Deadpool Pinball
Manufactured in August 2018
by Stern Pinball
At the strong museum they have a few different sections each with a different theme or purpose. A few of these sections consisted of old machines showing the history of pinball, others were focused on specific companies, and another consisted of just weird machines. The one that caught my eye was the Stern Pinball section. The machines in this section ranged from sci-fi to superhero and beyond. The machine in this section that caught my eye was Deadpool Pinball. I chose this machine because of the enjoyment I have for the movies, comics, and the characters.
This game felt really good to play, it was responsive and very quick. There were tons of different ways to score points and complete objectives so there was never a time where it felt like you were pushing the ball around for no gain.
Before this trip I had only played pinball a handful of times in arcades. So I was very bad at controlling the ball starting out. I started out getting a pretty bad score after dying extremely quickly of only a few million. The next game I got a lot better and scored over 50 million points. That play through I even got a few key things such as multiball and certain places I could lose got blocked off. As time went on I got better at landing the ball in a few of the key places and even starting to accomplish some of the major goals of the machine.
Some of the goals I was able to achieve consisted of completing all of the Deadpool Targets, Boom, and Battles. The battles were very interesting because I hadn’t really seen anything similar in the machines I have played in the past. Once you triggered a battle, you could deal damage by hitting certain targets to deal damage, or to collect weapons or other heroes. The only villain I managed to defeat was Juggernaut.
Overall the game felt fun and action packed. Unlike many machines it was a partial mix between the game field and a small video game with the battles. This combination was something that really stood out to me. With the placement of the different goals it was a challenge while not being impossible for new player to get used to. The point system was highly inflated with the scores starting out in the millions, which while making it seem like you are doing really well because of the high scores, almost start to feel meaningless.
When I go back and have more time I definitely plan to play this machine a few more times to see if I can out do my poor score of 54 million. Especially considering the hi-scores on this one machine went easily into the billions.
Deadpool Pinball information can be found at: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/deadpool-pro