First Takes: Avengers: Infinity Quest Pinball by Stern Pinball

Reviewer 14

Very impressed. Can’t wait to play! The code seems amazing, shots look very smooth and the game presents well. Callouts outs are fine, don’t seem to be annoying at all. Music is nice, light show is for sure muted due to the extra lights on the stream. Overall looks to possibly be Keith’s best yet, and that is an incredible feat.

Reviewer 37

A beautiful game, with beautiful shots.

The audio and light shows are as polished as we have come to expect from Stern releases. I would have suggested some different acting choices for the voice actor work, but otherwise definitely get the main points across.

The layout is amazing, though my initial impression is that the towering ramp in the back of the playfield will be very punishing. In watching the stream, it seems that that impression was correct. As it sits, that seems like the 'sucker shot', which most games have, designed to take your ball. I like that it is so far away. Many of these shots are placed towards the front edge of the back 1/3 of the game, as your reaction time is slower, so a player of this game actually has more time to save (or lament) their shot.

Otherwise, the layout is loopy and fun like Elwin's other designs, which are quite interesting to shoot. While the complexity of the rules are appreciated by many, I am not one of them - I find myself completely lost when playing one of his games. However, the shot paths are so fun that I generally don't care.

Zombie Yeti killed it with the artwork, yet again, and a similar style was used for the display and animations, which provides a more cohesive and polished appearance.

Reviewer 163

Looks fun and has a clever layout. First impressions in a lot of these categories are average because many aspects of the game have not yet been revealed at time of review.

Reviewer 99

With Avengers: Infinity Quest Keith Elwin has again given us everything we didn't know we needed in a new pinball machine. We see the return of a subway to a stern machine, we get a vertical magnet lock, a spinning disk, a multi-entry ramp and most visually striking the Captain Marvel gravity defying ramp that sends the player's ball on a path that could only be traveled by a true superhero. Combining his creative layout with his competitive pinball mind to create a complex, yet comprehensible, rule set that should bring fun and entertainment to players both at locations and in private collections for years to come. Personally I cannot wait to get on this thing!

Reviewer 151

Looks great, shoots great, but seems overly complex and lacks the humor and personality that makes the Avengers movie so much fun.

Reviewer 65

This game is really looks great! Keith and Team did a fabulous job putting this game together! They took a theme that was already done and created a masterpiece. The game over all looks like it will appeal to all different pinheads. Bravo Stern for making a great game!

Reviewer 127

Layout looks great. Rules appear to be on their way and will certainly get fleshed more. Shots are all pretty deep and relatively tight which I can see as being frustrating for inexperienced players, but as a home game it looks great.

Reviewer 88

I can't wait to dig in to this title. A vast improvement over the other Avengers game. I'm looking forward to shooting the Gauntlet ramp and finding out how different combinations of infinity gems affect the game.

Reviewer 165

The layout looks like a home run, very unique, and Yeti's artwork is amazing as always. Very nice lightshow which looks to be one of the better lightshows from Stern in recent memory, looks great. Music, callouts, and sound effects were a little tough to hear but seemed just ok. The biggest question mark is the rules and code as it seemed convoluted and complex. Though maybe that was what Stern was going for, having the rules being difficult to understand at first glance and more of a "discoverable" feature? There were jokes on the stream about the instruction card being top secret. Usually TWIP gives a good overview of the rules in the Deep Dive which I like to read before the reveal stream to get an idea of what is going on, but this game's Deep Dive was still a little tough to follow/understand (sorry TWIP). As we learn more about the game though it will likely all come together and become more understandable. Overall the layout and toys and fun of the game, especially the Premium/LE looks incredible. I'll hold off though until I understand more about the complexity of the rules.

Reviewer 55

Keith Elwin's third game appears to have delivered a layout even more groundbreaking than his previous two efforts. Except possibly Eric Meunier, no active playfield designer comes close to the creativity of Keith's designs. I can't wait to shoot this game.

Software already looks complete and polished. Kudos to Stern for back-to-back releases with solid code. I'd be lying to say that I understood everything that was happening in the reveal stream, but that's part of the fun. It seems players will have rules to explore and master for a long time. The gotcha is that it has become clear that Keith designs games for highly experienced players (like himself). Casual players may find shots that they'll seldom be able to make, and have no idea what's going on with many of the rules. They'll probably still have a good time, but might not know what happened or how to make it happen again.

Need to take a moment to talk lights. This game's lightshow is fine. But every other manufacturer has offered 100% RGB lighting for several years now... it is embarrassing at this point to have a "Premium" model that doesn't. And brazen to highlight in the product matrix that the Premium adds 3!!!! RGB LEDs over the Pro model.

For my tastes, the playfield art package is way WAY too much busy color puke. The rest of the screen and sound package seemed fine. Other recent games have arguably done a better job with comic book style screen art, but I'm sure fans of the Avengers comics will like what they see here.

Reviewer 12

Without question the layout of Avengers: Infinity Quest is truly an exceptional feat of pinball design! A dizzying network of ramps and wireforms will no doubt make for exciting and interesting ball paths around the game and lend themselves to seemingly effortless combination shots.

Jeremy Packer's art packages are exceptionally colourful and well composed. I would not go so far as to say it is his best work, but definitely a solid effort. A good amount of representation is given to the iconic core group of Avengers as well as cameos of fan-favourites! I only wish that the on-screen display animations were also up to par with Zombie Yeti's work. The display animations themselves fall a bit short as they echo comic book paper cut-outs with limited frames of animation. The sound design package is slightly above average, but not particularly remarkable with a decent orchestral score which sets the mood well enough during various phases of gameplay. Character call-outs can be a bit flat and perfunctory, but thankfully not too embarrassing either.

The state of rules at the time of the game's launch looks surprisingly complete. The complexity of multiballs, modes and additional scoring objectives make it seem like multiple paths of progression through the game are always available in order to achieve high scores. However I find that apart from flashing inserts, there isn't much audio-visual explanation to the player as to how to complete the objectives in each of these modes/scoring events. Not everyone will have the luxury of having world-class players such as Keith Elwin or Raymond Davidson looking over their shoulder and coaching them as to what to shoot for next. I would imagine even seasoned players will find themselves quite bewildered and confused for the first handful of plays.

Overall I think the design team at Stern has produced a landmark game which I'm sure home pinball collectors and enthusiasts will enjoy for many years to come.