Stern Ghostbusters Pro Pinball - Unbox, Review, and Gameplay!!

[ChanceKJ]

Josh takes the plunge on a new-in-box Stern pinball. We unbox, take a look over the play field features, and artwork. This video includes nearly 90 minutes of candid gameplay, a look through the goodie bag, and our final thoughts on what looks to be a great pro offering from Stern Pinball.

This Stern Ghostbuster Pro pinball was purchased from, delivered by, and set up via Jay Richardson Pinball, located just outside of Calgary Alberta, Canada - http://www.richardsonpinball.com/

Stern Pinball Ghostbusters Pro
http://sternpinball.com/games/ghostbusters/pro

12:37 - Game play starts
18:39 - We got one!
32:32 - Who brought the dogs?
39:36 - Spooked Librarian
42:42 - Storage Facility Multiball
44:54 - Loopin' Supers
46:22 - PKE Frenzy
1:12:16 - We cheat at starting Negative Reinforcement on ESP Ability - We fail bad...
1:32:08 - Storage Facility Multiball (again)
1:33:26 - 'Real' Negative Reinforcement on ESP Ability
1:39:01 - Bustin' Makes me feel good! - Josh puts up the first high score
1:39:57 - Goodie Bag
1:43:19 - Our final thoughts on our first day with the game

[pbj]

Looks okay.  Must be nice to be rich.

[JoshODBrown]

Looks okay.  Must be nice to be rich.

I've been eating bologna sandwiches and rice for the last month.  I've also talked my kids into community college or going into the trades. Sorry bout the University fund, kids!

[lilshawn]

I appreciate the vid and all the info. It will for sure help out on considering whether it's a good idea to buy one or not.

I'll send the link to the big man since he's the one who buys our new equipment.

 

[saint]

That's pretty cool and I'm seriously jealous

[harveybirdman]

That's pretty cool and I'm seriously jealous

Any server updates?

[Malenko]

That's pretty cool and I'm seriously jealous

Any server updates?

He's too busy deleting my posts and putting band aids on Chance's skinned knees. 


I'll refrain from further frustration being taken out on a member who contributes nothing to the forum except self advertisement for his youtube channel.  At least that "Its a pixel thing" guy has a single thread that he posts updates on instead of spamming the board at every opportunity.

[JoshODBrown]

That's pretty cool and I'm seriously jealous

Any server updates?

He's too busy deleting my posts and putting band aids on Chance's skinned knees. 


I'll refrain from further frustration being taken out on a member who contributes nothing to the forum except self advertisement for his youtube channel.  At least that "Its a pixel thing" guy has a single thread that he posts updates on instead of spamming the board at every opportunity.

Hello there Malenko,

I see you are very frustrated with The Canadian Arcade. Perhaps I can sway your opinion of The Canadian Arcade by offering you your choice of a FREE t-shirt! That's right! Our very own The Canadian Arcade branded 100% cotton t-shirts in black, with white front breast logo, and your choice of red or fluorescent orange back logo!  Please let me know your size and logo color preference and which trailer park I can send it to.





We have a lot of these (I printed 150 of each in various sizes, since i had some cash left over after I bought my pinball machine), so please think of getting a few for your friends and family. They are very fashionable and will show off to everyone around you how much you love The Canadian Arcade!

[Nephasth]

[dmckean]

[Malenko]

I see you are very frustrated with The Canadian Arcade. Perhaps I can sway your opinion of The Canadian Arcade by offering you your choice of a FREE t-shirt! That's right! Our very own The Canadian Arcade branded 100% cotton t-shirts in black, with white front breast logo, and your choice of red or fluorescent orange back logo!  Please let me know your size and logo color preference and which trailer park I can send it to.

We have a lot of these (I printed 150 of each in various sizes, since i had some cash left over after I bought my pinball machine), so please think of getting a few for your friends and family. They are very fashionable and will show off to everyone around you how much you love The Canadian Arcade!

Not gonna try to counter the trailer park joke, its literally the only clever thing anyone from the Kanedean Arcade has ever posted, good job! 
Worth it for the pancake gif and bert pic, and unlike others I wont report it a moderator.

I appreciate the offer but I will politely decline, I have a BYOAC shirt, a Haruman's Customs shirt (both from attending Zapcon in mesa,AZ), and hopefully soon a nice Vulcan brothers one, and that's enough for my wardrobe. Not sure why you take my advice of consolidating all your BYOAC marketing (ad nauseum) to one thread as some sort of attack but lets have some fun with it!

[pbj]

Got any in 4X?

[Token]

I wish a mod would create a subforum for these pissing matches. Call it "Smacktalk" or "Forum Beefs."

And then hide it like the politics and religion subforum.

[Vigo]

The last person I have known to just print t-shirts that wasn't for an event/business/team was back in college. This guy with the dorm room next to me was a 50 year old ex-radio DJ named Mike who was a complete creeper. I think he was going for the whole Rodney Dangerfield "Back to School" thing and failed miserably. He had printed off t-shirts that said "On the air with DJ Mike" and would give the to freshman girls to bait them to go back to his dorm room. Later that year he stole my camera to start his "video blog" and ended up breaking it after it got thrown out of his hand by a bouncer because he was trying to get some voyeur upskirt shots at a bar. Don't be like DJ Mike.

[wp34]

I wish a mod would create a subforum for these pissing matches. Call it "Smacktalk" or "Forum Beefs."

And then hide it like the politics and religion subforum.

 

[yotsuya]

I wish a mod would create a subforum for these pissing matches. Call it "Smacktalk" or "Forum Beefs."

And then hide it like the politics and religion subforum.

You know what else would also be effective? Letting these things play out and not posting observations in said threads, thereby preventing them from being bumped up the page and coming up in the feed, to begin the cycle anew.

[Le Chuck]

Please send mine to:

Le Chuck
c/o Elwood Blues
1060 W Addison St
Chicago, IL 60613

kaithankxbai!

[KenToad]

Thanks for the video! I subscribed to your channel, very cool.

I recently bought a NIB Ghostbusters Pro and noticed that I get a lot of airballs off the playfield multipliers next to the left ramp. Have you guys noticed that this gets better over time. Or have you invested in mods or protectors of any kind?

[ChanceKJ]

Hey! Thanks!

I havnt noticed them when ive played it. Josh has mentioned to me a few times that the game really breaks in and calms down over time.

[KenToad]

After nearly 300 plays, I still get airballs from time to time, but it certainly has "calmed down" a bit. I guess I will hold off on ordering the airball protectors for now. Thanks for the reply!

FYI, if Josh hasn't done it yet, I would highly recommend tapping up the outlane wires about 1/8-1/4 inch, as recommended on the Pinside forums. It made a huge difference in preventing outlane jumps and other unfair drains.

Also, this game is awesome! And I'm so glad I got a new pin as my first. I've wanted one since my friend's family got a Gottlieb Street Fighter 2 in their living room back in the 90's.

[JoshODBrown]

I haven't gotten a ton of air balls, but i know changing the pitch of the game a touch can have an impact. I've heard that putting a little strip of foam behind those multiplier targets can reduce the air balls a bit. Usually when I do get some air balls, they'll bounce to the left and roll across the section with the library and across sigourney weaver's face. I was going to order the kit from Pinball Life that extends the outlanes a bit, but honestly I dont see it as much of a problem on my game. I've played other GBs that were set up super steep and the outlane rail jumping was brutal. I've got mine so the bubble on the pitch level is dead center.


Edit: I've got about 300 plays on my game since i got the new playfield back in February. It was interesting that the new playfield didnt seem to have nearly as many airballs as the first one. It could be that the new one had certain adjustments made to it, or that i just play so differently now that i'm not panic flipping at everything and i have a little better control of the ball.

[Ken Layton]

Latest game code (software) is version 1.13

The pro models are still made without the playfield slide brackets. I highly recommend purchasing a set from Pinball Life and installing them to make servicing the playfield easier.

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1956

[lilshawn]

Latest game code (software) is version 1.13

The pro models are still made without the playfield slide brackets. I highly recommend purchasing a set from Pinball Life and installing them to make servicing the playfield easier.

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1956

i know, i hate those stupid legs. can't pull the playfield out to service the back very easy.

I don't know how all the hardware and threaded rod are less expensive than bulk manufacturing the sliders.

[KenToad]

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. My one issue right now with the game is that the right ramp shot is insanely difficult to make. The ramp entrance is so narrow that you have to hit the shot almost perfectly. I'd love to be able to open up the shot a bit, even as little as a few millimeters would help. I've considered trimming the piece of blue foam on the left side of the ramp just slightly. I also saw that someone on Pinside added a one way gate to the top of the ramp, because an imperfect shot will often roll back down out of the main ramp channel without registering.

I'm over 3 billion, though, so it's not too bad. Maybe the real solution is to take the glass off and just practice that shot over and over.

[KenToad]

So I took off the glass and practiced the shot. Also, I found out that the metal guide along the outside of the right orbit had shifted a few millimeters, narrowing the entrance the right ramp. I gently pushed it back and wedged 3 layers of foam core in there to keep it in place. It already seems to have made a difference.

I also had to adjust the set screw on the left ramp diverter, as mine was only triggering part of the time, causing situations where you would lock a ball, but it would fail to get diverted over to the right eject saucer. Now all seems to be well again. Ended the last game one shot from finishing the slimer ladder, the right ramp of course, but the difficulty felt more balanced overall and I'm hitting that shot with more regularity after the slight adjustment.

[Ken Layton]

This machine finally gets a code update to version 1.17.0

https://sternpinball.com/support/game-code/

[KenToad]

The new code has been excellent for my GB Pro, so far. The gameplay changes have been welcome.

I heard that there are some bugs left in 1.17, so I've stuck with 1.16 until the next release.

[ChanceKJ]

Were running a Ghostbusters on location at the busiest Pinball bar in the city And it plays really well. Any of the bugs that you’ve seen or have heard of are insignificant compared to how amazing this code change has been.

[KenToad]

I'm using custom code that includes some of the music from the films not included in the official code. The guy doing that (mudflaps on Pinside) just released a 1.17 version, so I finally upgraded from 1.16 ... no bugs so far.

[Ken Layton]

I've heard the "unofficial" code is much better than the official Stern code. Is it really good? I've got a friend with a Ghostbusters and he's still running version 1.13 code.

[KenToad]

Yeah, the unofficial code that I'm using is excellent. I'm assuming that some of the most iconic songs from the movies were too costly to license. This non-profit fan modification adds in pretty much everything you would expect. They even added Bobby Brown "On our Own" for the high score entry. It's pretty fun. I like the official Stern soundtrack, as well, but I'm glad that I found the custom thread on Pinside.

[pbj]

That's a pretty cool mod, but the factory soundtrack on that game isn't bad.  I pulled up the pinside thread and was reminded why I left RGP like 15 years ago. 

[ChanceKJ]

The new 1.17 code is AWESOME.   Swapping some of the music out actually is a good call if you feel like messing with things. there are some really iconic tracks from both movies that fit really well into the gameplay, and for obvious licensing reasons will never be included in a Stern code update.

Also, Are you a God mode in 1.17 is ---smurfing--- FANTASTIC.  Especially just having the game boot to it.