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EAG update please

I saw Alien briefly while the Heighway team were trying to get them going at around 13:30. At that stage I was told to come back in an hour or so when they hoped to have the issues ironed out. Unfortunately as has already been mentioned the machines were removed from the floor and then never made a return, so I don't have any photos. :(

I spoke to Andrew briefly later in the afternoon and apparently the machines weren't running due to board problems. Apparently the boards had been built and soldered by hand especially for the show and they weren't working due to dodgy soldering! To say I'm disappointed after taking the day off work and making the effort to visit EAG primarily to play Alien is a bit of an understatement. Considering we have been told that these games are production ready with standards ready to ship this month, it's hard to believe that they couldn't get at least one working for the show today.

I've had a deposit down on an LE since October 2015, but based on what I have seen I'm strongly considering pulling out now. I understand and appreciate that pinball machines are fickle and break down etc, but if the manufacturer can't get a machine to work for a show like this then you do have to ask questions about their reliability.

On the bright side I did get to have a good few games on Aerosmith and Batman 66. I'm not really a huge fan of Aerosmith as a band, but the machine really impressed me and was the best game at the show in my opinion. The artwork is probably the best I've seen on any Stern and the print quality leaps and bounds ahead of previous games (and about time too!) All of the shots felt pretty good with nice flow. I really liked locking balls in the toybox to start mutiball too, it's quite a fun and original toy.

I hope the guys who are going tomorrow get a chance to see and play a working Alien. If they are working I'd appreciate if somebody could upload a half decent video of some gameplay to show what the shots and flow are like now.

Heres a few photos I took today, mainly of Aerosmith:
IMG_20170117_132656.jpg IMG_20170117_132700.jpg IMG_20170117_133228.jpg IMG_20170117_133403.jpg IMG_20170117_133837.jpg IMG_20170117_133850.jpg IMG_20170117_134415.jpg IMG_20170117_134450.jpg IMG_20170117_134501.jpg IMG_20170117_141723.jpg IMG_20170117_162132.jpg

And a short Youtube video of it being played:
 
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Hmm a bit frustrating that eurocoin have a batman on their stand but customers don't have theirs yet!


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Matti B said:
Its the sensible PR choice to take them out of sight. Since I was the only person who got to play it - for 3 minutes - i now consider myself to be Englands expert on Alien pinball so am available for interviews, photo opportunities etc.
Click to expand...

Not really, no matter what they do it's a PR disaster.

Neil.


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Stern's new screens looks better in person than I thought they would based on photos. The image quality and animations were pretty sharp, far better than the dots on Ghostbusters. It was pretty easy to have a brief glance up to see instructions and what's going on with score and balls played etc.

Yea definitely a PR disaster for Heighway either way. Personally I would of preferred for at least one of the machines to stay on the floor so I could of had a decent look at it, even if it wasn't playable.
 
Andy really had the chance to clean up with the aliens at this show with all those ops there and with a major difference in price compared with sterns but an op is never going to buy it if it cant even work for more than 3 min at a show this should have been tested and bullet proof a month ago why is he having to make boards by hand its not looking good for production if he cant even get too machines to work for a show there is not much chance for 100 a month in jan
 
Heighways full throttle spent a fair bit of time out of action at NLP Manchester. Such a shame - I hope they get these issues ironed out.


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I knew we would get flamed after today. To anyone who visited today - especially Aaron - we apologise. We did everything we could to be ready on time but fell short by a few days. We had to hand solder the boards because Chinese New Year wrecked our supply. No it's not for another 2 weeks, but many Chinese companies shut 2-3 weeks either side of CNY.

At least the 3 x Full Throttles were bullet-proof all day. We are doing everything we can to have at least 1 x Alien on the floor tomorrow.
 
I don't think it's fair to flame Heighway for what happened today. Yeah, it was disappointing but that's just life sometimes.

I played all of the tables at the EAG today and in my opinion, Heighway is now a real pinball manufacturer. Full Throttle has come a long way since I played it at Daventree and i was actually very impressed. (it's still not my sort of table, but that's besides the point)

The Aliens table looked, sounded and felt WAY BETTER than I had imagined. (Considered that it's my favourite movie EVER!!) (For example, they have these cool mini facehuggers on the bumpers which twitch when they pop) plus the sound bites are awesome - with swearing!! and the table is beautiful to look at.

Maybe I'm biased, and yes,I didnt get to play it for long but it was the best pinball table I saw today. Maybe the best looking table ever!

If I could afford it I'd totally get one.

PS.

I think people want Aliens and Heighway to do well. They deserve to. And the UK needs more pinball tables!
 
it'll be ok Andy, these things happen and i expect they also did when Bally were starting out, and Gottlieb, and Williams, and Data East. we can all see the same issues hampering all the other new startups too - Dutch and JJP are no exceptions. i'll be there tomorrow and look forward to catching up and enjoying a play on FTh again - i remember a couple of years ago that was the best game there. Aerosmith does nothing for me as a theme, Batman is a ripoff of Batman Dark Knight and a ripoff of operators and pinheads, Ghostbusters when i've played it doesn't really have any hooks to keep me interested.

i spy Strobey Tim, Ad Jonker, Gary Stern, Barry Oursler ..... and is that Dave Wilcox in the daft suit?
 
As long as we aren't making our minds up before we play the game! Alien looked awesome at expo, Batman 66 is going to be fantastic, Aerosmith looks beautiful and ghostbusters is one of the best machines made ever! Great year for pinball!


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Who is flaming?

Tbf I suggested that these games wouldn't be shipping in January, in part because of the holiday season, and was told all factories run over Xmas and new year so that wouldn't be an issue. Not that's the reason they aren't ready?
 
@cooldan Aerosmith was so much fun. The 6 ball lock keeps you coming back for more...!

I'd recommend a good game on that.

Batman 66 also surprised me, very addictive, but i realised you've really got to know what you're doing after seeing Martin put up 1.5B, a third of which was collected on the bonus!

Both pins felt fair and well balanced. You always felt in control of the ball and seldom like it screwed you over. Maybe the odd outlane rogering, but plenty of nice long shots which are satisfying to hit.

The new displays work really well, you have to see them to appreciate fully then make your own mind up.

For saying im a fan of dots and segments, i liked them...

Tim
 
jonathan said:
Who is flaming?
Click to expand...
Yea I don't see anybody flaming here either. My post was purely intended to provide feedback on my visit to EAG today and to address questions that others had asked that I was in a position to answer.

It's not all doom and gloom, what I saw of Alien actually looked really good. The layout looks great and the left ramp changed to improve flow. Aurich has done a great job with the artwork and the quality of the playfield print looked fantastic. I had a good chance to look at this closeup as the playfield glass was removed. I had a chance to feel the facehuggers on the slingshots and they were made of a soft rubbery material that won't break when struck by air balls. To look at everything seemed great, its just a shame that neither machine was playable. For me it's the shot geometry and flow of the game that are most important as once the machines leave the production line this can't be changed, the ruleset and code can be updated later.

Aerosmith was the most fun game I had a chance to play today. As @strobey said, the 6 ball toybox lock was great, the shots felt good and the game flowed well and played fairly. Really good art and sound too even though I'm not a big fan of the band.

Batman 66 was ok imo but not outstanding. I'm not a huge fan of any of Stern's themes on show today so judge it purely on how it was to play. Some of the shots were a bit clunky at best. For example when shooting the right ramp the balls often flew straight out of the back of it and hit the backboard, even though there was a clear plastic on top to try and keep them in. Balls also seemed to get stuck quite easily on the rotating platform at the top of the playfield which needed a ball search to free.

Ghostbusters must be a machine that you need to have at home to appreciate properly. A lot of the time it wasn't very obvious what I was supposed to be shooting for, particularly at the start of the game as sod all was lit. The bottom end of the table is pretty unforgiving, the flipper spacing seemed wider than usual and the outlane guides make nudges to save the ball difficult. Not necessarily a bad thing just an observation as I don't mind a brutal table. I think I can safely say its not one of the best machines ever made though @Neil McRae. :wave:
 
aaronhicksuk said:
Yea I don't see anybody flaming here either. My post was purely intended to provide feedback on my visit to EAG today and to address questions that others had asked that I was in a position to answer.

It's not all doom and gloom, what I saw of Alien actually looked really good. The layout looks great and the left ramp changed to improve flow. Aurich has done a great job with the artwork and the quality of the playfield print looked fantastic. I had a good chance to look at this closeup as the playfield glass was removed. I had a chance to feel the facehuggers on the slingshots and they were made of a soft rubbery material that won't break when struck by air balls. To look at everything seemed great, its just a shame that neither machine was playable. For me it's the shot geometry and flow of the game that are most important as once the machines leave the production line this can't be changed, the ruleset and code can be updated later.

Aerosmith was the most fun game I had a chance to play today. As @strobey said, the 6 ball toybox lock was great, the shots felt good and the game flowed well and played fairly. Really good art and sound too even though I'm not a big fan of the band.

Batman 66 was ok imo but not outstanding. I'm not a huge fan of any of Stern's themes on show today so judge it purely on how it was to play. Some of the shots were a bit clunky at best. For example when shooting the right ramp the balls often flew straight out of the back of it and hit the backboard, even though there was a clear plastic on top to try and keep them in. Balls also seemed to get stuck quite easily on the rotating platform at the top of the playfield which needed a ball search to free.

Ghostbusters must be a machine that you need to have at home to appreciate properly. A lot of the time it wasn't very obvious what I was supposed to be shooting for, particularly at the start of the game as sod all was lit. The bottom end of the table is pretty unforgiving, the flipper spacing seemed wider than usual and the outlane guides make nudges to save the ball difficult. Not necessarily a bad thing just an observation as I don't mind a brutal table. I think I can safely say its not one of the best machines ever made though @Neil McRae. :wave:
Click to expand...

:)

I had the same view on ghostbusters for the first few games I played at Chief Cafe - I didn't like it but I wanted to like it as I love the theme - Went back and spent a whole afternoon playing it and figured out what to do. Yes the flipper gap is wide, yes there is a SDTM out of the top of the pops, that's just the challenge of this machine but I love it, the rules are cool and the atmosphere of the game is superb. It's not everyone's cup of tea for sure. JT went out to make a tough game and I think he succeeded.

Neil


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Heighway Pinball said:
I knew we would get flamed after today. To anyone who visited today - especially Aaron - we apologise. We did everything we could to be ready on time but fell short by a few days. We had to hand solder the boards because Chinese New Year wrecked our supply. No it's not for another 2 weeks, but many Chinese companies shut 2-3 weeks either side of CNY.

At least the 3 x Full Throttles were bullet-proof all day. We are doing everything we can to have at least 1 x Alien on the floor tomorrow.
Click to expand...

There are loads of here who can solder proficiently, we could have done a few each then back in the post.
 
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