Stern King Kong Pinball Review - Is It The New King?

Cooltoy·video·18m 15s·analyzed·Apr 18, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Cooltoy reviews King Kong: strong gameplay and artwork, minor code gaps, recommend both Pro and Premium variants.

Summary

Cooltoy reviews Stern's King Kong: Myth of Terror Island, a Keith Elwin-designed unlicensed game featuring a 1933 public domain King Kong. The reviewer praises the artwork (despite community backlash), shot design, and flowy gameplay, while noting early-stage code with planned animations and minor mechanical concerns on the subway car multiball eject. He recommends the game broadly and predicts strong sales longevity.

Key Claims

King Kong: Myth of Terror Island is an unlicensed game where Stern created their own world rather than adapting existing King Kong IP
high confidence · Cooltoy explicitly states 'this is their own creation—Myth of Terror Island. This is not the island that King Kong originated from in any of the media that you're familiar with. So Stern has full ability to come up with their own animations.'
Multiple artists contributed to the game: Kevin O'Connor and Greg Ferris handled playfield design, Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) handled cabinet and backglass
high confidence · Cooltoy names the artists: 'We had Kevin O'Connor and Greg Ferris doing the playfield, if you will, then Zombie Yeti kind of tackling the cabinet and the back glass artwork.'
A code update is planned within seven days of the media day to add missing animations
high confidence · Cooltoy reports: 'In fact, probably within the next seven days, there will be a code update. They know it polishes and puts more of those animations out there.'
On the Pro edition, multiball does not start automatically after the third virtual lock—a fourth shot (right orbit/banana target) must be hit to initiate it
high confidence · Cooltoy describes the Pro multiball mechanic: 'But once you virtually lock that third ball, the multiball does not start automatically. You have to hit a fourth remaining shot to actually initiate the multiball.'
The gong is a mode start shot and is exclusive to the Premium edition; the Pro has a flat plastic instead
high confidence · Cooltoy explains: 'The one last remainder is the Kong gong—the functional gong target that's on the Premium Edition—is no longer on the Pro. It's just a flat plastic.'
During playtesting, balls were observed ejecting out the back of the subway car on multiple occasions, potentially hitting playfield plastics
high confidence · Cooltoy notes: 'A couple times, I saw the balls ejecting out of the back of the car. Sometimes they went out the right, sometimes they went to the left, sometimes they went both ways. The catapulting out the back of it is what I was maybe concerned with.'

Notable Quotes

“I think if we went with dull, muted grays and just bright greens, it would not really be as interesting as now. And if you're trying to grow new people into the pinball world, obviously you want to grab their attention as much as possible, and bright colors do that.”
Cooltoy@ 2:22 — Defends the artwork color palette choice against community criticism; articulates the design philosophy behind visual accessibility for newcomers.
“Deceptively flowy was the way we were kind of describing it... we all kind of looked at it and had similar opinions where we thought, hey, maybe this isn't going to be as smooth and connected as we thought. And then, of course, we were wrong. Keith was right.”
Cooltoy@ 6:30 — Praises Keith Elwin's layout design; indicates media consensus that the playfield is more interconnected than initial appearance suggests.
“Having a dedicated animation that has King Kong eat the ball as your answer to that—I thought was hilarious.”
Cooltoy@ 5:19 — Interprets the extra ball animation as a tongue-in-cheek response to internet criticism about missing ball-eating mechanisms in previous Stern games.
“once you hit it hard enough. That gong, you know, it's just going to take a little bit and then fire right back at you. So it is very tricky, and that's your mode start shot, so that does present some challenging obstacles for newcomers.”
Cooltoy@ 9:00 — Identifies accessibility concern with the gong mechanic as a potential barrier for new players.
“The guy knows how to design a fun game... Keith was right. He knows how to again connect the things geometrically and make everything so satisfying and smooth.”
Cooltoy@ 6:40 — Strong endorsement of Keith Elwin's design skill and geometric play flow principles.

Entities

Keith Elwinperson Jeremy Packerperson Kevin O'Connorperson Greg Ferrisperson Seth Davisperson George Gomezperson King Kong: Myth of Terror Island

Signals

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community_signal: Stern hosted media day for content creators with factory tour, playroom demos, and presentations from Keith Elwin, Seth Davis, George Gomez, and Jeremy Packer; structured access to journalism and community influencers.
high · Cooltoy describes event: 'Today was media day at Stern Pinball for the pinball content creator world... we all kind of huddled up and then we were all sent our separate ways. We got to tour the factory.'
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design_philosophy: Community backlash over King Kong artwork color palette perceived as not aligned with thematic expectations; bright colors controversial on message boards despite reviewer defense.
high · Cooltoy states: 'A lot of people on the message boards and everything are throwing a hubbub about how they dislike it or it's not what they imagined' and later 'I've seen a lot of uproar on the internet message boards and everything about the artwork.'
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design_philosophy: Keith Elwin's geometric playfield design principle: seemingly compartmentalized sections deliberately interconnect through 'deceptively flowy' shot routing, creating seamless play experience.
high · Cooltoy describes: 'Deceptively flowy was the way we were kind of describing it... we all kind of looked at it and had similar opinions where we thought, hey, maybe this isn't going to be as smooth and connected... And then, of course, we were wrong. Keith was right.'
?
design_philosophy: Deliberate campy humor and tongue-in-cheek tone invoking early 1990s Bally/Williams aesthetic; extra ball eating animation interpreted as meta-commentary responding to community criticism of prior designs.
high · Cooltoy describes gameplay as 'really campy' with 'nice tongue-in-cheek' humor and interprets Kong eating the ball as 'a not-so-subtle jab at the internet pundits that have been griping for a long time about previous game designs.'

Topics

King Kong artwork and visual design receptionprimaryPlayfield layout and shot design accessibilityprimaryPro vs Premium edition feature differentiation and value propositionprimaryEarly-stage code and animation completion statusprimaryKeith Elwin design philosophy and mechanical executionprimaryAnimatronic King Kong toy interaction and multiball mechanicsprimaryThematic homages to pinball history (Data East King Kong, Godzilla callbacks)secondarySubway car eject reliability and plastic breakage risksecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.78)— Reviewer expresses enthusiasm for gameplay, shot design, artwork, and humor despite acknowledging community backlash on aesthetics. Minor mechanical concerns noted but framed as manageable. Strong confidence in game's long-term appeal and sales performance predicts sustained positive outlook.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.055

Today was media day at Stern Pinball for the pinball content creator world. They were kind enough to invite me out to check out their latest title King Kong Myth of Terror Island. If you're not aware this is the latest game designed by Keith Elwin. When we first got there we all you know kind of huddled up and then we were all sent our separate ways. We got to tour the factory see King Kong on the assembly line. Thank you. so then then we headed over to the game room to check out the title as well as hear from the man himself Keith Elwin about the design and development of this game and then Seth Davis and George Gomez joined as well alongside Zombie Yeti aka Jeremy Packard speaking on artwork and on the topic of artwork let me just go ahead and get it out of the way I like the artwork a lot of people on the message boards and everything are throwing a hubbub about how they dislike it or it's not what they imagined I will say when I close my eyes and think of King Kong initially I don't think of the color palette they went with but I'm not bothered by it obviously you can tell I'm a person that likes color. I'm sitting here wearing a pink donut shirt for crying out loud And i've said many times on this channel. I'm a zombie yeti fan boy. I He's literally one of my favorite pinball artists if not my favorite pinball artist I just love what he's done with the artwork here Again, like I said the color palette may not be for everybody, but I like bright colors And I think if we went with dull muted grays and just bright greens It would not really be as interesting as now and if you're trying to grow new people in the pinball world obviously you want to grab their attention as much as possible and bright colors do that so thumbs up I think the artwork package on the pro premium le all looks great and we have multiple artists involved so we had Kevin O'Connor and Greg Ferreris doing the the play field if you will then zombie Eddie kind of tackling the the cabinet and the the back glass artwork I love that there's you know that not so subtle tip of the cap to the data is King Kong with the the center design aspect of the play field. I think that's a nice touch if you've ever went down that rabbit hole and learned the history of the Data East King Kong, the game that almost was but never was. Definitely check it out. Again, it's great that they included little references here and there to that older title. Things like that just are great for pinball nerds like myself that love history and it's just a nice thing to respect the history. I've seen a lot of uproar on the internet message boards and everything about the artwork and I honestly think a lot of that has to do with the fact that you can't say anything bad about the game design itself because it's Keith Elwin and clearly the man knows how to make a good playing pinball machine, so how do you attack it from another aspect? You attack the artwork. But again, art is subjective, so maybe that's the case, but honestly, I'm a fan of the artwork. It doesn't bother me, so I guess I'm in the minority on that one. On the animation side, the team definitely has their work cut out for them because this is a basically an unlicensed game if you will while you may know the term king kong this is their own creation myth of terror island this is not the island that you know king kong originated from in any of the you know the media that you're familiar with so stern has you know full ability to kind of come up with their own animations and they don't have movie assets to pull from or a tv show or anything to lean on they are responsible for creating their own artwork and this world and i think they did a really good job especially since they have a blank slate you can tell that they've really kind of been able to stretch themselves. The artwork and the code and obviously everything on this game is still kind of in its early stages It always typically takes start about a year to get everything fully fleshed out but as it stood right now is a very enjoyable game the artworks and animations and everything I saw on the the scoring display were really cool it was really campy and I mean that in a good way there was a lot of nice comedy weathered in there which you know give me a lot of you know those early 90s Bally Williams feels to it with the you know the silliness and the joking factor I really love that you know they're not being overtly serious even though you know King Kong is this massive behemoth of a character, there's a lot of great tongue-in-cheek ones, nice inside joke references, especially the extra ball thing where King Kong will take a bite out of the ball and throw it, you know, a not-so-subtle jab at the internet pundits that, you know, have been griping for a long time about, you know, previous game designs not having a mech that ate the ball, having, you know, a dedicated animation that has King Kong eat the ball as, you know, your answer to that I thought was hilarious but obviously you know the artwork and animation team definitely gonna have some longer longer lead times on this one probably to flesh out some stuff but everything I saw there was you know more than sufficient as far as what I saw it wasn't just a stagnant image that had some moving stuff in the background they had some pretty detailed animations and I think they did a great job with it when it comes to shots and layout it really shouldn't shock anybody that Keith Elwin designs really fun really accessible, really nice flowy games. I mean, that's not a shocker. This is no different. I mean, he hasn't really made a bad game to date. The guy knows how to design a fun game. Layout wise, this thing is very approachable, nice flowy shots. When I first looked at it, just kind of seeing a top down view of it, I thought everything was kind of maybe compartmentalized and I was worried that, okay, it's going to feel like I'm playing sections of the play field as opposed to the play field as a whole not the case everything connected interconnected very well deceptively flowy was uh the way we were kind of describing it when we're all kind of talking amongst ourselves because we all kind of looked at it and had similar opinions where we thought hey maybe this isn't going to be as smooth and connected as we thought and then of course we were wrong keith was right he knows how to again connect the things geometrically and make everything so satisfying and so smooth. Once you get those shots figured out and dialed in, you're really going to have a good time with this. A lot of little aspects of it that I really enjoyed. It's got kind of two, what I consider bailout shots straight up the middle. There's a big ramp up the middle and there's also a spinner slightly off to its right. They're far back enough in the play field that you can kind of safely rattle those off pretty regularly. And if you're struggling on what you're going to do next, or maybe trying to collect yourself or get control of the ball, you can always kind of safely aim for one or two of those shots up the middle and not really have to worry about ball drains or anything like that one of my absolute favorite shots on the game is the third flipper you know kind of side ramp shot once you hit that comes down the biplane goes around does a little curlicue action which is you know a nice kind of call back to you know godzilla lethal weapon 3 it's just it's a nice satisfactory eyesight to see that ball spinning around going and hear that biplane you know audio cue it's a really fun shot and it's not as difficult as i was expecting it looks like an uber steep ramp but it's close enough to that flippered where you didn't have to be you know the most you know sharp shooting person to hit it once you kind of figured out that timing it was very accessible shot again with that safe bell out up the middle with the spinner i like that it feeds over to the little mini flipper on the left hand side there's some really cool interactivity going on over there you can control this little log jam diverter that will kind of hold the ball over there for a little little while it is timed you can hit the action button if it's blinking it'll bring that log jam up up there you can hold the ball on the mini flipper once that diverter is up and then you can you know aim your shots up there you can try to aim for the drop targets if you clear out all four drop targets that lights your lock and then you can spam that middle shot three times to start your multiball of course there's the gong on the premium le's uh it does look like a very inviting shot it is accessible with a backhand on the right hand flipper but it is uh somewhat complex because you think at first glance i'll just hit it and the ball is going to magically travel behind it but oftentimes uh that ball will come right back at you if you don't hit it hard enough uh that gong you know it's just going to take it a little bit and then it fire right back at you so it is very tricky and that your mode start shot so that does present some challenging obstacles for newcomers but it is a fun shot to hit and of course the sound effect of you know the gong going off as you hit it is a really cool feature other things we know we got the magnet over there with the creepy spider on the premium le could care less about the spider but the magnet is you know a nice little feature you know introduces some randomness without you know having pop bumpers around the magnet will sling the ball around causes you some chaos and then the right side the right orbit if you will you shoot that comes around hits a banana kickback target that will either throw the ball back around and feed it to your upper third flipper or if you don't get it enough gusto sometimes it'll trickle down into a trough and then feed out up a buck later on down the pinball play field a lot of cool stuff going on like i said it doesn't necessarily look from the top down view like a super flowy, connective gameplay experience, but in reality, it really is. So great job, guys. In the state right now, obviously the code is early, as is with all brand new releases from Stern. Typically a couple months go by and you'll get a couple significant updates that really kind of start polishing and finessing things. Only real obvious standouts to me while I was playing these games were that there was a couple of placeholders that were lacking the animation, but I was assured that, you know, those are very soon in the works. In fact, probably in the next seven days will there be a code update they know it polishes and puts more of those animations out there uh there's significant amount of call outs there's a nice tongue-in-cheek you know humor from some of these call outs again the ride remind me of those early 90s bally williams games in terms of humor uh there's a lot of modes to go through right out of the gate um obviously it's not fully completed uh but as it stands right now there's plenty to see and do if you're an early adopter if you're one of those people that needs this game right now uh you're not going to get bored with it really quick there's a lot of stuff you're gonna see and explore and i don't think you're gonna be sitting there looking at it going oh this is the box of blinking lights by any means the star toy of the show obviously though is king kong himself on the premium le he's super animated literally rotates around left right arms move up and down he actually even reaches and touches the glass which is a really cool feature they said they're going to code that in there for you know like in a track mode where he's like smacking the glass hey come play me uh neat neat little thing that you know if you're walking in an arcade for the first time and you had a little tap on the glass and a call out that said hey come play me put quarters in me or something like that i think that would be an amazing you know experience especially for younger audiences to see for the first time but when it comes to the gameplay it's really cool to see him interact he'll you know trap the ball sometimes with his arm when it comes around the wire form when it starts king kong multiball and he smashes the subway car there was a little cause for concern, at least on my part, a couple times where I saw the balls ejecting out of the back of the car. Sometimes they went out the right, sometimes they went to the left, sometimes they went both ways. The catapulting out the back of it is what I was maybe concerned with because I could see that possibly, you know, hitting plastics and breaking plastics on the playfield because I think as designed, it's all supposed to trickle down on the right side, but I could be wrong. But I did see a mix of, you know, balls going essentially everywhere on multiple occasions on the premium version so that's one thing to keep in mind if you're one of those people that are gonna be buying the premium le ones just you know keep a lookout for it and when it comes to the hotly debated topic of pro versus premium which one should you get which one shoots better which one plays better you could argue either way until the cows come home thankfully this is not an example where the pro was you know stripped of all its life or anything they did an excellent job of keeping the the core gameplay experience the shots the layouts and everything the same on the pro model versus the premium the biggest difference between those two on the premium you've got a animatronic king kong that moves around and interacts catches the ball touches the ball he's got a subway car in front of him that you know moves up and throws the balls up in the air to start king kong multiball on the pro it's just a stagnant static sculpted king kong which is actually an improvement over earlier pro models of earlier releases like godzilla where it was just flat acrylic plastics instead of molded sculpted toys this one even though king kong doesn't move on the pro he's not a flat acrylic plastic he's actually a sculpted toy which is nice there's also subtle changes like there's a biplane on the premium that's a molded toy and on the pro it's just a bunch of plastics that are you know stacked together and interlocked kind of like a lego that actually look appealing and honestly it kind of impressive what they did with the flat plastics but in reality it doesn really add anything to the gameplay anyway so that just kind of a cosmetic change another cosmetic change is on the premium that has the spider that jumps up and down pro there's nothing over there not a big loss in my opinion I'm not a fan of the spider I think he's kind of funny and you know hokey but doesn't really add to my gameplay experience so I'm sure there's some modders out there they're going to add their own spider and that'll be easy enough to do but those are the main big massive changes the one last remainder is uh the kong gong uh the the functional gong target that's on the premium le is no longer on the pro it's just a flat plastic so you just shoot that shot without any kind of hit uh any kind of gong target which does change the gameplay a little bit so um you know that's your mode starter shot so you have less restrictions if you will on the pro to hit that but there are other things on gameplay on the pro that are actually a little harder than they are on the premium so on the premium to start your multiball you hit your drop targets down you light your locks that way and then you hit the the middle shot three times and you'll see three balls physically lock into the subway car and once you lock that third ball it automatically starts king kong multiball on the pro it's a little different same thing you're going to hit your drop targets you're going to hit that middle shot three times for your virtual ball lock though once you virtually lock that third ball the multiball does not start automatically you have to hit a fourth remaining shot to actually initiate um the multiball and that's actually the right orbit slash you know banana target once you hit that fourth shot it actually initiates and you know starts the king kong multiball that way so um it did take me a second to figure that out once i had three balls locked i was staring at the screen i was like why why is my multiball not started and then i saw the bright blinking lights on the right orbit and said oh okay now i gotta hit that to actually start the multiball so uh little things like that you know change and differ the gameplay between pro and premium but honestly i think uh you're gonna be happy with either one if you're the person that you know saw the trailer and said oh my god i need that king kong he looks so cool you know doing all these king kong dances and hitting the glass and you know having all that animation he's much more alive if you saw that and you immediately said yeah i need that then definitely go the premium. If you just want a super flowy, fun game play experience, save a couple, you know, thousand dollars in the process, then yeah, pro model all day long because it is at its heart, the same gameplay experience. At the end of the day, King Kong is not an IP that I've ever really cared about. I don't have any kind of personal connection to it. I've watched, you know, movies that have been out there for years, but again, it's not the most favorite, desired thing out there. Godzilla wasn't either, and Godzilla is probably one of my top 10 favorite games of all time, as is probably a lot of people out there in the world. Fantastic game, keeps you coming back. I think King Kong's gonna fit that box for a lot of people as well. I don't think there's a lot of people that were clamoring and demanding a King Kong IP game, but the game's just so fun to shoot. It's got cool shots. It's got campy humor, it's well designed it's going to have amazing code thanks to you know the team i just think it's going to be one of those things where you look at it and say okay king kong whatever you could call this you know the amish paradise pinball experience and as long as it had that same design team i still think it would have been a winner uh again i don't play it for yourself you be the judge but i honestly think that this is going to be another one of those hits that's you know, on the assembly line for a long time for Stern, because it's just going to be an enjoyable experience for pinball players experienced or newcomers alike. So guys, let me know your thoughts and opinions down in the comments below. What do you think of the King Kong pinball machine that has just been released from Stern Pinball? Are you interested in King Kong? Do you not care about King Kong? You're just interested in a Keith Elwin game? Let me know your thoughts and opinions. If you enjoyed the content, make sure you hit that 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.