Hands-on with the new John Wick pinball
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I got into pinball during the COVID lockdowns.
If you haven't put your hands on a table in a while you should give it a fresh look.
Over the last 10 years technology has really improved the audio visual show, the light show, the complexity and layering of scoring rules, theme integration, and overall durability / longevity of many parts. All new Stern machines also have app integration, allowing for verified tracking of high scores (local and global), unlocking achievements, running local tournaments, etc.
And there is more variety than ever too -- great tables and themes coming out of Jersey Jack Pinball like Elton John and The Godfather; remakes of classic games from Chicago Gaming like Medieval Madness and Cactus Canyon (and a killer new Pulp Fiction table); fun stuff like Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes from Spooky Pinball; and there's American Pinball with some fun if questionably wacky titles.
Rumors abound that soon we'll be seeing pinball tables for He-Man and in time for the 40th Anniversary of Back to the Future.
If you haven't put your hands on a table in a while you should give it a fresh look.
Over the last 10 years technology has really improved the audio visual show, the light show, the complexity and layering of scoring rules, theme integration, and overall durability / longevity of many parts. All new Stern machines also have app integration, allowing for verified tracking of high scores (local and global), unlocking achievements, running local tournaments, etc.
And there is more variety than ever too -- great tables and themes coming out of Jersey Jack Pinball like Elton John and The Godfather; remakes of classic games from Chicago Gaming like Medieval Madness and Cactus Canyon (and a killer new Pulp Fiction table); fun stuff like Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes from Spooky Pinball; and there's American Pinball with some fun if questionably wacky titles.
Rumors abound that soon we'll be seeing pinball tables for He-Man and in time for the 40th Anniversary of Back to the Future.
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I liked pinball in the 80s when the tables were mechanical (with electric relays etc.). No screen except for the score. Granted the targets tended to get broken, but as the new and increasingly electronic ones took over I lost my interest.
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Wow, I'm out of touch with the modern pinball world. I stopped playing after my university days, so I'm surprised by all the tie-ins to movies etc. I always enjoyed the way pinball created its own artistic culture rather than depending on links to other media.
Now excuse me while I go yell at a cloud.
Now excuse me while I go yell at a cloud.
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Nice pin! And glad you gave Lance Reddick a shoutout. Truly a huge loss.
"Premium, Pro, and Limited Edition", though? That's bananas marketing. Even worse than the only drink sizes being "medium, large, and huge".
"Premium, Pro, and Limited Edition", though? That's bananas marketing. Even worse than the only drink sizes being "medium, large, and huge".
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They’ve been linking to other media for a long time. I spent a lot of quarters on the Kiss table way back when.
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Curse you Aurich for sending me down a deep, deep rabbit hole. I had things I needed to do today. Digging around I find Stern made a Rush table integrating in little replicas of many of Getty Lee's stage props. Not sure how to sneak that into the basement while hiding the expenses.
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I felt like I was already stuffing a lot of extra non John Wick detail into this story, so I didn't want to keep going down rabbit holes. But on the topic of giving new designers a chance to make games Foo Fighters is a cool story.
It was designed by Jack Danger, who started off as a pinball streamer on Twitch, built up a pretty good following, and was given a chance by Stern to make one of their "home" games, a somewhat de-contented version of Jurassic Park.
He did a great job, is now a full time employee, and Foo Fighters was his first "full" game, with a real budget and team.
It's different, in good ways, and that's the nice thing about bringing in people with new ideas.
And of course Godzilla is by Keith Elwin, who Zach Sharpe called the Michael Jordan of pinball when we talked. Hiring basically the best player in the world to design games was a real coup on Stern's part.
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"Premium, Pro, and Limited Edition", though? That's bananas marketing. Even worse than the only drink sizes being "medium, large, and huge".
Since Williams folded, the remaining pinball market has been focused pretty squarely on collectors rather than amusement leasing (the 'stuff in bars' market)
And when the focus is on collectors, you get 'limited edition' this, that, the other...
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Checkout the classic remakes of Medieval Madness and Cactus Canyon from Chicago Pinball. along with their new retro-inspired Pulp Fiction. New lighting massively improves the look of the tables while taking nothing away from the pure focus on gameplay. And in my opinion the use of small mid-90s style DMDs (dot matrix displays) only add to the retro vibe.
Pulp Fiction is a brand new design and release but has no screen at all, and old timey LCD scoring displays like an old calcualtor. One of the most enjoyable tables I've ever played.
This is still very much a thing. American Pinball mostly does original IP tables like Houdini, Oktoberfest, Valhalla, and Galactic Tank Force. Chicago Pinball specializes in classic remakes, which tend to be original IP like Medieval Madness and Cactus Canyon. A Whitewater remake is also rumored.
As for the artistic culture of pinball, the art style definitely goes in waves and tends to reinterpret existing IP rather that cut n paste. Check out The Godfather or Godzilla for examples of this. They very much do their own thing in how they leverage existing assets. And the current king of pinball table art is a guy named Zombie Yeti who's developed his own sort of comic book-ish cel-shaded style, which looks uniquely goodand well suited to a pinball playfield.
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The story of the Alien pinball is kind of long and complicated, including the original company I was working for going bankrupt. Kyle has actually asked me document it all, but I've kind of been avoiding it, a lot of things I don't really want to revisit to be honest.
It's had a happy ending, Pinball Brothers was formed by the original investors, they got all the assets when the original company went under, and brought me back to do new art packages for it.
One bonus? I can say that I've done an officially licensed nuke it from orbit reference.
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Licenses have been a thing in pinball since the 80s, it's not new.
But it's true that it's much more dominant now. You still still a handful of unlicensed games, but the truth is they're harder to sell, and riskier to make.
Licenses come with built in fan bases, and also a lot of assets. If it's a movie pin for instance you get a whole film's worth of dialogue, clips, promotional material etc. Things you'd need to come up with yourself otherwise.
I pine for more original games myself. But I do get it. It's a niche industry, games are expensive to develop and make, taking a risk on an unlicensed game is hard.
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Kiss even got another game, I reviewed it several years back:
https://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2015/05/play-pinball-like-its-1978-with-the-new-kiss-game/
Guns n' Roses is another band that's had two different pinballs. What's old is new.
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The Limited Edition stuff is big FOMO. They tend to sell out fast, because people speculate that they'll go up in value, and they often do.Nice pin! And glad you gave Lance Reddick a shoutout. Truly a huge loss.
"Premium, Pro, and Limited Edition", though? That's bananas marketing. Even worse than the only drink sizes being "medium, large, and huge".
I have one limited edition game, Stern's Metallica. But I bought it for nearly half of what the LEs go for these days.
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Shout out to Pat Lawlor who created many legendary designs, such as Whirlwind (which I own), Twilight Zone (Top on my "want to buy" list), Funhouse, and the Big Daddy of them all, Addams Family.
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It was Ian McShane that said, almost forty years ago, "Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Grace Jones: Slave, to the Rhythm".
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I have little interest in pinball myself, but I think it's cool the industry and demand persists.
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Which gives you an idea of just how long ago my university days were.
Good article though, thanks!
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chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
Considering the sales volumes and the amount of work involved both in designing and assembling these machines, I would easily have expected more.
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Mr.Mumbles
Ars Centurion
Can't say I've been a fan of any of the more modern Stern tables I've tried. All that app connectivity... why? Most of their table layouts look like the laziest/unimaginative design in pinball history, plus for the most part they're not very attractive either. Adding unnecessary and distracting FMV to the scoreboard that's now more like a small embedded monitor screen, it just does nothing for me.
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It's all utterly optional, and will not affect your enjoyment of the game at all to skip. It's just a way to try and build and keep interest with new audiences.
Stuff like automatic high score leaderboards for locations is pretty neat though.
Here's where I'm gonna hard disagree with you. Some of the most inventive games in modern pinball history have come from Stern designers, especially Keith Elwin.
I mentioned Godzilla already, but it's a perfect example. One of the most unique shooting games out there. So many different ways to approach it, and ways for the ball to interact.
Stern finally breaking out of the mold of "two flippers and a trio of pop bumbers" that's dominated so much of the history of modern pins has been really refreshing.
And they're not the only ones, but credit where credit is due.
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Woo I love seeing articles like this and love seeing mention of the other companies operating in the space right now.
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Woah, no shit, I never realized that. I haven't heard this song in ages, but his voice is unmistakable. Thanks for sharing that!
View: https://twitter.com/RufusTSuperfly/status/1135986353156558848
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Z0XLzIswI2s
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Modern machines do nothing for me. I go back to the 1960s, and purely electro-mechanical machines, where it was sight, feel and smell. The play of every machine was different and you learned to make a specific machine 'yours'.
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The app is the best part! Scores are automatically sent and updated. Where I play has 6 machines on rotation and its nice to know what you did if one disappears (board is reset every month). Addams Family, that came out in '92, and is best selling pinball machine of all time, has a screen with little videos and stuff also so im not sure what you are on about there. Im a big fan of the new Stern machines.
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It's all pinball.
I've owned just about every era of game, except for 1950s woodrails. They all have things to enjoy.
I had an Abracadabra and a Sky Jump in my office for a while. There's a very chill vibe to EMs, with their slower, floatier play and chimes. All about what you're in the mood for.
Modern games have a lot more going for them to hold your interest, but that doesn't mean they're "better", just different.
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Back when Stern was the only remaining player in the game (sorry), they had a problem with some features being written up and physically put on the table but never implemented in the software. Has that improved with their more recent boom (and competition)?
Just as an FYI, Williams didn't fold; they saw that their slot machines were making gobs more money than their pinballs, so they went all in on the former. (Kind of like the BBC deciding after the first couple seasons of Doctor Who that they could no longer ignore the sci-fi stories bringing in much higher ratings than the historicals.) That also meant Williams' brand new Pinball 2000 system got cut off after only two games.
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So the short answer is sort of.
Yes, the software situation is much better now. They have a lot more devs, and they do good work. The code is also a lot "deeper" and more complicated than that era of Stern, where games tended to just be about finishing the modes and getting to the wizard mode, and maybe stacking some multiballs. (With maybe the exception of Keefer's games, like Simpsons and Lord of the Rings etc)
But the downside to all this more complicated code is things tend to ship at version .8 and it can sometimes take a while before all the features are added. They do get there, and I think they're better about it now than they used to be, but brand new games might not have all the code done at launch.
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Insider Connected doesn't matter too much on most Stern games, but Venom is the exception. On that game, if you don't (or can't) log in, you will get a very diminished experience. You can earn extra characters, it remembers which bosses you have fought and which team-ups you've unlocked and what level you are at. All tied to your Insider Connected account, so you have to log in to access it.
I personally will not play a Venom that doesn't have Insider Connected support.
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That screen on Addams Family is a popular aftermarket mod. The original game didn't have it.
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Those editions are targeted at different markets.Nice pin! And glad you gave Lance Reddick a shoutout. Truly a huge loss.
"Premium, Pro, and Limited Edition", though? That's bananas marketing. Even worse than the only drink sizes being "medium, large, and huge".
The "Premium" edition of the game is the "full-featured" realization of the designer's vision, with all the shots, mechs, toys and modes. It's targeted at home buyers who want a deep and satisfying ruleset to explore for years to come.
The "Pro" version is designed to be put on location for the general public to put in their quarters and play. For this application, reliability becomes a key concern, as it's expected that these games will be played several times a day, day after day, and they have to stand up to the abuse. And these players aren't going to have a lasting relationship with the game, so the rules don't have to be as deep. So Stern removes some of the more complex mechs and toys for better reliability. This will change how certain gameplay elements work and will remove other elements, but the core of the game is kept intact.
The "Limited Edition" version is merely the luxury version for rich people. It doesn't add anything to the game, it's just blinged out. You buy it to show off.
The wording could certainly be better, but it makes sense if you think about it. The "Pro" version makes you money, the "Premium" version is nicer and the "LE" truly is limited (they will only make 1000 of them).
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Fair point, I've only played Venom once.
I'm a huge fan of Brian Eddie, I have a Shadow pin and it's one of my all time favorite games, and I'm 'babysitting' an Attack From Mars, but I have to admit I haven't been all that grabbed by his Stern games. The magic he had with Bally/Williams isn't the same.
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lol good eye! That's an aftermarket backglass I did a limited run of years ago. I've done a few games that way, but all underground unlicensed stuff. I try and stay out of that kind of trademark deal now, my profile got a little too big for getting away with fan art stuff like that.
People do still ask me about it though.
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How much do you think licensing adds to the cost of a table these days?
My initial thought was that an original design that bypassed licensing could save a few bucks for the end user - making them more attractive for certain commercial buyers. I figured they weren't being produced because the commercial market is likely smaller than the collector market these days.
But I guess we've come a long way from when games like 8-Ball Deluxe could dominate an entire arcade with some panel art and a small handful of generic audio clips (pretty sure "Quit talkin' and start chalkin'!" is burned into my memory forever).
Does the benefit of access to media assets for developers offset the cost of licensing now?
(great article, btw).
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I know we're generally talking about physical tables here (and I'm glad to see there's a resurgence!), but if anyone doesn't mind digital pinball and the addition of a Metroidvania framework to the mix, I highly recommend Yoku's Island Express as a nice little pinball adventure game! It's on PC and all consoles.
View: https://youtu.be/-myLEJwAydw
View: https://youtu.be/-myLEJwAydw
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