Classic Stern 1979 Meteor Pinball Machine ! Gameplay, Cabinet, Artwork overview

ladies and gentlemen this is Joe's video games back with another really cool arcade game video for you tonight this is actually a pinball machine of course this is Stern's meteor this was Stern the old-school Stern probably the new-school Stern to but this was Stern's best-selling game of all time pinball Weis Stern at the time in the mr. early 80s or late 70s actually but Stern also made video games for a while so they did berserk and frenzy was the sequel to berserk and Tutankhamen and some stuff like that but also super Cobra and scramble both awesome games but they they were more known for their pinball machines so I thought I'd show you this game we just got it kind of finished up that we got this years ago this machine along with several other games from a gentleman and this one was in the worst shape and it was missing all kinds of parts had somewhere on the playfield down to the wood just had a lot going on but over the years we you know we fixed all the other ones and over the years this one's been sitting around and we decided recently you know what let's get the meteor out of storage and fix it up so we did it just took a lot of work not really a ton of money but a lot of work to get it working again but I figured I'd shoot a little video to show you the game it's actually a really cool game I really liked it we've had several meteors over the years because like I said it was Stern's best-selling game I think they made 14,000 of them which is a lot for a pinball machine and in the modern era you know Stern is still the biggest manufacturer of pinball games today it's a different company but it's ran by Gary Stern the same gentleman I ran this company back whenever they were making meteor the modern Stern would love to sell 14,000 copies of a game again if a game sells 3,000 copies now it's considered a huge success so they don't make their numbers public anymore so we don't know for sure the moderns modern would sell but some of them have only sold six or seven under debt actually but the more popular ones to probably sell three or four thousand maybe more we don't know for sure but this one sold fourteen thousand awesome so I figured I'd show it to you a little bit the coin door we painted because it was all somebody had already painted it black and it just looked horrible so we had to paint that and then there's a there was an issue with art on the side that's of course the original art the art was missing on the on the back box so we just painted it red to kind of match the the neck there underneath it that was already red but the sides one most of the meteors have a continuation of the comet you see kind of you know some of the streaking and stuff up here on the top looks pretty cool but we thought it came out pretty nice most people can't see the side art on the head while the games up against the wall anyway and then on this side we've got something similar going on there we go we were able to get a nice back glass for it this one's not perfect but it's in good shape it's just got a lot going on there's their back glasses were really busy there for a while see that mirrored effect see how you can see a reflection in the glass that's actually printed as well on the back of the glass it's almost like a separate layer of ink that has a mirror finish to it and they don't really do that much anymore if you sometimes you see most of the newer machines have trans lights but they are starting to make some of bad glances but they don't put the mirror effect on that that often but this one had it so meteor by Stern and the copyright on it is 1978 now you see down here it says American International pictures incorporated there was actually a meteor movie way back in the day I've never seen it but this was actually licensed this was based on a movie and down here it says meteor copyrights turn electronics incorporated but you see over here that's also got the copyright from American International pictures incorporated so who knows what's up with that I'm gonna have to find that movie one of these days and watch it and see if it's any good but basically you've got a big huge meteor hurling towards what I assume is earth and you've got it's like a meteor shower you see some meteor meteors are hitting it in the background and then you see all these missiles that we're launching up to hit it this back glass is a little faded but you can see that this is an American flag here it says sk5 and over here it says CCCP which I believe am I correct that that's uh hmm I was gonna guess that that was Chinese but I'm not sure so anyway it looks like maybe the countries of the world are shooting rockets up to try to defend us from this meteor shower that's trying to hit the earth all of that is completely irrelevant to the game but that's the that's the the deal behind the back glass here's the playfield it's an interesting little layout it has Stern's little post here in the middle to save the ball if the balls coming down just right you can let it bounce off that and it'll bounce up a flipper hopefully but the play field is very busy it's got a lot of work on it this one again it's not in perfect shape but it came out pretty decent you've got these three rockets right here one two three and then these three bonus ladders in the middle oh they're actually off to the side a little bit but one two and three and that's because you have all of these drop targets so you've got these three over here that say one and you've got these three up here that's a tune and then you've got these three over here that's a three so basically as you drop one of those targets it's as advanced and score rocket value so basically as you drop a number one target it raises this from zero to 1000 and then two thousand three times but so you can build this up you can also bet up the twos you can also build up the threes and then at the end of the ball counts all that down and awards you whatever those points are that's how you get points for the one rocket one points for rocket two points for rocket three and then over here you have a multiplier so one times two times or four times this can actually go even higher though because you can get the four lit up and the one lit up so probably the two as well but I haven't seen that but that's there the four and the one if they were both lit up then you get five times the value that's why it says plus between it so let's say that you had this counted up to five thousand whatever the ball drains it'll go it'll it'll count that three times if you've four times if you've got the four times lit up and it'll just do it once if you've only got the the one time lit up so it's a game that you can really score a really high on and it's a game with tons of drop targets so you got those three and then up here at the top you've got a really cool spinner shot over here that uh that's I'm not just a nice shot to hit and then up here at the top you've got these other drop targets so you've got nine drop targets on the sides of the play field and then up at the top you've got six more that spell out meteor so this game has a total of 15 drop targets in it which is a pretty impressive really and then up here you got these three little rollovers just say stop the spot meteor target or 500 and you've also got this extra flipper up here and you've got this little stand up target here so it's a cool it's a cool game it's got a lot going on in a lot of heart on it which is basically all just kind of a spacey theme you've got a this is kind of a nice little effect here they've got you know this is the shooter lane and so you've got the tail of a comment here or a meteor I guess that curves around and then becomes the pop bumper so that's a neat little weather where they put that in was pretty cool and it's also got a that little explosion there's kind of neat looking but it's just this you know it's just design aspects of it so let's read over the instructions and we will see what it says oh and by the way those drop targets at the top the ones that say meteor are all memory targets so stern was it really cool with those basically it can remember which ones were down and drop each target by itself which is really cool so anyway let's see what this says meteor insert coins four credits anytime the game is on press credit button start game press credit button for additional players anytime before ball and play number two all right each meteor drop target increases the spinner value all right so that's the ones at the top completing all of the meteor drop targets if you do it the first time it increases the bonus multiplier X so this is it this over here so we'll go from 1 X 2 to excerpt from 2 X 2 for X all right the second time that you complete all meteor drop targets it flashes the dead bumpers and out lanes for remainder of ball and play so the outline is collect all Rockets collect all Rockets so basically you would collect all of these values I guess it must not do it at the end of each bar like I was thinking and then if you so the second time you get it it lights those and then it also lights these advances one win lit this is called a dead bumper it doesn't pop like this one this one has a metal ring that pulls down loop I guess I should show you them this one has a metal ring that pulls down and pops the ball pop bumper these ones are called dead bumpers because you just hit it and fall off of it it doesn't have any kind of way to pop the ball away from it and then there's one over there to that one lights up as well it just doesn't in a track mode but if you saw that that second time you drop all the drop targets it likes these up advance it's one when lit every time you hit it it raises the the number one rocket bonus and that one does the same with the number three bonus unfortunately the number two bonus doesn't appear to have a way to raise it except if you had the number to drop targets but maybe there is will read on all right bonus multiplier and meteor drop targets are held in memory and they restore for each player's next ball and play except the multiplier resets for next ball went on six times or seven times all right so if the if you get the multiplier all the way up to six times so if you've got the four lit and the two lit or the for the two-bit and the one lit where you've got six or seven times as the countdown they don't let you hold that over to the next ball they they take it away from you at the end of the ball is what they're saying so what were you down to getting bonus multiplier and meteor drop targets are held in memory and restore for each player's next ball in play except multiplier resets for next ball when it's on the 637 they're not going to give you that big of an advantage Wow splash on meteor target when bonus multiplier is it six times only so there's the WoW lights underneath it that's second row of lights WoW wows flash on meteor targets when bonus multiplier is at six times only not seven times only six times dead bumpers when lit and indicated dead bumpers win lit and indicated drop targets advance and score the corresponding Rockets so basically if the the dead bumpers of the topper lit that'll advance your one or three that it corresponds to on it and then all of the drop targets that say one two and three advance their corresponding rocket aligning all rockets on the same value flashes the wiles as indicated aligning all rockets at 7,000 flashes specials as indicated so what they're saying is if you get all of these lined up to where they're all it at 4,000 or something where they all line up it flashes the whales which is wow wow wow out hold scores all rockets times the bonus multiplier value tilt penalty ball and play only maximum one mile per ball in play and over here if you make wow it lights shoot again so you get a free ball is what the while all stands for I'm not sure if I have it set up that way there's some little dip switches to change that in the back but I believe that's how I've got it set up so basically if you get these up to 4000 and they're all lined up if you hit it while it's lit you'll it lights up free ball we'll have to try that out folks that sounds so almost too good to be true but there you go that is Stearns awesome meteor I will grab the tripod and we'll play it a little bit and see just how high of a score I can get all right folks here we go we're gonna play through it a little bit and let you hear some of those awesome late seventies sounds I check the copyright it says 78 on the back glass but that's when the movie came out 1979 was when meteor came out but we'll play through it here a little bit see what we can get get going it has constant background sound like that that was something that Stern and Williams were kind of messing with for a while there spot meteor target oh it robbed me one thing to that top flipper that bang on on the original cabinets like this one sometimes it'll have a resistor on it because that that can't be real strong if that flipper is really strong you will destroy your your drop targets up here because it's only six inches from them so I mean it'll just break him into a million pieces so you can either if it doesn't have the resistor anymore what you can do is you can adjust the end of stroke gap out farther so that it's pretty weak you don't need it to be strong at all it can be super weak and still hit those targets no problem well pissed everything airball well if I could hit anything sometimes on some of these you can hit down an entire Bank of targets with one shot oh forget about that top flipper ah forgot it again memory targets a little glass bump for you make sure you're still awake at one target I may have to just a little bit you have to hit it pretty much dead on to get it to score all right that's two hundred forty four thousand four hundred and forty points the reason you're seeing some of the targets the memory targets drop on their own is because there's since there the memory targets basically they have a little coil on each target and it can pull it in and make the target drop and so basically because of that it opens up a bunch of new gameplay ideas like they can make it where you can drop the targets without actually hitting them so you can there's other ways to drop the targets like the rollover lights above the targets up here if you roll over those while they're lit it'll drop a target and and each in Lane it can light up and say spot meteor target etc etc let's play another one nope oh that's horrible Oh awesome horrible ah horrible I had them lined up to on the two so if I bought it so all of my wild lights were lit or that one ones if I would have hid it I would have got a free ball hmm the reason that it stops for a second whenever the game's over is because it's showing you on the scores on the left side what the high score is and basically comparing it to your score it also does that after the second ball I've got to set on three balls so after the second ball you'll see it'll stop for a second and it'll just sit there the reason it's doing that is because it's showing you what the high score is so you can try to beat it on your last ball it's a very well designed game I think yeah I need to watch this switch I'm not sure if it's working right we just finished this thing so it may still needs a little tweaking since the end of the second ball so it's gonna pause so it's showing me the high school right now right down the middle hmm all right let's try it again I guess work well I got saved by that center post set them for real for real but not better so my score was a whopping 7070 on the first ball I was robbed you can kind of make if you make the shot soft like that where you just barely go over the drop targets it'll hit those three rollovers at the top that spot you the targets I'm trying to hit spinner just because everybody loves a good spinner thank God I think I hit all three at one shot which I think does something for you when the way it I think it was because I knocked down all three of the bank two with one shot I believe it rewards you for that all right we're gonna try it one more game ah no my spinner shot was stuffed there we go you'll notice I keep hitting I keep hitting the stand-up target and it doesn't register that's probably because on these if you've got a stand-up target like that that you hit real fast on a ballet or a stern they're supposed to have a little capacitor on them because what happens is you hit it so quick that it doesn't give it time to register like the old-school MP you can't actually see that you hit it so quick so there's a little capacitor that's supposed to be between the two blades of the switch underneath the playfield which makes the pulse a little bit longer and so the board can see it I'll bet that but the problem with those little capacitors is they short together after a while to where it makes it where the switch is always on so operators would just cut them off so I'll bet what's going on is that switch doesn't have its capacitor on it so I'll check that out later and replace it if need be there we go got it that time and the glass bumped to boot I got it that time too I hit the I hit the ball with upper flipper for dives of the rope and didn't uh didn't get any of them all right there we go folks can't be here all night it's how it pauses for a minute on your score and then now it's back in a track mode it's a really cool game it's one of those games you can just play over and over again I really like these vintage valleys and Stearns the the ones from the late seventies the first solid-state ones some of them aren't really that great but most of these games you can find something about them that you really like that's really enjoyable this one's got 15 drop targets on it I mean that's awesome and I'm sure you can tell by the way I keep talking about I really like the memory targets I just think that's cool how they can drop on their own and you can do other things to make it drop where it kind of helps you a little bit and you're trying to get all of them I'm just a sucker for that kind of stuff so just a really fun game and it sets up the four player game which most of the the digital ones were maybe all of them so you know you can get a bunch of people playing and you know fight to get the highest score and it's just fun times to be had for everyone another thing about these classic Stern's and the classic valleys is since there's so many so many of them they were so popular you can you can get parts for them just they make just about everything for this game they've even I believe they're they're talking about making the back glass like making a reproduction of that so if they pull that off that'll be awesome but there you go that is Stern's meteor 1979 really fun game in my opinion and a lot of people agreed because it was their best-selling game ever now if you're looking to buy a meteor this one may have already flown on over to somebody else's house by the time you see this video usually these pin balls don't last very long here in our shop but you can see what all the things that we do have available for sale right now on our website just go to Lyons arcade comm and you can check out what we've got right now no matter when you see this video even if it's 20 years down the road also you can stop by and see us we're in beautiful downtown Rock Hill South Carolina which is about 15 minutes south of Charlotte North Carolina just over the border and if you're if you're not looking for an arcade game or a pinball machine and you're not in the area where you can stop by just subscribe to us here on YouTube we're gonna be filming videos every time we get something cool like this finished up we'll shoot a little video and share it with you folks just so you can feel like you're playing it again so we will 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