Compression.
That’s my one word first thought after playing The Uncanny X-Men Stern Premium a half-dozen times at the Portland Retrogaming Expo on Saturday 9/28/2024. Bonus, I met the designer, Jack Danger, and briefly congratulated him on the launch of the game live on stream. It was a brief, polite exchange, but who can’t be excited for him, being able to design a game for Stern and see it launched and many people playing it for the first time? Kudos to Jack “Deadflip” Danger.
If you want to skip the setup and get straight to my detailed thoughts here’s the link:
My first thoughts playing The Uncanny X-Men
Some ground rules and background before we get to my detailed first thoughts, the biggest of which is: this is all subject to change. I don’t mean coming back and editing this article (other than grammatical errors, minor word changes), I mean personal opinions and preferences in a game change over time and future articles might conflict and contrast these first thoughts. And, thus, my feelings on these games can change somewhat from my first time playing. Usually, my experience trends more positive the more I play a game and at first tend to be a bit more reactionary and critical. I do try and keep it constructive and not heat up the flames too much, but we all have things we like and dislike. I think only focusing on one, not both, leaves an unrealistic, intellectually dishonest perspective.
Bottom line: it can be fun, but not entirely fair to judge a game that’s only been played a small few times. You really need to play it dozens, maybe 100+ times to get a good overall feeling for the game, its quirks, its strengths, weaknesses and so on. That said, you should keep reading, because I do think sharing our first thoughts playing any game are worthwhile. You never have a second chance for first thoughts, and there can be some really valuable insight into these thoughts.
Now, who am I? If you’ve never read any articles here before, welcome and thanks for stopping by. My name is Todd Russell. I’m the main writer of this wonderful gaming-related website, also editor and not-so-chief. I wear a lot of gaming-related hats, but pinball is definitely among my favorite types of games.
I’ve been playing pinball off and on since I was six years old. It was the very first type of commercial game I ever remember playing. That’s 50 years playing a wide variety of machines. When some were brand new in the 70s – 2000s. I took some time off and away from pinball after selling an Eight Ball, the first pin we owned. and sold a number of years ago (spoiler: it was a horrible experience overall). Earlier this year, my son bought a new in box (NIB) Jaws (Stern 2024) premium and recently as a birthday present to myself, bought NIB Iron Maiden: Legacy of Beast premium. So, I’m not only a long time player, I am an owner of one of these gorgeous pinball machines. With The Uncanny X-Men, I’ve now played all 25 of the Spike 2 Stern pinball machines.
When you first play a pinball game — most any pinball machine, really — your thoughts are raw, undisciplined and subject to great change with repeated plays. This means some or maybe most of what follows is pretty unfiltered, pure and maybe doesn’t fit where I’ll actually land in my ratings at the end of 2024 after dozens more plays. In other words, our opinions evolve with repeated plays on games, as we explore deeper into the rulesets and code. Speaking of code, it changes on these modern Stern pins with the final version.
Lastly, before we get to my first thoughts on The Uncanny X-Men, if you enjoy what follows and want to read more then a) subscribe for free (no ads, no affiliate links, clean), and b) here are some other detailed thoughts after playing articles I’ve written:
- Pulp Fiction SE (2023) Detailed Thoughts after Flipping On Location
- John Wick Pro + Premium (Stern 2024 v0.81 code) Detailed Thoughts after Flipping On Location + Show
- Labyrinth (Barrels of Fun 2023) Detailed Thoughts after Flipping On Location
- Looney Tunes (Spooky 2024) Detailed Thoughts after Flipping On Location
Some that missed the cut: Jaws, because that machine received a massive write-up (nearly 10,000 words) on HUO, featured here: Our Son Bought a New In Box Jaws Stern Premium – The First 40 Days of Ownership – What’s the Experience Really Like? and Elton John (JJP), although I’ve written favorably on playing Elton John, particularly the improved flipper, the amazing lighting and my adoration for that game, and critically that EJ doesn’t include a connected system like Stern’s Insider Connected (see: OPINION: Stern Pinball has Feature Every Modern Pinball Needs).
Yes, I’m biased against modern pinball without connected features. JJP has a share your high score picture thing on social media thing that’s somewhat cool, but they took out the Scorbit integration, that’s a huge miss. Spooky, Chicago Gaming Company, The Pinball Brothers, Dutch, Stern’s primary competitors are all lagging in this department. They need to do much, much more. Pinball, and these are Gary Stern’s words, not mine, is “a box on four legs” without some sort of internet-connected system. Toasters are connected, so why not $7,000-$15,000+ pinball machines?
We can invoke this screed another day, but if you’re reading this as a competitor of Stern, someone inside that can make a difference, our family could be your customer. If you want the business, anyway.
Ok, enough setup, let’s get to The Uncanny X-Men.
Stern The Uncanny X-Men Detailed First Thoughts after Playing On Location
LIKE- Theme
Being a huge comic book fan as a kid, but much less so as an adult, I like the theme, but don’t love it. X-Men has been done before by Stern, a mere 12 years or so ago (X-Men (Pro) Pinball Machine (Stern, 2012) | Pinside Game Archive). I’ve played that game a bit and of the Marvel games, it’s not one I actively seek to play.
It’s a decent, slightly above average game (#76 on Pinside top 100 as of this writing, pictured above), but the problem with repeating themes is there can be diminishing values in the newest version. Example, how many Star Wars pins have there been now? I think the more a theme is recycled and refreshed, the less interesting, on theme alone, it becomes.
X-Men are also a problem as a theme because which X-Men do you focus on? There are so many of them, it can make the game crowded.
On a positive note, The Uncanny X-Men is based on the Days of Future Past comics story arc. Particularly issue 141 and 142. You can read those digitally through Marvel Unlimited. They were running a promo recently and I jumped in for $3/month (regularly it’s $9.99/month). I like this story arc and it’s great fodder for a pinball machine theme.
Recently, on Humpday Wednesday #59 (see: The Uncanny X-Men Wishlist vs. Reality +FX Tournaments + Humpday Wednesday #59) I ranked The Uncanny X-Men at #6 out of the last 11 Stern Spike 2 games for theme. It’s middle of the road theme-wise compared to better themes like Godzilla, Jaws, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and James Bond, but it’s better than the last Stern game: John Wick and, compared to Marvel, a better theme than Venom.
Unless I’m planning on buying the game to bring home, theme isn’t a big a deal to me. I have enjoyed plenty of pinball games over the years when the theme isn’t my favorite. That said, again, I do like X-Men as a theme. Overall, it just feels to me a bit played out for pinball, especially being Stern rang this bell within the last 20 years with a good (not great) game.4
Could a repeating theme bring a better game? Sure. Let’s find out if The Uncanny X-Men delivers.
MIXED – Playfield Design, Mechs & Toys
When I first saw pictures and vids of The Uncanny X-Men I really liked the creativity of The Danger Room in the lower left corner, a serious breakaway from the traditional (safe, but boring) Italian layout. Upon, playing the game a half dozen times, it struck me as being too compressed. Everything is too active and aggressive in/around and too close to the primary bottom flippers.
The offset main flippers to accommodate The Danger Room are not as distracting as they might look, you don’t feel like “hey, this isn’t centered!” but the picture makes you think when playing you’ll be very concerned instead.
No, a much bigger issue is how fast the ball is on you. It’s like it’s stalking the drain spots a little too much. I had a hard time following the ball at times, because at one point it was right at the flipper, then rolling around behind the flippers to the Danger Room then jumping out in front of the flippers. This made the game seem excessively brutal in/around the flipper area. I’m ok with games being hard, but with my aging poor eyesight, I also need to feel like I have a chance to track the ball to react.
This could have been helped by a smaller gap between the main flippers and/or a bigger post between the flippers. That post sucks, sorry, it’s the worst part of playing the game. Ball goes down toward it and you think: “hey, this is going to bounce back into the playfield, but instead it just angles off most of the time and drains. Why is it there? Give us a center post that actually gives the player an actual edge, instead of a distraction. I’d rather it not be there at all in its present gameplay condition and have a slightly shorter gap between the two flippers. I didn’t like this at all. How else could this be better? Bigger post with bigger rubber band around it, will make the ball bounce more against gravity versus with gravity. This game doesn’t need to be harder to center drain with the amount of busyness and compression in/around the flippers, it needs to be a little easier.
Love the motorized Sentinel. It comes up and feels very satisfying bashing it. Like bashing this almost as much as the shark in Jaws and the more static car in John Wick (yes, something positive for John Wick pro). The Sentinel placement is good, too, making for a cradled flipper shot to hit it square it with relative ease.
I haven’t played the pro yet to compare versions, although there were pros at the show right next to the premium, I spent all my time playing the premium version. I’d imagine not having the motorized Sentinel going up and down on the playfield is a minor factor in the actual gameplay. It can’t be as dramatic as the building in Godzilla, so not sure this is a major reason to buy the premium over the pro.
Also, the Sentinel hands breaking the ramp? Neither of us saw that happening very much in our limited number of games. It’s possible we weren’t playing the game right to activate this, but, again, this seemed more gimmicky to me than a noteworthy premium feature.
We did experience the finger stopping the ball and ejecting it back along the ramp. I liked that.
Drop targets that, well, drop, are important to me and the premium Sterns have drop targets when the pro does not. Are they worth $2,000+ in the premium vs. pro? That’s an individual decision. Here? I’m leaning pro is OK sans drop targets, motorized Sentinel head and hands collapsing the bridge. Maybe after playing the pro a few times I’ll miss these toys, mechs and features more, but as of this writing, it’s a no.
LIKE – Translite, Side and Playfield Artwork
Stern modern artwork almost never disappoints and The Uncanny X-Men is no exception. Think I slightly prefer John Wick’s artwork by Randy Martinez over Zombie Yeti’s on X-Men, but both are stunning. I think the purplish color scheme Zombie Yeti used on X-Men is spot on. It really has a premium, pardon the pun, feel.
LIKE – Plunger / Skill Shots
There are skill shots and the plunger is part of the game. This box is firmly checked. I didn’t know what to do intuitively, so that might be something the team can work on going forward as the develop the final code.
MIXED – Gameplay Flow
The flow is good in the top third, a bit off in the middle third and poor in the bottom third. I kept saying in the livestream “too much compression” and indeed this plagues the bottom third, or the most important part of keeping the ball in play.
The bottom third gameplay negatively impacts my feelings on this game. I do like the ideas and concepts, but felt the overall execution was mixed. Sometimes it was cool, others it was too frustrating.
LIKE – scoring
Although the scoring is a little lower in this one, it feels like it fits the game. Normally, I’m pro higher scoring, but I was able within a small few games to score more than 100 million, which makes me think scoring a billion+ on this game, once the code is fully implemented and comfort and experience with the game is more likely than not.
MIXED – LCD movie assets and callouts
Several people, including myself, were underwhelmed with the videos, pictures and streams of the video animation assets, but strangely in person playing, I didn’t find anything wrong with the LCD animations. They looked good, but what they lacked was any connection to the comic book. That’s the problem, style, I guess. It didn’t bother me while playing the game, but watching others play the game, it still bugs me somewhat.
Why didn’t they license the animated TV show and use some of those clips the way they use clips in Jaws and John Wick? I think original animations are polarizing for comic book pinball people.
When you play the game, however, at least I wasn’t bothered by these more modern, if you will, animations.
As for the callouts? They were also too few in number. Stern tends to add more of these after launching their games in future code updates, so this is something that will be improved, similar to how John Wick has gotten much better with callouts. It’s like adding callouts is a low priority on new Sterns, save for Jaws that launched with good callouts (some criticized Dreyfus lack of excitement, but his voice really fits), but they do get around to doing it in time. I think the callouts will improve on X-Men to the point this won’t be an issue.
The animation, however, if you don’t like it the way it is now? It seems doubtful they will gut these animations and add new ones. We’ll see.
*NO RATING – Music/sounds
The sound effects I did hear were OK, the music was non-audible, I can’t rate this part of the experience based on the venue I played the game. This is my first NO RATING for any of these first thoughts which essentially is saying, I need to play this in a more quiet venue. I’m spoiled by playing games in a home setting where you really hear how good these games can sound.
The problem in playing in loud or noisy ambience situations is you can’t really put your head against the speaker and hear the sound. Conversely, Jaws premium we played in the same venue must have had the volume maxed, because it was too freaking loud. X-Men was turned down, it seemed, perhaps on purpose(?)
It’s one thing that I think about most pinball played on location that is disappointing vs. home: sound. This is a huge thing with pinball, but when you put a bunch of pinball machines in a room and everybody is playing them at competing volumes, you end up with mostly white noise.
So, I can’t rate here what’s one of the more controversial points on X-Men: the music. I’ve heard that they might be redoing it (?) If so, I can’t weigh one side or another on this where I played.
LIKE – Lighting
The lighting in X-Men is better than the other two games this year: Jaws, which is bland and boring and John Wick, which is better, but not as good as this. I mean, X-Men really does some cool effects. Not quite JJP Godfather RGB lighting sweep effects, but there some lighting moments when you stop and say, “cool!” with X-Men. My son and I both enjoyed when the lights turn blue and you see enter the future mode. Very cool.
DISLIKE – Additional Game/Video Modes
Where are the video modes? I didn’t mention this in the live stream, but was left thinking: hey, this would be a cool place for a video mode and … there aren’t any. Not that I saw. Nothing to interact with. What’s the point of having an action button if there are no video modes using the action button? Is it merely there to be/look consistent with the other newer Stern’s that use action buttons and the menu system, which, to be fair is easier to navigate with the action button.
My Iron Maiden premium didn’t come with an action button — there are mods to add one — and it doesn’t have video modes either, which I think is one weakness in that game. Stern’s last two games, John Wick and now X-Men don’t have video challenge modes — yet, anyway — and this is a major disappointment.
These other Stern teams — are you listening, Jack Danger? — need to copy what Elwin’s team are doing with creative, fun challenge modes. Jaws launched with Shark Hunter, but Wick and X-Men launch with … nothing. In fairness to Jack, X-Men was rushed out ahead of schedule according to George Gomez. This could mean there are challenge modes coming further down the line.
*LIKE – Connected features
I put an asterisk next to the “like” on this one because at launch we don’t know of any new, innovative connected features, but Stern is #1 by a mile with their Insider Connected platform, so I’m fairly certain some cool interactive badges and achievements will be coming. Just the fact that it launches with IC is a like from me, but, yes, I don’t want complacency here. Stern needs to do something like they did with John Wick contracts or the amazing challenge modes they’ve added with Jaws.
DISLIKE – Pricing
Modern pinball machines are too darn expensive. Most of us that don’t work for these companies or have some business relationship are saying this loud and clear, but we’re not being heard very well.
I think Turner, a tiny newcomer player, with their Ninja Eclipse, is trying to listen. They went back to the drawing board with their machine and lowered the price, added more features — including their own connected Insider Connected-like system — we’re asking for, now all they need is a compelling IP. Not sure how well an original pinball theme can/will do, but I like what Turner is trying to do, anyway. And no, I haven’t played a Ninja Eclipse yet. Was hoping there would be one at the Portland Retrogaming Expo, but the pinball selection there was somewhat limited.
We get it, these wonderful machines are expensive to make, but unless you’ve got a bunch of disposable income or you crazily want to run up debt (ill-advised), these games aren’t very affordable. Yes, I realize our family has bought two new in box games this year, so this might sound very hypocritical whining about pricing and yet paying the NIB asking prices, but you don’t know me very well if you think that’s the case here. Again, I don’t like their pricing and don’t get me started on Jersey Jack Pricing or we might be here another 2,000 words. Pretty much dislike all modern pinball pricing.
These games, from a value standpoint are worth — IMO — around the Stern home pin pricing of $5,000. Can they be made for that and Stern continue to exist and grow? Probably not, says Stern I’m sure (didn’t ask them, just a guess on my part), but in good conscience, I can’t say to others that these games should cost $7,000 (pro), $9,699 (premium) and $13,000 (LE) USD.
If they lowered the prices down to something like $2,999 (home), $4,999 (pro), $5,999 (premium) and $6,999 (LE) I think they’d sell a lot more of these. Especially in these harder financial times. I don’t work for Stern and they almost certainly won’t listen to me, but there’s my advice for what it’s worth.
Overall early feelings – Not interested at this time in buying, interested in playing more
Grade: B-
My gut tells me to grade this C+, but am going to go with B- because I think once Jack Danger and his team catch up with the premature release, they are going to make The Uncanny X-Men into more of a winner than the so-so slightly above average game it plays at launch. It’s a better game than the last X-Men (2012), but not by much at this point. It’s better to me than John Wick and I like it already more than Venom, after only a half dozen or so plays.
No, I don’t want to buy The Uncanny X-Men. Don’t have any buyer’s remorse for Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast (love that game and looking forward to playing it much, much more) and Jaws is the clear Stern winner in the 2024 new pinball machine releases this year, but who knows what else they might do in 2024 with the 40th Anniversary Pinball Expo in Chicago. Will we see Metallica vault on the new Spike 3? Or something else? Or, perhaps the most likely scenario, since it’s literally three weeks away, more of The Uncanny X-Men.
Speaking of Stern and new game releases, should we talk about there being too many? Really, do we need three or four new pinball games from Stern every calendar year? Wouldn’t it be better to have 1 or 2 that are more complete releases? I mean, they haven’t really improved any of their new releases from Jaws and that game is amazing. Why did we need to have two more games from them in 2024? Maybe just this one, The Uncanny X-Men, at the show along with Jaws at the start of 2024?
Maybe that’s the rest of 2024. Maybe nothing more new from them until 2025. If so, am OK with that. Others reading might be like, “no, I want more, more, more.” I ask you in the comments to tell me why? Why should we see more unfinished, premature Stern pinball releases? Let them bake that pie more in that oven and deliver it when it’s hot and ready, not when the center is still kind of raw.
Stern is too scattershot with their new releases. They would be wiser to cut back on their cornerstones in 2025. Sure, it might allow their competitors to steal some marketing spotlight but isn’t it better to release games when they are ready versus rushing them and having people like me say, “think I’ll wait and see.” I’d rather buy an older, more established pinball game from Stern with completed code for the kind of money these games cost than a new one that has potential someday in the future.
UPDATE 10/3/2024 @ 9:50am PST: Cooltoy Doug offers his first time playing take which differs in opinion many ways from mine (he likes that center post, for example), embedded below:
Bob