# You've NEVER Seen A Revenge From Mars Pinball Machine Like This!

**Source:** Cooltoy  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2025-10-23  
**Duration:** 17m 2s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM6kQPmXjXg

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## Analysis

Cooltoy documents an extensive custom modification of a Revenge from Mars pinball machine, transplanting the Pinball 2000 system guts into a modern Barrels of Fun cabinet while upgrading speakers, displays, code, and playfield features. The project addresses the creator's long-standing frustration with the original Pinball 2000 cabinet design by combining cutting-edge 1990s game technology with modern cabinet standards, including a 15.6-inch LCD screen replacing the original CRT Pepper's Ghost display, a 3-ball physical lock enabling 6-ball play, custom artwork by Brian Allen, and a Pinball 2000 emulator running upgraded code from mypinballs.com.

### Key Claims

- [MEDIUM] The original Pinball 2000 cabinet design looked dated and inferior compared to standard pinball machines despite having more advanced technology — _Cooltoy, opening monologue about motivation for the project_
- [HIGH] Reflective glass for Pinball 2000 CRT displays costs approximately $400 per sheet and is only compatible with two games — _Cooltoy describing the cost burden of original Pinball 2000 glass replacement_
- [HIGH] The Barrels of Fun Labyrinth cabinet used as the donor was a QA reject purchased for $300 and arrived without advance notification on a pallet — _Cooltoy describing acquisition of the cabinet_
- [HIGH] The original Pinball 2000 Revenge from Mars source machine was running factory original code and could not perform super skill shots until updated — _Cooltoy describing the condition of the donor playfield_
- [MEDIUM] George Gomez originally designed back-corner structures for Revenge from Mars that were not included in the final production due to 3-inch playfield length constraint — _Cooltoy referencing George Gomez's original design intentions for filling dead space_
- [HIGH] The upgraded mypinballs.com code allows Revenge from Mars to support six balls and features a physical 3-ball lock instead of the original virtual lock system — _Cooltoy describing code and mechanical upgrades_
- [HIGH] An overseas developer named Eric created a Pinball 2000 emulator that runs the game 'phenomenally well' on a custom PC — _Cooltoy crediting Eric for the emulator development_
- [HIGH] The original Pinball 2000 playfield is 3 inches shorter than a standard Williams Valley pinball game — _Cooltoy explaining the dead space issue at the back of the playfield_

### Notable Quotes

> "What you see before you is the end result of a wild idea I had where I'd always been a big fan of the game Revenge from Mars and Pinball 2000, but I just honestly always hated the cabinet design."
> — **Cooltoy**, 0:30
> _Establishes the core motivation for the entire custom build project_

> "The Pinball 2000 system and the software and all the ingenuity that went into it—very ahead of its time and very cutting edge. Unfortunately, you know, it got its legs cut out from under it."
> — **Cooltoy**, 1:45
> _Frames Pinball 2000 as underappreciated despite technical merit_

> "I'm not about to pay $400 for glass, especially if it only works on two games that were ever created."
> — **Cooltoy**, 4:00
> _Justifies the decision to replace CRT/glass display with modern LCD_

> "I walked outside to check the mail, and there was literally a pallet with this cabinet sitting on front of my garage, which I thought was kind of wild."
> — **Cooltoy**, 5:15
> _Details the unexpected delivery of the Barrels of Fun cabinet_

> "I'm a huge George Gomez fanboy, so I wanted to try to, you know, keep that as true to form and the fact that I could do a little tip of the cap to one of the original designs that did make it in the final production of the game I thought was a nice touch."
> — **Cooltoy**, 17:30
> _Shows respect for original designer intent while implementing custom modifications_

> "You would never know that it was running off an emulator."
> — **Cooltoy**, 11:00
> _Emphasizes the quality and seamless operation of the Pinball 2000 emulator_

> "Anybody out there, if you do have a Star Wars Episode 1 playfield uh that you'd be interested in selling, hit me up, email me, because uh I'm interested in buying it."
> — **Cooltoy**, 19:30
> _Demonstrates the interchangeability advantage of the Pinball 2000 system architecture_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Cooltoy | person | Content creator and pinball enthusiast documenting a custom Revenge from Mars cabinet modification |
| Revenge from Mars | game | Original Pinball 2000 game that serves as the core system being transplanted into a modern cabinet |
| Barrels of Fun | company | Modern pinball cabinet manufacturer; the Labyrinth cabinet served as the donor case for this custom build |
| Pinball 2000 | product | Williams/Bally pinball platform from 1999 featuring CRT-based display system; only two games produced in this series |
| Brian Allen | person | Custom translite and artwork designer known for Williams and Bally game artwork; created the custom Revenge from Mars translite for this build |
| George Gomez | person | Original designer of Revenge from Mars; his unrealized design concepts for back-corner structures influenced the custom modifications |
| Eric | person | Pinball community developer (Pinside username) who created the Pinball 2000 emulator running this custom machine |
| Brad Albright | person | Artwork designer for the Attack from Mars topper installed on this custom build |
| The Electric Playground | company | Vendor providing the Attack from Mars topper with Brad Albright artwork |
| Star Wars Episode 1 | game | Second Pinball 2000 game; Cooltoy is seeking a playfield to make this cabinet interchangeable |
| Attack from Mars | game | Reference game mentioned for topper design; also relevant as part of the Williams/Pinball 2000 lineage discussion |
| mypinballs.com | company | Source of upgraded Revenge from Mars code (version 2.6+) featuring enhanced gameplay and 6-ball support |
| Williams | company | Original manufacturer of Revenge from Mars and Pinball 2000 series |
| Bally | company | Partner in Pinball 2000 platform development; referenced for cabinet design standards |
| Stern | company | Referenced for modern cabinet design standards and speaker panel sizing comparisons |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Custom cabinet modification and restoration, Pinball 2000 system technology and design, Emulation and software upgrades for legacy pinball games, Playfield modifications and cosmetic upgrades
- **Secondary:** Cabinet design standards and compatibility across manufacturers, Artwork and translite customization, Audio system upgrades for pinball machines
- **Mentioned:** Interchangeability of Pinball 2000 game systems

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.88) — Cooltoy expresses strong enthusiasm and satisfaction with the custom build throughout, repeatedly emphasizing the success of the project and the joy derived from the creation. Acknowledges potential criticism from 'purists' but dismisses it confidently. The tone is educational and passionate about both the game itself and the technical problem-solving involved.

### Signals

- **[restoration_signal]** Detailed documentation of custom playfield mounting solutions, including modified hinges and slider adaptation to transition from Pinball 2000 carriage bolt system to modern Stern-style elevator bolt design (confidence: high) — Cooltoy describing custom hinges and slider modifications to accommodate Pinball 2000 playfield in Barrels of Fun cabinet
- **[technology_signal]** Pinball 2000 emulator developed by community member Eric enables seamless game operation on standard PC hardware, with upgraded code supporting features like 6-ball play and physical 3-ball lock not in original release (confidence: high) — Cooltoy crediting Eric's Pinball 2000 emulator and mypinballs.com upgraded code (v2.6+) enabling mechanical and gameplay enhancements
- **[design_innovation]** Custom cabinet demonstrates viability of transplanting Pinball 2000 system guts into modern cabinet standards, suggesting potential for broader preservation and modernization of legacy pinball systems (confidence: high) — Cooltoy successfully adapting Pinball 2000 playfield and electronics to Barrels of Fun cabinet architecture through custom mechanical modifications
- **[restoration_signal]** Custom build replaces original CRT Pepper's Ghost display ($400+ reflective glass) with 15.6-inch 1080p LCD, addressing cost and technological obsolescence of original display system (confidence: high) — Cooltoy explaining decision to replace CRT-based display with modern LCD, citing $400 glass cost and two-game-only compatibility
- **[product_concern]** Pinball 2000 original cabinet design perceived as outdated and visually inferior despite superior technology; 3-inch playfield length restriction created design constraints (confidence: high) — Cooltoy's foundational motivation: dissatisfaction with cabinet aesthetic and the 3-inch dead space at playfield back requiring custom solutions
- **[collector_signal]** QA reject cabinets from Barrels of Fun sold at discount ($300); source playfield components sourced from secondary market; donor cabinets repurposed for community projects (confidence: high) — Cooltoy purchasing Labyrinth QA reject cabinet for $300 and selling original Pinball 2000 cabinet guts to support another builder's project
- **[design_philosophy]** Custom modifications incorporate unrealized design concepts from original designer George Gomez (back-corner structures), suggesting community respect for historical design intent (confidence: medium) — Cooltoy installing 3D structures to fill back-corner dead space, crediting George Gomez's original design concepts and expressing fanship
- **[restoration_signal]** Demonstrates availability and interchangeability of Pinball 2000 playfields across games (Revenge from Mars, Star Wars Episode 1) enabling single cabinet to run multiple game titles via emulator menu selection (confidence: high) — Cooltoy noting ability to toggle between games via emulator menu and actively seeking Star Wars Episode 1 playfield for cabinet interchangeability
- **[manufacturing_signal]** Barrels of Fun selling QA rejected cabinets through secondary channels (possibly official or authorized reseller), creating opportunity for budget-conscious builders to acquire modern cabinet platforms (confidence: medium) — Cooltoy acquiring Labyrinth QA reject cabinet at significant discount, noting it arrived on pallet without advance notification
- **[operational_signal]** Modern cabinet manufacturers (Barrels of Fun, Stern) using different mounting standards (elevator bolt vs. carriage bolt) and speaker panel dimensions, creating compatibility challenges for cross-platform modifications (confidence: high) — Cooltoy detailing custom mounting solutions and noting Barrels of Fun uses wider speaker panel than Stern, requiring powder-coated panel from another Labyrinth QA reject

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## Transcript

[Music] Just a fair bit of warning. What you're about to see if you're a pinball purist is probably going to be triggering. So, if that's the case, go ahead and click out of the video. Otherwise, let me tell you about my uh custom Revenge from Mars pinball machine creation, modification, amalgamation, automations. So yeah, what you see before you is uh the end result of a wild idea I had where I'd always been a big fan of the game Revenge for Mars and Pinball 2000, but I just honestly always hated the cabinet design. 1999 it was perfectly fine. I have no, you know, ifs or buts about it then. Um but doesn't really stand the test of time in my opinion, especially with, you know, a modern collection. and it just really always looked hokey and honestly it looked lesser than even though it had more advanced technology than a lot of the machines next to it. Uh in a lineup of just, you know, other standard pinball machines, it just looked like a a baby brother, if you will, a lesser than a non-equal. And that's just not the case. The pinball 2000 system and the the software and all the ingenuity that went into it, very ahead of its time and very cutting edge, unfortunately. You know, it got its legs cut out from under it. I had the wild idea. I was like, what would it be like if I could take all the guts of a pinball 2000 game and put them in a modern standard cabinet, if you will. So, that's uh the project in a nutshell. So, how it started was I found a donor machine, a nice Revenge from Mars that had great bones, if you will, but not necessarily had been, you know, taken super well care of. Uh, needed a big time shop job. It hadn't been cleaned in a long time. It still had the original code that the manufacturer shipped it with. So, it had never even been updated, which meant you couldn't even do a super skill shot on it, which is part of the game's code because it was still running the original factory mainline code, which I thought was kind of hilarious. But cleaned it up, put some quality of life uh improvements on it. So, LEDs throughout the game. It still had the original incandescent bulbs, uh cliffy protector on the scoop, cliffy protector on the shooter lane. uh rebuilt the pop uppers, changed the skirts and uh you know the uh the buckets if you will. Uh got red skirts now, clear buckets, LEDs really brightened up this game. Pinball 2000, if you're not familiar, had a CRT that reflected onto the glass and you got that peppers go superimposed image to where you could see the the scoring and the animation, everything on the glass. Had special glass that had half of it coated in reflective material and the other half was just normal translucent glass. Um, big downside of that, it's modern day. That stuff is very rare and expensive and you're paying like $400 for a sheet of it. And I think that's absolutely stupid. I'm not about to pay $400 for glass, especially if it only works on two games that were ever created. So, another one of the reasons I wanted to upgrade/modify this into a modern cabinet. Speaking of the cabinet, this started its life out as a uh Barrels of Fun Labyrinth cabinet. That was one of their QA rejects that they were selling. uh got it for, you know, $300, shipped to my house for an additional fee, and it literally showed up one day without any kind of notification. I walked outside to check the mail, and there was literally a pallet with this cabinet sitting on front of my garage, which I thought was kind of wild. Um, but used this cabinet. It's basically a WPC95 style cabinet. Um, so as you can imagine, I had a lot of hurdles to tackle to get all the pinball 2000 stuff to work with a barrels of funw cabinet. But lo and behold, got it done. Just tackled it bit by bit. The first uh project I had to essentially tackle is find out even if I could get this playfield in the cabinet to, you know, sit comfortably, rest, and, you know, be level and all those type of things. Uh, pinball 2000 had its own unique uh, rail system inside the cabinet where it used carriage bolts inside the cabinet and they drilled through the sides and I think it's a bit of an eyesore. Barrels of Fun doesn't use that. They use kind of the stern slider that has inside elevator bolts in there to where it's all flush. There's nothing on the side of the cabinet. There's no bolt holes. There's no extruding bolt heads or anything like that. So, it's nice and clean and I wanted to utilize that. So, what I had to do is I had to modify the bottom of the pinball 2000 playfield here. Put on my own custom hinges, put on those kind of sliders inside the cabinet and get it in there. And now it works perfectly well. Uh, so that was object and obstacle number one. Once I got that, then I had to get the receiver cuz this uses a custom receiver for Pinball 2000's um lockdown bar specific only to those games. Got that in there. Everything lined up and worked, which was big sigh. uh and a relief because those are the main two things that were going to make or break this project right out of the gate. Then after that, had to drill the massive holes for the pinball 2000 action buttons and flipper buttons since they are, you know, like 2 and 1/2 in in diameter. Had to get the biggest uh step drill bit hole you could possibly find out there to drill bigger holes. Got those, got it all lined up, got it situated and everything. Uh and then it was like, "Oh, wow. Okay, it's theory time." You know, the proof of concept, it's actually working. So then I had to do a lot of cleaning and a lot of rewiring and reworking things. So the inner guts of the pinball 2000 Revenge from Mars cabinet I had were just absolutely disgusting. So I had to clean a ton of stuff. Not only did I, you know, LED stuff. I I replaced a bunch of plastics and posts and everything with bright translucent clear ones, change out the flipper themselves, put chrome alien spaceships here so everything's nice, bright and shiny and clean. Uh had to rewire and rework everything. So on the pinball 2000 cabinet, the transformer, the power supply board, all that kind of stuff is kind of figured in the back. Had a weird power switch in the middle of the cabinet. So I had to rewire all that. So my power switch is where it normally should be up here underneath the head on this cabinet. Uh transformer, everything's been moved. Had a plastic piece that covers the power driver board. It was absolutely disgusting. Scrubbed it up really good. Repainted it. Uh had to repaint a lot of stuff. Got my armor, all powder coated, nice bright metallic red. Uh, goes with the alien theme. I thought about doing green, but it was a little too much. Um, so did that. Got brand new speaker upgraded and everything. So, the original pinball 2000 cabinets had 4in speakers. Now, we got the upgraded 5 1/2 in speakers. Same thing with the sub. Uh, it had originally had a 6-in sub in there. I've got a brand new JBL 8 in sub. So, it is very beefy. Uh, we've got a 15.6 6 in 1080p screen here running, you know, the game animations. Like I said, pinball 2000, it reflected it on the glass. No longer the case. Don't have to do that. Standard clear playfield glass and all my scoring animations, display, and everything is on a, you know, nice little high def screen here, just like it would be on a modern Barrels of Fun cabinet. Powder coated the speaker panel here. Normally, I'm not a fan of this, but I kind of had to do it by design. Uh, Barrels of Fine uses actually a little bit of a wider speaker panel than say Stern. Uh, so I utilized uh another factory QA reject that they had from Labyrinth. Got a Labyrinth panel and since it was already powder coated like a bronze color and it wouldn't have matched this color way, I decided to go ahead and get it powder coated the matching red as I did with the lockdown bar and legs and everything. Got a new translite custommade custom size by Brian Allen for Revenge from Mars. It looks phenomenal. It was the last little piece of the puzzle if you will. Uh, the original translite, you know, I like the artwork and everything, but I'm a huge fan of Brian Allen's work. Um, he does awesome stuff for the Williams and the Ballet Games, but the original Transite, it's like a fraction of the size, so it wouldn't work. Plus, it was already yellowed and dingy and just all around nasty um from years of getting baked by bulbs and stuff like that. So, new custom translate by Brian Allen. Same thing with the Art Blades. custom size, custom uh Revenge for Mars logo there on the side. So that's, you know, all the icing on the cake, if you will. The finishing bling. And speaking of bling, up top, we got the the Attack from Mars topper from the Electric Playground. It's got the awesome artwork by Brad Albbright, and it just ties in nicely here. So, we got the topper, we got the new artwork, we got the fully functioning game in a full-size modern cabinet from Barrels of Fun with upgraded amenities. Like I said, um, upgraded speakers and everything. But that is not all. You're asking, "Well, how did you get this all to run?" Well, thanks to a very intelligent man overseas, um, Eric IIE on Peninside, he developed his own Pinball 2000 emulator, and I've got a custom gaming PC that's actually old that I had lying around, uh, that is running the emulator, and it plays this game phenomenally well. You would never know that it was running off an emulator. I've got the upgraded code from um my pinballs.com which is I think 2.6 now but this you know has a shaker motor in it a real knocker uh upgraded game code and aspects that were never part of the original game that actually just make it so much more enjoyable. It's got physical modifications. So the game itself was always limited to four pinballs cuz cost cutting reduction. Um same thing with its lock. It used kind of like a virtual lock where it would hold one ball and then spit out another ball and just keep doing it that way. This now has a physical three ball lock into the um scoop area. So I can shoot three balls back there and once you start multiball it will commonly eject all three balls out down the ramp um which was never done in the factory settings. And this now also is a six ball game. So, it's got updated optos in the trough as well as the updated code that allows me to play the game with six balls in certain mode, which is how it was originally designed and intended. So, we got that upgrade. Uh, speaking of original design intentions, so the Pinball 2000 games are about 3 in shorter than a standard Williams Valley pinball game, uh, as far as the playfield length. So, I had like 3 in of dead space here in the back, which just kind of look wonky. Um, and George Gomez when he designed this game, he originally had designs for having these kind of like buildings and sculptures in the back corners of the playfield. So, I kind of used that uh thought process and mentality. I got these 3D buildings that are all dilapidated and broken down and look like they've been in a war zone. Uh, situated in there in the back filled up that nice dead space. Also created a acrylic background as well that has burning buildings and, you know, just damage and all sorts of stuff going on. I've got a fire LED that kind of trickles back and forth and makes everything look like it's it's burning while you're playing the game. So, that was kind of my response and my answer to the, you know, how do I fill that dead space as well as stay on brand with the original design themes. I'm a huge George Gomez fanboy, so I wanted to try to, you know, keep that as true to form and the fact that I could do a little tip of the cap to one of the original designs that did make it in the final production of the game I thought was a nice touch. artwork. I had to, you know, of course, remove all the labyrinth decals and everything. And that stuff had like the most stuck on glue residue that I've ever encountered of any arcade project or pinball project I've ever had to work with. I was scraping glue residue off that for hours on end. I kid you not. By God, if you ever want to take it off, you're in for a world of hurt. But on side of the backbox, wanted to utilize some of the original artwork. So, I've got what was originally on the back glass, the girl, you know, shopping with her cornflakes getting attacked. Kind of redesigned and made my own there. Um, I always liked the Greg Ferraris artwork that was on the side of the cabinet for Pinball 2000. I just didn't like that it was like cropped and centerized there and had like black borders and all that kind of stuff. So, I basically blew it up, stretched it out, cleaned it up, uh, you know, revamped the image. got that on the side and then made my own kind of similar stuff on the front as well with aliens on each leg and everything. Um, also updated the game to have a shooter rod as well as the actual um, launch buttons. So, if I ever do find a Star Wars uh, playfield, I can drop it in here and I can use, you know, the shooter without having to switch out any components or anything like that. Because that is, you know, one of the perks of the Pinball 2000 system is that you can interchange games. And thanks to the uh emulator that this is running, I can literally just toggle it by a simple, you know, menu selection and switch this over to Star Wars if I have the playfield. So, anybody out there, if you do have a Star Wars Episode 1 playfield uh that you'd be interested in selling, hit me up, email me, because uh I'm interested in buying it. I'd love to be able to drop this into this cabinet, you know, switch between both games and have uh the best of both worlds. Probably skipping over a lot of stuff. Like I said, uh I just didn't want to be this super long winded video. I documented tons and tons of this process along the way. So, if you have any questions, hit me up. But yeah, at the end of the day, I think uh the project was a success, at least in my eyes. I accomplished what I wanted to do. I've got a, you know, a wonderful game that I absolutely adore with modern stylings and touchings and, you know, amenities and, uh, ended up selling the the guts and the rest of my pinball 2000 cabinet to somebody that needed it for their own project. So, the world was, you know, all grand in the end end of the day. I didn't trash anything. Uh, the original cabinet I got had already had an LCD transplant, so it wasn't like I killed some beautifully working CRT or anything like that. So, I think uh my universal karma is still intact as far as me not terribly ruining anything, but you know, there's always going to be somebody out there that says I I shouldn't have done this and I'm a terrible person for doing it, but they don't pay my bills and uh I still enjoy this machine. So, guys, let me know what you think of this weird, wild, crazy creation that I did. If you enjoy it, make sure you like button, share this video with your friends if you found the information helpful, and as always, thanks for watching, guys. Really means a lot. [Music] Go back to Mars and take your forearms with you. We'll turn you into [Music] Yahoo. [Music] Great job. Big Oda, [Applause] [Music] get back in the house. I'll take care of those marshes. Would you look at the size of that? [Music]
Blow up the motor now.
Look at the size of Bye. I'll be watch you.
Why can't you Martians go by them city folk? [Music] All right, get off our property before I start shooting. Great job. Full move, please. Multiball. Get those weapons. The weapons of the matter. Let's go. Let's move it. More.

_(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v1)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f15b8622-c203-4019-9be1-a0c7a1d54a6b*