mdeslaur
Member
Here are my thoughts on Jaws:
Jaws is one of my favourite movies. I have a Jaws poster hanging on the wall. I didn’t actually think Stern would go through with Jaws as a theme though. While I’m old enough to have seen Jaws, I don’t think most people under 30 or 40 know what Jaws is. I asked family and friends who are younger than me and while a few of them know of the movie, the majority don’t. I don’t know how well this theme will translate to revenue in arcades when you’ve got other themes like Mandalorian, Stranger Things, and Avengers beside it. I do understand that this is a dream theme for a lot of people here though, and while it’s not a dream theme for me, I do think the theme is OK.
I’m not impressed with the artwork, especially with the LE. The white powder coat doesn’t do it for me, and the shark bite on the side rails looks cartoonish. The playfield art doesn’t look great. I get it, it’s Jaws, so it’s got to be water, but it ends up just being a big blue mess. The art blades on the LE don’t seem to match the playfield at all almost as if someone else made them. I think using the poster art on the LE backglass is great, but I don’t think it was a good idea to use it on the Pro which is the version most likely going on location trying to attract players who may not know what Jaws the movie is. The Premium backglass artwork looks much better to attract players. I’m a little disappointed we don’t actually get the Orca as the main boat on the playfield. I know the upper playfield is supposed to be the Orca, but honestly it doesn’t come across as being a boat at all.
I remember watching the reveal videos for Avengers, Jurassic Park, and Godzilla and being immediately excited at the new and innovative things that were being shown. Seeing the wireforms and the vertical magnet on the Avengers was a “wow” moment. Seeing the dinosaur eat the ball in Jurassic Park and seeing the padlock ball lock were “wow” moments. Seeing the building go up and down, the bridge being destroyed, the innovative magnet, and the rotating ramp to get to the Mechazilla magnet were all Godzilla “wow” moments. The Jaws reveal video didn’t have a “wow” moment. While the shark fin mech and the transparent blood in the water effect are cool, and being able to grab the ball with the right upper flipper is pretty nice, they aren’t “wow” moments.
After watching the gameplay video, I’m unimpressed with the game. It just looks like an average game using a dream theme for a lot of people, but that is nowhere near dethroning Elwin’s other masterpieces.
So as soon as you start the game, you pretty much get the Jaws shark theme music. There is no build-up, or anything major to do to get the iconic music playing. The cool Jaws head doesn’t pop up at a critical gameplay moment, it’s what you need to do to start modes: bash the boat, bash the shark head, select your mode. Both of these things should have been kept and used only during gameplay to build up excitement. The rest of the music is ok, but nothing really great while you play.
While I’m glad they did get movie assets, they seem to be using them pretty exclusively. I don’t see many custom animations that are related to the gameplay at hand. I don’t think just playing a bunch of movie clips makes the game immersive. And while having Richard Dreyfuss do some callouts is pretty cool, they aren’t great, and there’s a complete lack of other callouts during the game...nobody is yelling out to you to “hit the white arrows”, and nobody is yelling out to you to “spin the reel”. I’m hoping this is just very early code and they actually do have a bunch of callouts recorded, but adding them would mean dropping the sound from the movie clips. I’m curious what the end result will be here.
The video mode appears to be completely uninteresting, with little or no strategy. This is nowhere close to the spittoon video mode in Champion Pub or the cross the streams video mode in Ghostbusters. The 3D effect, while kind of cool, isn’t anything special. If you’re going to interrupt my pinball game for a video mode, it better be challenging, not just target practice to get points.
I don’t see any satisfying shots in this game. There’s no shot that I find as cool as the Mechazilla mini ramp, or doing the loop after the magnet lets go of the ball in Godzilla. There’s no Jurassic Park dinosaur mouth shot, or the satisfying C shot for chaos multiball. There are no magnets, and no ball locks. You know the satisfying feeling you get when you lock a ball and know you are one step closer to a multiball? No ball lock here, multiball just sends all the balls with the auto-plunge. The only shot that looks a bit interesting is the reel shot on the right, but even that is a stretch. The shark fin is ok, but nothing great. The mini-playfield is pretty useless and appears to just be limited to hitting the ball in time to spin the reel.
I’m looking forward to playing this game on location somewhere as I’m sure it will be ok, but nothing so far has gotten me excited about it, and especially not enough to buy one.
Jaws is one of my favourite movies. I have a Jaws poster hanging on the wall. I didn’t actually think Stern would go through with Jaws as a theme though. While I’m old enough to have seen Jaws, I don’t think most people under 30 or 40 know what Jaws is. I asked family and friends who are younger than me and while a few of them know of the movie, the majority don’t. I don’t know how well this theme will translate to revenue in arcades when you’ve got other themes like Mandalorian, Stranger Things, and Avengers beside it. I do understand that this is a dream theme for a lot of people here though, and while it’s not a dream theme for me, I do think the theme is OK.
I’m not impressed with the artwork, especially with the LE. The white powder coat doesn’t do it for me, and the shark bite on the side rails looks cartoonish. The playfield art doesn’t look great. I get it, it’s Jaws, so it’s got to be water, but it ends up just being a big blue mess. The art blades on the LE don’t seem to match the playfield at all almost as if someone else made them. I think using the poster art on the LE backglass is great, but I don’t think it was a good idea to use it on the Pro which is the version most likely going on location trying to attract players who may not know what Jaws the movie is. The Premium backglass artwork looks much better to attract players. I’m a little disappointed we don’t actually get the Orca as the main boat on the playfield. I know the upper playfield is supposed to be the Orca, but honestly it doesn’t come across as being a boat at all.
I remember watching the reveal videos for Avengers, Jurassic Park, and Godzilla and being immediately excited at the new and innovative things that were being shown. Seeing the wireforms and the vertical magnet on the Avengers was a “wow” moment. Seeing the dinosaur eat the ball in Jurassic Park and seeing the padlock ball lock were “wow” moments. Seeing the building go up and down, the bridge being destroyed, the innovative magnet, and the rotating ramp to get to the Mechazilla magnet were all Godzilla “wow” moments. The Jaws reveal video didn’t have a “wow” moment. While the shark fin mech and the transparent blood in the water effect are cool, and being able to grab the ball with the right upper flipper is pretty nice, they aren’t “wow” moments.
After watching the gameplay video, I’m unimpressed with the game. It just looks like an average game using a dream theme for a lot of people, but that is nowhere near dethroning Elwin’s other masterpieces.
So as soon as you start the game, you pretty much get the Jaws shark theme music. There is no build-up, or anything major to do to get the iconic music playing. The cool Jaws head doesn’t pop up at a critical gameplay moment, it’s what you need to do to start modes: bash the boat, bash the shark head, select your mode. Both of these things should have been kept and used only during gameplay to build up excitement. The rest of the music is ok, but nothing really great while you play.
While I’m glad they did get movie assets, they seem to be using them pretty exclusively. I don’t see many custom animations that are related to the gameplay at hand. I don’t think just playing a bunch of movie clips makes the game immersive. And while having Richard Dreyfuss do some callouts is pretty cool, they aren’t great, and there’s a complete lack of other callouts during the game...nobody is yelling out to you to “hit the white arrows”, and nobody is yelling out to you to “spin the reel”. I’m hoping this is just very early code and they actually do have a bunch of callouts recorded, but adding them would mean dropping the sound from the movie clips. I’m curious what the end result will be here.
The video mode appears to be completely uninteresting, with little or no strategy. This is nowhere close to the spittoon video mode in Champion Pub or the cross the streams video mode in Ghostbusters. The 3D effect, while kind of cool, isn’t anything special. If you’re going to interrupt my pinball game for a video mode, it better be challenging, not just target practice to get points.
I don’t see any satisfying shots in this game. There’s no shot that I find as cool as the Mechazilla mini ramp, or doing the loop after the magnet lets go of the ball in Godzilla. There’s no Jurassic Park dinosaur mouth shot, or the satisfying C shot for chaos multiball. There are no magnets, and no ball locks. You know the satisfying feeling you get when you lock a ball and know you are one step closer to a multiball? No ball lock here, multiball just sends all the balls with the auto-plunge. The only shot that looks a bit interesting is the reel shot on the right, but even that is a stretch. The shark fin is ok, but nothing great. The mini-playfield is pretty useless and appears to just be limited to hitting the ball in time to spin the reel.
I’m looking forward to playing this game on location somewhere as I’m sure it will be ok, but nothing so far has gotten me excited about it, and especially not enough to buy one.
