Arcade1Up Star Wars Pinball - It's HERE!

RetroRalph·video·12m 26s·analyzed·Dec 24, 2020

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Arcade1Up Star Wars pinball offers strong hardware and gameplay with minor software tuning opportunities.

Summary

RetroRalph provides an early hands-on review of the Arcade1Up Star Wars Virtual Pinball Machine, detailing hardware specifications, build quality, gameplay performance, and identifying minor software issues. The cabinet features force feedback solenoids, a 7.5-inch LCD DMD screen, dual 3-inch speakers, and 10 Star Wars-themed Zen pinball tables with minimal input lag and solid 60fps performance. Key concerns include a plunger dead spot, oversized DMD brightness, unresponsive nudge sensitivity, and the DMD not filling the full screen.

Key Claims

The cabinet features four solenoids (two per side, two in middle) that provide force feedback effects triggered by gameplay events
high confidence · RetroRalph physically demonstrated and counted the solenoids during the review
The plunger has a dead spot where full pull-back no longer registers on screen despite being responsive in the working range
high confidence · RetroRalph demonstrated the issue multiple times from different angles
The screen runs at 720p 60fps despite being a 1080p capable display
high confidence · Explicitly stated by RetroRalph during specifications overview
There is very minimal to no input lag between button presses and on-screen response
high confidence · RetroRalph tested gameplay extensively and reported positive performance
The cabinet ships fully assembled except for back glass installation and weighs approximately 100 pounds
high confidence · RetroRalph noted the weight and assembly requirements from unboxing experience
The nudge feature requires significant physical force to activate and appears to have sensitivity issues
high confidence · RetroRalph demonstrated nudge testing and noted needing to 'ram' the cabinet hard for it to function
Zen Studios optimized the tables to run on Arcade1Up hardware less powerful than their standard platforms
medium confidence · RetroRalph's inference based on graphical fidelity trade-offs and 720p resolution decision

Notable Quotes

“There's chrome on it for days. There's chrome all over this thing and it's super sexy.”
RetroRalph@ 0:56 — Expresses satisfaction with cabinet aesthetics and build quality
“There's very minimal if any lag and it performs really well. So they did a really good job here making sure that there's a good balance between graphical fidelity and performance of the gameplay.”
RetroRalph@ 2:51 — Key performance assessment - input lag is a critical factor in virtual pinball quality
“The solenoids offer this really cool force feedback effect. I wish they were just a tad bit stronger.”
RetroRalph@ 10:00 — Identifies force feedback as a differentiating feature but suggests room for improvement
“The only other point I'll make here is the solenoids offer this really cool force feedback effect. I wish they were just a tad bit stronger, but I might be biased in a way because I've been playing with surround sound feedback.”
RetroRalph@ 10:00 — Shows awareness of personal bias from extensive custom pinball experience
“I can't see this as being a system you would buy and then gut it out and mod. They just did such a good job tying the software into all the components.”
RetroRalph@ 10:33 — Respects the integrated design as a finished product despite modding background
“There's an occasional jaggy because probably the graphical fidelity had to be dialed down a bit, but it doesn't take away from the experience.”
RetroRalph — Acknowledges visual compromises but assesses them as acceptable trade-offs

Entities

RetroRalphpersonArcade1UpcompanyZen StudioscompanyStar WarsgamePinball FX3productAttack from Marsgame MarvelgameMark KimpersonOne Up Weeklyorganization

Signals

?
business_signal: Arcade1Up providing early review units to content creators for promotional purposes; cabinet distribution appears limited at early stage
high · RetroRalph acknowledges receiving pre-production unit and emphasizes its exclusivity; notes unit was shipped from Hong Kong
?
community_signal: RetroRalph has exclusive pre-production review unit and plans extended content series with community input on desired video topics
high · Explicit statement: 'There aren't any more of these Star Wars ones out there, at least not that I know of' and requests for community suggestions for follow-up videos
?
product_strategy: Arcade1Up Arcade1Up Star Wars Pinball features integrated force feedback solenoids (4 total) that enhance gameplay immersion; RetroRalph notes they could be stronger but represent thoughtful hardware integration
high · Physical demonstration of solenoid placement and operation; RetroRalph's assessment that gutting the system for mods would be wasteful due to tight software/hardware integration
?
product_concern: Plunger mechanism has a dead zone at full retraction where input no longer registers on screen; nudge sensitivity is excessively high (requires hard force); DMD brightness exceeds optimal viewing; screen does not fill available display area
high · RetroRalph demonstrated all three issues multiple times with detailed explanation of the dead spot behavior and provided specific feedback on brightness and screen sizing
?
product_strategy: Potential future firmware updates may address nudge sensitivity, DMD brightness calibration, and screen fill options based on RetroRalph's recommendations and comparison to Pinball FX3 capabilities

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.037

0:00

Alright guys, here it is, the Arcade 1-Up Star Wars Virtual Pinball Machine. So you can see the artwork on this thing looks great. There's artwork all over this thing, and it is very, very nice. They used high-definition images, and it really does pop in my game room. So you guys are really going to like the way it looks against your other machines. Now, the back glass that you're seeing right here, that's not an active back glass. It's just a static image, and it's acrylic. So that might be something that you can replace later on down the road. In the front, you've got two 3-inch speakers and a 7.5-inch LCD DMD screen. In the front, you have various buttons and your plunger. The plunger's got a real plunger. It looks really nice. It feels really nice, and I'm pretty stoked about what they did there. In the front, you're just going to have some logos for Zen Studios and Arcade 1-Up. And I'm really happy so far and having a really good time playing this machine, but we're going to get into gameplay a little bit later. This thing has chrome on it for days. There's chrome all over this thing and it's super sexy. You got a chrome lock bar in the front, which is a really nice touch and makes it a lot easier to play and rest your hands. The legs on this thing are very sturdy and it's got this little section on the side to protect the side art. So from oils on your hands and stuff like that when you're using the flippers. The screen looks really nice. It's a 1080p screen, but it's only running at 720p 60 frames per second. So you're probably wondering why are you taking it apart already? Well, I'm taking it apart so you can see something really important inside the cabinet that really enhances the experience. So I'm taking off the lock bars, the side rails, and we're going to take the acrylic off now. And what I'm going to reveal underneath is the solenoids that are underneath that trigger the force feedback events as they're happening. So it adds a completely different element and it actually really does enhance the experience. So this is a really neat thing. They engineered this really cool. So you take off these four screws and you can actually pop the top like you would in a standard pinball machine So this is pretty cool. So what I'm going to show you in here is the four solenoids There's two on each side and then there's two in the middle the two on the sides You'll notice when I hit the flipper buttons. They're firing there

4:11

The good news is you don't have to go and discover everything yourself. The table guides are there, so they tell you exactly what you need to do to achieve goals throughout each table. All these tables kind of tell little stories, and to progress through the story, you need to understand how to play. So it's great that they include these in every single table on the system, and it will help you get started so you have a fun experience. Okay, so how is gameplay? Overall, gameplay is really good. So it's very clear to me that Zen Studios worked with Arcade 1-Up to make these tables function on hardware that, you know, is probably a lot less powerful than what they're used to supporting. So they did a really good job. You can tell they focused on making sure that if they had to make any sacrifices that running at 60 frames per second was not one of those sacrifices because it's definitely running at full speed. There's no flipper lag. It looks really good. You know, there's an occasional jaggy because probably the graphical fidelity had to be dialed down a bit, but it doesn't take away from the experience, I don't think. And one of the things that you notice here is that bezel gives you this really cool, almost depth effect. All right, when you're in a game, you can hit the front left button right there. And when you do that, you're going to get the settings menu. In the settings menu, there's a whole bunch of things you can set up. But for this video, we're not going to cover that today. We're going to cover that in the part two deep dive. The LCD DMD bugs me a little bit because it doesn't consume the whole screen. But I guess I kind of understand why I think they're trying to maintain some kind of aspect ratio there. But if I was going to make a suggestion to Arcade 1Up, there's two things. One would be it seems like the brightness might be a hair too high on the DMD. so sometimes it's a little hard to capture. And even in person, it looks like a little too bright sometimes. The other thing would be, you know, maybe give us an option to stretch it if you wanted to. It might not be a bad idea. And I think some people might just say, look, I don't care if it's stretched. I just want it to consume the whole screen. Speaking of the DMD, I got sidetracked. You know, I like to mod stuff. So I was like hmm could I actually take the video feed from the DMD and feed it to something else And you actually can You could feed it to another monitor if you wanted I don know why you actually do this but it is possible But yeah I should be really focusing on the video and not tinkering So let get back to the regularly scheduled program. So something that kind of left me scratching my head is the audio settings. So the volume is the typical volume you'd have on an arcade one-up, but there's no indicator on the screen. However, the thing does get pretty loud, as you can see here so the speakers are great I just don't understand why they didn't put a volume indicator on the system itself I don't know it's one of those arcade one of things where it's on almost every new cabinet so weird that they wouldn't have incorporated it into the user interface but maybe they'll do that in a future release and you can see there's the volume level will differ basically you know if you're in front of the cabinet versus where I had the decibel meter really close to the speakers obviously it's gonna be louder closer to the speakers but overall the speaker system sounds pretty good okay on to the nudge options you can see this is just footage of me testing that feature out now i'm not an expert at this i'm usually the loser who builds pinball tables and puts nudge buttons so i'm not actually that familiar with this technology so i don't really know if this is working the way it should to be honest it seems like i've got to put it you know force it really hard to get it to actually nudge So I don't know if this is like a sensitivity setting or something like that. It's not that the feature doesn't work. I just feel like I got to really like ram this thing to actually have it function. And so that seems a little dramatic to me. But hey, maybe it's something in a firmware update they can improve the sensitivity on. But I just want to show it to you exactly how I experienced it. Hey, guys, it's final thoughts time. So what do I think about the Star Wars Arcade 1-Up Pinball Machine? First of all, this is a really cool joint partnership with Zen Studios. Second of all, I want to thank Arcade1Up for providing me with this pre-production unit for review. Obviously, there's not that many of them flown out there, so I feel honored that they'd give me that opportunity. Now, let's get started here on what my final thoughts are. So, first things first, the DMD screen. When we saw it at CES, it filled the whole screen. Now, I know from playing with Pinball FX3 that you can resize it in cabinet mode. that might be an option that they can give us so that everyone that wants to fill the screen can and for those that don't want to stretch it no worries you don't have to the nudge seemed to be a little temperamental for me I felt like I had to really really nudge it to get it to move so maybe there's a sensitivity setting in software that could be adjusted there I feel like there's a couple software recommendations I would make one would be this nudge if we can kind of like get that dialed in and then on the DMD screen it seems like the brightness might be a tad high so these seem like all like relatively easy software fixes now when the box got shipped to me through hong kong it got damaged somewhere along the way but it was weird this wasn't like a someone dropped the box this is someone messed up with a forklift and jabbed the whole uh a hole right into the box so it was uh it was damaged in the back luckily it didn't cause a major problem if you watch the one up weekly you see we did a whole live stream of the unboxing and everything and speaking of that really quick it comes pretty much fully assembled You just have to you know set up the back glass You have to build the back glass Now the other thing I'll mention really quick is depending on where you're going to set this up, this box was super heavy. I had to have Kim help me lift it upstairs. Sure, I could have awkwardly lifted it upstairs myself, but it's a hundred pound box and you'd have to be like really get wide to hold it properly so I wouldn't recommend that so you might want to at least have someone there to help you lift this up when you finally get one outside of that I think they did a really good job here I actually plan on making a bunch more content on this so I would like for you guys to tell me what you want to see so then I can make a couple of subsequent videos and weave that content in the only other point I'll make here is the solenoids offer this really cool force feedback effect I wish they were just a tad bit stronger but I might be tainted in a way because I've been playing with surround sound feedback on that machine back there and I've been setting up all these different exciters and all these little little amplifiers and everything and I plan on doing a video on that at some point but I don't know that that might be interesting to see and play with like is it possible for us to potentially down the road make some kind of mod where we can install stronger solenoids I don't know we'll have to figure that out, but, uh, but yeah, there's definitely, I can't see this as being a system you would buy and then gut it out and mod, they just did such a good job tying the software into all the components, the DMD, the solenoids, I just, I feel like it'd be a shame at that price point to gut this thing, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I would have preferred the Marvel or the, um, the, uh, Attack from Mars, but I'm not being picky, I got, I got the system, uh, from Arcade1Up, That's really awesome. But if I was buying one with my own money, I would say the one I would probably pick first is the Attack from Mars one, and that's the one we haven't seen surface yet. Second would be Marvel. Third would be Star Wars. But hey, you guys know I'm not like a crazy fanatical Star Wars fan, but Justin told me about this thing called Mandalorian that I have to watch. I don't know. No, I'm just kidding. I did start watching it, and it is really cool, so I'm totally into that. But anyways, I digress. Please, in the comments below, tell me what you want to see because we have this unit. It's pretty much exclusive for right now. There aren't any more of these Star Wars ones out there, at least not that I know of. So let's get that content pumped out. So over the holiday, think of things you wanna see and I'll make those subsequent videos and I'm gonna deep dive other aspects and components of the system. And I might have a couple tricks on my sleeve of ways to enhance this without modifying it too much from its stock form. All right, guys, that's it. If you enjoyed the video, give me a thumbs up. Consider subscribing to the channel. Hit notifications so you can be informed with other videos like this one and that's it for now guys we will see you on the next one