Stern Pinball second cornerstone of 2025 is King Kong: Myth of Terror Island to be talk of Humpday Wednesday S2E2

Here we are on Hump Day Wednesday to cover the last week in pinball:

• King Kong: Myth of Terror Island by Stern Pinball
• Black Knight Sword of Fury 1,200 limited vinyl for Record Store Day Saturday April 12
• 4,000+ Stern pinball IC games played and counting!
• Friday 4/18 PGM Twitch Stream 3rd Birthday Party featuring 17+ hours of pinball 8pm PST (GMT-8)
• Skullbox686 Zaccaria Pinball Game of the Week to score chase: Universe EM
• What has been your last week of pinball?

As promised, Stern showed off yesterday 4/15 their newest King Kong: Myth of Terror Island. Their video reveal by George Gomez and designer Keith Elwin shows off plenty to talk about, but the real reaction will be when it’s flipped.

We chatted it up in the PGM Discord a bit and I’ll try and capture some of that conversation and add some additional observations herein and certainly we’ll be talking about it on the Humpday Wednesday Twitch stream starting at/around 6am PST: https://www.twitch.tv/playgamesmoredotcom

First, the details: they didn’t raise the prices and Kong appears to be another SPIKE 2 pin.

Pro $6,999
Premium $9699
LE $12,999 – limited to 923 units

I’m reading some unverified reports that Stern sold the LEs to distros, but whether or not they’ve sold through to customers is another question. It makes sense distros would buy out a new Elwin designed LE based on his excellent track record. I would expect King Kong LEs will be gone sooner to later, unlike Venom LE that can still be found from distros new in box. Jaws LE sold through and King Kong should make a bigger splash than Jaws, at least from a monster theme standpoint.

There are definitely some standout observations from looking at what Stern has shared.

Where is SPIKE 3? It seems strange that they wouldn’t release SPIKE 3 with a new Elwin, as it won’t be another year or two before we see the next one from him. Can they release SPIKE 3 with other designers works? Sure. My money is on SPIKE 3 with a Gomez, if not Elwin, so maybe we’ll see something coming from Gomez later this year or next, but whatever happens, Kong does not appear to be showing off SPIKE 3.

What’s the deal with this spastic blue-green spider?

This spider is only in the Premium / LE and it vibrates over the magnet catch. The pro doesn’t have the spider and maybe that’s a good thing. I’ve seen numerous negative takes on this spider and its placement on the pin which is about where the giant red dragon is located on D&D. I’m not an expert on Kong movie lore, but don’t remember where Kong took on spiders. I would have liked to see that spider be less prominent, but hey, maybe in play it’s a fun toy for the premium/LE. Have to play and find out.

This spider reminds me more of the 1977 movie Kingdom of the Spiders starring William Shatner — but not in a scary way, unfortunately.

Similar to Uncanny X-Men, people are criticizing the LCD animations. Must say the very, very brief example in Stern’s video makes the Kong animation seem uninspired, but they can fix this stuff with code updates. They can and do polish what originally launches on these games in code. They will add more stuff to the point that it really doesn’t pay to complain much about this at launch.

The subway train car also only in the premium/LE that locks balls looks pretty sweet.

Kong is animatronic in the premium/LE and will dump the train out to release the multiball. On the pro, Kong is static and just stares, he doesn’t move or interact with the ball as it passes by the ramp and there isn’t a car.

A big deal for the pro and premium are drop targets are included on all three models. This is huge, because usually the pro gets only static targets. I like drop targets. Well done, Stern!

Here’s the total breakdown of Pro vs. Premium vs. LE: https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/King-Kong-Feature-Matrix-adfaefa.pdf

Here’s my breakdown, with red lines showing what’s not included in the pro:

Premium/LE only features:

• Kong is full animatronic, can stop ball, tip Subway train car with lock for multiball
• Subway ramp can divert to train lock
• Seizure Spider grabs the ball
• *Embossed Kong gong
• *Sculpted airplane aims attack at Kong
• *Side armor included
• *Different/custom translite artwork

Asterisk (*) are cosmetic upgrades only, but check out the different in the gongs between the pro and premium/LE:

vs premium/LE:

The last year’s worth of releases have made for stronger case for pro vs. premium. In fact, of the releases below here’s the PGM recommendation for each of the following pins – pro or premium – since Venom:

• Venom – premium preferred
• Jaws – premium preferred
• [PRO] John Wick
• [PRO] The Uncanny X-Men
• (N/A) Metallica: Remastered – no option for pro
• [PRO] Dungeons & Dragons
• King Kong (??? — need to play both to compare)

3 of the last 5 games the pro version is preferred by PGM for best value. No choice on Metallica and King Kong the jury is still out until played. Must admit after looking over the features, I’m torn on King Kong. A moving King Kong seems pretty important but maybe the static one doesn’t matter. Ball locks are not always important to me, as we didn’t get that for James Bond 007. Jaws with the upper playfield I feel is dramatic enough to warrant the premium and Venom pro is just barren. John Wick the premium is a little easier than the pro with the case that opens up, but I don’t like the car swinging out and blocking the lane. D&D the dragon with the 8 balls is a little too frenetic with the current code and the pro is a better experience at the moment. The Uncanny X-Men motorized Sentinel is dubiously important, again, code to update that could make a difference. The premium/LE can become a better value once all the code is done but except for Metallica: Remastered and Venom none of the other games, including Jaws, are code complete yet.

Lastly, the art similarity, at least in color scheme and focus looks very (too?) similar to The Uncanny X-Men and is being noticed:

Stern has made Jeremy “Zombie Yeti” Packer their art director, so congrats to him on the new position, but I’m concerned that too many of their new games will risk looking like his artwork. I like differences in art style with each new machine. For example, what Randy Martinez did with John Wick’s art style and direction was great.

We’ll chat more King Kong, but my gut reaction to what we can see so far is the layout is pure Elwin and will probably have his signature flow and kinetic feel. The playfield is very busy and packed with stuff. Whether that’s a good or bad thing remains to be seen once played and we’ll get to do that at the Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show where Team Elwin will be in attendance on a panel and they will reportedly have 20 King Kong games to play, presumably both premium and pros. Am looking forward to playing.

Black Knight Swords of Rage Vinyl for Record Store Day

On Saturday April 12, Jackpot Records in Portland, Oregon published and pressed 1,200 Black Knight Swords of Rage limited edition records of the soundtrack.

This limited edition album is priced at $29.99 which is in line with most regular albums, so a good deal for this. You can order through Jackpot Records in the USA for $6 shipping added until sold out here (remember, only 1,200 albums): https://jackpotrecords.com/products/black-knight-sword-of-rage

I wish they’d make more of these pinball-specific pinball albums. Do one for Iron Maiden and Metallica, please!

4,000+ games played of Stern Insider Connected Pinballs

This past week I reached over 4,000 plays on Stern IC connected pinball machines.

Although, my play on Jaws has tapered off significantly, at 1,200+ plays that’s still by far my most played IC game to date. James Bond is now in second place with 406 lifetime plays, followed by Godzilla with 316. Iron Maiden is creeping up the list at 297 plays and this coming Friday planning to play for the third birthday party marathon stream a bunch.

Friday 4/18/2025 3rd Birthday Party 17+ hour marathon stream planned!

Speaking of the PGM Twitch stream 3 year birthday party, hope all reading will stop by at some point, the goal is to try and play 100+ Iron Maiden games in a single session, all while standing up for each game played. No idea if I’ll be successful in this attempt, but will be putting in an effort starting at some point Friday night, at/around/after 8pm PST (GMT-8).

We will also be running a Pinball FX tournament for Fish Tales for one day with unlimited plays. There will be no password.

Skullbox686 Zaccaria Pinball of the week: Universe EM

Dune is Barrels of Fun second effort after Labyrinth

Timing might be suspect going up against Stern’s King Kong, but Barrels of Fun does not seem to care and is pushing ahead with announcing their next game, Dune:

Frank Herbert’s novel is brilliant, so there is no questioning the source material, so I’m admittedly curious on this one. Hoping to be able to play it at the Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show in June, if it’s there, but if it is I’m worried like Labyrinth it will probably only be one machine and too long lines for me to play. We’ll see. Gonna be there all three days so maybe can sneak in at least one game.

I don’t have nearly the excitement for this game as King Kong, but liked what they did with Labyrinth, so am optimistic here. Also, the video shows off some curious features like the remove your hand from the action button and die mode.

Your last week of Pinball, what’s happened?

Your turn. What have you been up to the last week with pinball — real, virtual, whatever pinball. What are you playing the most? What news has happened that turned you on … or off? The comments await on anything pinball-related.