Judging pinball games strictly on videos is highly conflicted business and nothing illustrates this more than the two vids we’re talking about in this article.
And let’s lead off with the fact that when people are looking at what new games to buy, they aren’t going to do it solely off of videos. Most aren’t, anyway, perhaps some will. But most will wait and play them, unless they want to get in on the limited editions, where you might not have time to play the game first before making a buying decision.
Importantly, these aren’t the same types of videos, which is unfair to compare the two in terms of understanding how good, bad or indifferent the games might be. The Uncanny X-Men is 54 minutes of live gameplay streaming and the other is heavily produced, highly polished behind the scenes video of JJP’s Avatar.
Some history: Jack Danger’s newest Stern Pinball game: The Uncanny X-Men hit with a strong start by showing off a very creative playfield, particularly in the lower third. Definitely bucking the traditional Italian layout by offsetting the central flippers and adding a Danger Room to the left with a single flipper to save the ball and propel back into the main playfield or drain. Add to that some tasty-looking shots. The game showed major promise and seemed to me like a much stronger game — at least conceptually — than John Wick.
Then there’s the announcement of Jersey Jack Pinball’s newest game: Avatar. But this video is so much more than just a teaser, it’s 20 minutes of cutaway scenes from the movie to brief, but enticing shots of the game. I want to see some live gameplay of Avatar — badly.
Let’s start with the live stream for The Uncanny X-Men and see what was gleaned.
The animations on the LCD immediately stood out to me as being disjointed, unfinished(?) and not very cohesive. This feels very much like John Wick launch level of early code. It’s my understanding that George Gomez has admitted this game had to be rushed because another game (John Borg’s?) was shelved and/or pushed back? I haven’t seen where that was specifically mentioned to attribute, but once again: rushed Stern game is a major disappointment.
Yes, Stern works on the code. Yes, they update the code. These are important points to mention, but they aren’t inspiring to those wanting to buy the game at launch. It’s more desirable to wait until the code is further along and make a buying decision then. Alas, that’s where this author is at: wait and see to play it and hope the code that’s in the game when I play is further along than this code.
There is a bunch of mostly mediocre gameplay, including from the designer himself, so either the game is hard, or the people flipping it were having bad pinball days. It happens and when it comes to live streaming, I definitely know what it’s like to play poorly, when you’re capable of playing better.
That said, here we are again with lower scoring. This is very much in the vein of John Wick tier scoring levels. Readers know I’m not a fan — at all — of scoring like this. Code can improve scoring and I’m definitely getting a very early code feel.
If Jack Danger complains one more time about his “stupid glove” (why did you wear the glove, Jack? lol). Seriously, I did like Jack’s Cyclops costume. Good to see him trying to have fun with the team and theme. Clearly, the costume was an impediment to gameplay and since this is the first time we got to see any significant gameplay, think I’d rather have had Danger without costume, dialed into the game, showing us a straightforward path to what to do. Despite nearly an hour of gameplay, I didn’t feel there was enough of this.
At any rate, this video by and large was detrimental to my interest in buying The Uncanny X-Men. It doesn’t really change my excitement in wanting to play it, but definitely feel less interested in the game overall after seeing this. And that’s a sentiment shared by others, not just me.
Does this mean the game isn’t good? No. Does it mean other videos might come out that are more polished and better show off the potential of the game? Sure, it’s possible. Still, it’s … disappointing.
Next, let’s contrast with Avatar. And again, not a gameplay video, more of an extended commercial, but OMG this game looks gorgeous.
Avatar is pinball drool-worthy. Clearly, JJP has pulled out the stops to make their machine a cut above in class and quality. I’m envious of those that take the plunge and buy this without playing first. All the JJPs are priced in the collector’s space, according to our vendor friend, and he says he can’t make money back fast enough to put these on location.
Am going to stop short of saying I’ll not buy any JJPs, because there are several I’m interested in, especially the last one, Elton John and some previous games like GnR and Pirates of the Carribean. If a killer price on a used one came along on these, I’d definitely be tempted.
My problem with Avatar pinball besides the (too) hefty price tag is it’s Avatar. The movie might be amazing from a cinematic standpoint, but I’m not as drawn to this as other themes. The Uncanny X-Men is a better theme, if not for the fact, Stern has made several Marvel pins. Marvel has a lot of awesome properties, but a second X-Men game when the last was release in 2012 seems a little head scratching.
Avatar’s blatantly promotional video makes me more want to play the game than the live stream of The Uncanny X-Men. There will be more videos, more streams, but ultimately these games will appear somewhere on location. There’s also the Portland Retrogaming Expo (https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/) coming up in the next couple weeks, and it’s my understanding the game might be there on display and playable(?) If that’s the case, I’m even more interested in attending that show and checking this out for myself in person.