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'Stranger Things' pinball machine melds two forms of '80s nostalgia
If watching Stranger Things has inspired you to look for '80s-era gaming, your search might be over. Stern Pinball has introduced a Stranger Things pinball table that, like the Netflix show, blends nostalgia with 21st century technology. Your quest is to unravel the supernatural mysteries of Hawkins and defeat the Demogorgon (complete with a model on the field), but it's how you get there that matters -- the table has a modern feature or two that helps it stand out from the crowd.
Oakland's 80-year pinball prohibition ends
Oakland, California, has lifted its long-standing ban on pinball machines, making it legal to play pinball in the city for the first time in almost 80 years. Oakland's ban stretches back to the 1930s, when several cities in the United States adopted laws restricting the sale and public display of pinball machines due to their ties to illegal gambling. The former game of chance evolved into a skill-based challenge with the introduction of flippers, however, leading many cities to rescind their pinball bans in the 1970s. Pinball manufacturer Stern commemorates the end of Oakland's ban with an Iron Man table tournament taking place at RadioShack's Fruitvale Station store over the next month. Pinball players have 30 days to rack up a high score on the newly installed machine, and the top 16 players will compete in a final tournament round on September 20. [Image: Stern]
Stern Pinball's Transformers Pin home game hands-on (video)
Sure, CES isn't all fun and games, but, well, sometimes it's exactly that. Like when Stern Pinball CEO Gary Stern pays a visit to our CES stage and brings along his company's latest, the Transformers Pin. This isn't just any old pinball machine -- it's a home unit, aimed at the large portion of the pinball-buying audience looking to bring silver ball to their humble abodes, available though outlets like Amazon with a price tag well under those of the company's pro units. It's also noticeably smaller than those machines -- in fact, if you give it a bit of the old body English during play, you can actually scoot the machine a bit. The back glass is also not quite as grand as those on its professional siblings, but it's still got a working display for scrolls and the requisite text crawl. The playfield, meanwhile, is pretty close to the real deal. Stern's clearly expert in making flippers, bumpers and the like, and many of those components went into the making of this machine.
Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Stern Pinball's Gary Stern (update: video embedded)
Yep, pinball at CES. We'll be chatting up Gary Stern, the CEO of Stern Pinball, one of the remaining few companies out there keeping the silver ball dream alive. We'll be discussing the state of the game in an era dominated by console and mobile gaming and what the future holds for pinball. January 8, 2013 7:30 PM EST Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here! Update: video embedded
