I have been one of Stern’s harshest critics, but I am happy to eat some crow on their upcoming new pinball machine.

The pictures of the upcoming Metallica pinball machine are simply stunning. This is probably the best looking pinball machine that Stern has ever produced.

Featuring smokin’ artwork by Dirty Donny, I am lusting after this game very heavily.

That may not sound like much…but I absolutely am not a fan of Metallica at all. I just never enjoyed their music.

If I even was half of a fan, I would have ordered this thing already.

That sounds nuts…but that just says how amazing this machine looks.

Cool translite, absolutely killer playfield art, decent cabinet art, and custom molded items that look unbelievable.

Frankly I am having a hard timing believing this is a Stern game.

A few other things I like are the metal ramps. Cannot remember seeing those since Terminator 3 many years back.

And when was the last time we saw a game with inline drop targets? Such a cool feature, but you rarely see it any more.

This game will be a smash hit.

If you want a Limited Edition version. You better be sending out your deposits immediately. They will sell out faster than a blink of the eye [editor's note...this article was written a few days ago -- they did in fact sell out in minutes].

Again I have to give Stern credit for releasing another music-themed pinball machine. We just do not have enough of those to choose from — since we all have different tastes in music and such.

Speaking of past rock pinball machines. I think I would have to say that this game instantly gets in the top 3 of best looking rock pinball machines.

Kiss is still #1. But I would put this at #2 and then #3 would be Guns N’ Roses.

Here’s hoping the next Stern music-themed pinball machine is Spinal Tap. I mean shouldn’t the original masters of metal get their own machine too?

Stern, you can count us in on that one (assuming your Photoshop art is now a thing of the past).

My own collection helps feed my pinball thirst, but sometimes one can get tired of your own collection. I have been having that itch to play some new games or at least different ones.

The many excellent pinball and game room shows are great places to help scratch this itch, but there are also some great places to go play that are available year round.

One such place is in the upper part of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Grandy, North Carolina is a very small town that looks like a place that maybe has a good bingo hall at best for entertainment. The idea that there is one of the greatest pinball arcades in the country is unbelievable.

Within the small town of Grandy, North Carolina is a pinball Mecca by the moniker of Flippers.

Flippers is not just an arcade with a few pinballs tossed in the back as an afterthought. This place is obviously operated by a serious pinball fan.

How many arcades have you been to lately that have a Big Bang Bar, what about a Cactus Canyon, Medieval Madness (with a color DMD no less), Attack from Mars (again with a color DMD), The Addams Family, Monster Bash, Creature from the Black Lagoon — this places is just dripping in classic 90′s pinball machines.

Big Bang Bar!

But the fun does not end there. Flippers also has been buying new Stern games.

And again not just the usual stuff either. Some serious money has been spent on this collection.

There is an AC/DC, but again this is not just a Pro version of the game and it no regular premium model either. It is a limited edition Let There Be Rock version! Sitting next to it is an LE Rolling Stones, then an LE Tron Legacy, an LE Lord of the Rings, an LE Avengers, LE X-men Magneto, Spider-man LE Black edition, and more. It is all pretty amazing and unbelievable.

Like I said…a pinball Mecca.

And I have not even talked about any of the games in the back room yet either.

There are plenty more 80′s and 90′s classics such as Funhouse, Cyclone, Tales from the Crypt, Indiana Jones, Cirqus Voltaire, Johnny Mnemonic, JackBot, Lost in Space and more.

LE’s as far as the eye can see!

For seriously old school fans there also was a Space Invaders (the pinball), Rolling Stones (the old Bally one), KISS, and a Xenon that looked and played like new (the nicest Xenon I have ever seen).

The back room is loaded with treasures

A few other pins that I have not even mentioned yet are Star Wars (the Pinball 2000 one and the Data East one), Revenge from Mars, Avatar, and Batman the Dark Knight.

The games nearly all played perfectly. A few pinball machines in the back room could use some adjusting, but that just feels like nitpicking considering that most games played great.

This is my new favorite place to play pinball. I am fantasizing about buying a summer house in OBX, so I can visit Flippers more often.

Flippers also has classic arcade games and several newer arcade games also. So if your kids come along and they are not keen to the amazing awesomeness of pinball, they can still have fun here.

Flippers sells some cool pinball-related t-shirts and other memorabilia items. So bring a few extra bucks with you, as you probably will see something cool you want to take home with you.

They have a snack bar and convenience store attached. So you can load up on the snackage and play all day. Sounds like a dream to me.

Classic arcades too!

I will be dreaming of the day I can come back.

PS: Down the street is a great old-school diner called Mel’s Diner. The service and food are great. A perfect compliment to the perfect pinball arcade.

Mel’s Diner is almost like a trip back in time.

Many people are surprised to know that despite being the third movie, that Return of the Jedi in fact was released before the Empire Strikes Back.

This game is unlike the other two in the series in many ways, so lets take a little look at what many consider the black sheep of the original Star Wars arcade trilogy.

It may sound odd that this game was released before Empire Strikes Back but when you actually think about the time frame that this game hit the arcades — its not that odd at all. Return of the Jedi was released in 1984, just one year after the release of the movie in the theaters. So Atari clearly wanted to have the game in arcades to capture the excitement fans still had from the movie.

Like the other two Star Wars games the sound effects in this game are fantastic and use some great samples taken right from the movie. However the graphics are the first things many people will notice are different. Gone are the vector graphics and instead what we have are more traditional looking raster graphics.

Return of the Jedi will see you take control of three different vehicles from the movie and the game play is at a isometric view. These are a speeder bike, the Millennium Falcon and a AT-ST.

One cool thing Return of  the Jedi does to mix it up is it splits the use of these vehicles up. For example, you don’t play all the speeder bike levels then move onto the Millennium Falcon one — you switch between the two.

For the first level, you start of on a speeder bike as you race through the Endor forest to make your way to the Ewok village. Just like in the movie Storm Troopers will be hot on your tail and try to shoot you. It can be a very challenging, bordering on frustrating level, as you have to memorize where hazards like trees are; all the while avoiding the fire from the Storm Troopers.

The next level sees you pilot the Millennium Falcon through a reactor with the aim of blowing it up. This is very similar to the first level where you must avoid obstacles being bits of pipe in the reactor, as well as the Tie Fighters who are chasing you down. Where it gets really difficult is that once you blow up the reactor, you have to fly back the way you came.

This is where the memorization aspect of the game comes into play. It is tough, kind of like trying to keep up with tracking ten different bingo cards at once.

Next up, you have another speeder bike level, but after this you also get to pilot the Millennium Falcon again mixed in with sections where you get to control a AT-ST. Unfortunately the AT-ST seems very slow compared to the other two vehicles.

Return of the Jedi is its own game — there is no doubt about that. It is actually quite a fun game in its own right.

At the same time it can be a very frustrating experience due to having to memorize where many of the obstacles are.

It may not be as fondly remembered as the other two Star Wars games, but unlike the Empire Strikes Back this game is available in its own arcade cabinet (as opposed to just a conversion kit).

Return of the Jedi gets a bit of a raw deal when it comes to history as it is often remembered as the “other” Star Wars arcade game, when in fact if you put the time in this is one fun game.

This is a re-skinned JackBot. Take some eyeball pinballs, add an eyeball shooter, a giant video eyeball staring at you, redo the playfield and cabinet art, add some other fine touches and you have a new instant game.

I am intrigued about this…checkout out the video below.

With new games selling for $5000 to $7500 and with many used pinball machines selling for that high or even higher — a little bit of bargain shopping can go a long way. Some even say that prices of some used pinball machines are starting to resemble the Internet stock boom or tulip mania.

Being that a well stocked gameroom is the ultimate goal, for many of us we either need get lucky with the scratch cards or have to occasionally buy games on the cheap.

So let’s find you some truly great games that you can get for much less than a new pinball machine from Stern or Jersey Jack Pinball.

10) Any Classic Stern pinball machine: For the extreme bargain hunter you can select from any number of Classic Stern pinball machines. For some reason these games are just crazy cheap. Heck I just sold a Galaxy that plays great, in decent shape, and with a new MPU installed for $400. I couldn’t nearly give that game away. We talked about these games before. They play fast, have nice art, and for the money are hard to beat.

9) Johnny Mnemonic

Is a $5000 Tron Legacy a bit rich for your blood? How about a something in the $1500 range and with a similarly geeky theme? Johnny is a lightning fast game, with very satisfying shots, great sound, and a robotic glove to lock the balls into a matrix. The game even has a video mode that is fun and challenging and one of the cooler wizard modes in Powerdown.

8) Demolition Man

With ramps out the ying yang, a wide body design, DCS sound, a magnetic ball moving claw, metal habitrails all over the place, three flippers, and two giant metal controller handles — I am not sure a pinball machine like this could even get built today.

I just purchased a fully shopped-out one with re-chromed handles for $1400. Why aren’t there more deals like this in pinball?

With no less than three new versions of the game being worked on by collectors (Demolition Man 2K, James Cardona’s FreeWPC ROM, and the a new PROC ruleset) this is a rare old game that is getting new life.

7) JackBot

This is another one of the rare mid 90′s Williams/Bally games that sell for the cheap. You can get one for $1500 still. When you consider how much fun this game is, that is a great bargain.

JackBot has the classic Pin*Bot layout, but with a vastly enhanced rules package. This is a much better pinball machine than games that sell for twice its price.

6) Fish Tales

White Water finally has caught on and it now routinely sells for over $3000. But its sister machine, Fish Tales is still had for around $2000. While not quite the game that White Water is, Fish Tales is a great game. Fast, challenging…and who can resist the flopping fish topper? Leave a message now, I have gone fishin’.

5) Tales from the Crypt

You could argue that this is the best machine ever produced by Data East. This game has no flaws. The playfield is fun, artwork is decent, a great classic theme, with balanced scoring, and deep rules and software.

With metal ramps, a custom topper, customer door handle ball launcher, a moving tombstone target, and a shaker motor the game has some impressive extras. And all for the going rate of about $1800.

So who is going to sell me one?

4) Judge Dredd

And old game with a still relevant theme (with the recent movie release). A wide body pinball machine with a ton of shots, so many flippers I cannot recall exactly how many (is it 4?), a spinning globe to lock balls into (with a great mod available from PinBits), fantastic artwork, a topper, and more.

This is a truly loaded game and if something like this came out today would be a $7000 game. Can be had in the $1500 range.

4) Revenge from Mars

This may sound like a very strange machine to make this list. But you have to recognize how amazing and special the Pinball 2000 games are.

Technology-wise the only game that even can maybe compare or deserve to live in the same sentence is the upcoming Wizard of Oz pinball machine. And how much would one of those cost you? Yes that would be $7500 big ones.

You can get a very nice RFM for under $3000 and it has the most advanced technology of any pinball machine. Seems like a deal to me.

3) Road Show

Road Show is a complete kitchen sink game. It is like Pat Lawlor tried to include a cool feature from every game he ever created. I am amazed this game was created as is — there just is so much in it. Not one, but two talking dummy heads. Heck you can stop there and it has more in it than just about every machine ever made…but then you add a moving bulldozer target, an extra ball shooter, ramps all over the place, diverters, four flippers, and then just to top it off — a shaker motor. Just crazyness.

If Stern made something like this today, at this build quality it would probably cost over $15,000. That is no joke.

That you can get one for $2500 or so is kind of nuts when you look at it that way.

2) Bram Stoker’s Dracula

BSD does not have a lot of gizmos like Road Show. But this is just such a fabulous pinball machine. I never get tired of it. The intense speed of the game, ultra creepy theme, and challenge are all quite classic.

Mist multiball is one of the neatest tricks ever in a pinball, the ramps are silky smooth, and driving that stake into Dracula’s heart is such a rush.

I would take this over any a Tron Legacy, Avengers, or AC/DC any day. Yours for the low low price of only about $2000 or so.

1) Shadow

Kind of like Johnny Mnemonic, this game appears to be kept down by a movie that was a terrible bomb.

Call me nuts, but I have owned Brian Eddy’s more famous games (Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars). I have sold both of those and do not miss them, but Shadow is not going anywhere.

The game is just a complete classic. Great art, cool theme (even if movie did bomb), great playfield, deep and thoughtful rules, unique toys. It absolutely has no weakness.

When a game like this goes for $2400 or so and Tales of the Arabian Nights goes for $5500 — well I have to question the entire balance of the universe. Something smells in Denmark I tell ya!

But I have a valid excuse. This magazine is not your average rag. No sir. Not in any way.

This magazine has more reading content than many novels I have read.

It is completely epic in every which way.

Let us count the ways:

Content

I already mentioned the length of the content, but that matters little if it is of poor quality (not a problem here folks). The bulk of the magazine is an interview with pinball player/collector/designer/savior/licensor/historian Roger Sharpe. This is not your standard ten questions interview either.

I used this word already to describe Pinball Magazine..the word is epic. This interview is epic. You could make a film out of this interview. It spans through most of Roger Sharpe’s amazing life.

This interview was just fascinating, enlightening, and wonderful on so many different levels.

Beyond that there are articles about pinball collectors, the brothers who built and run the popular Pinside website, and more. All very well done.

Design

The design and layout look professionally done, are pleasant to the eye, and there are glorious full-color pictures all over the place.

Overall Quality and Polish

The paper and print quality are so outstanding that I actually have had a hard time allowing myself to “dog ear” pages. I have done that with thousands of paperback books and magazines over the years to keep track of my page.

Doing such a thing to my copy of Pinball Magazine just feels wrong. It is that nice and I am not exaggerating one bit.

To wrap up…I can only think of one thing that could be improved. Maybe the name…because “Pinball Magazine” is almost too small of a phrase to equal the output of this publication. It is more like a book in terms of what are getting.

So maybe Epic Pinball Magazine of the Ages. Just a suggestion…

If you have not received your copy yet, seriously do not wait until the first issue is no longer available.

Get your copy immediately and then thank me later.

For more information on Pinball Magazine, please visit their website at http://www.pinball-magazine.com.

This video is shot inside the factory, was done very professionally, and is something you must see.

The video also went along with an article that was just as outstanding as this video.

See it at: http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/2/28/4036620/jersey-jack-wizard-of-pinball

Major kudos to Polygon for their awesomeness.

Click on images for a larger view.

The flyer:

The Cabinet:

They only have one in the entire joint, and when we go there we always aim for that table.

Something about the iconic look of these classic autos just never gets old for me.

Well another new twist on this style has been released. It is the car pool table.

You can choose from ’59 Corvette, the ’65 Mustang, or the Shelby Mustang.

Damn these pool tables are absolutely gorgeous. The headlights even work!

Wow these are truly a work of art.

Check them out at http://www.carpooltables.com

This Angry Birds machine has a fit and finish that looks truly professional.

Just in time for the Xmas season and currently up on eBay.

This is a gorgeous and one of a kind machine — obviously took the creator a great deal of time.

Check it out at: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Angry-Birds-Pinball-Machine-/230895152847