I totally take this review seriously... I mean, it's a review by "A DARK KNIGHT!!!"

How could one not take this seriously? Don't you know that "A DARK KNIGHT" must be respected!!

I thought we respected "the" dark knight. not "a" dark knight. Is it night? good night

Not to bust your balls, as somebody else as well has mentioned the shot is "dangerous"...

There are alot of dangerous shots in LOTS of different games...( i wont list them all ), but most all of you should be able to name at least a few...

Thats part of pinball....if every game had wide ramps and loops, then EVERY game would be too easy...

The tighter the shots are on a game the more challenging it is, and the more it makes you a better player...

I gravitate twords games that are hard...actually i make them as hard as possible when i get them for the most part...

easy games are boring, or should i say get boring FAST !..ie. Scared Stiff...great audio, and art, ETC, but turns into a bore fest pretty damn fast...

Watch Bowen during a tutorial..he often references the "dangerous shots", but still shoots them as more often than not they need to be played in a truly tough game...

I'm glad beast is tight as hell... i welcome the challenge !

"I am not so hung up on voices but that is just me - if it is important to you then you might not like it. There is repetition to the call outs and hopefully it will get fixed"

I have noticed this in the game as well, and i hope they at Stern change that up a bit...

If they dont it may annoy me too much.... which would suck....

Sounds good. You should take that to its ultimate conclusion and put drop dead foam on all your ramp entrances to make the shots tighter. After all, you like a challenge. And it should just make you a better player. "play better" after all is always a full argument against any possible issues on a machine.

WOW, seems like you fell off the deep end on me....

As i said, i am NOT trying to bust your balls...

And i didnt tell you to play better....

but tight shots and hard games last longer in collections than easy to beat bore fests..

I wasnt singling you out here.....

And if you dont think mastering a difficult game doesnt make you a better player, rather than flailing around on a game with huge ramps an big lanes, and a layout where shots can be made the majority of the time by total accident.....

Then i dont know what else t say to that...

Ok sorry if I misread that and got overly hostile sounding but I was half kidding around
I think Xmen will be plenty hard to master. I think that wolverine tightening the pops area is not intentional by design but an oversite after the toy was hitting the ramp and they moved it over or such. If there's a 3rd party mod available, or I can figure out how to make one that thins the waist line on the toy, I'm in for it.

Even if the beast shot becomes easier, the game is hardly one you can randomly smack the ball around and do well though. It's just that the beast shot is pretty critical for good flow and I would prefer it to be slightly easier to hit and slightly less risky.

Its all good..

I can understand that some shots that are too F'in hard can even take away from the enjoyment of a game to a point... A-13 was one of those games to me.....great when your ON, but makes ya wanna smash the PF with a sledge when your not... those shots were ridiculously tight...

I can see where Beast can be pretty freakin tight, and maybe? even too tight...

I played it alot at CAX, and found it doable but real difficult to hit consistantly....

When i get my MAG this friday i will have a better idea if i like it that tight or not...

gonna be a fun weekend either way....

"I think that wolverine tightening the pops area is not intentional by design but an oversite after the toy was hitting the ramp and they moved it over or such."

and i think you may very well be right on that one.. !

I agree !! Especially when played on location... I have already spent many dollars and can't claim I master that onei

Well thanks for your review.

I think Stern is full of idiots who put this game out with very lackluster code. So they deserve less than stellar reviews on a potentially great game

The Dots in this game and DMD are a 10. Please name a better game in regards to DMD animation. X-men is top notch

The flow is really tight and not nearly as fluid as Tron or Iron Man.

X-men feels to me like a Borg's greatest hits package as he took elements from all his other games and dropped them right in. In that respect a greatest hits package is not the same as a complete album. Right now I like Iron Man and Tron better than X-men. Though X-men sure satisfies my need to never own a IJ4 or Avatar, Lost in Space, Rolling Stones and I'd say Twister but I already own that one.

X-men plain and simply is Borg's greatest hits pinball game. I will bet its going to be waaay better than the avengers and will fall short of AC/DC

Its going to be a top 30 game and probably hold value.

I've played a few games on a couple of LE's and I don't think it's very good. I also think it's funny how everyone that bought it says how great it is and trying to build it's value like always instead of giving honest reviews but regardless here's mine. I thought the sounds were ok but i'm not an xmen fan so I don't know what they are supposed to sound like. Magneto sounds are terrible but other than that the rest are just ok. The playfield layout looks like it would be alot of fun but looks can be deceiving. The moving ramp is blah and yes does get in the way of view. The figures look like toddler toys and the Wolverine takes up way too much room they should have made him much smaller. The spinning disc was quite the let down after playing Tron but I like the magnet in it and the way it starts multiball similar to Twister. The scoop coming out of the pops like IJ4 is just LAME cause it drops in there about 98.5% of the time coming from the pops on the left side and a 50/50 chance of it going to the left side so if you miss the scoop shot most likely it'll end up in the pops and drop back down into the scoop anyways. I won't comment much on the rules as they are unfinished and may or may not ever get finished but I like the idea of the ruleset that it has. The artwork for the most part is very good. The cabinet decals look really good and the mirrored back glass looks awesome. The playfield art however seems kinda empty and I know it's based on the comic books but all the inserts with just a word on them look dull and the big circle with the X just looks lazy. Anyways overall I would say that X-men LE is decent I mean it is still pinball and it's brand new but it's not anywhere close to a MM or Tron or LOTR. I would rank it about the same as Transformers LE or for you B/W fans a fun factor of roughly NGG.

Thankful for this. Just never get into middle shot pins.

Just shows how far tastes differ. I found AC/DC and XMen both surpass TF in lighting, artwork, and gameplay. To me, looks like Stern stepped up their game.

I am not getting 98% of balls in the scoop. On my XMen it rims out quite a bit. Like a golf ball. Maybe 33% .

I love the sound package. Really sucks you into the game, makes me feel like I am gathering XMen for a battle. Builds tension.

And it is. Just wow on the playfield. Really easy to tell what to shoot for.

I think Stern is making great games at the moment. What a great time to be a pinhead.

Got it and loved the Art and the DMD animations. Callouts are great for me but of course I am not a Xmen fanatic. First time I had a great multi ball and then no points awarded I became very upset and sort of swore it off.
Now the funny part…I keep coming back and playing this table. almost, not as much but almost as much as AC/DC. More than SM for sure.
Someone mentioned the owners and the over inflating. Not the case, most of us all bitched about the game instead of praising it. Its kind of going the opposite of that route with everyone slowly now falling in love with it. I have to admit its really becoming better and better everyday. I now can make that left shot past Wolvie and use the third flipper to shoot back up the other ramp quite often. So flow is developing. Rule wise, take away the points issue which will be fixed and you really do have tons of goals to work on in the middle of a real fun layout.
So from an owner who was not happy I have started to become a really big fan.

I gave a thumbs down for one main reason: "...and if you don't agree, you either own a machine and are in denial or are not a true fan." <--- this is pure stupidity.

Giving your opinion and then pre-assigning a mental state to anyone who might have a differing opinion is not cool, and it's a dead giveaway for an opinion with an agenda.

Most of your review was actually fair. One thing I'm still quite frankly amazed at how many pinball guys keep repeating the same nonsense: "Wolverine is SOO BIG AND BULKY AND CLUNKY AND GETS IN THE WAY!" and cannot realize that it's 75% an illusion. The only part of Wolv which interacts with the ball is his 2.5" waist area, smaller than a two-bank target area. Normally pinball guys are ahead of the curve on visual/mental illusions, but this one has hit a nerve with some confused players who don't understand that while Wolvie looms over the area with large shoulders and arms/claws, those areas do not in any way interact with the ball. Is Wolvie a b-tch? You bet! It's a brutal area and he will throw it right into a drain on you. It's part of the challenge/randomness of the game. But the Beast shot is smoooooooth as glass when you hit it, and when you combo the Storm shot it's a very satisfying combo. You can hit Beast with ease as long as you don't allow yourself to be confused by the illusion of a giant Wolverine blocking your shot.

And since I shot a 6 way combo the other night, the whole "not acceptable" flow is a little confusing as well. Beast - Storm - Cyclops - Storm - Ice Man - Xavier.... then I missed or it could've kept going. I think the game has amazing flow. The Cyclops spinner shot is just a great one for starting combos, and you can hit it from either flipper. Once you get the Xavier and Cyclops shots dialed in, then you can really begin to control the field anyway you want. I think the randomness of the magnets adds a nice balance of random chaos to a very combo-controllable field.

I enjoy reading opposing reviews and hearing about what others think of machines, but this review just drips of a review with an agenda, esp considering the "EZSLEZEE" ending of praising ACDC and other games, while giving the financial advice of selling the game immediately because it won't go up in value, etc. Sorry, just can't take this review too seriously.

bingo

I agree with your whole post, if anyone doesn't agree with what you said they are in denial.

As far as this pin has a 'danger area' or the magnets may flip the ball STM or outlane, well that's pinball. I play poker sometimes you have pocket aces and you lose, you shouldn't cry about it, just think that you'll get-em next time, or that the odds will catch up with you if if you have the skill.

Some people already have gotten most of the game, so that tells me it's possible, I don't blame the game if I am not good enough, that's not the games fault, I just need to get better.

I haven't heard of 1 person getting to 1 wizard mode and there are 2 wizard modes. I would really, really like to see a video of anyone getting to both wizard modes on v 1.1 code. I honestly don't think it can be done....by anyone. Factory software setting with the posts all the way up like it was from the factory.

I don't think it has been...or ever will be done. I think with the code update some of the modes will be softened up (as they should) and possibly more stacking and mode saving progress might be added. Then this revision will be buried and forgotten.........and never beat.

WORD!!

Randomness is part of pinball of course but I for one dislike games where there is zero chance of recovery. I too play poker and even with pocket aces the player has several opportunities to fold, the player is still in control. A magnet hurling the ball down the middle takes any skill out of the game and I for one cannot stand this. Easy solution is to have a ball save much like CVs ringmaster.

This is ridiculous. No one bought the game and falsely praised it to raise its value. WTF? Perhaps people that bought it carefully looked at the layout before buying it and love the theme. This makes them more open to the game since they fell in love with it and had to have it prior to ever playing it. The ones that didn't buy it already were skeptics or didn't have the money. Skeptics are already slightly less open minded to the game before even trying it once. They have to be or they would have bought it. This doesn't mean that people buy it and falsely praise it. That's insulting. You're basically saying "ok here is my honest opinion and btw anyone that owns the game cannot give one".

There's a whole thread of owners bitching about the game already. You think that raises the value of it?

I'm an owner of the game. I bought it because I love third flipper games, the toys appealed to me, I enjoy borgs flow style, and the game looked amazing in pictures. I read about the toys before buying it. The moving ramp sounded mildly interesting but that it. And in game play it's mildly ok. Sets up the left flipper ramp combo well at times. But no huge deal. The spinner is nothing like tron but I knew it wouldn't be before buying it. I'm bummed that wolverine covers the left pop shot slightly. I plan to address that myself. I'm bummed that night crawlers weren't integrated more. The shot flow of the game is very good and a lot of fun. It well utilizes the upper flipper - just as I was hoping before I bought the game. The scoring bug is unacceptable. Lighting is gorgeous. As it stands now, game is good but not great due to small issues above.

And as an LE owner here's the clincher: the pro may be a great way to go. The pro looks better by far cabinet and translite. You lose the moving ramp but gain more lane rollover hits. You lose the spinner but the magnet still does most the work. And if the night crawlers are never properly integrated you won't lose much there. The pro looks like it will be fantastic. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the amazing light show.

Like any business, they are only going to make as many as they are going to sell. You make more than you are going to sell, you go out of business. They don't sell as many because the market for pinball machines these days is WAY less than the market was in the 80s and early 90s, due to their being a fraction of the number of arcades/venues then there was in the 80s and 90s. As for Bally/Williams, they are gone and have been for over a decade now. Like it or not, the future of pinball is Stern, along with JJP and some of the smaller businesses that are coming on line.

I see a lot of this, but I don't think it's to build the value. I think some folks need this game to be the "best game ever" so they can justify their purchase and feel better about buying the game.

EXAMPLE: You see people in a thread called "X-Men LE problems here" and they jump in to say "My game is perfect! It's 100% the best game ever! It was designed to be that way! Wolverine is supposed to be blocking the lane even though the original pictured didn't show it that way! They wanted to cut his elbow off...they designed it that way on purpose so they could cut it off later! Nothing is wrong! Nothing is wrong! NOTHING IS WRONG!!!".

I'm sure these are the same folks that are 100% or 0% for everything. They see no gray area or room for criticism. I'm not saying every X-Men LE owner is this way (I'm an owner myself)....because there is plenty of honest criticism to go around, but it seems that anytime someone speaks up (even in a thread about problems) there is always another LE owner there calling people cry babies or claiming that any problems or design flaws were meant to be that way and their game is 100% perfect! To them I say "Congrats, but some of us weren't that lucky....and it's not all about you."

I appreciate the honest review. Still going with the pro on this one and pulling the toys. Not perfection, but still a good attempt by Stern. 4kish isn't too bad of a punch in the nuts. I think 7K+ is.

Come on....Mags never hurt anybody. Wolverine is the real villain.

Good luck pulling the toys. The wolverine magnet is made to kick in at a specific time and Roth the toy gone hitting only a target, the magnet timing will be way off.

I'll work some magic, not worried about it. I re-engineered worse. Feedback, suggestions, and alternative fixes are always appreciated.

I would love to see what you can do. Any thoughts as of yet as far as replace them with something else or just take off and see what happens? I would like to see what ideas you have rolling around for replacements, even if it is just targets to start with.

Replace Wolverine with a Family Guy beer can or other cylindrical object (pvc?) and put a Wolverine sticker on it. Done.

I'd pull it off and store it, just in case I sold the game down the line. I'd re-wire the switch registration and use custom plastic above the target. Somewhat like whiplash on IM. I'll have to tear it apart when I get it. I really hate those toys, but I'm probably in the minority on this one. Sometimes less is more. I'd rather take an open playfield approach on some games, so I can the maximize speed and flow. Wolverine looks like a chew toy that just gets in the way. Plus, it's pretty ugly imo. It's just personal preference and my take on it.

Here's a thought...the mech Wolverine is attached to is relatively narrow...how about just Wolverine's arm & claws...as if he's punching through the playfield...that could match w/ the claw & marks artwork that's in front of the magnet. Might look cool. Honestly I like the molded figure that's there...if there's a way to just squish his waist smaller, that would be the ideal solution.

This is flawed logic. If someone thinks its great, that means they're going to keep it & play it & enjoy it. At that point, "value" is irrelevant because it's not an item they're going to sell.

I also like the inclusion of "everyone". Classic way to try to make a bs argument seem like it actually has weight. Some people who have bought it said they love it. Others have said it has great potential but needs software updates. Others have complained about the issues. There is actually a wide range of opinions from those who bought it.

Well i can think of one person who would praise a stern even if there was a piece of shit on the pf.

There are probably people who would shit on Stern if the playfield was made of solid gold and the game was free. There are blind haters and fanboys everywhere but trying to make it seem like everyone who bought the machine NIB are blind fanboys is unreasonable imo.

Man I really don;t have that much issue with the Beast shot being interefered with by Wolverine. Strange.

Would the code be complete?

Brams Strokers Dracula (BSD). No DMD animation is better then the BSD pin! The dripping blood of the wording, thats the best i have seen.

I'm sorry I am a little confused. When we talk aboot Wolverine blocking beast, are we talking physically blocking? Like it hits his arm or something?
First game I played had probs with the ball under his other (left) arm, and the second game I played I never encountered a problem with his right arm.

The beast shot would be way wider if the wolverine toy didn't exist. That's what we mean. The toy should have been narrow enough on the bottom to fit between the two rubber posts behind the toy.

I'm sorry I am a little confused. When we talk aboot Wolverine blocking beast, are we talking physically blocking? Like it hits his arm or something?
First game I played had probs with the ball under his other (left) arm, and the second game I played I never encountered a problem with his right arm.

No...it's just that the figure itself (it's base) takes up a fair amount of the left orbit (Beast lane). On the Pro...the Wolverine is mounted so he is turned more to the left. HE is more side ways and doesn't take up nearly as much room (especially in the Beast lane). On the LE he is pushed over to the extent that they had to cut off half of the plastic above the scoop to give him more room.

On the picture of the pro below you can see the post behind the left side of Wolvie....on the LE you can see him hogging the lane.

Old_Wolvie.jpg IMG_0632.JPG

Ahhh...kind of a weird thing to complain aboot IMO. It seemed like a basic thru-bumpers shot to me, which are NOT my favorite shot for sure so I didn't really think too much on it.

I wonder if it's really as narrow as it's getting credit for? Has anyone measured it to check it's width versus the width of Magneeto, Prof X, or those other shots? Those seem kind of tight to me...although i don;t have a tremendous hard time hitting them.

Heck I'd also like to see a measurment betwixed the rogue shot (think thats the lock shot next to left ramp?) versus Gem shot. I heard people complaining aboot that at first and the Gem shot is waaaaaaaay harder for me. I can hit that lock shot all the time.

EDIT: was typing this while you were posting Dug...thanks for the info.

My Wolverine wasn't terrible at first, I was making the shot at least a few times every game. I think I bashed him so much he moved, or flattened out though. After a while I noticed I was only making the shot once or twice every 5 games... Looked at it closed and there just was not any room at all to get by his waist and the bumper on the left.

I wrestled him over just pulling and turning him a bit and can make the shot again, still tight but doable.

Think I'm going to pull him out and try to thin him up. The channel in the back for the screw holes seems like a good compression point to skinny him up at the waist. I don't mind his size, but at least on mine his waist is flared way out.

I think this shot is a ton of fun and have cleared it quite a few times in the limited games I've played.

Yeah, it LOOKS like it should be impossible but I jam the ball through the pops and combo w/ the upper flipper more often on THIS game than I can on other similar bumper-orbit games (Addams, Gofers, Road Show, etc)...maybe I'm just concentrating more cuz I REALLY wanna make it lol.

Xmen seems like it has huge potential but maybe the VP of game design at Stern made sure there where a few issues with xmen like terrible release software and issues with wolverine clipping shots up the left orbit so the next stern who ever maybe designing it doesn't look so bad in comparisons if it has a lame upper playfield and flakey pf mechs and toys? Just saying