About: Scared Stiff

Are you Ready to get Scared Stiff?

Scared Stiff Details

GAME DETAILS

Manufactured by: Bally Manufacturing Co.
Date: September 1996
Type: Solid state
Generation: Williams WPC-95
Production: ~4,000 produced
Pinside Price Range: $6470 - $7530
Cabinet: Normal
Display type: Dot Matrix
Players: 4
Flippers: 2
Ramps: 2
Multiball: 4

DESIGN TEAM

Game Design: Dennis Nordman Mark Weyna
Mechanics: Bob Brown Joe Loveday Win Schilling
Software: Cameron Silver Mike Boon
Artwork: Greg Freres
Animation: Adam Rhine Brian Morris
Sound: Dave Zabriskie Paul Heitsch

Sources:
https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=3915
https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/scared-stiff




Pinside Club Thread: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/scared-stiff-clubmembers-only

FuLL MODDING AND RESTORE LOG

Full log of all of the stuff I’ve done to my Scared Stiff is on a running log that can be found here:
http://arcadeshenanigans.com/blog/2018/7/13/scared-stiff

Latest Stuff

The kind folks over at SFGE voted my Scared Stiff as Best in Show for Modern Pinball at SFGE 2019.

Super proud of this trophy and the very gracious compliments my game received at SFGE 2019.

Thoughts on Value

My last Scared Stiff sold for ~$8,000 in 2016 along with 2 other B/W titles of similar value. Believe or not even at that price I didn’t actually “make” anything on that transaction. I’ve seen them sell for as little as $5k (off-route) to as much as $13,000 (Bryan Kelly or HEP Restoration). That is a broad range and I suspect this one would come in somewhere on the top end in the $8500-$9000 range, as of the time of this article. I don’t treat Pinballs like investments and I expect the value will drop over time.

Admittedly, that is more head-cannon than researched value than sales-data in the upper-end restoration, used pinball market. There is more supply than demand in pinball and prices are ticking down a little for some of the Bally-Williams 90’s titles as they get pressured by the CGC Remakes & Stern’s release cadence. Titles that were in the $10k range in 2015-16 are capping around $7k in late-June 2019. Some of those “Pinside Top 20” titles are starting to break loose out of collections. It’s a good time to be a used-pinball buyer!

Scared Stiff isn’t rumored for a CGC-PPS remake, at this time but an “Elvira 3” pinball is rumored from Stern to be announced this year. Stern’s remake of Star Trek largely decimated ST:TNG values but that isn’t always the case. Stern’s remake could influence the resale value of Scared Stiff but I suspect it won’t be a popularity coup d'état. Scared Stiff’s value is propped up by charm and x-factor. Solving for x-factor is hard and I’m not sure Stern is up to the task.

Acquisition, Restoration & Modding

There are symptoms of tension between the bean counters & the design team at Bally-Midway when this title was on the line. They were all factory-wired for LED eyes in the skull pile at the back right of the machine but those LED eyes were not included. The machined aluminum extension arms that go onto the kickers to support the finger puppets were also excluded from most production models. The enthusiast community answered both readily by providing the kicker extensions engineered from the original designs and by providing the mode-aware LED eyes that can be added to the skull pile.

My Full Ownership Log with this game can be found here: https://arcadeshenanigans.com/blog/2018/7/13/scared-stiff

10-Minutes w/ Scared Stiff

… here you find my poorly-played 10 minute review of this Scared Stiff machine. In my defense.. playing with the left-flipper hand woven between the tripod legs is weird. Also, I’m just an average player - so there’s that too :)

Pictures….

Scared Stiff is a very photogenic pin.

Playfield Detail

The playfield on this particular machine is really-really good. Typically, they take a ton of abuse at the Terrifying insert at the foot of the crate because of bounce back and the kick-out scoop. A huge piece of factory mylar was applied in this area to protect it. The mylar on this machine is still pretty clear (not-yellowed) but there is a very-slight (2cm maybe?) nick in the mylar at that scoop eject point over the terrifying scoop. If left alone, it would eventually allow the ball to start abusing that insert.

At some point in the distant future, I’ll commit to a full mylar pull but for now I put down a floating playfield protector.

Backbox Detail

LED OCD Board

Pinball Pro backbox Speakers

GI OCD Board

Pinball Pro Cabinet Speaker / Sub

USA Production Run, #2517

About: Mario Kart Arcade GP & GP2

Game Details

Name: Mario kart Arcade Gp
Manufacturer: Namco
Year: 2005
Type: Videogame
Subtype: Driving game

Cabinet Styles:

• Upright/Standard

source: KLOV

Name: Mario Kart Arcade GP 2
Manufacturer: Namco
Year: 2007
Type: Videogame
Subtype: Driving game

Cabinet Styles:

• Upright/Standard

source: KLOV

10 Minutes with Mario Kart Arcade GP2

Mario Kart Arcade GP -> KLOV LInk
Mario Kart Arcade GP2 -> KLOV Link

ACQUISITION

“Thank you for your service, Mario Kart”

One of my cabinets came by way of a hookup through a friend in Birmingham. This cabinet still has a stock tag on it from asset inventory or from an auction perhaps. The inclusion of an NSN number leads me to suspect it may have spent some time on a military base or perhaps it just passed hands through an auction authority that frequently deals with US Government or Military items.

The other cabinet came by way of a miniature golf closure in Southern Mississippi. Both cabinets are in good shape, they have a few cabinet repairs here and there and some scuffs in artwork or missing decals.

Hardware

The game is based on the Namco, Sega, Nintendo Triforce platform. Typically a IBM power PC w/ 512mb of RAM roughly similar in architecture to the Nintendo Gamecube. The cabinet is a JVS wiring class, includes a Triforce CPU, a JVS IOS Interface Board, a force-feedback controller board & sound amp.

This game also includes Namco’s Namcam(2) camera, a gimmick to snap photos of the player to be used in leaderboards or as in-race identifiers to distinguish players from bot-racers.

The game originally shipped with a 29” CRT but I was forced to put in Wells-Gardner (the video mentions Vision Pro but my memory for these details is crap) 27” LED Monitors in order to get support for Mario Kart Arcade GP2.

Gameplay

The gameplay shares similarity in racing dynamics to the console Mario Kart games with key differences and Namco cross-licensed characters (pacman, ms pacman). The original game advertised 6 worlds and 24 tracks but they phoned-in the effort in that each world really only had two track variations and then environment or reverse traffic flow on those two comprising the remaining 12 tracks.

Mario Kart Arcade GP2 expands the track offering by adding deeper variation between tracks, bringing the total up to 8 cups & 32 tracks.

MAINTENANCE, VALUE, RARITY, FUN-FACTOR

These games are pretty rare and tended to be higher maintenance games when placed on location because of camera failures and force-feedback failures.

I’m not sure what they are worth but I have roughly $1400 in the Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 upgrade, roughly $900 in the monitors, $400 in force feedback repairs on top of an average price paid of over $3,000 each. With incidental repairs I’d put the total cost of ownership in the pair a little over $9,000. After about 4 years of ownership they continue to be the most-played-arcade games in our game room. Pinball-inclined friends like to comment:

“You could put three pinball machines in the amount of space these consume”

With that out of the way, I estimate that the Mario Kart Pair has gotten more play in four years than every Pinball machine I’ve owned over that amount of time; combined.

It isn’t just kids and friends of kids, either. Adults have been known to use it as a form of rock-paper-scissors or as a sobriety scale. (Legal Disclaimer: Accuracy of Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 to determine a person’s ability to drive safely has not been established)

Is it fun? Yep.

About: Tapper

Game Details

source: KLOV

Name: Tapper
Manufacturer: Bally Midway
Year: 1983
Type: Videogame

Class: Wide Release
Genre: Platform
Monitor:

• Orientation: Horizontal

• Type: Raster: Standard Resolution

• CRT: Color

Conversion Class: Midway MCR III
Game Specific: Tapper Pinout

Number of Simultaneous Players: 1
Maximum number of Players: 2
Gameplay: Alternating
Control Panel Layout: Single Player Ambidextrous
Sound: Unamplified Stereo (requires two-channel amp)

Cabinet Styles:

• Upright/Standard

• Cocktail

10 Minutes with Tapper

About: Monster Bash

Game Details

GAME DETAILS

DESIGN TEAM

Manufactured by: Williams Electronic Games, Inc.
Date: July 1998
Type: Solid state
Generation: Williams WPC-95
Release: 3,361 produced
Estimated value: $7860-$9140
Cabinet: Normal
Display type: Dot Matrix
Players: 4
Flippers: 2
Ramps: 3
Multiball: 4
Latest software:V1.0 - August 16, 1998

Game Design: George Gomez
Mechanics: Chris Shipman
Software: Bill Pfutzenreuter Lyman F. Sheats Jr.
Artwork: Greg Freres Kevin O'Connor
Animation: Adam Rhine
Sound: Jon Hey Vince Pontarelli
Music: Chris Granner Vince Pontarelli

10 Minute Review: Attack from Mars

I picked up this pin in August of 2017 after a few years of searching and watching. In that couple of years of ownership, my enthusiasm for the title really hasn’t faded.

Game Summary

Attack from Mars (1995) is a Brian Eddy designed game that has been recently remade by CGC/PPS.

For perspective.. a friend on the Panhandle picked up an AFM and a Champion Pub around 2014 for a combined price greater than both of our household vehicles, at the time. :) Granted, his games were top notch examples.

My Relationship with the Game

I recall seeing one in the wild as a kid but scantly recall having the opportunity to play one before playing it on Pinball Arcade on the iPad when I got into this hobby 6 years ago. Back then, they were sort of unobtanium in terms of price.

For years, I watched with interest for one but also typically let me my pinball-inclined friends talk me out of them with:

It will get old: Just shooting the center shot over and over.
Rules are too linear.
It is the same layout as Medieval Madness.

I bought the Stern Star Trek (Premium) instead thinking it would be a good stand in with similarities combined from AFM and STTNG. Ultimately, for me the conclusion was that Stern’s Star Trek was (still is) an excellent game in its own right but it didn’t adequately scratch the AFM itch.

I’ve played a few remakes and to my eye they played as well as the originals and looked great too, especially with the upgraded DMD. I know early Medieval Madness Remakes had some insert printing annoyances for super-OCD folks but PPS and CGC seem to stand behind the games. (The remake electronics do differ and I’ll talk about that in another post) For me the real benefit of the remakes is that they cap the used sale values on the original titles and put them in range for acquisition.

In another: {out with the new, in with the old} round of selling & buying (and loosing my ass each time) - I cycled the Sterns and JJPs out of the my game room to get the space (and cash) to start seeking Bally / Williams 90’s titles. This pin was part of the vanguard of that mental battle and so far I’m not sorry, (at all) for the.. downgrade(?)

You can read more about the acquisition of this specific game, list of additions, etc here: Attack from Mars!

Review Shenanigans

In the coming weeks I’m posting a series of arcade and pinball reviews of games that are currently being fostered in the basement. Ten minutes (+/- a few minutes) with each game to talk about gameplay, maintenance or whatever comes to mind.

As I post them, I’ll go back and make the game entries below clickable.

Pinballs

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Attack from Mars
Medieval Madness
Indiana Jones The Pinball Adventure
Scared Stiff
Tales of the Arabian Nights

Arcades

Cocktail Table Arcade-SD Multigame
Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 - Review completed on 4/19/19
Ms Pacman (Cabaret)
Centipede (Cabaret)
Donkey Kong (Multi Kong w/ Arcade-SD)
Namco Reunion
Tapper
Tron
Q*Bert (Mylstar FPGA)
Robotron (Multi-Williams FPGA)
Tempest
Mortal Kombat 4 (and MK1, MK2, MK3 w/ RiddledTV Switcher)

Console

Nintendo Entertainment System Online (Nintendo Switch Online Service)

A Good Blend of Old and New

The search for that nostalgic feeling, It is hard for me to recall how many times I’ve bought versions of some classic NES games over the years. Ironically, Nintendo’s capability in this respect has often fallen short of ideal. The original run of the NES Classic Mini, for instance, had supply-demand issues and some cost-cutting measures that sacrificed the experience. Wired controllers with short cable length, USB power, etc.

Nintendo Entertainment System Online

Nintendo Switch Online, for $35/year provides access to the Nintendo Entertainment System Online library of 38+ classic NES titles.

Star Wars Episode 9, Rise of Skywalker Teaser

Get your Star Wars Episode 9 Teaser Trailer on:

Hope this one wraps up the Skywalker Saga in a satisfying way! My expectations have been low on the Star Wars front lately but maybe, just maybe there will be a strong finish?

Galaxy’s Edge Disney Land Officially Opens May 31, 2019
Galaxy’s Edge Disney World Officially Opens August 29, 2019

Meanwhile, I believe the line for Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at Walt Disney World is starting to form along Florida’s I75. Just look for this sign:

I believe an attendant is near this sign and will give you a queue-timing card on a neck lanyard in order to keep the wait times accurate. ;)

The speculated 6+ hour wait times sound like fun for the whole family! 🥺

Speaking of movies…

As of several weeks out, Avengers: Endgame is sold out for opening night and opening weekend at premium theater experiences everywhere.

With the iconic MCU Phase 1 conclusion in early summer and Skywalker Saga completion in winter, a new streaming service launching in November, park tickets & hotel lodging with parking fees, $5 bottled water and $20 cheeseburgers: Disney gets all of the money in 2019.

In a growth-predicated economy with investor-beholden incentives what then do you do in 2020, if you are the The Mouse?

..lots of butts in seats, eating popcorn.. maybe they should have bought Orville Redenbacher too?

ah, nevermind then. carry on.