believe the hype on this one. I've had the game for about 2 weeks now. After about 3 days of playing I knew it was gonna be my favorite game in my lineup for a long time. When I started this review I did not intend to give it a perfect rating but it's very hard to fault any specific gatagory.
Game lighting - amazing. I have it right next to my acdc prem which Has awesome lighting and Metallica is 1 notch better than even that. Some people may think the lighting is too bright at times but i think it is done very tastefully and goes well with the lightning/electrocution theme.
Theme - I guess you have to like Metallica or hard rock/ heavy metal to love the theme but I love how besides the band artwork on the translight and cabinet and part of pf the rest of game just has a very monster/horror theme too it. Reminds me of an "r" rated version of monster bash.
Music - again if you don't like Metallica/rock/metal music this could be hard to overcome. Metallica is not my favorite band of all time, but I am a fan of their music, especially from master of puppets - black album era. Good selection of songs. Overall I prefer acdc's music to metallica's but like the Metallica game better. I like how you can pick any song you want at the beginning of the game and yet not have it feel like its the same as acdc. I like the band/snake call outs and makes me wish there some of that in acdc.
Layout - it's kinda funny that people say they want more variation on pf layout but then when stern does that with avengers people don't seem to like at as much as the fan layouts. They were able to pack the game with a ton of shots without the shots being too tight (see xmen). Initially I was scared that the ramps and orbits looked to narrow and would be hard to get any flow going but once you get a feel for the game it's very easy to get 4-5 way combos effortlessly. Also they did a good job of budgeting with the toys on this one. Avengers feels like all the money went into the hulk toy and while they did a great job on hulk the rest of the game seems a little bare. On Metallica you have sparky as an awesome main toy, the snake with moving mouth, the hammer/coffin lock, motorized illuminated grave, all metal ramps with metal returns, 2 spinners, 3 magnets, 3 pop bumpers, 3 drop targets, captive ball (kinda), mystery hole, fule bar, color changing leds and a good use of plastics on the Playfield.
Artwork - they finally listend to the complaints on the photo shop shit and went to all hand drawn artwork. Pf artwork looks great. The master of puppets glass is stunning. Wish they would go glass on all their models, at least on all premiums. The cab artwork is great as well
Rules - love all the different multiballs, almost has a cv feel to it. The snake and coffin mb seem to be a lot harder than sparky and grave. Rules seem pretty straightforward compared to a lt of the newer games yet there are some really nice subtleties that a hardcore player would appreciate. I like how it doesn't seem to have the "start a mode, complete a mode, complete all modes to start wizard mode" feel that a lot of games seem to have. Although the code and rules are not finished it doesn't feel like they just threw an early version of the code out there to get the game into production. Doesn't have that "not a complete game feel" that people seem to really hate in other games.
Animations - animations are also great, I have a feeling they may add more variation to them in a. Future release but as of yet it doesn't feel repetitive. Will never get enough of the start sparky mb animation. Has a very epic feel to it , reminds me of the "it's alive" or "monsters of rock" animations from monster bash.
I will say I did have a few minor issues out of the box - sometimes after locking a ball in the coffin then shooting the mystery hole the game would not recognize the ball and I would not get the mystery award and would have to wait for the game to find the ball. This was not happening every game though and every time I thought about lifting up the game to check the switch it would stop.
Also sometimes when I first turn on the machine and go to play, my first game, the first ball doesn't eject. After I open up the coin door and manually eject the 1st ball then every other ball seems to eject Normally until I turn the machine off and let it sit for a while. This happens about 60% of the time and only on the first game. Last few times I played it hasn't happend so I'm not sure if this was fixed by 1.16 or just a random thing.
Overall I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is a Metallica/music pin fan.. If you have young kids or want to keep your collection more family friendly this would prob not be the best pin for you.
To me this is borg's best game even over tron and ironman. Easily a stern top 5 if not their best. I think this will remain a top 10 pin on pinside even after the haters start giving it low ratings so that mm gets back to #1. Not sure if this will ever be better than mm or afm or mb but deserves to be in the same company.
If you are on the fence on an LE or just going prem I would go for the LE now if you can afford it. There seems to be a lot on the market right now, mostly due to people buying them just to flip and make a quick grand. Once those are gone the price is gonna get in the 5 figure range ala tron LE and acdc LE. I can't imagine me wanting to sell mine unless i was in financial hardships and even then It would be the last pin to leave my collection.