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Pinball Expo 2016

Arrived in Chicago yesterday, and the immigration man was mildly surprised at my answer to why I was visiting Chicago. "Pinball. Do they still make them?"

And you'd be forgiven for thinking that I had got the wrong place when I got to the Expo hotel. No sign of anything pinball at all:

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Lots of emerging leaders though, and I wasn't going to mess with the Na Chun Taste Panel or the Super Jake Foundation Tasters.

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But by this morning things started to look a little better. There will definitely be some Pin Ball

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That's the tournament machines being set up:

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I've also been over to the imitation Hooters restaurant next door called Twin Peaks where Heighway Pinball will be having its Alien launch party tomorrow. Photoing the girls is not encouraged, and probably just as well as... well lets just say that some of them look like they drink river water and eat squirrel meats.

Fizzy American beer served at sub-zero temperatures so the water in it starts to freeze into little icebergs in the glass is nice though. It's not a bad sports bar and should be an excellent venue for a bunch of pinheads who want to drink beer and will more interested in Alien than hooters.

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Thanks for the updates Paul. Please keep them coming!! Have a great time - only wish I was there too. [emoji1]
 
Going to the glass curtain gallery this morn for an exhibition of pinball art.
Prob see you guys later at heighway reveal.
 
who's going to the stern factory tour?

here are some pictures from yesterday. Have to say the NLP pinball turnout seems to be way better than expo!

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Finally met up with Neil and his wife Mandy, and tried to drink the jetlag away in the bar yesterday afternoon. Which was nice, but ill-advised, and led to a slightly surreal Welcome Dinner event where I was sat next to the wonderful and slightly surreal Koi Morris who had spent the previous 11 hours riding every stop on the Chicago elevated rail system.

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Big day coming up with the Stern factory tour, followed by the JJP unveiling with Pat Lawlor, and then the Alien launch party.

I bumped in to Andrew lurking in a back room in the hotel where he was tending to a couple of machines, so hopefully they will be at the launch party tonight.

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From what I gather Planetary are not going to announce a new remake (AFM) at Expo, and Dutch Pinball have withdrawn so I guess they wont be giving out details of their second game. Still, Alien, JJP3, Batman 66 is not bad to be getting on with,

Laters...
 
So the Brits formed a posse and skipped the school buses - David Blake was kind enough to give me, Neil and Mandy a lift to the Stern factory in Lunt Avenue. Amazingly noone has bothered to make the obvious alteration to the Lunt Avenue sign.

Stern had set up a big stage with a Spider Man background with a Mellony Melon figure on one side and a Gary Stern one on the other

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So naturally that called for a photo op with Mellony

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and Whoa Nellie's artist Greg Freres

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who is a diamond bloke. He ended up being the tour guide for our group,but sadly no photos were allowed on the tour. We saw plenty of MMr being made, lots of GB, a few Batman 66 cabinets in evidence, and even a WWE, bizarrely.

There's been some talk of Stern doing a Jaws game, so it was Quite Interesting to see some schematics with the code name Jaws on them. Turns out Jaws is the codename for Batman 66. Ghostbusters code name is Harold.

Anyway, the factory tour was great as usual, but with a final twist.

Right at the end was George Gomez who told us we could take our cameras out and take as many pictures as we wanted of the new Batman 66 - SLE, LE and Premium.

I have to say the SLE is an absolute beauty. Special proprietary metallic mirrored decals, lots of toys including a TV on the playfield, and a cool topper which projects the bat sign on to the ceiling or wall near the machine - you can alter the direction and focus the beam.

Here's the metallic decal

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and you can see the metallic trim speccled with silver

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Looks better in real life than in the photo.

Here's the bat sign projected onto the wall of the factory from the topper:

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Goerge Gomez looks very pleased with the colour screen on the machine

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But the playfield was hard to photograph with so many people and the glass on. Here is a new part at the top left of the playfield - a Gilligans Island or Addams bookcase style rotating disk with a batmobile on top
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And you can just about see the TV on the playfield

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The rest of the photos of the playfield are rubbish but I think Stern has some on the Facebook page. Still, overall impression of the SLE is that it is amazing. Not seen it flipping though.

Seven and a half hours till the big JJP reveal...
 
Mfresh said:
. Turns out Jaws is the codename for Batman 66. Ghostbusters code name is Harold.
Click to expand...

I bet they told you that because someone left the schematic lying about. "Yeah, its erm...codenames. Yep....thats it. Harold...LMAO."
 
Rus121 said:
Get a sneaky pic from under the cab and ill send you something special. ;):cool:
Click to expand...

Can't get near enough to get an upskirt of the cab without being shouted at by people guarding them. Does look like there is a power switch of some kind right on the front below the coin door though....
 
They just kicked everyone out of the room


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
So they finally let us back in to the hall, standing room only at the back. Never seen so many people in an Expo room. Jack gave a short speech thanking everyone, and then handed over to Pat Lawlor, who wasn't wearing a hat for a change. He was really excited and upbeat, and started talking about attention to detail.

Then he talked about how in the old days a game was made by a team of 6, but now it is more like 25 people on three continents.

Then it was "I'm back!"

The new game is built around a new platform, which has no boards in the cabinet itself, leaving more room for big mechanisms under the playfield.

There is a headphone jack on the front, and the switch I mentioned before on the front is a volume switch, so you can adjust the volume at home without having to open the door. Operators can disable the switch in software so the volume is controlled insode the door if they want.

The new platform has bigger better speakers with a better frequency range apparently. And the monitor swings out of the way (to the left or to the right) so you can easily work on the boards from either side. The artwork is all over the apron, and the machine comes with two metal rectangles that you can put over the artwork to hold the price and rules card if you want, or if you are a home user you can do without the and have more art on the apron.

So, the game itself.

It is called Dialled In, and takes place in Quantum City, which he described as an alternate universe disaster city of the future. In it there is a ridiculously powerful phone that can "dial up stuff."

The phone is on the playfield and needs charging by hitting a moving target. Calls come in and so on
 
The machine also has a camera so in super selfie mode it takes pictures of you which appear on the backbox screen. There's also an NFC point on the apron(or on the glass above the apron) so you can connect your phone. Then in multiball mode you can control the flippers with your phone. Not sure why you would do that but Pat said it gives you other features.

There are other touches like in multiball the flippers twitch if you try to cradle two balls in one flipper so basically you cant do that.

The graphics on the backbox screen remind me of Sim City or Roller Coaster Tycoon.

But I did get to play it and it was amazing. Great shots, upper right flipper, really felt good. I don't know how finished the rules are butJack said it will ship in Q2 2017 with completed code. US price is $9k, with $250 deposit reserving you a spot, and an LE with fancy armour and more toys for $12k I think. Dunno what the prices will be in the UK.

Overall it looks gimicky but really really good.
 
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