Stern announced the first official Jaws pinball machine early last month, and the Pro version of the game has already started popping up in public. If you’ve ever wanted to go shark hunting with Robert Shaw in a pinball game, now’s your chance; to find a machine on location near you, you can use Pinside’s pinball map.
I don’t typically write about individual pinball games here at Paste, despite playing pinball a lot, largely because I rarely log enough time on any specific game to feel like an authority on it. I’m not one of those guys who can somehow afford to buy every single new machine, stacking up plays in the basement before flipping them every few months for the next one off the assembly line. My time is limited to what games I can find on location at bars, restaurants, and the handful of pinball arcades around Atlanta, and however many plays I’m able to get on them. So don’t consider this an all-encompassing review; these are just my first, immediate impressions after a half-dozen or so plays on a Pro edition—the most basic of three models.
So, here goes: the Jaws pinball machine is pretty cool. Yep. I dig it. It’s got some balls, some flippers, some ramps, some Richard Dreyfuss—basically everything you need for pure pin satisfaction.
Okay, I can dig a little deeper than that. Jaws relies on a beloved, nostalgic property, but one that isn’t quite as overexposed or commercialized right now as the Star Wars and Marvel pins Stern often releases, and that makes it feel fresher than a lot of other recent pinball machines. Keith Elwin’s design, from the game’s various modes to the playfield layout, tries to reflect the movie in a way you don’t often see with these IP machines. Most pins based on movies use film footage, audio, and artwork from the source, and then slaps them on a game that doesn’t have any connection to the spirit and theme of the movie. Jaws doesn’t work that way, and that’s why it instantly seems more interesting than most new Sterns—after a very small number of plays, at least.
The game uses a lot of film clips, as most modern pins based on movies do, but here the machine often holds the ball and stops the action on the playfield to make sure the player actually pays attention to them. It’s a controversial decision among pin fans, but it’s one of the things that distinguishes Jaws from Stern’s other, often similar pinball games. By controlling the pace like that it also lets the game build up tension in a way that’s unusual in pinball. Modern pinball isn’t really built to increase or decrease its stress level; once you shoot the ball, you’re in a constant state of apprehension over keeping that ball alive. Specific missions or modes can amplify that anxiety a bit, and something like multiball paradoxically increases tension while lessening the threat of ending your turn. But for the most part the tension level in a pinball machine is a steady line with occasional small and short peaks. Jaws tries to create a sense of fear and stress similar to the movie with these irregular stops and starts, and although it’s not entirely successful, it’s an interesting design choice that fits the subject matter and also makes this game feel unique.
Another common criticism of Jaws is that the bottom half of the playfield doesn’t offer a lot of shots or much else to do. There are some stand-up targets on the left side and a third flipper on the right, but most of the targets are clustered at the top of the playfield. They include three ramps, a spinner, a ball lock themed as a chum bucket, and of course a toy of Bruce the Great White caught in a shark cage. The bottom two thirds of the playfield are basically wide open and used solely for display. That gives this very modern machine a bit of an old-fashioned feel, which fits for a 50-year-old movie. It also deepens the game’s thematic richness. The goal in Jaws is to hunt the shark, and when Brody, Quint and Hooper set out to kill Bruce in the movie they don’t do it by waiting around the shore. They have to go deeper out into the ocean, just like Jaws players won’t get much action until they’re as deep into the playfield as they can get. Again, like the unusual attempts at pacing, this doesn’t necessarily make Jaws a better or more enjoyable game, but it does make it seem like one that was designed with a closer eye to creating a thematic whole than most pins.
Jaws’ code has also been a common cause of complaint, and here’s where I throw my hands up and admit that I have no idea how to evaluate that. Again: I’ve played this machine six times, which is enough to get a feel for its most basic attributes, but not enough to become intimately familiar with its computer code. I didn’t notice any glaring issues or bugs, but the current code is still effectively in beta, so you can probably expect some hiccups with it until Stern gets that 1.0 update pushed out.
I’m far from ready to give any kind of a final summation on this Jaws pin, and to be fair, until the code is settled the game really isn’t finalized, anyway. The playfield won’t be changing, though, and it’s unlikely there’ll be any major adjustments to the rule set or how the game uses the film assets. And for my money, from what I’ve seen of Jaws and what I’ve thought and felt while playing it, it’s one of Stern’s better machines. It’s way too early for me to give out any conclusive opinions, or anything, but I’ll be playing this one a lot more in the weeks to come, and if it continues to impress as much as it has in limited play I could see it being my favorite Stern since Godzilla, and perhaps even my second favorite the company has released over the last decade or so. I need to grab a roll of quarters and get a bigger boat and go play the Jaws pinball machine a lot more to find out.
Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, comedy, travel, theme parks, wrestling, and anything else that gets in his way. He’s also on Twitter @grmartin.