Watched Thunderball with friends again yesterday. I have to say it is my favorite Sean Connery Bond. Still like- A View to a Kill the best though

-It really helps with connection to the theme when watching the classic films-and it gets the juices flowing again

Bond-James Bond

Thunderball.gif

Watching all of the Connery films is on my list of things to do in the coming weeks.

IMG_4662 (resized).jpeg

It's a good one with lots of memorable bits but I'd put it behind Goldfinger, Russia with Love, and You Only Live Twice from the originals. Just gets kinda bogged down with the endless underwater stuff. And even as a little kid I thought that the finale with the choppy editing and sped up Disco Volante footage was unspeakably cheesy.

Thank You

I think the under water scenes is what makes it so special. The amount of divers and coordination while filming must have been a huge undertaking. Keep in mind this is all pre computer generated images era where filming these types of scenes took an army to accomplish. Also some really nice racks in this movie-and I am not talking about car racks

Shaken not stirred sir

James-Bond-Sean-Connery-Art-by-Peter-Engels-05-scaled (resized).jpg

Where can I pickup a replacement DB5?

I watched all six Connery films with my kids (then 12 and 10) last year after we got our Bond. They liked the films more than I expected... so we kept watching all through the Roger Moore films and into the Daniel Craig films (sorry folks, I skipped Lazenby, Dalton and Brosnan). We're going to watch Skyfall this weekend (arguably greatest Bond film of all time, IMO).

The idea that these 50-60 year old films won't attract a younger audience isn't entirely true. But someone has to show them the movies. They're not likely to seek them out on their own.

I was listening to the 50's music station on my Pandora doing house chores and my daughter starts singing along to an obscure song that was on. I was baffled? I asked her how and the heck do you know about this song? She replied-'Tik Tok'

There may be hope for the future after all

I'm amazed at how many songs by Journey, Queen, etc my kids know.

Anyway... Bond. Getting mine tomorrow!

The part # is 545-1333-00. You can ask any dealer to order it (or see if Marco, etc., carries it). I contacted Stern support to see if I could get a replacement because the wheel fell off (or was broken off by the ball in the shooter lane), but they said no b/c my game is out of warranty. You can try contacting Stern if this is a more recent purchase.

Back to those springs for the drop targets, there is 3 of them total?

Yes there are 3, one for each target.

Thx

Anybody have their bird 1 gate get stuck open & not be able to trigger the jetpack multiball 2nd ball without pulling the glass? I have tried slightly bending it but it seems like it moves too much towards the rocket and the pinch at the end of the wire gets stuck in the hole on the right side of the gate, trapping it in the up position.

Awesome. Thanks!

I was pretty sure code was going to come out in May, but now I’m starting to think August.

If it does take that long, has there ever been a machine in modern Stern history that took almost 2 years to get to 1.0? Or is this a first?

I also think this is a first!

Not a Stern, but Guns and Roses (JJP) is still on Beta .95 if I'm not mistaken. That's a hell of a run.

It's Thursday so...ya never know. Today could be the day!

Holy crap really? That’s nuts

And JJP POTC is still on .99 code 5-1/2 years after it first shipped.

I just looked at read me files for 2 of the Sterns I'd heard took awhile. Batman initial version was Dec. 2016 and 1.0 was Nov. 2018.

Ghostbusters technically says it was at v1.05 on release, but really the v1.16 should be considered equivalent to v1.0. and v1.16 came out in Sept. 2019 after the initial v1.05 release in May 2016.

For Bond, I'm guessing there's a lot of delay with license approval. A lot of stuff around this game points to licensors being a choke point in the process. The game banner at release was just a picture of the machine. No other Stern game has had such a plain banner without cool artwork from the machine. That had to be a license issue, and if they had a tough time getting banner art approved then imagine how difficult the approval process must be for the clips & audio in the game.

And I think one indicator of how code approval is going is the time it took to get multiballs to stack with modes. That likely was an issue working through licensor approval.

It's been mentioned in this forum that the licensor has a requirement that all clips be shown in sequence for how they appear in the movie. So clips can't be shown out of sequence in the pinball game. That has to be a big roadblock in approval to try to get things into the game the way Stern would like to have it done.

So, of course waiting for code is a bummer, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one that they're working to try to get a great update to us as quickly as they can.

I may be looking at picking up a Bond Pro coming up, what are any potential issues I should be checking for or things I should know about the machine?

Usually I'm a bit more up on things, but because the initial code and reviews were so bad I kind of let this one slip under my radar but now it seems to be a really good game.

Thanks!

Odds are slightly better than usual since I have league finals tonight and wouldn't have time to check it out. :p

It's a great game. I got a pro last August as code really turned the game into a gem and I love it. Only very minor tweaks on mine were adjusting the one-way gate at the upper "in lanes" and adjusting the alignment of the upper flipper to hit the henchman ramp and upper loop shots more reliably. There are good posts in this forum with advice for both of those things.

Drop targets have a lot of issues with bricking on this game but Stern has blue springs available to help with the issue or you can just hook the existing springs a bit shorter to slightly increase tension on them. Not a big deal overall and can be resolved easily and reliably.

Bond premium has arrived. Is it ok to start bitching about code now?

IMG_4691 (resized).jpeg

Yup.

you can also start complaining about other newer Stern games (Foo, Jaws) and saying Bond is way better.

It’s past bitching time. We’re on to grab the pitchforks and let’s burn this mother down territory now.

I agree with you, we have a working game that’s fun to tide us over so I’m not bitching, just curious if this is an anomaly.

Ok, some preliminary observations...

1) I need a PinMonk quiet fan ASAP!
2) I also need blue springs.
3) Jet pack isn't working right because the post doesn't go all the way down and it strips the ball off the magnet. I assume this will be an easy fix? About to lift the hood and see.
4) The enter your initials screen isn't nearly as cool as the one for Jaws. I broke the original owner's GC score on my 4th game.
5) James Bond multiball... got that for the first time and it was awesome!

Is anyone thinking that we need to add tape or rubber material to the DB5 VUK ?
Looks like a lot of metal to metal slamming on the actual pinball .

Nah, they take way more abuse than that in normal play. Think about how much metal to metal friction goes on between the ball and a solid shot around the orbit. Just replace the balls every so often and it's fine.

In all fairness,I probably won't be using any more code update at this time! I don't think I'm a good enough player to make it to the wizard modes!

They might give people the opportunity to play it as a mini game…so don’t turn in your license to kill just yet.

OK,I'll restrain my trigger finger!

Yeah, you never know what might be added, score-adjusted, tuned, etc... It's become more common in recent years to have a wizard practice mode so I wouldn't be surprised to see one added to the game although it might not be until 1.0.1 or something like that.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like the movie lights aren't used for much yet so maybe something there? I read that a movie light goes on after you've played the Villain, Henchman, Q-Branch, and SPECTRE Weapon modes for that movie but I haven't found any mention of anything that happens or gets awarded because of it.

Thanks for the checklist. This is one reason I prefer to get HUO machines over NIB, often these kind of small tweaks are already fixed for you, in addition to maybe a couple nice mods and a few hundred bucks off

I have had mine for 9 months - zero issues

This is all truth

Two weeks.

Fixed my upper post issue. Not as easy as I would have liked. The yellow plastic guide was slightly off center, causing the post to hang up on the ramp. I honed it out slightly with a drill and bent the bracket for the solenoid slightly and now it works perfectly.

It must have been like this since new, and therefore the jet pack magnet never worked right. No wonder the original owner sold it!
IMG_4698 (resized).jpegIMG_4699 (resized).jpegIMG_4700 (resized).jpeg

FYI... That yellow part you are dealing with is not even stock.

Lighting a movie insert will light/qualify the Bond woman from that movie. Then you can activate the 1x multiplier with loop shots.

Isn't that Rocket City mod supposed to be screwed onto the side of the ramp anyway??

Yup. He even said that you could ream it out a bit if you were having issues with.

I have it installed on my game from almost day 1, zero issues with it. Works Great!

Never needed it on my machine, a tad of plastic shavings from the pin at the start on the playfield (as a lot of people reported) and had no issues since.

Nice. I never took any chances and just installed it from the get go but yeah man, whatever works!

Huh. Ok, so what is the purpose of it then? If I were to put it on the other side it would be quite visible. I like the way it is hidden now. Seller did say he installed some jet pack mod, but I wasn't sure what he was talking about.

Speaking of the jet pack, I see there is a target on top of the tank and the jet pack kind of hovers over it. How does that work?

https://pinside.com/pinball/shops/shop/1282-rocket-city-pinball/08874-jetpack-pin-alignment-corrector-james-bond-007