It's so sad that the 'chestbuster' shot and 'vent 2' shot are almost impossible to shoot.

Bought a late Alien and was surprised, out of the box fully working.
In this machine are several very good ideas for cabinet building. The technical aspect is, side by side with Full Throttle, unique ... unique means not bader than other producers.
The game itself creates a perfect atmoshere ... Alien style 100% !!
The gameplay is a mixture from well knowen shots of other pins, nothing really new expect the left outlane.
The game is fun, great sound, great light but .. be aware ... the producer no longer exists. No schematics, no manuals, no spareparts .. expect what the pinside community figures out and reproduces.
With around 200 games a keeper and collectible item. Even the producer does not exist afterall the price of this machine is rainig up.

I never say "never" on keeping a pin. Too many came and went off .. but Alien will stay a little longer. I have a gameroom with 10 games, so Alien fits perfect in the collection. If you own only one game Alien will become a little boring with the time.

There are 2 x 5 missions and 5 x multiballs plus several extra modes. Great animations, great sound but (like on PB2K) you see them repeadly.

EDIT 10/01/20: After playing several new titles and bought myself a TBL, I raised my rating up: Alien is the most wonderfull pin in my collection. The sound, lightning, etc pp ... a insolvent manufacturer but in July came a last update 1.4 with several bugfixes and a n unbelievable community supporting this game makes it to my personal #1 !

I finally had a chance to play a few games on this pin. So this review is based on first impressions and will likely get updated. So this is the first pin with a license that left me actually wanting to see the movie(s) again. The game is VERY cool in regard to theme, and design for the theme, with some cool toys and moody lighting. It is a wide body with four flippers and the upper flippers are intended for specific shots requiring those shots to be set up, which (btw) is not easy. It also features a second, smaller video screen in the lower playfield intended (I'm sure) for the player's convenience during play. This pin is clearly designed by pin-heads and it is very evident during gameplay. The one that I played launched two balls at a time. I don't know if it is supposed to do that (seemed like it was), but it was a VERY cool play feature adding to the intensity of an already fairly intense game. I was only able to achieve one of the multi-ball modes where the alien head sticks it's inner mouth out to capture the ball and launch a three ball multiball. VERY COOL! This is a REALLY cool game and I'm looking forward to play it more and dig deeper into it.

Awesome gameplay the rules the sounds the theme integration is amazing. It draws you in and you want to play it again and again. The Alien team has produced a very addicting game mission accomplished.

after 2 hours i like it , not fast as a got or star wars ( that i love ) , very different slower wide body feeling , excellent theme and ambiance , like the videos on the big screen , some difficult "x men/tron" shots with upper flippers , a good pin ( lot better and original than guardians of galaxy or aerosmith for example )

Alien is a great game. The layout does a good job of utilizing the full space of a widebody machine. There's plenty of shots and most of them are very smooth and well dialed in. The audio is outstanding and well integrated with the game. The rules are a little difficult to follow but just takes some time. The "toys" are very well integrated and pull the theme together - the alien head lock is one of the coolest toys I've seen in recent pinball. My biggest issue(s) with the game is that the upper right flipper does not have a consistent shot to feed it, and that flipper is critical for the extra ball and super jackpots and other shots during the game. you have to get lucky in getting a shot to feed the flipper properly (even a combo of right lower flipper to the mid left flipper to the upper right flipper is not 100% as the ball often will bounce into the pops and out instead of hitting the target and then coming back down to the upper right flipper). The playfield and plastics artwork and animations are really well done. Personally, I can't stand the cabinet though. Aesthetically and functionally this is an issue for me. The lockdown bar/glass has sharp corners, the glass with bezel is very heavy and a PITA to remove, the cabinet while being cool that the art is backlit, looks like there's hardly any art on it with too much black space. The modularity of the cabinet could be a winning notion though if pricing on future modules comes down.

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» Forum » Game manufacturers » Heighway Pinball » “ALIEN PINBALL : Review...stop your grinning and drop your linen”

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ALIEN PINBALL : Review...stop your grinning and drop your linen

By mnpinball
4 DAYS AGO

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16#1 4 days
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mnpinball

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US Crazytown, MN
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With all the massive posting on the Heighway Alien thread I figured this post might get lost so I wanted to create my own and delve into the game itself and give it a review from top to bottom as far as the art, gameplay, hardware and the cabinet, things like that.
People that know me personally know that I love Pinball any Pinball, doesn't make a difference who the manufacturer is how old or how new the game is, I can always find something good in a pinball machine so no one can really say that I'm a fanboy of any particular maker, model or manufacturer or genre of game.
I've been watching the Alien Heighway project ever since the beginning when it was talked about at a seminar at Expo about three years ago. Now to be honest I was never a fan of Full Throttle, I really didn't like Heighway's design of cabinets I didn't like the theme of full throttle when I played it at expo it felt clunky and just never clicked with me. However it was still fun to play.
Also with the new company and that company being out of the states across the pond I really wasn't a fan of sending any money to a pre-order considering what happened with Dutch pinball and the Predator project so even though this was a dream theme for me I've vowed not to make a pre-order until I knew games were stateside for purchase.
I've recently taken possession of an alien game and have had it for 10 days in my collection I can honestly say I'm extremely happy with this purchase.
I wanted to wait to share my experience in a review until I've had enough time on the game and let the honeymoon wear off.
I'll rank these topics in sections.
Cabinet:
The cabinet is very well constructed and very solid. I'm not a fan of the head design it would be much easier if this was on a hinged platform for the head. There were no instructions included but between me and my son we were able to get the head on and figure it out. Only two plugs needed to be plugged into the head through the access hole.
Not a big fan of the magazine cassette style play field glass and frame similar to what you'd find on an early 60s Bally. It weighs like a tank, it's extremely well constructed but when you're playing the game it doesn't quite feel as comfortable as the other manufactures because the corners are so sharp on your palm. The corners are cut at a 45° angle and beveled instead of the normal lockdown bar that smooth and transitioned with a better feel to your palm.
Art:
For the theme everything fits just perfect I really have no negatives about the art it's well laid out, the font is crisp and easy to read. I will also say the play fields were extremely well produced I'm hardly seeing any divots at all in the playfield so whatever quality wood they are using is extremely good.
Hardware:
This here is a strong point with Heighway.
They are using a normal off-the-shelf motherboard CPU set up similar to Jersey Jack Pinball it gives the system lots of muscle and lots of room to work with including the sound. No fear of worrying about fixing or wondering how to get parts later down the line.
The proprietary thing is the driver board and the I/O boards speaking of the I/O boards there are four of them in the Alien and everyone is the same part number unlike Stern with their node boards that are many different part numbers that are game specific.
All of the light boards have through hole LED lights that are easily replaceable and can be repaired by a normal soldering iron and tools and skills.
There are even proximity switches underneath the play field on the left outer drain in the bagatelle area that senses the ball similar to like what you'd find on monster bash for the phantom flip. Very cool feature on Alien. And again these are through hole replaceable parts.
Flippers and coils and mechanisms feel great and not weak.
Sound:
This right here is the crown jewel and high point in this game. David Thiel in my mind is a master at sound and I think one of the best this generation has seen in coin-op gaming. He has literally created a mind blowing eargasmic overload to give the player a sense of actually becoming part of the game and immersing the player into the theme. Compound that with a very nice hardware system to use and exploit the sound system is a major plus. The subwoofer in this game and the speaker set up is top notch.
Game layout and design:
4 flippers, 3 ramps, a magnet, 3 drop target bank, a saucer, a ball eating toy, the game is loaded.
It's got the goods but is it good ?
Hell yes ! The layout of this game is absolutely fantastic it's got some great unique shots, it's got hella flow, it's very fast and not clunky. I really like that they got rid of the Queen's nest rotating chamber that really did nothing in the upper play field and replaced it with a small LCD screen to give the player some quick information and heads up for starting modes.
All the flippers have nice unique shots, the ball flow to the outer Orbits is fast and smooth. For me it feels like a combination of Steve Ritchie's Spiderman and Dennis Nordman's Demolition Man, Dave Sanders has created a very nice game here.
Code:
What's here for the code is excellent thus far, there's five modes for each film which you can choose from at the beginning of the game via flipper button once you complete go through all those you complete the next film. Also there is five multi-ball modes. LCD animations are crisp and very well done, lots of movie clips culled and used integrated very well into the game.
I'm told there's going to be another big update before the end of this year.
This game is priced right around the same price as a stern premium and hands-down this game actually has the better value I feel. There is no reason why this game can't sell the numbers of a typical run say of 3000 units. The game is really well done and fantastic. The heart and soul is in this project, it's got some good people on it the quality of the game as well built.
So upon getting my game everything worked out of the box initially I was having some issues with the Xeno head, I took apart the long tongue mechanism and did some minor adjustments and put a very light film of Teflon lubricant on the slide. It was seeming to be binding just a little bit on the tongue extension the guide itself looks like it's made of a white Delrin material. It's now been working flawlessly since I've done that.
As with playing the demo games at the Pinball events for the last two years I noticed that the kick out hole always was having some chipping issues.
These games from the factory do not have any mylar on the playfield. There should be a Mylar strip on the ball kick out, there should be mylar on the drop holes at the ramps exits and possibly maybe a mylar circle around the magnet and inside the pop bumper area.
The ball launch auto launch ramp feeds the ball directly to the mini plastic ramp to the right flipper inlane. That ball drops on that plastic ramp I believe there should be maybe a spot mylar there or a hyperthin stainless adhesive square just to eliminate spiderweb cracking on that plastic from direct hits.
All the plastics are acrylic and can easily crack that's a negative for me because three days after I got my game one of my slingshot plastics cracked because there was no fender washers on the corners.
They should change to a PETG plastic.
So other than those few minor issues the game has been playing great and has been rock solid.
So really other than missing Mylar and the material made of the plastics I'd give this game a 9 out of 10 based on theme, design, build quality and presentation.
I think the more people get to see and play this game hands on they will be pleasantly surprised. This game is very special and definitely a turning point for the company

I need much more time on this table.
I got in roughly 6 games over an hour.
The game had a few glitches, but I didn't allow those to impact my enjoyment of the game.
I'd rank this in close to playing Embryon.
The shots felt good.
The game overall feels a little clunky, not as smooth as a modern Stern.
The shots are FAR more interesting than a typical modern Stern -- which I greatly appreciated.
2 spinners
4 flippers
many orbit shots
bank of drops

I'm a few weeks and maybe a couple hundred games deep so here's a more in-depth review:
The game is incredibly immersive with very good flow (when you're on it) and packed with shots. I'm very happy with the purchase. This is my second NIB.

The build quality is better than stern, maybe on par with JJP, probably with a little less polish. There's a few funky things going on with the plastics, the ramps have some holed tabs hanging out. (maybe they took out ramp entry switches?) Wiring on the playfield looks pretty nice overall, you can tell they took out a proximity switch sometime later in dev, the cabinet wiring could be cleaned up a little better. Probably all these things will iron out further in production. I got confirmation plastics are acrylic, although it is much thicker than any game I've seen. The same goes for the metal parts; much thicker than modern stern mechs. Oh, and the backbox. I thought it looked kinda lame in pics, in person it's much more impressive and fits well.
On to the game-
This thing has shots!; easy, super hard, back hand, across the way and (awesome!) combos. The hardest single shot is the chestburster (up the lane just left of the right flipper) it's doable from the lower left flipper, but we're talking Tron gem shot, I doubt anyone can rely on hitting it this way. Fortunately this is easier (but not easy) to hit from the upper left flipper. This leads to combo shots, the best being lower right flipper to mother kickout, to chestburster to upper left ramp. The game tracks endless combos as long as you don't repeat the previous shot (can't go left ramp, right ramp, left ramp, etc.) I've also noticed the game has some combos named, kind of like the Picard maneuver in STTNG i'm not sure if that's more points or what.
The sound-
Probably the biggest factor in how immersive the game is. It's just well done. Seems like it's got a large variety of call outs, I don't think I heard "game over man, game over" the whole first night I played it. I dig fishtales, but if you leave a ball waiting to launch the music get really annoying. Nothing like that here. This game keeps some cool low key music going and drops a random callout now and again. Switch between modes before starting ball one and you get some cool story progression in the callouts.. I think i'm just scratching the surface here guys.
The Art-
I've got a standard with backbox screen, so I can't comment on the large egg or the LE Xeno. Backbox art with the screen looks good to me, the lit sides look really good. The playfield is cool, not super busy, but lots of details you notice over time, if you've seen the reveals from @aurich, you know what you're getting.

Pros:
Very good theme integration, great movie clips, great toy (Xeno Head) and original ruleset.

Cons :
Odd layout (feeding the upper flipper is not easy), a bit slow (as compared to Full throttle, another widebody), some bugs remaining, dark GI.

Cool game. Left ramp seemed slow to flow.

Great game but the artwork is such a missed opportunity. How this thing isn't a biomech masterpiece is beyond me. Looks like a modern Stern, photo-shopped and half assed. The playfield toys are really cool though.

Update, some years later: I'm not changing the rating just yet, but a respected friend has persuaded me that I just played a particularly problematic machine and that properly working it's fantastic. Perhaps the re-release by Pinball Brothers will give me an opportunity to reassess it.
---
I got a chance to play this on-location, and fed a lot of quarters into it only to find it's got significant bugs. The other Heighway game was in much better playing shape (the motorcycle game) and hands down I'd rather play that one.

It wasn't just the bugs that suddenly stopped the game from time to time, or left the machine thinking it had balls when it didn't; the game just stopped having flow of any sort, and while the playfield looks like it might as least be as good as your typical Stern, there just wasn't any consistent ball rhythm to the thing.

I will say the jaw-droppingly impressive back display nearly swayed me, or rather, it did inveigle me into putting a few more dollars into the machine. The theme allows you to pick from the first two Alien movies (sort of two games in one that way) (what, no love for Alien Resurrection?) and the animated video display on the back shows super well-done versions of the heads up displays and shooting style from the movie. It has real potential in that sense to be a great theme pin.

But in the end, it was deadly boring because of the failures and the multiple ball hiccups (particularly with the "plunger" and scoops). Not knowing exactly when the machine is going to burp and die is not the kind of tension one wants to build up with _Alien_.

The layout wasn't really working for me. The extra flippers didn't do much for adding value to the gameplay. The game was repetitive with the constant "find the acid" "find jonesy". Sounds and animations/video were great.

Great layout. Dynamic theming. Incredible sounds. Fun alien head toy. Color LCD and graphics. This game will settle in as a top 20 game and be enthusiastically embraced.

Dark, foreboading, immersive. Sums up Alien, great layout, sounds, animations and rules. Most atmospheric game Ive played!

This Pin is almost a 10 out of 10 when it´s working... but unfortunetely issue fixing after some matches is still the biggest problem of this pin.

I had the chance to play many games on Alien. The engineering of the game is absolutely superb, probably the best ever to date. Modular design, with wire connectors everywhere. The artwork is impressive, even cabinet decals are interchangeable along with the playfield. No wonder they ran into financial problems considering the effort that went into each game and the money they charged. Hopefully that gets straightened out, I would hate to see a company that build such a wonderful machine go under.
The game play is fun with lots of good shots and the alien toy is coll when it picks up the ball. The upper left flipper is of marginal usage. The lighting is the only real complaint I have. The game is way too dark which makes it difficult to follow the ball. Some light mod could easily remedy this problem. The game is fairly difficult and the ball likes to drain in the outlanes. The bottom flippers are relatively close together and have a post in the middle, so drains rarely happen there. However, their up angle is very minimal which makes it challenging to cradle the ball. The flippers have the right amount of power to accomplish their task but not any more than necessary. I experienced little to none airballs and other unusual behavior that can put undo stress on playfield components. The ball didn't get stuck once during the entire time we played on it.

I think my rating would be a little higher if it did not break down every other game.

Xeno head did not work, lights out and clunky shots when I played it - I can’t stand the drama Heighway has caused (Andrew).... I feel they are going under and hope people get their refunds or games.

It definitely plays different from others. It seems a bit slow and some of the shots are odd.

Absolutely fantastic theme and lighting effects. Cabinet is ugly and plain.

Probably gets better with time, but hard to spend the money if you only get a few games unless you REALLY love the theme.

Not a huge alien fan but an aesthetically great machine. The shots did not do it for me and I didn't realize there was an upper left flipper at first.

Alien is a very fun game when it's working with great sounds, animations, and toys but its a shame what happened.

My game is a very early production (or very late pre-production) release. It was purchased at TPF in March 2017. The Xeno head currently does not eat the ball, but should when a new board arrives ETA: Two weeks :-)

The sounds, video and lightshow on this game rival anything I have seen. Heighway did an excellent job caturing the theme of both movies. I've been playing nearly every night for the past several weeks, and it still has that 'just one more game' feeling. The code/rules are well fleshed out even for such an early released game. Modes are not played in a specific order (determined by ramp shots), so it does not get repetitive. The shot layout is not your typical fan style, and some shots are very difficult to hit. While this may frustrate the beginning player, I think more experienced players will appreciate the challange. Overall, this is my new FAVORITE game of all time.

I have close to 30 plays on Alien and figured it was time to give a review. First off the game really stands out in a line-up and looks great! Love the way the cabinet glows and the playfield lighting and artwork just looks dark and eerie. The big display really draws you in and the game just flat out looks amazing! The game's playfield really takes great advantage of the real estate provided and the layout is really fantastic and has so many great shots and utilizes all 4 flippers to their full potential. The modes in the game all feel unique and are challenging. The Xenomorph toy is one of the coolest ball locks I've seen and the gameplay and modes really fit the theme well. I also like that the bottom of the playfield has an unconventional layout reminiscent of early SS games. Overall the game is already really fun and challenging and has solid rules for a brand new game which will get even better over time. I'm sure more sound clips, effects, and quotes will be added later too. I will re-rate the game again in the future.