AVATAR Pinball machine coming to arcades and game rooms this fall UPDATED

possible design for AVATAR pinball. The backglass is supposed to have a 3D effect

Stern Pinball revealed their next pinball game for this fall this morning and once again it is based upon a movie license. This time however, Stern got on board with the highest grossing

One of the toys from the AVATAR pinball game

film yet, James Cameron’s AVATAR. So far very little has been revealed about the game, but here is what we do know. The mechs seen in the movie will be a toy on the playfield that you can “fight” (meaning it will be a target of some sort); the backglass uses a 3D pop-out effect; and it’s not a retheme of some older pinball machine like we saw with Ironman pinball. Someone on Stern’s Facebook page(where the announcement was made) linked to the picture of cabinet above but we’ll have to wait and see if that will be the final artwork for the machine. If they continue to use the ancient orange dot-matrix display then I’ll be disappointed once again – seeing how the changes Avatar has made to the movie scene (for better or worse depending upon your perspective) you would hope that the same could happen for the pinball machine. Not that I’m calling for a 3D display, just something with color in it.  Of course it is best to wait and see the playfield design, at least where it isn’t a retheme we can look forward to something fresh.

So what are your thoughts on this? Generally Stern has the movie themed games out around the time the movie that they are based upon launches but at least this means that they don’t have an excuse to exclude content(lines and scenes) from the movie into game. Can we at least expect this to be more entertaining than the Avatar home video game?

UDPATE: Stern has published a press release on their website. They are pushing the fact that the movie is going to be re-released with 8 new minutes of footage (sigh,  a silly trick that reminds me of the Star Wars digital remakes) as the pinball machine will begin production in mid-August to coincide with the re-release. The presser also mentions the following:

In Avatar pinball, you as player are the hero Jake Sully.  Capture the pinball in the transporter link, a case that reveals a Jake figurine, and transform yourself into his Avatar.  Then, after a series of challenges, get past the motorized up/down target bank protecting Colonel Quaritch and fight the Colonel in his AMP Suit, aiming your pinball at him.  As you overtake the Colonel, his AMP Suit crashes to the ground and you save the Na’vi people from total destruction.  Avatar pinball also features a twisting ramp, the magnet for random ball play, and lots of multi-ball action.

[Stern Pinball]