Pinball machine owners list

[Extork]

So if I bought a table for my apartment... Well, it's gonna be right by my couch. Everyone's blasting rap, so howbout taxi with that loud bell, or earthshaker.

 

[Espy]

Great machine and congrats, Shaneus. This is one of the most under-rated Sterns (but every tpa player knows that, of course)

About those humming flippers, aren't they great? I've had those from the second I opened up nib Metallica and Star trek (courtesy of Stern quality control along with far from tight feeling lockdown bars and LED lights popping out of their sockets to often to count)

That's part of the reason I like the early new-era Sterns. They still feel like they could be WMS-made. When I play Monopoly or Simpsons, it feels more like a Williams than a Stern. Things hadn't fully moved on into current-era design and production styles at that point, so it still felt like heyday-era.

 

[Carl Spiby]

No Stern feels like a WMS unless you've been smoking something.

All Stern's have a cheap feel about them from the mechanical noise to the thickness of the cabinet, the weight isn't there either.

If you want to play a new WMS machine today, you have to play a JJP machine.

 

[Kevlar]

Not picked it up yet, but just bought a Centaur.

I'm very jealous right now!

 

[Espy]

No Stern feels like a WMS unless you've been smoking something.

All Stern's have a cheap feel about them from the mechanical noise to the thickness of the cabinet, the weight isn't there either.

If you want to play a new WMS machine today, you have to play a JJP machine.

In general I meant gameplay, to be honest.

 

[Carl Spiby]

Fair enough

 

[Shaneus]

In general I meant gameplay, to be honest.

Mmm... I'd kinda disagree with you in that regard. The rules in the majority of WMS titles feel a lot more rounded and polished than the majority of Stern games (unless they're given 50 million revisions, in which case they mistake "solid rules" for "overcomplicated"). Obviously there are exceptions, but I think RBION set a bad precedent for just how tricky Stern games should be in terms of depth. I actually kinda liked Metallica before it got super complicated and would've been happy if the ruleset was just rounded out and cleaned up... and it still seems okay from what I've read, but AC/DC is an example of where it was taken too far IMO.

Unless you're talking about how tables are laid out etc., in which case I do kind of agree with you. That's what happens when your main designers continually ape from WMS tables (and I'm not talking Steve Ritchie ).

 

[karl]

Mixing it up is the deal for me. Iron Man and Tron have some of the simplest rule set of resent Sterns and I really love those. Sometimes it is nice to know that there is a 95% change that your game is gonna be short and brutal, but I also love deep rule machines, like the machines programmed by Keith Johnson. (intricate rule master) like LOTR and TSPP. I tend to play those less though. When you had a monster game lasting more than 30 minutes it is hard to go at it again soon after, but I love both sorts

My only problem with Stern is the building quality of the machines and how they choose to save on everything. Not to fond of the pro, premium and LE concept either.

 

[Shaneus]

Yeah, see I can't stand games with rules like TSPP and LOTR (although I'm yet to play LOTR, so I'm only going on what I've seen/heard). At least, TSPP feels like a license that should have a shallower learning curve, whereas LOTR gives off the vibe that it should be a significantly trickier game. TSPP does too much to let you know that it's complicated, and you probably won't see half the stuff that's in the game. Plus, it's licensed from when The Simpsons started to become crap

And yeah, agreed on the build quality thing too. I was lucky in that I managed to get a game that was pretty much them in the peak of their build-quality lifecycle (even by today's standards). I went through the list of their modern games with a friend before I bought RBION and this was the conclusion we came to (roughly) for Stern's modern lineup:

Finding their feet, okay build quality but poor game rules/layout etc.:
1999	Harley-Davidson®
2000-01	Striker Xtreme
2000-09	Sharkey's Shootout
2001-01	High Roller Casino
2001-06	Austin Powers™
2001-09	Monopoly™ ***
2001-11	NFL
2002-01	Playboy®

Oh crap, we should pump some money into these things to sell them:
2002-08	RollerCoaster Tycoon
2002-11	Harley-Davidson® (2nd Edition) ***
2003-02	The Simpsons Pinball Party
2003-06	Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
2003-12	The Lord of the Rings
2004-03	Ripley's Believe It or Not!®
2004-08	Elvis® Gold (Limited Edition)
2004-08	Elvis®

MOAR TOYS! But keep the prices down, 'kay?:
2005	Grand Prix
2005-02	The Sopranos®
2005-08	NASCAR®
2006-02	World Poker Tour™
2006-07	Pirates of the Caribbean ***
2007	Family Guy / 2008 Shrek

Let's get these things built more solidly again:
2007-06	Spider-Man
2007-06	Black Spider-Man™
2007-10	Wheel Of Fortune (can't comment, but I haven't heard it's that bad)
2008-04	Indiana Jones
2008-07	Batman

WTF:
2008-11	CSI
2009	NBA
2009-02	24

Pick things up again (slowly):
2010	Iron Man
2010-01	Big Buck Hunter Pro
2010-08	James Cameron’s Avatar
2011	Disney TRON Legacy
2011	The Rolling Stones ***
2011	Transformers™ ***kinda, the Pro feels very cheap and crappy)
2012	AC/DC
2012	Metallica
2012	The Avengers
2012	Transformers The Pin™ ***
2012-03	AC/DC
2012-08	X-Men
2013	Metallica
2013	Star Trek
2014-04	Mustang (Pro)

The *** games are the exceptions to the rule in their respective categories, either good or bad.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

My only problem with Stern is the building quality of the machines and how they choose to save on everything. Not to fond of the pro, premium and LE concept either.

Their pricing points are purely to keep them in business. Black Spider-Man was clearly an experiment to see if Stern could sell upmarket and downmarket at the same time. When it worked with Transformers, this is what Stern would do from that point on (and selling further downmarket with the Pin/Lite/Classic line).

If Jersey Jack is the Ferrari of pinball companies, catering to the wealthy and/or devoted, Stern is the Ford, with something for a lot wider of a market. Like with Ferrari, Jersey Jack will remain stable as long as the fanbase remains, but it can never hope to be as big as Stern.

 

[Espy]

Someone was selling an excellent White Water on the UK pinball group for £600. £600!

I will never be able to live down not being first to respond.

 

[Carl Spiby]

Someone was selling an excellent White Water on the UK pinball group for £600. £600!

I will never be able to live down not being first to respond.

I wouldn't get too hung up on it, the sensible thing for the owner to do (and most likely did) would be to trade it with another table.

 

[Shaneus]

So a friends putting the vast majority of his machines into a shipping container for storage, and has discovered that he's REALLY tight for space. So it looks like I'll be packing up HS to put in my garage to "store" one of his games. Let's just say there'll be a raft of machines at my disposal in a few days

 

[vikingerik]

MOAR TOYS! But keep the prices down, 'kay?:
...
Let's get these things built more solidly again:
2007-06 Spider-Man
2007-06 Black Spider-Man™
2007-10 Wheel Of Fortune (can't comment, but I haven't heard it's that bad)
2008-04 Indiana Jones
2008-07 Batman

WTF:
2008-11 CSI
2009 NBA
2009-02 24

Nice list. I'd split up and eliminate that one category by moving the Spideys up into the "MOAR TOYS" list, so that Wheel and IJ can join the "WTF" list that they so heartily deserve.

 

[karl]

So a friends putting the vast majority of his machines into a shipping container for storage, and has discovered that he's REALLY tight for space. So it looks like I'll be packing up HS to put in my garage to "store" one of his games. Let's just say there'll be a raft of machines at my disposal in a few days

Sounds like a good deal

 

[Shaneus]

Sounds like a good deal

Oh definitely! And that character in your avatar would agree

 

[karl]

It was a long road but it is here at last. Finally time to brush up on that wonderful rules set Sean wrote last year

 

[Shaneus]

Good move, human.

My only piece of advice: set it up closer to an angle of modern pins than older ones. I've played a friend's Centaur (and Firepower) that we're closer to 6/7 degrees and at TPF they were setup I think how they were originally in arcades, closer to EM angles at around 5 (I think?). Those early SS games are a LOT more fun when they're faster.

IMO, of course

 

[karl]

Centaur is waiting for a new incredible playfield from CPR that have just arrived. Thanks for the advice about the angle, it felt a bit slow (on the old playfield at least). PS! I meant AC/DC in the post above

Thinking about selling Star Trek. The Rules are just not that interesting after a while. Hoping for some code magic from Stern before I make my final decision on it.

 

[Shaneus]

I'd wait for the new ST code with the custom callouts from Karl Urban first, see how that turns out.