What's new
Pinball info

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Stern Venom

I’ve had a good amount of playtime on Venom Pro at @FUNLAND-LONDON now to give it a mini review.


I’m enjoying it, it’s a bit tricky to work out what you have to do, but after 20 or so games it’s a bit easier to work out what to go for.

For maximum points and ease of multiball choose the character that gives two free lock shots. It’s best to risk holding back on multiball until you have at least 4 balls.

Once you start MB try and collect the lit shots in sequence to maximize multipliers on Jackpots. Also try and and bring in Carnage MB by hitting that shot over and over until the main ramp shot is lit.

I managed to unlock Hybrid character by sheer fluke from the mystery scoop. I’m guessing you can unlock him another way?

You can have characters help you in battles , but I’m still not sure what help they give you 🤷🏼‍♂️.

Grendel mini wizard mode is evil. It goes into reverse flipper mode. If you’re not quick enough to realize you’ll lose the ball with no ball saver 😳. Hopefully they will address this with newer code updates.

I have battled against Krull a couple of times. Not sure how I started that, but pretty sure you’ll need to reach level 50 before having access to it.

To light lock shots (which are green lights) you’ll need to go for yellow combo shots first.

The speed of this game is great and very clever how the balls are held on either side of the game to “fast release” them.

I thought the open playfield was a downside at first until I started a 6 ball MB. Wow 😮 that open playfield is very welcome when there are so many balls in play.


Overall I give it a solid 7 out of 10.
Pros - Music, speed and graphics
Cons - Hard to work out what to do and no real interactive toys.

I’m sure the LE/Premium versions are a lot lot more fun as each character changes the trajectory of the ball.
IMG_6360.jpeg
 
Did anyone here get the pro?

The saved progress makes me think it's one I'd play quite a bit on location if I was closer but not sure if that's a negative for lastability at home. I know you can play not saving progress but it's there so you probably don't do that. I'm not a fan of gimmicky stuff like reverse flippers and limited flipper hold time either so not sure if that would get annoying.
 
Jib said:
Did anyone here get the pro?

The saved progress makes me think it's one I'd play quite a bit on location if I was closer but not sure if that's a negative for lastability at home. I know you can play not saving progress but it's there so you probably don't do that. I'm not a fan of gimmicky stuff like reverse flippers and limited flipper hold time either so not sure if that would get annoying.
Click to expand...
The saved progress can actually be a bit of a downside. If you've reached a certain level (30 for Grendel and 50 for Krull) you get to play them straight away rather than the other modes meaning the game can come a little repetitive if you can't actually beat the mode i.e. if you're not a great player and have ground you way up to level 50 experience.

Starting a game from fresh gives you other opportunities to take a different route and explore different routes and options.

I've played a total of 17 games on a Pro and reached level 50 in about 15.

Certainly helped having Nick explain the basics - but more importantly (as I say with every new game) the best way to learn is to play with somebody else and watch what they're doing and what comes up on the screen and then vice versa and discuss. Exponentially quicker than playing on your own, reading instructions or even watching tutorials.
 
Ok a slightly more in-depth reply this morning as I had about 5 Jack and cokes last night and didn't want to have those cloud my judgement.

I can't comment on the Pro, but like @Gonzo I would be disappointed in a barren playfield that doesn't even support the tagline 'choose your host, change the game'. I believe it's Premium/LE or nothing to experience what Brian Eddy put into this game.

Firstly the changing playfield, holy crap! It's not just the middle U shape ramp and right horseshoe shot. The horseshoe does three things, loop return, main loop return and vuk to right rails.

The middle U shape ramp does the three things you can see in the videos, but what I didn't know is there's a diverter it appears on right orbit, and then there's either one or two upkick posts by the pop bumpers. This stops the orbit loop and brings the ball down into the pops, it works to stop the left or right orbit shots.

The music is AMAZING! Some really good heavy metal/rock for some characters then refreshing changes of music style for characters like Gwen Stacy or Peter Parker.

The fast locks are absolutely brilliant, the way you have to select shots on the playfield whilst being fed ball returns from the fast locks makes it feel intense like Hyperball, but with heavy metal and complex rules.

There's some timed shot multiplier thing I haven't worked out yet, and the cancellation of multiball to stack to six balls is a great great risk/reward.

I think this will be a hit when more people play it.
 
Two things working against Venom, one is the carbon copy Eddy fan layout and the other is going to become more and more common IMO and that’s being the release before Elwin.

If your game is the one before Elwins next game, it needs to be firing on all cylinders.

Otherwise people put there feet up and sit back waiting on Elwin, which is exactly what people are doing with Venom, waiting for Jaws.

3A589DD3-9C65-4ED5-BB17-5FCEE05A3E46.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jib
J85M said:
Two things working against Venom, one is the carbon copy Eddy fan layout and the other is going to become more and more common IMO and that’s being the release before Elwin.

If your game is the one before Elwins next game, it needs to be firing on all cylinders.

Otherwise people put there feet up and sit back waiting on Elwin, which is exactly what people are doing with Venom, waiting for Jaws.

View attachment 240070
Click to expand...
When you play the game you'll see why it couldn't be anything other than a fan layout with loads of space in the lower two thirds.

Looking forward to seeing what Jaws is like.
 


NEW CODE! Stern Pinball has posted new Venom v0.95.0 for the Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition models. This code contains numerous game enhancements including a brand new GAME PLAY MENU system utilizing the Action Button between games. The 3 settings are:
BUTTON STARTS GAME PLAY MENU (button will flash ORANGE)
BUTTON STARTS A GAME (button will flash GREEN)
BUTTON STARTS NEITHER (button will be OFF)
In the GAME PLAY MENU, there are 15 different choices for players to select from:

STANDARD - Start a normal game
COOPERATION - Start a Co-op game
IMPOSSIBLE PLAY - Start a game in Impossible Play Mode. No trapping and the game is set to VERY HARD.
MONSTER PLAY - Start a game in Monster Play Mode (Impossible for player one only)
TEAM PLAYER 2v2 - Start a game in TEAM PLAY 2 vs 2 mode. The players need to start a 4 player game.
TEAM PLAYER 3v1 - Start a game in TEAM PLAY 3 vs 1 mode. The players need to start a 4 player game.
TEAM PLAYER 2v1 - Start a game in TEAM PLAY 2 vs 1 mode. The players need to start a 3 player game.
COMPETITION - Start a game in Competition mode. All Randomness will be removed.
PROLONGED COMPETITION - Puts the game into Competition mode until it's powered off or someone changes it. Does not start a game.
RESET ALL PROGRESS - Scan your QR code to reset your saved Progress. Does not affect your Achievements or Badges. Does not start a game.
RESET SPEED RUN - Scan your QR code to reset your Speed Run Only. Does not reset your unlocked host. Does not start a game.
DJ MIXER - Play tunes from the game. Does not start a game.
CHALLENGE MODE LOW - Practice battle against Kull with your level set to 70.
CHALLENGE MODE MEDIUM - Practice battle against Kull with your level set to 50.
CHALLENGE MODE HIGH - Practice battle against Kull with your level set to 30.

This code also contains additional polish, game adjustments, and bug fixes.

Code updates and read me files are available at sternpinball.com/support/game-code/
 
Last edited:
This Gwenom and Wolverine Doppelganger multiball that's been added in .95 seems to use the middle moving ramp in a new way.

Explained from Pinside:

"Not exactly, it's cooler than that. Note: I don't know how this works on the Pro, but this is how it goes on Prem/LE: With Gwenom or Wolverine, you shoot the Argo Lab shot, which loops around to the tunnel under the 180 ramp / Life Foundation, where the post pops up to stop it momentarily. After so many of this shot (I think it's 7 or 8, the screen will tell you), the last time, the post traps the ball BUT THE 180 RAMP THEN ROTATES DOWN, trapping the ball beneath the playfield! The game then launches a new ball and you need to shoot the 180 ramp. If you do, it rotates back up, releasing the hidden ball thereby starting the two ball multiball. The screen will show you a first-person perspective chasing the Doppelganger down the street, and you have to then hit lit shots for jackpots. Very clever use of the rotating ramp!!"

Venom (Stern) Owner's Club. Choose Your Host, Change the Game! | All clubs (...members only!) | Pinside.com

| Forum Topic by friscopinball
pinside.com pinside.com
 
Last edited:
@MadMonzer and I had a bunch of plays on the Venom Pro at Funland.

@MadMonzer’s one-line review: “It didn’t fill me with joy.” My take was that it played like “a freemium mobile phone game transmuted weirdly into physical form”.

Bear in mind, I played the Pro, where nothing really moves - I can’t comment on the Premium/LE. I went through the (moving) replay a couple of times.

The art and music package feel great - lively, colourful and vibrant (which, unfortunately, just adds oddly to the overall mobile phone game feel).

The shots are very smooth. It’s not any faster than, say, TNA or Foo Fighters, but you can just shoot (on the pro) anywhere and the ball will zip around the playfield like it’s on a Star Wars hyperloop (I will refer to other, better games here). This means that aiming is optional, and you can just keep flipping the ball anywhere, without negative consequences.

Obviously, if it had good code, this frictionless play would be an asset. However, the code is not… good.

For starters, nothing is explained, so you get concepts like ‘choose your team-up’ thrown at you randomly, with no idea what a team-up is or the impact of a ‘+1 Miles Morales combo’. I’m sure the score maximisers will have a field day in tournament, but it’s inaccessible on a walk-up play and, from choosing different team-ups and hosts, the differences are marginal (on the Pro).

Added to this, the insert lighting has the slight issue of tiny lights buried next to huge artwork in places, making it harder to gauge the game state at a glance. Take advice from the golden oldies. AFM does this right, people. Huge insert lights with lettering on.

My first play was really fun. I got through a bunch of levels, did three multiballs and was excited to see what I would see next, as the game unravelled its narrative secrets on the way to Level 50. Varied boss fights with timed flipper shots? Increasingly varied and engrossing modes? Then I played a second game… and a third... And I was still getting the exact same Carnage and Mayhem multiballs, with little change or improvement in anything that wasn’t entirely numerical (at one point Stern Insider told me I’d achieved a 5-way combo. After achieving a 3-way and a 4-way one. Should I be impressed? 🤦) I even started a mini-mode - Stern Insider told me, but I hadn’t actually noticed.

I assumed I’d missed something. Eventually, I just trapped up the ball and tried shooting at stuff - lit or unlit - in the hope of starting a big, whoopy whomping mode of multi-levelled awesomeness. But, no, it really was that grindy. Ball after ball, game-after-game, starting the same two mediocre multiballs, spaffing the balls around the playfield like Ferraris on glass, and then getting a set of incomprehensible stats (e.g. infected defeated) that progressed me towards Level 50.

It really does play like a mobile phone game in physical form. If it had offered me a shovel to do three-in-a-row mining sim, or to dig a geometrical field of cabbages, I would have felt the same sense of tedious, pointless repetition in the hope of longer-term excitement.

A miss for me. Genuinely, the worst thing in Funland right now that isn’t broken.
 
Last edited:
Had Ironman and Fish Tales a couple of times, I can't personally see the comparison.

I think you have to understand the rules on Venom, bearing in mind the rule book is something like 30+ pages I think they're trying to achieve something different that you have to grind. For example you probably couldn't get any further because your level was too low.

I think Venom is roguelike, like an Xbox of PlayStation game where you have to grind your levels to unlock things.

Interesting concept. You might be interested in something like this if say your other pins follow more traditional rules.
 
Alpha1 said:
Had Ironman and Fish Tales a couple of times, I can't personally see the comparison.
Click to expand...

Both very ‘knife fight in a phone booth’. Not massively rules-heavy, but the pin is fighting back.

Alpha1 said:
I think you have to understand the rules on Venom, bearing in mind the rule book is something like 30+ pages I think they're trying to achieve something different that you have to grind. For example you probably couldn't get any further because your level was too low.

I think Venom is roguelike, like an Xbox of PlayStation game where you have to grind your levels to unlock things.

Interesting concept.
Click to expand...

Yes, it’s an interesting concept, but it doesn’t work in its current incarnation. I can definitely see Stern putting out another pin, later, that builds on the concept and doesn’t suck.

Just to be clear here, I was going through the replay, so my experience is going to be at the upper end of what’s ‘typical’ for location/at-home plays. Some of the other early reviewers on here are the best players in the UK :).

I know what Venom’s doing wrong. I’m a massive fan of Hades, which is a roguelike, and that keeps your interest through the grinding by giving you titbits that make you want to grind again to unlock more - new weapons and god skills that play radically different, as well as fragments of story. My plays of Venom just didn’t unlock anything interesting. No story, no previews of boss fights, no interesting mini-modes. There was just no reason to play on 🤷‍♂️


I also play board games and a few years ago, designers introduced the idea of ‘legacy campaign games’ (the equivalent concept to roguelikes and Venom). It’s well known that legacy campaign games are a lot harder to design than games that reset on each play. The most successful legacy boards games are based on already solid game mechanisms, and keep constantly unlocking new stuff to keep you engaged - new bits of map, new mechanics, an unfolding rewarding plot.


Venom isn’t based on a solid pre-existing pinball design (Godzilla: Legacy!) and nothing interesting is unlocked either.
 
Last edited:
Interesting you say those things as it probably has the biggest unlockable stuff I've ever seen in the history of pinball with the mini boss modes, boss modes, multiball modes and team ups. I agree it's crap you have to be like level 30+ before you even get to see some of it which could be anywhere from 10-50 games depending on skill level.

I wonder what code version it was at.
 
Alpha1 said:
Interesting you say those things as it probably has the biggest unlockable stuff I've ever seen in the history of pinball with the mini boss modes, boss modes, multiball modes and team ups. I agree it's crap you have to be like level 30+ before you even get to see some of it which could be anywhere from 10-50 games depending on skill level.

I wonder what code version it was at.
Click to expand...
Yes, but if the boss fight is Level 50+ then, from what I understand about Venom, you need to be 2/3rds the way to the wizard mode before you see anything interesting...
 
Alpha1 said:
Out of interest how many games did you play?
Click to expand...
Six…

And at least three of them, I self-sabotaged the last ball because I was bored, but had credits on the machine from replays, so felt obliged to grind onwards.

I had this super-fun Game One and I was expecting to unlock something even-more-super-fun during Game Two, as I was at Level 7 (so a tenth of the way to the end (yay!)) AND had gone through the replay (double yay!), and it just didn’t happen! 😭

Then, I played Game Three… and was still playing the same c**p multiballs. And, by Game four, I still had credits on the machine and did not give a s**t, but kept feeling I had to grind through the game to use up the free credits in the hope of unlocking something interesting.

Honestly, I’ve not been so bored by a legacy game since Charterstone.

 
Last edited:
Maybe it was the level you didn't see much, doesn't change the fact the Pro is crap. They skimped on Foo Fighters too and it's got worse. They could sell a Premium at Pro prices and still makes absolute millions. Be interesting to see if Jaws Pro even has flippers.
 
Alpha1 said:
Maybe it was the level you didn't see much, doesn't change the fact the Pro is crap. They skimped on Foo Fighters too and it's got worse. They could sell a Premium at Pro prices and still makes absolute millions. Be interesting to see if Jaws Pro even has flippers.
Click to expand...
Okay. The problem here is that Stern are selling arcade machines to be played by an average member of the public. The average member of the public is a casual player with an IQ of 100.

I have an IQ of ~130, own pinball machines, watched a tutorial video from the designer beforehand, and went through the on-location replay twice.

So, if I didn’t understand this machine, couldn’t get it to do anything useful, didn’t see anything interesting, and was very VERY bored - this is an abject failure of a game.

If you notice, classic pins like AFM, Twilight Zone and Addams Family actually have pretty complex rulesets, and no one - even young kids - has had any difficulty working out the basics. This is because the artwork, toys, callouts, theme and DMD all support the gameplay and are designed to help new players learn and enjoy the pin.

Even pins like The Hobbit, which has a super-complex ruleset, I’ve enjoyed without knowing what I’m doing - because when I shoot stuff on the pin, things happen, and they’re interesting, cool, non-repetitive things. Thus, I want to play more to see more things - even if I’m not trying to maximise my score. Venom was so grindy, limited and repetitive through what appears to be most of the game, that I will be seeing the ‘shoot strobing shot before carnage multiball’ screen in my sleep tonight - because almost the only f*****g thing you *could* do was playing that flaming multiball over, and over, and over again - even within the same game.
 
Last edited:
I would argue they're probably selling pins just as much to the home market now than actual amusement arcades.

I can't comment on AFM as I've never really played one, but agree TZ is complex but find TAF pretty simple which is probably why most non-pinheads like it so much.

I do feel I'd need more than 6 goes on TZ if I was walking up to it the first time in my life to understand what I was supposed to be doing though.
 
Matt Adams said:
That explains it, I definitely have a sub 100 IQ. To be honest I'm amazed I have made it this far in life, I bow in reverence to your 130 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Click to expand...
Look, I don’t understand most of Godzilla either. And I doubt anyone posting on here has an IQ < 100.

But everyone playing Godzilla, including my young kids, understands that you shoot the building and the bridge, because big monster stomping Tokyo... also, the pin shouts at you to shoot ramps to light monster battle at the scoop and, then, from there, you’ve pretty much worked out the important bits of what to do.

The point is that it wasn’t my failure to understand. It was the failure of the pin. And, if I didn’t understand, there was not a snowball’s chance in Hades of this pin being comprehensible in an arcade - even more so than the average Stern pin (A:IQ isn’t exactly accessible).

No one walks up to something like Williams’ Junkyard, after all, and thinks ‘hmmm, wonder what this pin is about? Wonder what’s a good thing to do that scores a lot of points?’ And that’s not even a good example of a pinball theme 🤷‍♂️
 
Alpha1 said:
I would argue they're probably selling pins just as much to the home market now than actual amusement arcades.

I can't comment on AFM as I've never really played one, but agree TZ is complex but find TAF pretty simple which is probably why most non-pinheads like it so much.

I do feel I'd need more than 6 goes on TZ if I was walking up to it the first time in my life to understand what I was supposed to be doing though.
Click to expand...
Yes, but even if you don’t know what you’re doing on TZ - stuff happens, right? Fun stuff. You get to play with the magnets, or the clock, or a ball routes under the machine and pops out of somewhere. It’s exciting and fun, and you want to play on to see what happens next, and then you learn the game.

If you imagine a barebones playfield, where the code is incomprehensible, and it forces you to grind for multiple games through the same sequences before anything interesting happens… why would anyone persist with the grind?
 
Actually going back to your comment about Hobbit, I think that's a failure of a game. Absolutely terrible layout and rules, I'd happily walk away from it.

Different pins for different people I guess.
VeeMonroe said:
Yes, but even if you don’t know what you’re doing on TZ - stuff happens, right? Fun stuff. You get to play with the magnets, or the clock, or a ball routes under the machine and pops out of somewhere. It’s exciting and fun, and you want to play on to see what happens next, and then you learn the game.

If you imagine a barebones playfield, where the code is incomprehensible, and it forces you to grind for multiple games through the same sequences before anything interesting happens… why would anyone persist with the grind?
Click to expand...

But I think that's probably the Pro, like I say; it's barren and can't even deliver the tagline of the game. The Premium/LE has all that fun mech stuff.
 
Alpha1 said:
Actually going back to your comment about Hobbit, I think that's a failure of a game. Absolutely terrible layout and rules, I'd happily walk away from it.
Click to expand...

I’ve barely played it. I’ve played it a few times at Pinball Office. But it’s superficially fun, right? You get a rotating dragon, and monsters pop up, it seems to follow the plot of the film/book, and it keeps being compared to Lord of the Rings. So, I’m always interested in playing it more to see if it’s actually rubbish once you understand it.

Alpha1 said:
But I think that's probably the Pro, like I say; it's barren and can't even deliver the tagline of the game. The Premium/LE has all that fun mech stuff.
Click to expand...
I agree. I can’t comment on the Prem/LE. It’s possible that the narrative is carried through the moving mechs. Certainly, on the Pro, it was a campaign/legacy/roguelike game with very slow unlocking and where the ‘story’ was ‘number goes up’.

I would not buy a Pro (unless you’re a massive Venom fan).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom