BAM! ZAP! KAPOW!
Jimmy and I were pretty excited last week to pick up Stern’s latest pinball offering based on the classic adventures of the dynamic duo, Batman ’66, released late in 2016! They’re celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the incredibly silly, pop culture phenomenon that was the short lived Adam West Batman – character actors, bat dances, bright popping colours and all.
Jimmy the wizard and Hugh the tech, the arch-nemesis’ of Ben Jungles.
My father passed on his die cast Batmobile to me, which in turn I became obsessed with as a kid, leading to a fairly passionate fixation with the Dark Knight that continues to this day in the form of tattoos, countless comics, useless knowledge and strong opinions on what the best adaptation has been (90’s animated series, obviously). Bringing up Batman is the easiest way to distract me from anything I’m ever doing at the bar and I will gladly welcome it if you do.
The machine is signed by Adam West – neat!
There’s been a number of Batman pinball machines over the years, including Tim Burton’s Batman created by Data East, Batman Forever by Sega and then The Dark Knight and Batman ’66 by Stern. Batman ’66 is somewhat of a re-imagining of their 2008 pinnie, The Dark Knight. They’ve replicated the right side of the play field and created a brand new left side. You can see it in the pictures below, as they’ve kept the most fun feature of the previous version – the wrecking ball! This time around, Burgess Meredith in the form of the Penguin controls the crane for you to defeat. A wrecking ball isn’t particularly on theme for the Penguin, but we’ll let it slide because it’s pretty bloody fun.
The Dark Knight (2008) Play field
The main aim of the game is to defeat the bad guys, namely the villains of the 60’s Batman movie – Riddler, Joker, Catwoman and Penguin. You trigger a villain by getting the right shots and then answering the Bat-phone. There’s a stack of lower grade villains including Vincent Price’s Egghead, King Tut, Mr Freeze and the Mad Hatter. For now though, these villains don’t do very much – there’s a whole series of features in the game that haven’t been coded yet. The game is incredibly fun as it is, but in typical modern gaming style, only a certain percentage of the game is there with the rest of the game to be ‘upgraded’ at some point. Currently there is no ‘wizard’ reward for defeating all the villains, nor any use for the season 1 – 3 televisions or minor villains. Over time, extra code will be released online and we’ll chuck it on a USB to update the machine. The game will subtly (and not so subtly) change, so the game you play in the venue this week will likely be different to the game in 6 months time. We’re not too sure if this is a good or a bad thing, though our personal opinion is that the game should probably be delivered in its completed form.
Egghead, the most under utilised villain of them all.
For a short time, we’ve positioned the game directly next to The Dark Knight, so you can see the differences for yourself. To help celebrate the arrival of the machine, we hit up local cosplay family ‘Nightingale Cosplay’ who specialise in classic Batman. They were super excited to have a stab at the machine. Batman will be a permanent pinnie at the Netherworld and the current high score to beat is just shy of a billion.
The family Nightingale.
Trivia: Caesar Romano, who played the Joker refused to shave his moustache. If you look closely, even on the pinball play field, you can see the white makeup applied directly over his majestic facial hair.
- Ben Jungles