Star Wars

[QuyN]

Yay! Pinball!!

[Chris K]

And all is right in the world again.

Maria's opens at 6pm, right? Cause I'm off work already and NOT playing Star Wars.

[Chris K]

I played a ton of Star Wars tonight. It’s awesome! The sound is great, the shots all feel good, there’s no evil-irritating drains, it’s faster than heck, and the TIE Fighter hammer-the-button mode is great fun!

Thanks for putting it on route, Madison Pinball! Anybody who wants to try Star Wars, Maria’s is a great venue to do so. You can actually hear the call outs and there’s some space to stretch out.

I grand champed it at a billion, but anybody who knows me can translate that statement to say “1 billion is a decent game, aim higher.”

[Hilton]

Thanks chris!

Hopefully i can get some games on it to celebrate my bday. Maybe even a GC

[Chris K]

Happy Birthday! Ain’t no way you aren’t going to beat my GC. My best strategy so far has been:

1. Choose Han
2. Pick +5 TIE Fighters
3. Flail around trying to hit as many TIE Fighters as possible
4. Repeat until TIE multiball
5. After TIE multiball, start shooting blinky stuff

I might be leaving some points on the table. But multiball, yo!

[MikeS]

I played a few games with each of the characters and kind of settled on the same strategy. I seemed to do best with Han and going for Tie Fighter multiball right off the bat and then working on modes. One thing I still really don't understand is how the shot multipliers work. I was generally leaving them off and then just turning on for multiball but since they seem to build when they are "on" as well maybe it's best to leave them on all the time and just turn them off when you need to move them to other shots? I guess in my mind it seems like they should only build when "off" but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[Chris K]

I think I remember the video saying that turning on and off just lets you move (or not move) the multipliers around. "On" and "off" is very misleading if that's true, but the arrows don't move when it's "on", so I think that's the difference.

[Hilton]

Heidi and I just played about 10 games each.

First impression... FAST is an understatement. I see no way I could learn this game without a spotter and it was still a bit confusing.
This is possibly SRitchies best designed game of all time. Fast, great flow, no cheap shots, no sightlines blocked, great back hands. Dwight seems to be coding GOT meets ghost busters plus a bit of redbull mixed in. I NEED more callouts telling me what to do as it is nearly impossible to look at the screen (heck I was unable to look up the pf beyond mid way most of the time, lol)

The pf is wide open with every shot returning to your face. I am not a fan of the mash the button tie mode (fun the first few times but lackluster videogame vibe after that) and so far it is the only multiball I have gotten.
Points seem to be in completing modes which is challenging till I started to get a feel for the shots.

I think it will be fun to learn more.

Code is a bit buggy at 0.84 but pretty solid foundation as a release code. I think there is a coin bug that sometimes locks it up after $2 are in and you dont get the bonus credit. Also occasionally eats quarter. Pretty sure this is code related to pulse time of those switches as I looked over all the physical mechs tonight (i.e. sorry in advance if the game eats your quarter or it does not give you a price bonus with $2 sometimes.

[Chris K]

I had a couple quarters eaten... figured it was just a usual mech thing, no biggie. We played maybe six four-pack games and got our bonus credits each time. Most times I was one of the players, and I was putting in bills, if that matters.

Did you see the hidden Admiral Ackbar pop cover behind the LCD? I giggled.

You're right about it being frenetic. The Hoth/Death Star loop is especially fast. Every time I trapped the ball I breathed a sigh of relief.

The one shot that was always very easy to notice when lit was the TIE Fighter "button mode" start. It blinks red/green very quickly, which is super obvious.

I need to go back and watch Dwight explain the whole game in that Deadflip video, cause I felt lost most of the time, and I know he talked about much of the game in there.

[MikeS]

Some good discussion on Star Wars rules as well as the shot multipliers on Tilt Forums that I found:

http://tiltforums.com/t/star-wars-rulesheet-0-83/2812

[QuyN]

Thanks for posting the reviews! I'll have to make it out there one of these nights to play a few. I'm cautiously optimistic, as I love the theme, but the playfield seems sparse with not much to shoot at. Fast games doesn't necessarily make it fun, but I'll reserve my judgement until I've put in several games.

[Hilton]

The closest Ritchie game to compare is definately No Fear. Next closest would be GoT pro.

Lots of nice return to flipper but in your face FAST! Once the game wears in a bit, then I think it will be a little betetr actually. Almost too fast fresh out of the box.

[Hilton]

Updated marias game code o 0.85

[QuyN]

Put in 6 games last night, and I have to say that i was underwhelmed. As much as I wanted to like it, because I love Star Wars, I felt that there wasn't enough to shoot at and they were all perimeter shots. I think what Stern wanted to do was make it "simple" enough so that a casual player can go up to it and shoot well, but wanted to have character selections to add depth. The code is still early, but tbh, changing the code doesn't change the shots, if you know what I mean. And what's up with the screen covering up the pops? I'm 5'8" and I had to lean forward and get on my toes to see the lanes. I'll put in a few more games, but those were my first impressions.

And Maria's is a cool place. Will definitely go back out there to play pinball again

[Chris K]

Invisible pops is a near-standard Stern thing these days. I understand tradition in regards for pops, but the way modern tables (and not just Stern) tend to hide them in a corner and box them off makes me wonder why the heck we have them on tables anyway? A visit to the pops reads:

1) Some noise and blinking for a few seconds
2) Some minor points (although Stern has added the slot machine recently)
3) The ball pops out one of a few exit points

Pops like that don't actually DO anything. Not like they do on older tables like Black Hole or most EMs.

For Star Wars, I peeked over the LCD and saw an Admiral Ackbar cover on the pop. That made me laugh.

I had the opposite impression of the shots on Star Wars. Everything is pretty near the middle, I feel. The TIE Fighter, the inner orbit, the LCD standups, and the ramps aren't wide shots. The R2 scoop is, and the drops are, but those aren't important as often, I don't think (I don't know the rules well yet).

I compare that to Ghostbusters where the left captive balls, Tobin, PKE ramp, and Negative Reinforcement are all very wide in feel.