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Black Knight Sword of Rage Pinball: Full Reveal Discussion

Cary Hardy·video·28m 27s·analyzed·Mar 26, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.024

TL;DR

Cary Hardy enthusiastically analyzes Black Knight Sword of Rage reveal, praising design and committing to Premium purchase.

Summary

Cary Hardy provides an enthusiastic breakdown of Stern Pinball's Black Knight Sword of Rage reveal videos, analyzing the three-tier model (Pro/$6,000, Premium/$7,600, LE/$9,000) with focus on mechanical features, artwork, pricing, and community reception. The game features an upper transparent Lexan playfield, interactive Black Knight character with voice work by Steve Ritchie and music by Scott Ian of Anthrax, and has received overwhelmingly positive feedback (95%+) on Pinside forums.

Key Claims

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage will feature three pricing tiers: Pro at $6,000, Premium at $7,600, and Limited Edition at $9,000

    high confidence · Official Stern pricing information presented in video

  • Only 600 Black Knight Limited Edition units will be produced

    high confidence · Official specification stated in video

  • The upper playfield uses transparent Lexan material allowing visibility of lower playfield mechanics

    high confidence · Visual confirmation from premium reveal video

  • Steve Ritchie voices the Black Knight character (not Ed Robertson as initially reported)

    high confidence · Correction note from IGN article cited in video

  • Scott Ian from Anthrax composed the music for Black Knight Sword of Rage

    high confidence · Confirmed in article discussed in video

  • The game includes a digitized, revamped version of Black Knight 2000 music as a retro mode

    high confidence · Confirmed by Steve Ritchie statement cited in video

  • Pinside community response is 95%+ positive for the announced game

    high confidence · Cary Hardy's assessment after reading Pinside thread

  • Tim Sexton is doing the code design for Black Knight Sword of Rage

    high confidence · Pinside forum post referenced in video

Notable Quotes

  • “Well, damn it, Stern and Steve Ritchie, it looks like you're going to be getting my money. Because this game looks fucking amazing.”

    Cary Hardy@ 0:30 — Opens video with strong emotional endorsement of game design

  • “This is one of the reasons why i enjoy the black knight series is because we are taking on the black knight the black knight is taking on us it is a battle between us and the black knight and that asshole is talking shit to you throughout the game”

    Cary Hardy@ 2:15 — Explains design philosophy of Black Knight series—player agency and adversarial narrative

  • “I'm so happy that he is bringing in the Black Knight in this day and age where we have the ability to CGI build this Black Knight. And he looks awesome. he looks evil like he's ready to kick our ass and i love this”

    Cary Hardy@ 6:09 — Praises modern animation and character design implementation

  • “I just wonder how it's going to do over time if this is a piece that is going to be getting scratches and stuff over time to where it's gonna be really difficult to see what's going on up underneath”

    Cary Hardy@ 10:49 — Raises legitimate durability concern about Lexan upper playfield longevity

  • “Chances are the pro model is going to be a virtual locking system not my favorite when it comes to pinball in general I like to actually lock physical balls in their place”

    Cary Hardy@ 15:19 — Explains player preference for physical multiball mechanics over virtual systems

  • “I'm going to settle for the premium. Premium is going to have everything else but the things that I just listed.”

Entities

Cary HardypersonSteve RitchiepersonScott IanpersonEd RobertsonpersonGary SternpersonTim SextonpersonBlack Knight Sword of Ragegame

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive reception for Black Knight Sword of Rage announcement across Pinside forums (95%+ favorable)

    high · Cary Hardy's assessment of Pinside thread: 'I'd say definitely so far, Steve Ritchie, it looks like you've done a great job'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Concern about Lexan upper playfield longevity—visible micro-scratches in video raise questions about durability over time and maintenance implications

    medium · Cary Hardy: 'I just wonder how it's going to do over time if this is a piece that is going to be getting scratches and stuff over time...i can already see in this video the micro scratches'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Intentional design choice to use transparent Lexan upper playfield for visibility differentiation from previous Black Knight games

    high · Cary Hardy notes transparent material allows seeing underneath, contrasts with Black Knight 2000 where upper playfield blocked view; identifies this as deliberate design improvement

  • $

    market_signal: IGN.com holds exclusive Black Knight game information coverage, creating friction for independent content creators seeking comprehensive data

    medium · Cary Hardy expresses frustration: 'This is what sucks is to get some of the information that I want to get about this machine I have to go to the godforsaken ign.com website'

  • $

    market_signal: Premium tier at $7,600 positions as mid-range value between Pro and LE, with competitor Jersey Jack Wizard of Oz at $11,500 establishing premium market benchmark

    high · Cary Hardy justifies pricing by comparing to Jersey Jack's higher-priced offering; frames BK3 as reasonable

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.085

0:00
Alright, so Black Knot 3 has got a more revealing video to watch and so let's do this. Boot this sucker up. Let's go to YouTube and play. A few moments later.
0:30
Well, damn it, Stern and Steve Ritchie, it looks like you're going to be getting my money. Because this game looks fucking amazing. So as of two hours ago, Stern has released three videos, one including the pro gameplay, the premium gameplay, and the teaser which we've already seen. As of right now, the teaser itself has already got 10,000 views. The other couple of videos are around the 400 range. Let's boot up the premium first. This is the video that I just watched and pretty sure this is the one I'm going to be getting. I don't think I'm going to be able to get the LE in time because I've got to get funds in place and stuff like that. But the premium, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to lock that one in and I'm going to be perfectly content with that one, I think. Now I'm going to be doing a stop and go on this little reveal trailer for the premium because we're going to talk about some of the things that really stand out to me and just what I think about the product so far. So on the very first second of this premium model, we see the side artwork, which looks great. I mean, I can't help but go, yes.
2:01
And what they don't see right here and what it doesn't actually show until you look at the pictures online is that there's even blood that splatters up at the bottom of the cabinet as he is striking his opponent, which is technically us. this is one of the reasons why i enjoy the black knight series is because we are taking on the black knight the black knight is taking on us it is a battle between us and the black knight and that asshole is talking shit to you throughout the game you've got steve richie's voice in there laughing at you even though it's steve richie's laugh it's still you think of it as being the black knight that's laughing at you that you were not able to do the magnus saving time and it's just great it's it's a and it's an extra little incentive to put another couple of quarters in there and play again all right so let's start right here again this is the premium so as you can tell from the premium there is an upper play field and it is not the traditional sense being so we can see through it because it is a lexan material this is great because even just this past weekend i let one of my buddies play black knight 2000 for the very first time at texas pinball festival and one of his complaints was that yeah the upper playfield is cool but it kind of like blocks off the rest of the playfield from underneath even though basically what's underneath is just some quick you know little orbits to get the ball coming back to you but that's a typical complaint these days is that whenever you go to an upper playfield you can't see what's going on underneath so i think this is a really nice unique touch to a new pinball machine is that we're giving the ability to go up and above and completely see what's going on underneath which looks like a dungeon pop bumper scenario now having a transparent upper plate build is not completely new i've even got my transparent upper plate field on my jackpot this is uh not always going to be transparent because the original you got you know the bride sitting there and it kind of takes up a little bit of the image but i completely did a customization on mine to where it's actually completely transparent so you can see the pop bumpers it's a very nice touch and it's good to see it even much more well placed in a game like this so right off the bat from what i've seen so far we have the black knight in the center of this play field in all the models so and it's not really so much of a bash toy you're not hitting him you're hitting the target that is in front of him from also what i've seen the black knight is interactive so his lights will glow his mask will glow i think his mask glows like a green in the eyes and everything's more of a reddish orange look at this art look at it holy shit i mean you've done it you brought in the nostalgia that we all know from your previous games and that is of course black knight 2000 with the lightning wheel that is something i am so happy that is incorporated into this game the the colors I mean, you've got your orange, your yellows, your reds. It is a typical color for your Black Knight series. I'm loving it. I'm just trying to soak it all in, you know, and just in the artwork in general. I honestly, as of right now, I have not researched who is doing the art for this game. Bear with me until later. I will see if I can find that information. We are just going by complete aesthetics as of right now in this portion of the video. We have a Magna Save spot that is available on your right in-lane slash out-lane area. Now, the original Black Knight had a Magna Save on right and left, but BK2K had it just on the right, which is what it looks like we've got on this game as well. Now, on the previous models, the Magna Save was near the flipper buttons. This time around, it looks like they're going to incorporate the zapper button on the lockdown bar as our Magna Save. We've got three drop targets on the right side of the playfield and two stand-up targets on the left. Now let's take a moment and just look at this right here.

Cary Hardy@ 19:50 — Personal purchasing decision and value assessment of Premium tier

  • “I wanted it to be iconic. I wanted it to have some retro feel to black knight 2000 music and it looks like in this article that it confirms that we are going to be getting that”

    Cary Hardy@ 22:32 — Confirms design alignment with community expectations for music direction

    • Black Knight 2000
    game
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Monstersgame
    Swords of Furygame
    IGN.comcompany
    Pinsideorganization
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
  • ?

    announcement: Official reveal of Black Knight Sword of Rage with three-tier pricing model and production specifications

    high · Stern released three official reveal videos (Pro, Premium, LE teaser) with specifications, pricing, and feature matrix

  • ?

    product_strategy: Black Knight Sword of Rage uses transparent upper playfield as key differentiator between Pro (no upper) and Premium/LE (with upper), addressing player feedback about visibility

    high · Cary Hardy explains: 'one of his complaints was that yeah the upper playfield is cool but it kind of like blocks off the rest of the playfield from underneath' and praises BK3 solution

    • 6:09
    I'm so happy that he is bringing in the Black Knight in this day and age where we have the ability to CGI build this Black Knight. And he looks awesome. he looks evil like he's ready to kick our ass and i love this i mean he's got flings in his eyes and everything like he's just straight from hell i mean you can't get more badass than this i mean holy crap got a different viewpoint of the artwork it's looking good so far oh man look at that let's let's hold on let's rewind back here again look at this Look at that When I saw that right there I was already going what He got a mace pretty much I mean that is putting a nice little spin on a spinner I mean it essentially an oversized spinning spinner Look at that. They even, like, we want you to take a good look at this. Just rotating around like he's just ready to... Let's see what else I can soak in here. I'm trying not to focus on one badass thing at a time. I've got to try to take it off. and is that an actual like feather coming out of the top of his head i mean i think that looks like it's an actual feather like material all right so now we've got a viewpoint of what the upper play field looks like so as we can already see it looks like that yes below the upper play field it looks like it's some sort of dungeon, which is kind of funny because on my previous video, not knowing anything about what this game looks like, I was thinking that they should have some sort of dungeon-related material, but I didn't know how they were going to be able to incorporate that and it be done well. This looks like it's well done, and I'm trying to understand how this lock mechanism works it looks like it's going to be one of those that shoot straight up and it basically does a 180 on the upper deck version and locks the balls in but i'm trying to figure out how this whole mechanism area the top area works because it loops around let's see if we can figure out how this works all right so obviously it loops around loops around again okay so he just locked it right there let's go back again okay yeah so it's just like i thought comes down shoots it straight up it comes up bam locks in place i like it so right here bam that's like a visual image of us doing some sort of i guess hit that's probably what happens whenever we hit that target that's directly beneath him in the center of the play field because it looks like we're doing damage to him which i'm loving that so actual visual images of us hitting the black knight who here is a black knight fan who has never thought about actually physically punching this asshole me especially whenever he's laughing at you so another little nifty thing right here is this mechanism it's his shield and we got an opto center that is right there in front of the shield so it actually comes up right in the nick of time for you to go up underneath it actually did he oh no it is not going underneath it he ricocheted that bitch he was like nope fuck you you're not coming in here so it looks like whenever you first launch your ball from the shooter lane you're being directed to the upper playfield that will drop the ball right there in front of the upper flipper so this is pretty reminiscent to the previous black knight games where it feeds to the upper playfield and you can do some stuff up there while you're at it my only concern as of right now with this design is the Lexan upper playfield now Lexan is a very strong material I just wonder how it's going to do over time if this is a piece that is going to be getting scratches and stuff over time to where it's gonna be really difficult to see what's going on up underneath that like the pop bumper area see i can already see in this video the micro scratches from the ball going around on it so i'm curious when it comes to longevity on how this is going to work it's a six ball game now whether or not we're getting a six ball multi-ball i don't know yet so but right now they got the three ball multi-ball going right here
    11:37
    Zap button for the Magna safe. Got the left and right orbits. Now, wondering where things feed to the other. Left and right orbits probably are connecting all the way around the back, or can drop down into the dungeon.
    11:58
    Let's see here. Then we finish off with a nice little laugh from Steve Ritchie, also known as the Black Knight or King of Flow, so many nicknames, but with the interactive looking Black Knight right there. So that is the premium Black Knight Sword of Rage. Let's check out the pro. So here we are now with the pro and let's see what we get. Okay so I'm going to be stopping and going through this one just like the last one and on the pro we still have the black knight with the swinging mace so that's good. I'm glad they didn't take that away. But they've done away with the upper play field.
    13:00
    Damn it. I'm not seeing any major differences in artwork or the game in general right here. it looks like we're just changing the fact that it doesn't have a second tier playfield and obviously the artwork is different on the sides of the cabinet and of course the trans light magma save is still there I want to hear that again because that sounded pretty awesome right there I want to hear what kind of call outs he has this is something okay Steve if you're actually watching my stuff uh first off uh that awesome secondly I hope you do all kinds of call outs and in future updates throughout the game they incorporate even more call I want the Black Knight talking shit to me to where it entices me to want to play this more and more because this Black Knight is an asshole that I want to destroy So if you could make sure you keep this Black Knight being somebody that we hate but we love to play, then hell yeah. oh okay so as far as i can tell the pro is going to be very much like the premium and le's i actually i haven't seen the le i don't think they've released any kind of footage for the le because i want to say the le and the premium are pretty much the same um except for i can go over the chart here in a bit it tells us what things are different so as of right now the pro is not going to be having the upper play field and I don't know how much of a big difference that it's going to make I didn't see how it's going to incorporate the multi-ball and locking mechanisms or anything that in the video because the viewpoints are just not where they need to be to where I could see how the upper play field works so chances are the pro model is going to be a virtual locking system not my favorite when it comes to pinball in general I like to actually lock physical balls in their place because it's always cool whenever they just come rolling down all at the same time uh we do not have footage of the le right now but chances are the le is going to be just like the premium only you're getting some extra perks probably accessories wise signatures the glass speakers little stuff like that shaker motor little things like that are probably going to be in the LE compared to the Premium and the Pro. But I'm glad that it's going to be a three-tier system and not just a, you know, two-tier like Limited Edition and Super LE because that would just be horrible. So as of right now, we can see that they are going to be doing 600 of the Black Knight Limited Edition versions. Well, this is interesting information. It turns out that the voice for the Black Knight is being done by none other than Ed Robertson. What the hell Richie? I mean it's going to be synthesized so much that we're not going to really be able to tell that it's Ed Robertson or Steve Richie but I guess it's just you know the nostalgia in me that wanted it to be Steve Richie that did the voice. Your typical pricing is going to be as follows for your pro the usual six grand the premium is going to be about $7,600 and of course the LE a whopping $9,000. Now some of you all are probably going god man that's a lot of money and my rebuttal to that would be check out Jersey Jack's brand new Wizard of Oz Yellow Brick Road Edition $11,500 yeah okay so now I'm looking at the feature matrix for this game that tells me which models come with what so immediately when it comes to what does the limited edition have that the other models don't what are you going to be paying the extra $1,500 for if you get the limited edition. So what are they? As we've already stated, there's only going to be 600 of these machines. So you're getting a machine that's very limited. You get the Certificate of Authenticity signed by Gary Stern. You get the designer autographed collective featuring game designer Steve Ritchie. Serialized number plate, exclusive battlefield, hand-drawn full color high definition art on back glass and cabinet decals. Limited edition mirrored back glass with distinctive hand drawn art. Limited edition exclusive battlefield art blades. Those are the blades that go on the inside of the cabinet where sometimes people might have mirrors. High definition speaker system with three channel amplifier. High definition anti-reflection pinball glass a shaker motor and gloss black and gold metal flake side armor legs back box hinges and gold leg bolts now granted some of this can be done on a premium to make it look like a limited edition other things are it's all up to the individual if you want to actually have a serial plate this signifies that it is a limited edition version typically when people get the le's they keep them in their house they don't take them out to the show and that's essentially for you know your own peace of mind knowing that you have an le compared to everyone else that has something that's pretty common but you can always buy that shaker motor separate for your premium you can get the powder coating done on your premium or pro later on down the road you can buy the high definition anti-reflection pinball glass if you want to upgrade your speakers to the new ones you can do that but i'm pretty sure your standard ones are going to be plenty loud enough for your home you can get the limited edition like side art blades but i mean technically i mean i'm more of the mirrored i like the whole mirrored look on machine myself but that's just me um everything else i mean don't get me wrong i'm not dissing those 600 of you that are going to spend the extra $1,500 or $3,000 depending on which model you're going to get to get the le by all means props to you for getting the LE. Congratulations on that. I, on the other hand, I'm going to settle for the premium. Premium is going to have everything else but the things that I just listed. So what is the big differences between the pro and the premium? This is where the price gap of the additional $1,500 to the pro is going to matter. So what are you losing if you settle for pro? You are going to be losing the lexan upper playfield with full-size flipper orbit lane target and three ball catapult multi-ball lock mechanism half pipe shot to upper playfield at the end of the flail lane castle vuk or vuk rather launches ball from lower playfield to upper playfield flipper massive stainless steel flail lane floor protector with 10 laser cut lightning bolts each lit with a sequenced red led inclined stainless steel shooter ramp offers players a choice to enter the upper or lower play field and three full-size flippers two on the lower and one on the upper play field that is what is the difference between the premium and the pro and honestly whenever you're going to compare let's say for instance the monsters to the black knight 3000 i'm going to call it 3000 it's I'm going to call it BK3. The BK3, Black Knight 3, essentially, when it comes to the pricing differences between a Munster premium to pro whenever you had a basement area in Munster compared to the upper playfield in your Black Knight I like the features of the upper play field on the Black Knight more than I like the Munsters Not that it was a bad idea or bad design or anything for Munsters. It was the whole miniature ball thing. I mean, it's cool and stuff, but I like the look and the feel of this upper play field more, and the multi-ball mechanism looks pretty nifty as well. I think as fast as it looks like it plays in the video up there how it just swings around I'm loving that because it really brings me back to how smooth the predecessors played and I just cannot wait to play this game this is what sucks is to get some of the information that I want to get about this machine I have to go to the godforsakenign.com website that has so many fucking ads on it that it just constantly changes and updates just throwing shit at my face to where I cannot get the information I need unless I just look at shit that I don't give a fuck about. Just thinking about it and looking at it right now, it's pissing me off. For God's sake, Stern, why the hell did you give them an exclusive? Something else I want to point out is that we were discussing possible music and what I believe the music should be on the Black Knight 3, and that is that I wanted it to be iconic. I wanted it to have some retro feel to black knight 2000 music and it looks like in this article that it confirms that we are going to be getting that the person that's going to be doing the music is actually scott ian from anthrax shredding it up on this guitar so from the video audio section that we get that black knight 2000 feel but more of a and it just sounds really good so he talks about how there's going to be a digitized version of the Black Knight 2000, and it's going to be the theme in a retro mode, according to Steve Ritchie. So it's essentially what I was hoping to get, and that is a digitized, revamped version of Black Knight 2000 music. So, hell yeah.
    23:24
    So Ed Robertson of Bare Naked Ladies is going to be doing some voiceover work, but it's alongside Steve Ritchie, so I'm kind of curious on how that's going to work.
    23:37
    So, Steve, are you still doing the actual Black Knight himself? And Ed's coming in there just to do another portion of something? What's going on here? Ah, so there is a six-ball multi-ball.
    23:51
    Ah, so here we go. They even have an addendum down here at the bottom of the article. Previous version of this article stated incorrectly that Ed Robertson voices the Black Knight character in Black Knight Swords of Rage. This has been amended. Steve Ritchie voices the Black Knight while Robertson provides other voice work. We apologize for the error. Good. Now let me get the hell off this damn IGN page before I get some stupid adware. God bless America. So here are the three different models on Stern's website showing the cabinet artwork side by side by side so you get an idea of which model you prefer art-wise. now if I had to choose between the three of which one I like best oh man I'm gonna have to lean towards the LE because the LE looks like he's just got an army of friggin like skeletons and like you know army of the dead essentially just going towards the player and that looks badass man premium looks pretty good though i like the actual like the blood splatter that we got going on right here that looks really good the pro artwork reminds me a lot of swords of fury artwork due to the fact that you've got the sword in the middle of the uh cabinet although it's drastically different i'm guessing that's the same image over and over again okay so it's a little reminiscent to um swords of fury just basically just the sword that's it everything else is obviously better so i'm pretty stoked that the chances are i'm going to be getting me a premium version of this because i'm a fan and uh it it looks like it's pretty awesome enough to where i'm gonna have to get me one I just hate that the premium is always the last one that comes out if I had to take a gander we're gonna start seeing pros up on the market here the next month and then the le shortly after that meaning the premiums probably still won't be out until man maybe even June Damn still have one more place to check on when it comes to getting information about that game and that is the good old pin side So we're gonna scroll through this and I'm just gonna get a feel a real quick overview on what everybody's thinking about this game Alright, so going through the pin side thread so far I would say over 90 some odd percent of the feedback that we're getting is positive when it comes to this game Tim Sexton is evidently doing the coding for the game. So let's keep on going. Okay, I've scoured through the Black Knight thread on Pinside. Still, I'd say 95% plus is all positive on what this game looks like and sounds like. You're going to get your typical every once in a while people that just, I don't think they like anything pinball related the way it sounds. But I'd say definitely so far, Steve Ritchie, it looks like you've done a great job on what you're putting out. So now that we have a lot more information to go over in Stew 1, I want to know what your thoughts are on this game. My thoughts are is that I'm pretty sure I'm going to be getting a premium put back here in the future. So look for that. Let me know down below what you feel about Black Knight Sword of Rage. That's going to wrap it up, guys. Give me that thumbs up. And if you haven't already, do not forget to hit that subscribe button. That way you can be notified of whenever I upload new material for your viewing pleasure. Until next time, peace out. I think we should get a premium.
    28:06
    This is the pro. This is the premium. It's even got blood right here. And this is a limited edition. so I want to get a premium
    28:18
    this money is just 7,500