Stern today announced that they’re making Guardians of the Galaxy pinball in three models, pro, premium, and LE. They’ve uploaded a teaser video which I’ve attached to this post.
It looks pretty good, the groot head reminds me of the old Pat Lawlor Funhouse game to a degree. The Rocket shot looks like it came off of Jurassic Park, and the drop target lock looks like it was lift from Total Nuclear Annihilation which was just released from Spooky pinball.
There are a lot more details and pictures for the game at:
http://www.sternpinball.com/games/guardians-of-the-galaxy/pro
Pictures are having a hard time loading it appears on their website. There’s a big thread on pinside discussing the game here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/guardians-of-the-galaxy-is-here
Looks like the feedback so far is pretty positive (other than the price, lol). The big feature of the game is the big Groot head in the back which can raise and lower its mouth to swallow or release balls for multiball.
Stern is also trying to acquire the rights to two songs from the first film for the game, though the details haven’t been finalized yet. I’m hoping that they go the extra mile and get at least one or two more after the two they’re going after, there are so many good songs on that soundtrack that it would be a shame not to have them included.
Pricing
Price of the Guardians of the Galaxy pinball machine is $6,199 for the pro, $7,899 for the premium, and $8,999 for the LE. However, you can get those games cheaper on Ebay if you combine some tricks. Basically, if you combine Ebay bucks + Ebates + credit card points you can get up to 5% off the Ebay price. For instance, here’s an Ebay affiliate link below that has a cheaper price (at least at the time of this writing):
Guardians of the Galaxy Pro Pinball Machine
Save up to 5% off that and you’re got a pretty good deal overall. Another way you can save money is by calling a distributor and having them ship it to you. Depending on who you call (and whether you pay by check) you may be able to save some money that way as well. Check their websites and see if they have the games available. Sometimes the price via a call is less than online. There are lots of ways to try and save money, but it seems like anymore it’s just easier and safer to just use Ebay and your credit card.
If you’re new to pinball, I would also caution that you want to make sure that the code on the machine is done first before you buy a new in the box game. Nothing is more frustrating than buy a new game and then having major code issues all the time (like missing modes, missing wizard modes, etc). There are multiple examples of games where the code got to about 80% or 90% done and then got abandoned due to poor sales. Wheel of Forture is the poster child for this, the code that’s there is great but all the wizard modes are missing along with lots of other things. I owned it for a while and would own it again if they’d ever finish it but that seems highly unlikely at this point.
Shipping Date
Guardians of the Galaxy pinball should be shipping by the end of the November, beginning of December. Pro models will likely be hitting the line first with the LE’s to follow and the premiums after that if recent history is any indicator. I’m interested to see how it turns out, if they finish the code and has callouts from the movie actors I’d definitely be interested, if it’s just “I am groot” all the time I’d be less interested, lol. I’m personally trying to find a Walking Dead Pro pinball machine to buy. I could buy one new but I’d rather save a few hundred and buy used if possibly, but I haven’t had much luck doing that so far.
I’ll try and update this post later with information on the code state and reviews of the game. The only thing I’ve heard so far is that the code isn’t complete, but how far incomplete it is we don’t know. Batman 66 was almost unplayable when it was released last year, but then Aerosmith shipped after it and was almost complete on day 1 of shipping. With that lack of consistency it’s hard to know what you’re getting. As an FYI, Batman 66 still isn’t finished, so if you buy a game that doesn’t have complete code you could be waiting over a year before it’s done.
