ok as promised.
Aerosmith was very bright and colourful, and i like the cartoony Dirty Donny artwork, but tbh it just felt like i was looking at, and playing, a mish-mash of Metallica and Kiss. it's a pinball machine so it's loads of fun, of course it is, and yes i enjoyed it. i liked how it launches the ball about 6 inches over and 4 inches up in the air to go into the toybox (though the code was still buggy so it mostly landed on the closed lid, or waited ages before launching). Fun, 7.5/10, but nothing i saw was original about it though.
Batman66 looked similarly like a comic book, this time one for grown up kids. it seemed ok but maybe a little flimsy - i don't like seeing ramps wobble, it's like watching an old sitcom where someone leans against a wall and it buckles, that just screams cost-cutting to me, and doesn't really tally against their supposed price hikes in the face of falling quality control. Again, a fun game to play, but i had no idea what i was doing. i expected it to be like BTDK but apart from the crane they weren't too much alike. Colourful. like Aerosmith, i think the colour screen is a pointless waste of money, as i never look at it and would frankly rather have a DMD in orange and black, or in colour as an optional upgrade. Again 7.5/10, again nothing to write home about - if you're a critical seasoned pinhead like me - but will no doubt be very popular with new arrivals to pinball. Oh look, two flippers.
Ghostbusters i'm afraid leaves me cold, and most of the time i was there, nobody was playing it, so i can't be the only one. when we are trying to get more people into pinball, why on earth design a game with a wider flipper gap, an impossible right ramp that looks the same width as a ball, and no obvious direction from the lighting as to what is going on, re starting modes or locking balls etc. several airballs from direct hits on the pop-up thingies just bounced straight back over the flippers to the drain.oh, and 2 flippers at the bottom again. Meh. 6/10, i won't be getting one anytime soon - maybe in 5-8 years if i'm still interested and it drops two thirds in price. shame, as i loved the films and so wanted to love the pin.
Alien, finally, was a breath of fresh air in comparison. ok so it clearly has reliability issues, is late, and displayed some other errors (the video screen didn't fit the panel, the game autolaunched the next player's ball without waiting, a few ball searches, a few balls dribbling off the left ramp, not certan what i was doing - like the other games above) but it was like a different animal. wider cabinet, narrow head, lit up sides, lift-out glass (so the footprint is 2/3 the size and it'd fit in a smaller space), screen in the back and the playfield. 4 flippers. metal ramps. outlanes with rubber posts and way-back-in gates (like Centaur). a weird half-moon ramp on the left (think Spidey sense or Pirates gold) that needs a tweak as it always led to death but could no doubt be fixed. plus a sh1t-ton cheaper than the opposition. and did i mention it has 4 flippers? Coulda been a bit steeper for me, as i like themm faster. a work in progress but still game of the show for me, 8/10 and looking forward to updates. i wouldn't expect to see it ready and shipping before the second half of 2017 though if i'm honest. thank jebus that Andy got it working in time.
here's some videos