lock and the high-speed engine.

I would have bought this game in a second if it was designed well with a good ruleset. I've played the crap out of it (mostly the pro, but I have had two long sessions on the LE), and it's beyond mediocre. Owners will rant and rave and insist, but you're going to have to face reality: MANY people who know and have played this game enough to know it well dislike it. It's the same as the Ghostbusters crowd. That's another turd. At least black knight, the most stripped down modern pin ever made, shoots well and has pretty good code.

I've blown the game up quite a few times. It just doesn't matter to me. Feels like Aerosmith. I can kill it on the game, but I'd rather just walk away and leave the credits for some kid who has no idea what he's doing. Ignorance is bliss.

This is from the first 11 reviews. 4/11 were good, one was sort of good, but on the fence. The rest are right here for you. You can keep reading if you want to go there yourself.

mal7887

I'll admit, I'm not a huge Stern fan, but I am grateful that they are still making machines and all that the do for this hobby. Having said that... Did we really need another Star Wars Pin? I am a big Star Wars fan... but Meh, I just wasn't that entertained playing this game. I found the play to be very repetitive and boring. After playing a few games, I have no desire to play it ever again.

Pyromedic

Such high hopes to get a game worthy of the theme. Such a let down.
It's STAR WARS! deserves so much better. :sighs:
1983 Star wars video still the gold standard for the franchise.

klyguy533

This one is a big letdown. I don't understand why its rated so high. The best part of the game is shooting the death star and maybe the tie fighter. When the game feels like its flowing your just playing catch with yourself through the loops. The side drains are oppressive which really kills the game. Many, many balls l never touched because they side drained (including the ball save) without ever making it to the flipper. Just when the ball gets in play it gets taken away.

Daditude

As a huge Star Wars fan, this game was a letdown for me. On one hand, the call outs and sounds are some of the best in pinball (I am certainly partial, however), and the artwork is good. On the other hand, this is one of the most barren modern pins in existence. The premium has the hyperloop, which helps.
I will say that there are a ton of modes, so if you are a mode and/or flow player, this is far more likely to be your speed.

MasterReese

Found this game to be a huge letdown. I think the the theme integration is very poor and doesn’t have enough shoots. The one thing I like is probably the ball going in a loop to destroy the Death Star. I love the the Star Wars theme and I feel very disappointed in this game.

Frostbite

I played a few games at a mall, i may be the minority here but i think there is too much flow. For awhile i felt like i was playing catch with my self, flip the ball up it would loop around and come back down towards my other flipper. Didn't care for the little lcd, i felt like the playfield was cheapend up to be able to put the lcd in it. Steve Ritchie's next game Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro blows this out of the water.

Ecw0930

I'm a huge star wars fan. Huge.
Big let down with this game. It's got too much going on. I wanted to play pinball. This is video games and pinball. The shots are tricky. Outlanes are too hungry. Way to hungry. The one I played was probably not tuned up and taken care of the best. But still. Directions were not clear in the game.
It was fun. Hitting the tie fighter, the death star. Cool. But I wanted more ...

Gary has repeatedly said that btf is not attainable. Christopher Lloyd is the hold out on TAF, and that was a far lesser role. You're not getting btf.

I'm sure you'll get your Zepp remake though. Enjoy! Lol

grail_translite (resized).jpg

It should be done by summer!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/monty-python-amp-the-holy-grail-retheme-of-demolition-man-

I'd like stern to remake the first Avengers but tighten up the shots and call it Charlie Murphies True hollywood Stories. Dream machine.

Mmmm hmmmm...

Whatever. No one's asking for your "Insider" info anyway. Stick to your podcast and save us the BS on this site. You were banned for a reason and hopefully robin will ban your ass again.

I'd rather him be gone. He has his other outlets. Funny that he thinks a brand new account with all the same info, claiming Kaneda steals his info etc. It's so obvious.. I'm surprised the account has lasted this long. *Sigh*

Maybe a theme that someone under 50 might recognize?

How about a John Waters pinball? All his fucked up characters in one pinball machine. Our maybe a Jim Rose's freak Show pinball.

I truly hope it kills the concept dead and puts strong nails in the coffin.

It's a pinball forum. Not everyone will agree with you. Don't like it? Move along.

crazy.jpg

I fear the fact that you are a parent.

That's why DI is so good! I do hope Toy Story isn't MB heavy and has some new crazy innovation. I'd like to see some development on sewers, like STTNG. I'd also like to see some use of the backbox. Bring back some banzai!

Back to Stern: Godzilla is a great theme. I hope they nail it!

The theatre is crazy awesome as is the combo city in Wonka. Disagree about Pat.

Elwin does include MBs, but they are a good mix of primary and 2 ball with add a ball and are usually difficult as hell. They don't play long. I don't find IMDN mb heavy, but there are quite a few.

I like the intermittent projection. It's a really cool effect.

Let's get back to the 40s when it was just radio. Little orphan Annie for the win. Maybe it could come with a secret decoder pin?

Sorry, that was produced in the last 20 years..

They have howdy dudy and Roy Rogers first. Maybe Bonanza. Now that would be a sweet pin!

How about storage wars or backcountry moonshiners?

Dialed In didn't sell as poorly as many like to claim, and it did have theme issues. This was back in the "family pins only" age of JJP. Look at what happened when they ditched this approach for GnR? Sales through the roof!

If DI was themed as Pat wanted, a disaster game, it would have sold even better.

There is definitely room for orignal themed games, but the game must be themed well and play very well, things that always applied to pinball. I'm actually surprized that Stern doesn't try it, seeing that their primary driver is cost savings.

Have you watched the movie since you were 12? It is seriously one of the worst movies ever made. Dead serious.

If they based it on the movie and stuck to the wall it could be crazy. I just wish they had a designer and bom that could do it justice.

How about an everything 80s pin. We stuff all the movies, all the rock bands, and all the shows into one pin. No pinsound needed. BTTF included!

Then maybe, just maybe, the pinball community can shave off all the mullets and at least live in the 90s for a while. The hopes and dreams of making it to the turn of the century may also come to fruition some day. I completely understand that the adjustment takes time though. 20 years just isn't enough. Patience is key.

Harry Pooper is old news. At least it's not 80s.

I think that is honestly the worst idea I've read in this thread. That's a massive accomplishment, considering some of the crazy shit that's been proposed.

Yeah, you could lock a ball in the bus (Super LE only) and then the game shuts off. Great idea!

Then you can sit fat Vince Neil next to fat Axl. Ultimate stuck in the 80s experience!

Offspring was the Nickelback of grunge... Just sayin.

Offspring was the Nickelback of the grunge era... Just sayin.

Getty Lee ruins rush. Awful smurf voice.

Our local theatre did drive in movies during covid. Wife bought tickets to bttf. I rolled my eyes, thinking it would suck.

That movie has maintained its appeal better than any movie I've ever seen. I had forgotten how great the film was/is.

That being said, I couldn't care less if they made another pin based on it.

It's Christopher Lloyd that is the hold out. Take a look at the repro playfields. Uncle fester has been altered beyond recognition.

1x8s3y (resized).jpg

Most forget that Elwin spent YEARS on Archer/Maiden. He may outdo himself, but the current schedule makes me doubt it. Maiden reflects the time spent. The best stern to date.

I think the issue with recent non-licensed games is that we've just been unlucky. Most of them are not great designs. Dialed-in is well designed, but the theme could have been better. It still sold relatively well. If Elwin did a space theme, I think it would sell just as well as his licenced pins. Especially because they could put more toward the BOM.