You're probably not doing anything wrong. The game is the epitome of "anti-climactic". The fun modes happen way too early in the game (Scarecrow and Joker Multi-balls, Bat Signal Challenge), and the actual wizard mode (Gotham) leaves a lot to be desired. Everything in between is just padding.

Whether you are playing for score or are playing for progress, the game is unbalanced. From the "making progress" angle, the only thing you will have trouble doing is getting the Lucious playfield completed. Everything else is minor in comparison and generally just "happens" throughout your various multi-ball modes (hitting Alfred a few times, hit Gordon a few times, etc.). From the "playing for score" angle, the game leans too heavily on the Super Skillshot, which when done successfully can eventually lead to 40 million Super Jackpots in the Joker or Scarecrow multi-ball modes. Asides from the Bat Signal challenge, everything else is small points in comparison and leaves little incentive to go for.

Batman is a game for the casuals, and that's it. The stackability is fun at first, until you realize it isn't hard to do. It also doesn't help that the majority of the "modes" and "depth" is simply extra padding that wasn't thought out well enough. BDK is one of the supreme examples in pinball of a game being style over substance.

Hai Guys!

After a long strenuous snail mail and snail-NAVL wait, I am in the club! Got myself a 1/HUO BDK. Game was in desperate need of a shop job and a few coils/switches weren't working which I finished doing last night. Now I get to mod the hell out of it. Ill post before/after pics when I finish hopefully this weekend, but when I'm done modding this, it will be one sexy beast...
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^^^ hey, that kinda looks like centerflake

Best scene ever...

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Lightning Flippers!!!
Ultimately, this was the video that sold me on pulling the trigger. This game plays great with lightning flippers and Andrei Massenkoff's play absolutely sold me.

http://papa.org/2012/02/09/papa-14-qualifying/

This will be interesting. 1) I'm sure I'll enjoy your sharing your experience with the gameplay and rules. 2) maybe you can breathe done life into this fan club that isn't exactly thriving.

Yea, this thread is totally dead LOL. I was contemplating starting my own thread to show off the pics of all the modding I did to mine since not many people come into this thread lol.

As for the rules; I wanted an easier 'fun' game in the lineup to appeal to guests as well as to compliment STLE & ACDC (2 hard games). But I didn't want it to be a walk in the park either. So I was on the fence about BDK for the longest time; then I saw that papa qualifying game by Andrei and the way papa set up that game for the tournament, lightning flippers - who'd thunk it!

That said, Ive played BDK on location and have about 20 plays on mine since getting it earlier this week. I can understand why a lot of the negative reviews on this game put it in the easy repetitive category. But, opening the outlanes and putting lightning flippers on (as well as setting luscious to extra easy) throws quite a spin into the game; and to me, seems to compliment Lyman's ruleset. Its early, but for some reason the way I have it set up, the game reminds me a lot of IM but with more of a multiball feel to it. Meaning, IM is all about that one ball to get DoD whereas BDK is all about that one ball with a sweet multiball stack after stack with stacked multipliers. There's nothing but stacking going on in BDK and that's what I love about Lyman's rules, one ball is all it takes.

I love my BDK machine, it's really fun. My machine has one little problem, the crane sometimes registers hits without me hitting the crane, the chances of this happening is when the crane's moving or when the VUK or the mystery hole above the pop bumpers kick the ball out. Does anyone else have similar problem? Or know how to fix this. Thanks.

Lightning flippers, eh? I never would of thought to try that. Wish I was able to give that a shot before I sold my game. May have made things a little more interesting. Maybe.

Good luck finding someone that knows a fix. I had the same issue with mine, but prior topics talking about this issue never had a solution. A distributor though told me it was something that was common with early run models.

Love me some crane-best toy in all of pinball. Here is my 'Super Hero' wall...

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Serious

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hey Pinmister, nice looking Batman! I just picked one up last week after missing it so much after selling one last year. Shopped with Cointaker Supers - non ghosting kit and shaker already installed.

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Forgot to include some pictures of my machine
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This is my custom flippers and instruction card (on the right) made by yours truly

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My key ring

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I love my BDK machine, it's really fun. My machine has one little problem, the crane sometimes registers hits without me hitting the crane, the chances of this happening is when the crane's moving or when the VUK or the mystery hole above the pop bumpers kick the ball out. Does anyone else have similar problem? Or know how to fix this. Thanks.

I want to love it, I have ever since it came out, but I agree, early glitter with not enough juice soon into it. I love the crane and shooting for it, despite it having no relevance to the movies or theme.

The answer to the fan club is simply that most people think they are going to love it, but don't hang on to it for more than a couple months. I a friend of mine went through this recently, I told him I'd be surprised if he had it for longer than 3 months, and that's about what it took in a 12 machine collection for him.

If a software update was ever done and more thought put into play, might be a great machine.

This has been my experience..without the ownership piece. I've never had a thrilling game, or one where I'm like "I have to play this again". Gotta be the rules mostly, as the playfield definitely has its charms.

Im starting to get a real feel for the game. And I think the problem is that its a long ball time layout (like LoTR) with a short time ruleset (like IM). And even though the game is nothing like IM, it totally reminds me of it - simple and shallow yet with a deep strategic feel behind it. That said, setting my game up with lightning flippers and opening the outlanes has me begging for more instead of cringing to continue play (as a lot of the negative reviews have it). It's all about stacking properly and cashing in - I personally love that type of ruleset but can understand it would be just way too easy and repetitive on BDK 'IF' the game were set up with factory flippers and outlanes.

Bottom line; I'm still in the honeymoon phase so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Most people that know me, know titles don't last more than a few months in my lineup, so ill report back sometime mid-late summer.

Love the Bat Signal Challenge. Buildup your jackpot value and then start Bat Signal Multiball. Never made it to th Final Battle yet.

And if you guys haven't seen this video yet, I strongly urge you do. It shows how fun and challenging the game is with lightning flippers:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xteluv_batman-pinball-machine-stern-2008-papa-14-qualifying-round-andrei-massenkoff-163-million_videogames

I admit, I'm not very good at documenting before and after pictures but here's what I got

After a long long wait, I got myself a 1/huo machine. Besides needing a quickie shop job and a couple coils/switches fixed, it was in beautiful condition. I replaced all the black rubber with white ( minus a couple hard to reach spots and one on the mini pf that I didn't even notice til last night which I'll tackle down the road).

Before:
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After:
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As for my mods:
Black Lightning flippers w white rubber
Pinball bulbs kit with a few adjustments
Bat mobile mod
Pdi target decals
White rubbers
Flipper lighting strip
Mini pf lighting strip
FF sub and speakers
Speaker grill insert and light (need to adjust this still - the ff speakers block a lot of light)
Shaker
Mirror blades
Chrome legs lockdown bar and trim
Custom shooter and housing
Pinnovators pin PAC headset
Marcos glossy balls

Think that covers it. And as another poster said earlier in this thread, the chrome makes this title pop!

Wasn't the factory setting for the outlanes all the way open? Mine are that way. The only way to make the outlane settings more challenging would be to remove the rubber or remove the posts altogether.

Good point there.

I don't know to be honest. I have mine way open. But the lightning flippers are an awesome touch for this title.

A few things i did on mine.

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Here is my BDKIMG_1350.JPGIMG_1349.JPGIMG_1348.JPGIMG_1347.jpg

Love those figures way more than the stock ones. Hate the horizontal BM in the original. Great job!

i am trying to figure out how to incorporate a joker card in my topper... i would like to have it as it it was thrown and stuck into the bat symbol...

I printed the bat logos on a gloss paper than covered it with Mylar. Than I used very thin double sided sticker to stick it on the flippers.

I finally got around to taking a good look at why I was having a hard time hitting the scoop shot. The ball would clank off the lower ball guide more times than not. (game is level and pitch is at 6.8) So after I removed the ramp, plastics, and other stuff I was able to bend the lower guide a good 1/8" down to the black line. The results are way better now as a fast shot that hugs the rail will go in. Worth taking a look if your having the same problem as I'm sure my game is not the only one to have the guide mounted up too high from Stern. My guide was up in the hole area.
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I think I need to go with the chrome trim.... looks awesome

glad you got it worked out! add the drop dead ball foam at the entrance and you'll have 0 bounce outs.

Chrome is bitching! but keep the hinges black. It adds a nice touch. no need to chrome the shooter rod. I switched mine back to the black with the custom shooter.

Does anyone have a BDK plastic kit? I need the back panel plastic piece with the bat symbol if anyone has it available. I just don't want to spend $200 to buy an entire kit just for that piece. I managed to get my scratched. Thanks

Ho hum. Why bother to led it if using white all over it. Each to their own, but on those pics alone looks like waste of time compared to some of the more colourful led efforts out there. This pin begs for colour.

Most of the bulbs weren't white--they were this light purple-ish color and went really well with the purple on the playfield. LEDs have a tendency to look terrible in pictures and you can't really judge them accurately without seeing them in person.

You're obviously not into the pin. Your led selections reflect that.

Great work. Makes the game come alive

Eh.. Whatever you say, buddy.

Must be fun to move pins in and out.

It's actually pretty easy as long as I have a few sets of helping hands.

Yo! I'm in the club. Joined up about 2 months ago. I'm currently messing around with the code, changing music etc......very early days as I've just started!

That's the one thing that disappointed me about this pin. No original music or voice overs.

I hope to change that

I'm in the club! I had started another BDK club thread before I knew about this one. I purchased my game yesterday and it should be here in early January. I can't wait!

BTW, has anyone done any modifications to the yellow crane on their game? I'm not sure the significance of the crane in the game, but love the mode. I was actually thinking of covering up the crane with a new decal, but wanted to see if anyone else has done something similar.

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Thanks,

Rob Bell
Robsgameroom.com

The Scarecrow's real name is Jonathan Crane - Hence the Crane.

Does anybody have a clue how to get Bruce Wayne finished ? I've tried everything and I can't get the Bruce Wayne done .....

You have to complete the Bat Missions
You can read the rules here:
http://www.pinballnews.com/games/batman/index4b.html

It's going ok so far. Changed most of the music. I'll try and get a video up.

What I have noticed though, there is a LOT of voice clips in the code that just aren't used. Original movie clips too.

My game arrived yesterday and I spent the day getting it ready for play! So glad I finally got this game.

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Rob Bell
Robsgameroom.com

Please show a video of what you have so far. I would live to see/hear it.

Rob Bell
Robsgameroom.com