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First thoughts on playing a JJP Wizard of Oz.

replicas

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Jul 21, 2011
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Lancashire
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Nipper Pinball
Well I have just got back from Phils at Pinball Heaven and being pretty lucky to have had a few games on WOZ .
First thoughts ? Well I stood there just looking at it for ages as it was certainly a beautiful piece of kit and stunning to the eye, in fact eye candy was not a good enough word for it.
As most of you know I was not its biggest fan when it was known that Wizard of Oz would be JJP first machine, Gay theme and all. But as the machine developed and started to look like a quality item I slowly started to warm to it. The only thing I was dreading was the music of "we're off to see the Wizard" and such like. Could I stand to play a machine that blurted out that ?
This was one of the things that was with me as I pressed the start button..................
I fired the ball into play and wow, it felt even better to play than what I could have ever imagined,. Do you remember that first time you played on the TAF or TZ in your local pub way back in the early 90's ? Well that's what I was experiencing while I was playing. Quality parts that felt solid and that feeling of playing a brand new WMS machines.
This is one great looking machine and the colours from the hundreds of inserts on the playfield was a great light show. Code is far from finished but its enough to give you the feeling of this can be a cracking game. Oh and that music, I didn't even notice it . Its there but well into the back ground as well as plenty other sounds its not bad at all.
The screen was also pretty neat and showed you plenty of info of what to shoot for, all machines will have this soon.
Overall VERY impressed and if you are not going to see and play this Sunday then you will be missing out big time.
Wizard of Oz rocks.
Lucky Git D.
 
Thanks for the info Daz, very interesting to read. Music and audio was my concern but quite looking forward to seeing and playing this on Sunday now.
 
Definitely good to read a review from someone I know. Good job dude!

Jonathan will be dancing around his living room, and why not!
 
Great review and a valued one coming from you as I know you know your onions, feels like a new Williams, now that is music to my ears : - ) things are looking up for pinball.
 
Well ive been to see the wizard, got a heart, brains and courage and it helped me get home. Or was that tom-tom.
Big thanks to Phil at PB Heaven for letting us all have a play and providing us beer and food.
Well not woz, but wow!
What a stunning looking machine as Daz said. It looks beautiful if you can apply that to a machine. Its lovely to hold ( resting your hands on the powder coated lockdown bar) Im not some pinball perv ill have you know! The cab art work is gorgeous and will probably last as its clear coated on.
Theres plenty going on, on the play field and the music doesnt seem to bother you either. The lcd screen loks great when your standing watching and will probably be a valuable tool in diagnostic but I didnt seem to look at it much during a game as there was so much going on. We did manage to break it somehow, but a new fuse soon restored play. It did give us a chance to look under the hood, and its a lot different to most pins.
Well I wouldnt swop my acdc for one but if I did have some spare wonga then its a lovely machine to own (may make stern up their game)and should provide Jonathan with hours of fun.
Everyone refers to it as the woz machine but surely it should be woo??

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Couple extra photos. Big thanks to Phil for arranging today, can't wait to get my machine now

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Really wanted to go see this, but i was dying this morning and couldnt face the car journey. Curse that bottle of cognac....
 
Thanks to Phil for putting on a nice launch event. Not something you would usually expect to see in the North West.

It was a great excuse to get out, look at a nice new pin and chat with the fellow pinheads :)


So the Wizard of Oz was a very interesting game.

The quality of construction clearly blows away anything made by Stern (hopefully this will make them up their game!)

The playfield was fantastic, really colourful, really different, with lots of unique features. I'm sure everyone who is better with words will write a better review than me thankfully, but Jersey Jack Pinball have made something to be proud of. Wizard of Oz is not the theme for me personally, but from what I have seen, if I was ever financially in a position to buy a machine in this price bracket then I would certainly be looking to see what games Jersey Jack had on offer at the time.

The only thing I did not like was the LCD backbox. It's a personal preference, but to me the backbox should just be for scores. The table played quite fast and there was no time to look up at the backbox and see what was going on. It's sometimes hard to keep up with the masses of information being displayed on DMD's let alone on Tron (look at how crazy and brief the messages get on a Stern Tron when there is a multiball going) less information is better in this department for me.

Thanks again Phil and everyone else :)
 
One thing I immediately noticed was the similarity in layout with TZ. Not a bad thing though
 
What a great day first a massive thank you to phill @ pinball heaven for inviting us to see and play these games and for his hospitality,as for the game itself well built,looked great and played great even though the code wasn't complete ,the shots are smooth and well thought out,the raised smaller play-fields add another dimension to the game play.
The back box looks good with led lighting that highlighted the back glass rather than the same old harsh strip lamp of stern machines,led inserts on game very bright and the GI a little dim so in spots couldn't see ball but overall fantastic and the music was ok too didn't bug me at all ,hey Gary stern take note its time to up ya game!!
 
Great game, it would have nice to see it with completed software. But in the whole a beautiful and solidly built table with a great theme. Many thanks to Phil from Pinball Heaven for sorting out a top event.
 
i just got back from the trade show in London, where i got to see and play a WOZ today, and i liked it a lot too. i think it was Jonathan that said it reminded him of TZ in the layout, and i agree with him. the Jersey Jack stand was busy all the time, and there were loads of pinheads there (including GrizZ and replicas) so i got to hearing loads of opinions, and i think they were about 95% positive, which can't be bad. Jack showed me a picture of The Hobbit on his phone, and i'm sure he'll have no bother selling it, to pinheads at least.

pros:
the build quality is outstanding, it just looks and feels sturdy and well built. there were no wobbling bits of metal, or pieces that looked like they would break, and the playfield is gloriously colourful without being garish (ok maybe a little garish).
the colourful lightshow is spectacular.
the sound, bizarrely, was not offputting at all, i never heard Glinda once (hurrah!) and when the Wicked Witch called out, it was ace!
it feels oldschool rather than the result of cost-cutting - it has rollovers (for the Scarecrow, Lion and TinMan), magnets, 5 flippers, and two mini playfields. plus a 'flying' monkey toy. and a melting witch toy. and a spinning house toy.
the crystal ball, with a video screen behind it, is a masterstroke in my opinion. i'm sure a bit of tweaking could make this even better, as right now there's no software for it, and the field of view for it is narrow. i reckon they missed a trick by not putting a camera in somewhere so the player himself could be in there, but maybe that's a good after-sales mod for someone clever to work on.
the invisiglass does it's job - not a single reflection, and it was a bright room with ceiling lights.


cons:
i don't like the LCD display, i think it's too big, and it slows things down too much, more so than DMD animations do.
(not really a con in the long term) today because it was there for showing off, and because the software is still a long way off, all the lights were on all the time, so no help from the playfield of what shots to make. similarly, no software installed for skill shots.
(probably to do with software again) the topper was a bit crap and didn't do anything, which i thought it was gonna. and i was expecting to feel a shaker motor but i don't remember one.



that's all i can think of for now. the only other pins at the show were 2 XMen games and 2 The Avengers games. I couldn't tell them apart, to be honest, they played the same and looked the same. maybe the next Stern pin will be The Hulk? or perhaps it could be Wolverine? after one game on Avengers, i didn't bother having another even though nobody was waiting. i'm sure some people will love it, but it just felt cheap and flimsy to me, especially after playing WOZ.

looking forward to playing it again when it has rules and stuff in it.

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WOZ looked great, and yes I'll go along with the now standard blurb ... build quality is superb . What I didn't get from the few games I had was much feeling of excitement .... it all felt a little ponderous (sp?). Of course the software is waaaay off being complete . At present its next to impossible to tell what is going on, and the backbox screen for all its size does little to help. I agree with Dan, its too big and in my opinion ruins the look of the game. Playfield = amazing .....backbox = meh.

In comparison I played a couple of games of Avengers Pro and it got the old GrizZ adrenaline pumping. Fresh layout helped make the basically 'more of the same old' Stern rules seem less old and it was perfectly good fun. They just need to make ALL their games the LE editions and stop with this stripped down nonsense.

As it stands Stern are cranking out 3 games a year, and long may they continue, I don't really give a flying F Bomb about build quality and rinky dinky toys, as long as the game is FUN and EXCITING to play. Right now the verdict is out on WOZ, the potential is there, it looks the part, and if the software delivers then hopefully YAY ! Its looking promising for The Hobbit.
 
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