Yesterday afternoon, Stern pinball released a substantial code update for its James Bond pinball machine, Version 1.00.0. This update brings the final Wizard Mode, called “Her Majesty’s Secret Service” to the game. Here’s a description of the mode from the announcement:
“This flips based wizard mode is qualified by lighting all of the center Film Title inserts (i.e. played all the Villain, Henchmen, Q-Branch, and SPECTRE Weapon modes). In this mode, the player has a limited number of flips. The mode has six stages, one for each film, followed by MI6 Multiball. The order in which you play the stages is determined by the order in which you lit "solid" the center film title inserts. For every mode you completed along the way, you are awarded 10 bonus flips at mode start. All the points scored in each Film Stage become the value for that Film Jackpot in MI6 Multiball. Any unused flips remaining at the end of each stage gets carried over to the next stage. Each Film Stage also adds 35 more flips to the flip count. Starting MI6 Multiball adds 70 flips. A ball will be added into play after the first Film mode is played, if that ball drains it doesn't come back for the rest of that stage and it doesn't subtract any flips. When you have two balls in play, all scores are doubled and it returns to normal scoring when you drain back to one ball play. When you are in single ball play, draining subtracts 5 flips. If you run out of flips in a stage, you move onto the next Film Stage.”
In addition to the Wizard Mode and other smaller changes, the update also introduced the final two SPECTRE Weapon Perks to the game, “Bath-O-Sub Bash” and “Death by Derby.”
Things are still quiet on the next Stern Cornerstone front, which most likely is based on the Keanu Reeves action movie series John Wick. I know for a fact that it is scheduled to be on the production line at Stern in May. Well, May is coming up soon. I’m hopeful that we’ll at least see a teaser from Stern about the game next week.
John Wick will have a brand new designer, a highly-regarded long-term Stern employee who was recently given the opportunity to make his own game. Rumor has it that Tim Sexton is on code. I cant wait to see what it’s like!
