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See Stern’s Star Trek Pinball In Action

Arcadian 6

Just a few short weeks ago, it was unveiled that Stern’s next release was Star Trek Pinball, based upon the JJ Abrams reboot of one of the biggest sci-fi properties on the planet. Designed by Steve Ritchie, who also created the popular Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball game back in the 90s, the game would bring the series back to the arcades for the first time since the release of the Star Trek: Voyager video game about 10 years ago.

Today Stern released a video of Josh Sharpe playing the game for about 15 minutes. As we have discussed on the blog here, there are three versions of the game that are available, Pro, Premium and Limited. He is playing the Pro model here.  While the Pros have the fewest features to enjoy, overall it looks like fun.

Speaking of unveiling videos, the video showing the England stage from Sega’s upcoming Transformers video arcade game should be online anytime this week. Stay tuned.

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Arcadian

Website: https://arcadeheroes.com

I'm a lifelong fan of video games and I have been operating my own arcade, Arcade Galactic in West Valley City, Utah since 2008. Soft spots in my heart for Atari, Sega, and Nintendo.

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6 comments
Bryan

I can’t believe Stern still wants to use those crappy and totally outdated orange monochrome displays.

Time to live in the now, Stern! WAKE UP!
Next game better fully utilize LCD displays or you can sign yourself off to Jersey Jack, guys.

I’m no longer impressed by these Stern machines. They are all starting to look the same. :/

Reply
    chaos

    I was really skeptical about the LCD display on The Wizard of Oz since I felt it might ruin the feel of pinball. After playing it I was really impressed how Jersey Jack incorporated the video where it felt seamless.

    Reply
    chaos

    The biggest problem I see with Stern moving to LCD is cost. I would JJP is more so geared towards buyers for home use right now where as Stern caters to both arcades and collectors. I would think that a lot of arades/locations would balk at the idea of paying $2000+ more for a Stern pinball. This would mean they would have to charge a dollar per play. What I noticed with video games is that most games only last a few minutes even for some of the most skilled players. For the longer more challenging games there are buy in/continue options. Pinball doesn’t have either of those. If you have a couple of really good pinball players then the machine can be tied up for awhile.

    Reply
      chaos

      Sorry it was supposed to say “I would say JJP is more so geared towards buyers for home use….”

      Reply
      arcadehero

      Well the rumor-mill was pretty certain of themselves that Star Trek was going to have an LCD. That seems sort of backed up by the design change in the speaker grills.

      Personally I think the WOZ and Hobbit pins are great for arcades too. They just stand out above anything Stern has done for years and years and I think people would easily notice the difference and be willing to pay more for the play. Only now with Star Trek are they at least going somewhere with the multi-color LEDs but that is also thanks to WOZ. To anyone paying attention, they are having to catch up with JJP, it’s been disappointing to me that they never really were trying out new target designs, lighting, technologies, etc. I imagine LCD from Stern will be soon (given I have no idea what sort of cost comparison we’re getting between dot matrix LED displays and abundant HD LCDs), so its too bad Trek missed out on that though.

      Reply
        chaos

        Oh don’t get me wrong, I would love to see Stern move to an LCD screen. It’s just that most arcades and operators I’ve talked to haven’t carried pins in awhile because they complain pins are too costly to maintain. I agree that WOZ and Hobbit are both totally suitable for arcade use. What I meant was that JJP is more so in their infancy stages and majority of
        their buyers were home collectors. Bottom line is that it’s going to be risky move for Stern.