By Todd Russell
The Pinball Brothers have made three pinball machines to date: Alien, Queen and Abba. Prior to this year’s TPF (Unpacking random thoughts after attending first Texas Pinball Festival 2025 with pics + Humpday Wednesday 3/26) I had only played one on location and at shows: Alien. I liked Alien and do enjoy many Queen songs and some ABBA music.
Not a huge ABBA fan, but “Dancing Queen” is a catchy 70s tune. I put Abba music in the category of bands like Orleans (“Dance with Me”), only they were more popular.
Music pins, like them or leave them, to me are all about the music. I was curious how ABBA music would be featured in the game and, as you’ll read below, find it wasn’t something on the game played could be experienced. This is a critical blow to a music pin, so much that I’m questioning if publishing this is worthwhile.
Abba [Pinball Brothers 2024] Detailed First Thoughts After Flipping on Location
DISLIKE – Theme
There are 25 other bands I’d rather see a music pin from than ABBA. Where is Ozzy and Black Sabbath? Van Halen? Lynyrd Skynyrd? Jimi Hendrix? The Doors? I’ve heard Journey come up and they seem like a much better idea for a music pin than ABBA. Seriously, I can keep naming bands: Fleetwood Mac, Def Leppard, Pink Floyd … oh my, the list goes on.
No, I don’t like ABBA for a pinball music theme when there are so many other bands I’d like to see music pins before them.
MIXED – Playfield Design, Mechs & Toys
The playfield design is varied and interesting looking. Shooting it for the first time was a mixed bag. We had a bum left flipper which hampered the ability to make some shots. What I could make, however, seemed interesting at times.
MIXED– Translite, Side and Playfield Artwork
Pictures of ABBA Arrival Edition make the game look very plain.
Almost like the artist was bored. Given some theme s/he/they weren’t that interested in and just rolled out some generic colored lights and slapped ABBA on it. It’s unremarkable art package with the playfield pictured above easily the best part. The playfield artwork is much more inspired.
Luckily, we were able to play the ABBA VOYAGER edition at TPF and for a $1,000 more, you actually get meaningful side artwork and a much better looking translite:
There are only 300 of the VOYAGE Collector’s Edition and it looks like the only version, from an art standpoint, worth remotely considering.
DISLIKE – Plunger / Skill Shots
Thumbs down on the button instead of an actual plunger. There are games that work with an action button instead of a plunger, but there is nothing creative here. You just press the button and the ball auto plunges into play. How hard you press the button or fast, I didn’t sense any sort of analog skill in the plunging. Disappointing.
MIXED – Gameplay Flow
Once the ball is in play, the game starts to shine a little. There are some interesting, although plain, shots. The ramps were a bit challenging to get all the way up, especially with the weakened left flipper, but I feel like if the flippers were both full strength and working, would do better.
Good inserts and the code seems to have purpose. Didn’t know what I was doing, but could follow the lights.
DISLIKE – scoring
Scoring is very low. Scoring 10 million would be a good game, this one reminds me a bit of Stern’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles scoring.
MIXED – LCD movie assets and callouts
Could not hear the callouts. The LCD video was pretty good, what I saw of it watching another PGM member RBwings playing. Wish the volume was better here so I could hear more callouts and experience the ….
UNKNOWN – Music/sounds
The most important non-gameplay part of a music pin is of course the music. As far as selection goes, these are the advertised tracks:
The VOYAGE edition also includes some exclusive content from ABBA’s VOYAGE show.
The volume was low and mostly inaudible. Playing I couldn’t make out any songs and barely any sounds. Callouts? Couldn’t hear them. Very disappointing, so will have to play this hopefully again someday when the audio settings are higher and can be heard.
MIXED – Lighting
The lighting was one of the more positive points. I’m putting it down as mixed, because it wasn’t Alien level lighting, but it was OK.
MIXED – Additional Game/Video Modes
I didn’t see/play any special video bonus modes. Based on the product description (https://pbusasales.com/games/game-3/abba-pinball-voyage-collectors-edition-300-units), it seems there are several modes available to play:
Leaving this mixed, because this could be more a case of we just didn’t play it enough times to play more modes.
DISLIKE – Connected features
No connected features experienced. If they have some/any, please let us know in the comments, because didn’t see any. This is automatic DISLIKE in this category if we don’t see any sort of connected features. At the price of these games, it is not something PGM believes should be excluded.
DISLIKE – Pricing
The VOYAGE Collector’s Edition at $11,000 seems crazily priced to me for this game. Not sure I’d buy one for half the price, and that’s if I played again and liked it much better. The first time gameplay experience was meh. There aren’t any connected features, we couldn’t hear the music, there weren’t any special or unique video game modes and the shot layout was plain and uninspired. This feels almost like a poorly executed homebrew project not in the same league as Pinball Brothers Alien game which, again, I like. Add to that a barely working left flipper and this all adds up in a miserable first play experience.
Overall early feelings – Zero interest in buying, would play again if the sound/music was audible
Clearly, I looked more forward to playing ABBA than actually playing it. Easily the worst first play experience I’ve written about so far. Not a total fail, there are some decent shots and I’m guessing in a better environment the music would be audible. They have ABBA hit songs in the game. You just gotta be able to hear ’em!
Grade: D
I’m sure the game is better than our first experience, but these articles are based on first experiences, not second or third or subsequent experiences. The goal is to capture those raw feelings you have when you first play a game. Unfortunately, for ABBA, this was a very negative play experience. I’ll play it again, maybe, if someone has it somewhere. It’s not a game I’ll be seeking out.
Enjoy reading articles like this? Here are other detailed first thoughts after flipping for some other games released in the not too distant past:
- Portal (Multimorphic P3 2025)
- Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye (0.85 code) Stern Pinball Pro 2025
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Spooky 2024)
- Ninja Eclipse (Turner 2024)
- Metallica: Remastered (Stern 2024) LE
- Avatar (Jersey Jack Pinball 2024)
- The Uncanny X-Men (Stern 2024)
- Pulp Fiction SE (2023)
- John Wick Pro + Premium (Stern 2024 v0.81 code)
- Labyrinth (Barrels of Fun 2023)
- Looney Tunes (Spooky 2024)
UPDATE 5/15/2025 @ 4:30pm PST: ABBA’s Gold greatest hits album is worth noting via ABBA Makes History With The Longest-Charting Album Of All Time. This sort of popularity should definitely help people want to check out their pinball machine.