Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Venom Pinball Review: What You Need to Know!

RetroRalph·video·16m 20s·analyzed·Dec 29, 2023
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

RetroRalph reviews Venom: fast-paced Marvel game with novel progression system and strong visuals.

Summary

RetroRalph reviews Stern Pinball's Venom (December 2023), highlighting its distinctive features including host selection that changes playfield elements, experience point progression via Stern Insider Connected, and fast-paced gameplay mechanics like the Fast Lock system and Doppelgänger encounters. The reviewer praises Jeremy Packer's vibrant comic book-inspired artwork and emphasizes the game's deep ruleset, while acknowledging it as a newcomer to pinball who appreciates the accessibility and replay value despite the steep learning curve.

Key Claims

  • Venom's host selection feature changes playfield elements on Premium and Limited Edition models

    high confidence · RetroRalph explicitly demonstrates and explains how choosing different hosts (Eddie Brock vs others) physically alters playfield layout and shot placement

  • Stern Insider Connected integration allows players to save progress and level up characters across multiple machines

    high confidence · RetroRalph shows gameplay scanning Stern Insider Connected account and explains the feature allows progression to follow players between home, arcade, and friend locations

  • The Fast Lock system spits balls back immediately after locking, creating fast-paced, demanding gameplay

    high confidence · RetroRalph describes and demonstrates the fast lock mechanic requiring quick reflexes throughout gameplay footage

  • Jeremy Packer's art style for Venom captures the character with detailed, colorful, comic book-inspired aesthetics

    high confidence · RetroRalph praises the cabinet artwork, playfield art, and backglass design as 'gorgeous and popping with color'

  • Venom has performed 'really, really well' at Electric Bat Arcade since release

    high confidence · Kale and Rachel (Electric Bat owners) state the Pro model has been on location since release and performs well

  • The Stern Insider Connected feature is unique to Venom: 'It's the first game that you can do that, that you can level up a pinball machine'

    medium confidence · Kale claims this is the first game with character leveling progression, but this reflects his perspective; may need verification against other Stern titles

Notable Quotes

  • “When you choose a different host, it actually changes the playfield. This really keeps the game interesting and adds to the replay value of the machine.”

    RetroRalph@ 3:23 — Explains a key differentiating feature between Venom and other modern pinball games that enhances replayability

  • “This thing is just gorgeous and popping with color and it's just full of life. He really did capture Venom as a character and that whole universe.”

    RetroRalph@ 0:54 — Strong praise for Jeremy Packer's artistic execution on the game's visual design

  • “Sometimes maybe give a game a chance, even though the theme doesn't seem like one that you're really into because sometimes if the gameplay is good and the music's good and it just checks all those boxes it ends up being a game that you didn't even know you'd like.”

    RetroRalph@ 14:55 — Reflects on personal experience with theme vs. gameplay and offers advice to potential buyers that speaks to broader pinball appeal dynamics

  • “It's a great game to have on location. People love the fact that you can log in with Stern Insider Connected and you can actually level up your character.”

    Kale (Electric Bat Arcade co-owner)@ 12:33 — Operator/location perspective validating commercial appeal and the draw of the progression system

  • “People are just constantly coming in, logging in, in order to level up their character and open new players.”

    Rachel (Electric Bat Arcade owner)@ 12:41 — Demonstrates repeated engagement driver created by the Stern Insider Connected progression mechanic

Entities

VenomgameJeremy PackerpersonRetroRalphpersonStern PinballcompanyGame Room GoodiescompanyStern Insider ConnectedproductElectric Bat ArcadeorganizationKaleperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Electric Bat Arcade reports strong player engagement with Stern Insider Connected feature as primary driver of repeat visits and progression

    high · Operators note players continuously return to log in and level up characters, indicating behavioral engagement loop

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern Pinball's arrangement with RetroRalph to provide loaner machines on 4-week rotation demonstrates continued investment in content creator partnerships and community education

    high · RetroRalph states 'this is one of three other machines that I'll be getting access to every four weeks' indicating ongoing Stern partnership

  • $

    market_signal: Location operator reports strong commercial performance for Venom Pro model since release, with repeat engagement driven by progression system

    high · Kale states machine 'has performed really, really well the whole time' and Rachel notes 'people are just constantly coming in, logging in, in order to level up their character'

  • ?

    announcement: Venom officially released December 2023 with Stern Insider Connected progression feature as novel addition to Stern's lineup

    high · Video dated December 2023; feature demonstration shows character leveling and cross-machine progression functionality

  • ?

    product_strategy: Venom Premium/Limited Edition feature host-selection playfield changes while Pro model lacks this, creating meaningful tier differentiation

    high · RetroRalph explicitly states 'when you choose a different host, it actually changes the playfield' on Premium/LE models only

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.049

0:00
Today we're going to talk about the latest pinball machine from Stern Pinball, Venom, as of December 2023. This machine was provided to me on loan from Stern Pinball and my local distributor, Game Room Goodies. So big thanks to them for allowing me to showcase this machine on my channel. we are venom let's start by talking about cabinet artwork and design this design was done by zombie yeti he is a designer for stern pinball he's done some recent games like foo fighters godzilla tmnt and Deadpool. When you look at his art style, it really reminds me of comic books. A bit cartoonish, so he's the perfect person for Venom. And when you take a look at the artwork on the playfield, on the back glass, and the cabinet art as a whole, this thing is just gorgeous and popping with color and it's just full of life. He really did capture Venom as a character and that whole universe in how detailed the artwork is on this playfield and the complete art package as a whole. Now this is the art package on the Premium. The art packages on the Pro and Limited Edition are slightly different, but for the purposes of this video, we're going to be focusing on the artwork of the Premium. All right, moving on to models. If you're newer to Stern Pinball, the games come in three models. Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition. Stern publishes a feature matrix for every game they design, and you can locate that on their website. This is a good place to look if you're trying to decide what model is right for you. I'll have a link in the description to the Venom feature matrix so you can check it out. I will say this, going to shows like Pinball Expo, Pintastic, or Texas Pinball Festival is a great way to get hands-on experience with a game and evaluate what model you might want. Also, visiting your local pinball arcade, arcade bar, or FEC location is another great way to see what model might be right for you. Also, some local distributors like Game Room Goodies have showrooms, that's also a great option. If you don't know where there's pinball to play in your area, check out pinball map website or download the app itself. Chances are there's a pinball location near you. The Venom Stern provided is a premium model, so everything you see in this video is specific to the premium model. Generally speaking, the Pro is the most bare bones of the bunch, and the most cost effective. As you move up the line, you typically get more on the playfield to make it a more enhanced gaming experience.
Rachel
person
Pinball Mapproduct
Pinball Expoevent
Pintasticevent
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Star Wars: The Mandaloriangame
Mark Tremontiperson
  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern Insider Connected represents new persistent progression feature differentiating Venom from prior Stern releases and creating engagement loop tied to account progression

    medium · Kale claims 'It's the first game that you can do that, that you can level up a pinball machine' and operator notes this drives repeated play

    • 2:48
    Next is Playfield Layout and Features. There's some really cool features of this game that in my opinion make it very unique. The implementation of experience points is really cool and it allows you to level up your character. And if you're using Insider Connected, you can come back to the game at any time and it will save your progress. Since your progress stays with your Insider Connected account, you can play at home, then Then you can go to the arcade bar or even a friend's house and boom, you can pick up right where you left off. When you start the game, you get to choose a host. On the Premium and Limited Edition, when you choose a different host, it actually changes the playfield. This really keeps the game interesting and adds to the replay value of the machine. It also changes the shots around so it can add some variability to the playfield that you won't get when you're comparing it to the Pro model. The Fast Lock system is another really great feature. This was designed so you could visually see the balls you have locked. What makes the game so frantic and fast is as soon as a ball enters the fast lock system, it immediately spits another ball back at you. This adds to the excitement of Venom and while challenging at first, the more you play the better your reaction time will get and you be having a lot of fun with it in no time Carnage is also another neat element It features a captive ball that tracks how hard you hit it and if you knock Carnage all the way back you can light Carnage multiball. Doppelganger jumps out at you, another really interesting element of the playfield, and there's a target that's lit below him. That's what you'll be aiming for, and if you hit him, you're golden, but you only have a short amount of time to act, so you gotta act fast. Again, more quick elements to the gameplay that keep Venom fast-paced and exciting. As far as the code goes, I'm not gonna deep dive the different paths that this game can send you down, and believe me, there are many. But there's an extensive rule sheet for the game, and I'm personally not scratching the surface of even mastering it. That takes time, but with pinball, learning part of the nuances of each game is part of the fun, and it adds to the value of each machine. All right, we're going to do some Venom gameplay now. So when you step up to the machine, scan your Insider Connected, you're going to see it saves your progress. So the whole idea of leveling up your character will actually go with you. So no matter what machine you're on, where you are, you could be at a friend's house, an arcade bar, whatever, you can bring that progress with you and why that's important is because as you gain experience points you level up your character and allows you to fight certain boss battles. It actually spells it out right here on the play field so when you first start you're not able to fight certain characters because you haven't leveled up your character yet so it gives you a good reason to come back and keep playing the game. I find it really adds to the replay value of it which is cool and when you start the machine you're going to choose your host. When you choose your host different elements of the play field change. We talked about this earlier. So depending on who you pick, the play field will actually change, which is pretty cool. I think, again, that's one of those things that helps add to the replay value of the machine because it makes it different depending on who you choose. So I'm going to go with Eddie Brock to start out here. Let's see. I think I forgot to... I said scan my Insider Connected and I didn't even do it. There we go. So I think I hit the flipper button to say no to not show my progress. So there we go. I'm level 38, as you can see there on the screen. Let's start it off and wish me luck, man. All right, we got one ball locked right out the bat. You have two locks lit when you start as Eddie Brock, so it does make it faster to get to multi-ball. I could cancel the multi-ball. I'm not going to. You can stack these on top of each other. I haven't gotten good enough to do that consistently yet, so for purposes of the video, I'm not going to show that, but there's plenty of gameplay videos with different philosophies and strategies around playing it. Especially for tournament play to get more points and all that. There's tons of strategies out there. This is definitely not a strategy guide video, but hopefully it gives you a good idea of the gameplay of the overall machine.
    7:05
    Alright. Here we go. All right, cool. Actually, we got carnage multi-ball right now. Let's go. All right, I'm feeling good about this ball right now.
    7:32
    These balls are draining left and right. What's going on? That's not what we want. Oh, damn it. All right, that wasn't a terrible ball, actually. That was pretty good for me, man. That was pretty good for me. I will take that all day long.
    8:03
    That was not how I wanted to end that but that was pretty good though That was a pretty good first ball for me So hopefully that gives you like a little bit of an overview I going to do a couple more I going to play a little bit longer just so you can see a couple more of the things happen Like if I can get Doppelganger to come out. When he swings out, you only have a really small amount of time to attack him. So when he does swing out, you better have your reflexes ready because you've got to act on it quickly.
    8:31
    Alright, we should get a ball save on that. It happens man, it happens. Like I said, not a pro player by any stretch of the imagination, not even close. There we go, doppelganger's out. Okay, we only have a couple seconds, let's see if we can hit him. Ah shoot, we're gonna run out of time. We got him, we got him, we got him. See if I can get him again. Shoot. You can see the timer's running out. I got him again. Oh, I need to get that middle one, but I'm not gonna get it in time. Ah shoot, alright, he's gone. Doppelganger escapes.
    9:08
    Okay, we're going to get... We'll probably get another chance if I play okay here to do that. So you can see these fast locks. The balls come back at you so fast. You've got to have fast... See, I blew it right there. But you have to have fast reflexes for this game. Especially if you're newer to pinball, it's going to be a little bit of a challenge when you first start this game because your reflex has got to be good.
    9:35
    Nah. Shoot, man. All right, well, we wasted that. That ball was a waste for me. Let's get this play field aligned again. All right, let's see. We got one more ball. Let's see what we can do. Our score is decent right now, but it sucks when you have a bad ball because you're like, man, woulda, coulda, shoulda, but it's all right. Let's see if we can get to at least 150 million. I think I can do that.
    10:09
    Before this video goes out. Now I'm setting this expectation of myself, and I just did that. Got a ball save, though. So we're still in this.
    10:20
    For how long, I'm not sure. But for right now, we're in it. In it to win it. Or in it to lose it. Anyways, it happens, man. That's pinball. Hopefully you enjoyed that little gameplay section. Like I said, I'll summarize this and just say there's a lot of strategies. The rule set is very deep to the game. And as you... Hey, I got a high score. Nice. This machine's high score table was clear before we started, so just so you know. But yeah, this was fun, and there's lots of strategies to the game. The rule set's really long. How I find the best way is go to some YouTube channels where people are talking about gameplay strategy There'll be strategies for maximizing points for tournaments or for progressing through the game Either way, you can find lots of help online from all sorts of different content creators to help you But but that's the beauty of this right is you can get a game like this and because the rule set so deep You've got a lot to do and a lot to achieve. So it just makes playing it again and again all that much more fun Okay, so we got done with some Venom gameplay, but I thought how cool would it be to- Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop the edit. Can we Venomify it in here just a little bit?
    11:37
    Thank you. Anyway, back to your irregularly scheduled program. How cool would it be to go down to Electric Bat Arcade? They're a great arcade here in town. It does lots of pinball tournaments. They're very well known in the pinball community, and I happen to be friends with Rachel and Kale, the owner and co-owner, so let's ask them what they think about Venom.
    12:03
    Road Trip Through these doors may look like any old dive bar to you but when you get to the other side there a whole world of pinball that awaits And it electrifying Tons of amazing games from multiple eras scattered throughout the floor But today we here to talk about one game in particular We're doing a video on Venom, right? I know you guys have a pro here. You've had it on location for, what, a couple months now? We've had it since it came out. And it has performed really, really well the whole time that we've had it. It's a great game to have on location. People love the fact that you can log in with Stern Insider Connected. and you can actually level up your character. People are just constantly coming in, logging in, in order to level up their character and open new players. Do you think that that's why people are gravitating toward it? I do think so, because it's the first game that you can do that, that you can level up a pinball machine. It's a new thing. Because it's Marvel, people love those characters. Does that also make people gravitate toward it? People here just love pinball, period. It could really be almost anything. But it does help. This scene, they really love comic book stuff. They love comic book characters. And even all the Marvel movies. Everybody gets in groups here and goes see stuff like that. Yeah, I think at Electric Bat, because of the hardcore love of pinball, you could make a game about a car wash and people would play it. But the fact that it's Venom, it's a recognizable IP. That gets the people that are the hardcore enthusiasts, just casual players, recognize that.
    13:36
    summary all right well thank you so much kale and rachel for your insights on venom and if you need information about electric bat it'll be in the description below so what's my overall feelings about venom the game is really fun but keep in mind i'm coming from the angle of someone that really went from arcade games to pinball only a couple years ago so i don't have like this historical information about pinball because it wasn't a hobby I was really a part of. So I find the game to be fun. It's challenging enough for me and it's fast. I love the fast aspect of it because it keeps it exciting. The music is really good. I wasn't able to feature the music because it would get a copyright claim. So I didn't do that. But the music really fits the gameplay really well. And I think with pinball, it's all about music and sound effects and the call-outs, and if you bring it all together into a theme that's interesting, like Venom, you have a winner. Now keep in mind, I want to bring this up because I think it's interesting. I'm not necessarily this like gigantic Venom fan, and this has happened a couple of times with me from Pimp with Pinball Machines. I'll play a game where I'm like, eh, it's not really a theme I'm really into. Mandalorian's one of them. I like the show, but when I played the game and played it with someone that understood the rules, I was like, man, I really like Mandalorian. So sometimes maybe give a game a chance, even though the theme doesn't seem like one that you're really into because sometimes if the gameplay is good and the music's good and it just checks all those boxes it ends up being a game that you didn't even know you'd like so that's the beauty of pinball there's lots of different machines i just want to say thank you to stern for providing this machine and for game room goodies so if you're looking for a pinball machine you're in the phoenix area they actually ship all over the united states you can go to game room goodies there'll be a link in the description but i can't Thanks Stern Enough for this partnership. And this is one of three other machines that I'll be getting access to every four weeks. So right now we're going to talk about Venom, but I don't know what the next game will be. Thanks everybody for watching. If you enjoyed the video, give me a thumbs up. Consider subscribing to the channel. Put your comments below. I want to hear from you. Are you new to pinball? Was this helpful to you? I hope it was. It's coming from a slightly different perspective. I don't have these rich history of pinball, but man, I love the hobby. You got to jump in if you haven't already. And we will see you. on the next one. Don't forget to subscribe to Retro Ralph.