Jersey Jack Pinball clearly makes great looking pinball machines.
Their games often stop you walking by to gawk at the art and presentation.
Especially their lighting. The JJP lighting and artwork rarely disappoints and Avatar is no exception. This game looks in person just as gorgeous as video and pictures (see: The Conflicting Pinball Promotional Videos: Avatar vs. The Uncanny X-Men)
Recently, I finally got to see and play an Avatar Limited Edition in person. It was in a heavy main traffic area at Next Level Pinball in Hillsboro, Oregon. It’s our go-to on location place for all the new games (Next Level Pinball, Voted the Best Arcade In the World 3 Years in a Row, Expands with 7,000 Square Feet More Gaming). Was hoping I might sneak a peek also of the new Stern Metallica LE, but alas they only had the old Metallica when we were there. They’ll get that too, and set it up in their Stern pinball alley that literally features every single Spike 2 Stern game and all are Insider Connected.
Avatar. How does it play? Like I’ve been doing with other new games, I’m giving you my detailed first thoughts after flipping.
Avatar continues to blow people away in looks and price but what about the gameplay?
JJP games started playing better with Elton John fixing the weak flippers, but has Avatar continued this trend? We’ll get to that shortly.
Sadly, with Godfather they took out the connected features (see: OPINION: Stern Pinball has Feature Every Modern Pinball Needs). Add all this up and it’s hard to decide whether or not to be a JJP customer and buy one of these machines.
When buying, here’s what we need to give up:
- Mo money – yes, these costs $12,000 for $15,000 for the limited edition. That’s the price of two NIB Stern pros for the price of the top end model JJP Avatar or Elton John.
- Connected pinball – this is the Achille’s heel of JJP. They dumped Scorbit in April 2023 and haven’t come out with any sort of answer to it since. Yes, you can add it yourself, but it’s disappointing for the most expensive pinball machines being sold (ok, Stern’ LEs cost $13,000, which is $1,000 more than the least expensive new in box JJP at $12,000).
Lastly, before we get to my first thoughts on Avatar, 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:
- The Uncanny X-Men (Stern 2024) Premium Detailed Thoughts after Flipping On Location
- 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
Avatar Detailed First Thoughts After Flipping on Location
MIXED – Theme
This isn’t the first time Avatar has been made into a pinball theme, which hurts it somewhat in my eyes. Stern made an Avatar in 2010 (Pinside listing: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/avatar). I have played that Stern Avatar and was underwhelmed.
I almost put this as a dislike for theme, because Avatar, despite its box office prowess, feels like it doesn’t deserve two pinball machines in less than 15 years. I have enjoyed the Avatar movies, but they aren’t rewatch movies to me. They are one time, in theater experiences. The visuals of these movie are breathtaking but it’s the movie-watching equivalent of eating a candy bar when you are hungry for dinner. Your appetite will kinda be sated, but you’ll still be a little hungry.
No more Avatar themed pinball machines in my lifetime, hopefully.
MIXED – Playfield Design, Mechs & Toys
The playfield looks like it has a lot more going on than it really does. There is a cool loop you can hit with the upper right flipper, a couple somewhat steep ramps, an auto plunger far left lane and the biggie: the mini playfield with smaller ball underneath and to the lower right of the game. In multiple games, I never figured out how to get down there, so can’t say one way or another what I think of playing that area.
LOVE – Translite, Side and Playfield Artwork
Can’t see a world where anybody doesn’t think the Avatar art package is amazing.
LIKE – Plunger / Skill Shots
It has plunger skill shots. This is a pretty easy bar for me: have a plunger, use it for skill shots, make the skill shots have some sort of strategy. Avatar has us covered here.
DISLIKE – Gameplay Flow
I didn’t care much for the flow on this one. Lots of bricked shots and was having a ton of trouble making it up ramps with the weak flippers. Other PGM members played this game at the show and didn’t complain about the flipper strength, so maybe this was an operator setup issue, but the flippers on the one Avatar LE I played were not good. They reminded me of GNR, Hobbit, Dialed In, pretty much every game except for Elton John.
You can’t have flow on a game when struggling to make shots.
I asked a friend that lives near Next Level Pinball to check out Avatar himself. What did he think? He agreed that the flippers were weak. So, they are 0 for 2. Not just me seeing this and this is a fatal blow to any pinball game when you have flippers that feel limp to make shots. I thought JJP had this figured out with Elton John because that game’s flippers are good, but no, not here.
To JJP, and all other pinball manufacturers besides Stern: if you can’t do your flippers right, then get out of this business. We don’t like playing games with impotent flippers!
LIKE – scoring
The last two JJP games, Elton John and this one have good, higher scoring, unlike the games before this, so good news here. I think JJP has gotten the message that some of us are underwhelmed by lower scoring modern games. Crossing fingers. I realize this is a nitpick others may not care about, if this means nothing to you, skip this paragraph.
LIKE – LCD movie assets and callouts
This is an area where Avatar shines. I really like the bigger LCD screen on JJP. Maybe with Spike 3, Stern will have a bigger LCD? I’ve seen some say they want to keep the translite the way it is, not have a bigger Stern LCD, but I’m not in that group. I really like the JJP LCD. It could be a little brighter, I guess, but maybe that’s an operator setting and by default it’s turned a bit dim on purpose not to reflect too much on the glass. I’d make it a bit brighter and vibrant, if possible, but the JJP LCDs are a significant improvement over any other pinball manufacturer, including Stern.
*NO RATING – Music/sounds
Asterisk here. Too freaking loud on location, could not hear the sounds of this game. This is one of a very small few bummers about location play. It was more crowded at Next Level Pinball than we’ve ever seen before, so crowd noise was drowning games. I would like to play Avatar in a quieter room/setting.
LOVE – Lighting
Avatar has gorgeous lighting. I mean, you will marvel at some of the modes where the RGB cascading lights ripple across the playfield. I love how JJP does lighting and have for their last 4 or 5 games at least. Godfather, a game many have panned, has amazing lighting as well. This is another area, like the LCD, where JJP has a leg up on Stern.
DISLIKE – Additional Game/Video Modes
No video/bonus modes were seen in the first few flips. This doesn’t mean they aren’t in there … somewhere, but didn’t find any when playing the first few times.
DISLIKE – Connected features
Here we are, over a year and a half since Jersey Jack Pinball pulled Scorbit support from their machines and they still haven’t introduced any new connected pinball to their games. Until/if they do, this will continue to be a strong area of dislike from me. In fairness, some don’t care about connected features. My not-so-hot take on that is: there are a ton of older pinball games — some are fantastic to play — that don’t have connected features.
DISLIKE – Pricing
Am far and away not alone in thinking that modern pinball games are too expensive. Instead of railing against it again, I’ll just link up this: OPINION: Active, Interested Buyer: New in Box Modern Pinball Prices are 20% (at least) Too Expensive
Overall early feelings – Not interested in buying, somewhat interested in playing more — hopefully, with better flippers
Grade: C
This game is average fare for Jersey Jack Pinball. It’s not doing anything that new in pinball and, in fact, compared to Elton John at least from the feel of the flippers, it feels to me like they went backwards. Yes, they added a lower mini playfield with smaller ball and flippers, something I’m not aware they’ve done with any other JJP, but that aside, this game isn’t doing anything fresh gameplay-wise on the playfield.
My son, that owns a Jaws premium he bought at the beginning of 2024, played two games he hasn’t played before: Barry O’s Barbecue and Avatar and here’s what he said about both games:
At the end of the day, I need to flip this game more. After playing pinball for 50 years, I’m picky when it comes to first time playing games. I’m looking for a certain type of feeling from the game and Avatar does it and more visually, but once plunging, the feeling goes away. It’s somewhat fun, but doesn’t inspire me to return and play it again like Jaws did at the start of 2024. It doesn’t have the innovative bottom third like The Uncanny X-Men (I played 11 games on the X-Men pro recently and this game is digging into me in a good way), it doesn’t have any single feature that makes me say, “I need to flip Avatar again and see ___ and ___.” That’s a problem for a new pinball game priced higher than other games.
Being the highest price of everybody is JJP’s #1 problem (see: OPINION: Active, Interested Buyer: New in Box Modern Pinball Prices are 20% (at least) Too Expensive). It’s the one thing almost everybody says about their company: they’re games are too expensive. I know, I know, they embrace that like it’s some badge of honor, some seal of quality, but it’s more a facade and excuse than any real measure of the games being so much better than the competition. If the game plays average, it should cost at/near average.
JJP doesn’t make any pro level competitive games, they only make LEs and CEs, which means they don’t offer a game at/around $7,000, they start at the LE pricing level and up. They should be offering some sort of tiered game under $10,000. It doesn’t appear, at least with Avatar, the company has any desire to do so. That hurts their new games potential sales in this author’s opinion. Sure, it might garner them more home customers, more collectors, but their games will not be on location as often and in the same numbers as other manufacturers. Doesn’t seem like a great marketing strategy, does it?