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Jaws Pinball Review

Pinball Pursuit·video·16m 57s·analyzed·Jun 22, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Jaws pinball rates 18.25/25—well-made but not home-ownership material.

Summary

Dr. C and Mrs. J review Stern's Jaws pinball machine (2024, designed by Keith Elwin), breaking down theme, look, sound, feel, and play across a 1-5 scale. They score it 18.25/25 overall (solid B-tier), ranking it third among their reviewed games behind Jurassic Park and Foo Fighters. While acknowledging it as a well-executed machine with broad appeal from beginners to advanced players, they conclude it's an excellent rental but not a must-have for home ownership, citing layout simplicity and sound design as limiting factors.

Key Claims

  • Jaws was designed by Keith Elwin with software by Rick Nagel and artwork by Michael Bernard

    high confidence · Hosts verify these credits at the beginning of the review

  • The machine is accessible for beginner and intermediate players while offering complexity for advanced players

    high confidence · Both reviewers consistently note the accessible shot layout and ramp design paired with deep rule stacking complexity

  • Richard Dreyfuss's voice work sounds dated and disengaged, detracting from the sound design

    high confidence · Dr. C specifically criticizes Dreyfuss for sounding like 'an old man' at 70+ years old and not matching his original film performance; Mrs. J notes his callouts didn't stick in memory

  • The layout becomes repetitive and stale after extended play despite initial appeal

    high confidence · Mrs. J states she 'cooled off' on Jaws over the rental period, scoring feel 3.5 vs initial high ratings; attributes this to layout simplicity: 'shot, shot, shot, shot, shot'

  • Premium Edition includes a motorized shark feature unavailable on Standard Edition

    high confidence · Reviewers compare Standard and Premium editions; Mrs. J notes Standard feels 'really stripped down' without the shark

  • The Fin mechanic is the standout feature that provides theatrical impact and theme immersion

    high confidence · Both reviewers praise the Fin as 'a showstopper,' 'one of the best features,' and note it resonates with non-enthusiast players

  • Jaws ranks #3 of 4 machines they've reviewed, behind Jurassic Park (22 pts) and Foo Fighters (21 pts)

    high confidence · Reviewers display their full ranking list on screen with Jaws at 18.25, Elvira's House of Horrors Premium at 14

  • The rule set is complex enough to require a two-part tutorial video to cover

    high confidence · Mrs. J notes the tutorial script took longer than others due to rule complexity; multiple modes can run simultaneously

Notable Quotes

  • “I don't know that I would say, yeah, I want Jaws in my home...I don't know that I'm, like, aching to have it back.”

    Mrs. J@ 14:49 — Core conclusion: despite being a good machine, reviewers wouldn't purchase it for home ownership, undercutting the game's premium positioning

  • “The Fin is such a showstopper...that's one of the best features. Yeah, really immerses you in the theme of the game.”

    Dr. C@ 9:48 — Identifies the motorized shark fin as the single most impactful mechanical feature

  • “I feel like after a while, like I started off really high in terms of...it would have been really high. Yeah, on the field you were high on Jaws early. I was really high on Jaws and I think I really cooled off on it over time.”

    Mrs. J@ 10:37 — Documents a significant sentiment shift during the rental period, undermining initial enthusiasm

  • “There's just a lot to it, which means if you are a very advanced player and you like those complex things, like this is a great game for you.”

    Mrs. J@ 12:20 — Acknowledges bifurcated appeal across skill levels, though complexity creates beginner friction

  • “He doesn't sound like he did in the film...he sounds like an old man...he didn't sound like he cared and it was really distracting for me.”

    Dr. C@ 7:18 — Specific critique of voice acting quality that negatively impacted overall sound design score

  • “Those top two, Jurassic Park and Foo Fighters, are the games that I kind of miss...those are home runs.”

    Dr. C — Comparative positioning shows Jaws doesn't meet the 'home run' threshold of keeper games for this household

Entities

JawsgameKeith ElwinpersonRick NagelpersonElizabeth GieskepersonMichael BernardpersonHarrison DrakepersonRichard DreyfusspersonJohn WilliamspersonDr. C

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Two-part rules tutorial video required due to rule complexity; indicates sophisticated rule set requiring educational content investment from community creators

    high · Mrs. J: 'The script that i wrote for the tutorial took me longer than other scripts it was very long because i had to figure out how to play all these different modes'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Jaws soundtrack heavily features John Williams theme (iconic film composition) as primary audio anchor, with supplemental film clips and custom callouts

    medium · Hosts praise 'classic John Williams theme' as great, but note limited memorable custom content beyond iconic themes and limited callout memorability

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Playfield layout criticized as repetitive and formulaic ('shot, shot, shot, shot, shot') causing engagement fatigue over extended play despite initial appeal

    high · Mrs. J: 'I found myself personally after a little while getting a little bored...a little too simple of a layout'; contributes to feel score decline from initial high ratings

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jaws designed with intentional accessibility for beginner/intermediate players without sacrificing depth for advanced players; simultaneous multi-mode stacking enables complexity mastery

    high · Both hosts emphasize broad skill-level appeal; Mrs. J notes can have 'Feeding Frenzy and Shark Encounter and Fish Finder mode and something else all active at the same time'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jaws features Richard Dreyfuss as original actor; film licensing includes classic John Williams theme and iconic imagery but limited character appearance options (missing Roy Scheider's Brody character)

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.051

0:00
Hello and welcome to Pinball Pursuit. I'm Dr. C. And I'm Mrs. J. And today we're going to be reviewing a little game that we had in our house for a couple of months. Jaws. Yes, that's right. We're going to be reviewing Jaws for you. So, before we get into it, let's give a few little details about Jaws the game. It came out last year, 2024. Yeah. It was designed by Keith Elwin. Love Keith. One of our favorite designers. Software by Rick Nagel, who's done, I think, all of Keith's games. Okay. This time with support from, and we were taught how to say her name correctly. Say it. Elizabeth Gieske. Or Giesike. No, I think it's Gieske. Gieske? Like Gieske. One of us said it right.
0:51
We thought it was Gieske. We said that in our tutorial and we were told that we were wrong. So I'm pretty sure it's geese-key.
1:00
But there's another E. Geese-key. I think it's just geese-key. We're so sorry. We'd love to meet you someday. And we're sorry.
1:09
Artwork was by Michael Bernard on this one. Nice. And the engineering lead was Harrison Drake, who kind of worked on all the mechanics. Gotcha, gotcha. So, yeah, let's get into our review of Jasmine. As always, we break things down into the theme, the look, the sound, the feel, and the play of the game. So, and we go from one to five. Five being... Amazing. The best thing you've ever seen. Three being meets expectations. Means, okay, this is good. This is good. Like, this isn't bad. This isn't awesome. Like, this is good. Yeah. One being the worst you've ever seen. so uh let's start with let's go with the theme the theme okay so um tell me your thoughts on the theme okay we're breaking down the theme into kind of two trains of thought one being just the theme overall how do you feel about the theme how do i feel about jaws as a theme and then the other how well they represented the theme correct how well integrated okay so it's kind of two things going into one um i'll tell you my overall score after i kind of give you my train of thought on both of those pieces um the theme of jaws i watched jaws for the first time because you introduced it to me was it last year it was last 2024 we had a was around halloween yes we had our monster movie halloween time because i'm a baby and i don't love real scary movies so we're gonna watch monster movies so we had a whole list of them yes we did watch Jaws. Yeah. Um, I had grown up hearing that it was classic and I can see why. Was it, I mean, the best movie I've ever seen? Probably not, but was it good? Yeah. Oh yeah. I love it. I love Jaws. Yeah. As a movie. And so, I mean, the theme to me is fine. Like, do I have to have it in my house? No. But do I mind that it's in my house? Definitely not. I think it's a cool movie. I think it's a cool theme. Um, I think that they represented the theme well. I think that the iconic da-na-na-na Yeah. Da-na-na-na No, it's da-na Oh! You had it totally wrong. That's really embarrassing. That one that one Yes. It's in there you know they've got the shark in there of course they've got iconic clips from the film I know that I'm not the biggest fan of the film clips in Pinball Machines Yep. You're not. But they do have a lot of good ones they have Pippet yeah yeah there's a lot of good callbacks to the film so overall i gave it a four score four out of five which is which is a good which is good that's a good score yeah i went higher than you okay tell me i went 4.5 probably because i like the film jaws better than you like the film probably i yeah grew up watching jaws every once in a while yeah with my dad love the film it's great um i I think integration wise, they did such a good job. Like I don know that you can make a Jaws pinball machine better than you could make this one Like it The modes are great Yeah The How they put like Just The integration of the theme makes it feel like this is truly a Jaws machine Not just a machine that happens to have Jaws in it. Yeah. So... And the callback to Jaws the Revenge and everything. Yes. So much fun. Like, they did so many little things there. I don't know how they could do better. Yeah. So, for me, I gave the theme a 4.5. Yep. And I gave it a four, which overall combined, because of course this is just us trying to figure out which machine would work best in our home. Combined score, 4.25. 4.25? Yep, that is the average there. Next is the look. Okay, you take the look away first. All right, so I think that the look of this machine, now there's a couple of little trims, right? There's the pro, there's a premium, there's a limited edition. Yeah. I've played on all three of them. Okay, I did not know that. You played a premium. I've played an LE before. an le it was an arcade in california i think which one had it okay the le is gorgeous yeah it's so pretty um i really like the look of this machine it is yeah gorgeous i i like the art i wish that they'd gotten the rights to brody the actor that played brody in the film um because it's just Quint and whatever Richard Dreyfuss' character's name was I don't remember his name on the play field and I think that's fun but it's not like there's just that third person missing. So for me it gets a little knock because of that. I like that they did the original movie poster for the Backloss on the Pro.
@ 14:42

  • “This just really solidified to me why renting before buying is so important to us...you were so high on it for the first few weeks...and then you learned that you kind of cooled off a little bit.”

    Dr. C@ 15:39 — Meta-commentary on rental model value; demonstrates how initial honeymoon period masks long-term satisfaction issues

  • “Every single one was accessible. Every single one was a bit of a challenge for me, at least to hit consistently.”

    Mrs. J@ 11:05 — Emphasizes the feel design achievement: accessibility without removal of skill expression

    • person
    Mrs. Jperson
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Foo Fightersgame
    Elvira's House of Horrors Premium Editiongame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Pinball Pursuitorganization

    high · Hosts note only Quint and Dreyfuss characters appear on playfield; Mrs. J wishes they'd secured rights to Brody actor but acknowledges limitation

  • $

    market_signal: Machine rated as compelling short-term rental (6 weeks) but insufficient as long-term home ownership despite solid engineering; suggests price-to-long-term-satisfaction misalignment for premium segments

    high · Reviewers state explicitly: 'it's a fun one to have for six weeks...I don't know that I'm aching to have it back' and contrast with 'home run' games they miss

  • ?

    product_strategy: Premium Edition's motorized shark feature positioned as essential differentiator; Standard Edition explicitly called 'really stripped down' without it

    high · Mrs. J: 'It's too bad that there isn't a Shark for the Standard Edition...It feels really stripped down for that'; praise of shark as cool counterpoint

  • ?

    product_concern: Richard Dreyfuss voice work characterized as dated, disengaged, and tonally mismatched to original film performance, reducing emotional impact of callouts

    high · Dr. C: 'he's like 70 something and he's doing call outs and he sounds like an old man...didn't sound like he cared and it was really distracting'; Mrs. J confirms poor memorability

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Mrs. J's initial enthusiasm for Jaws (high early ratings) deteriorated significantly over the 6-week rental period, ultimately cooling to a non-keeper status despite respecting the machine's quality

    high · Dr. C explicitly states: 'you were so high on it for the first few weeks...and i think i really cooled off on it over time'; Mrs. J scored feel 3.5 vs. implied 4.5+ early interest

    • 5:54
    The premium Backloss got a lot of hate. I actually kind of liked it. Original art of like basically Sam Quinn going into Jaws' mouth. Like, I thought that was really good. I liked that one. So for me, I give the look of this machine a four. Okay. I also gave it a four. I thought that there were just so many different cool pieces on the board. I thought that the art was really cool. I love the, it's on the premium.
    6:23
    Yes, on the premium. The shark that comes out. Oh, the shark that comes out, yes. The shark that comes out. Looks super cool. Love that. I thought it was really cool. I thought it looked great. Yeah, it looks great. So I gave it a four. You gave it a four. Average. Four. Yay. There you go. Now the sound. This is where things are not great. Yeah. I mean, I... Here's the thing. They have the classic John Williams theme. Yes, they do. They do. And we love the classic John Williams theme. It's great. The classic John Williams theme is so good. A lot of the music they did, great. The movie clips. The sound they have from that.
    6:57
    The, you know, the little, like, shoot it to kill kill yeah great but then you got richard dreyfus he's like 70 something and he's doing call outs and he sounds like an old man yeah he doesn't sound like he did in the film i get that they wanted to put an original actor there i would have rather had a sound like voice actor do him or do sam quint or do brody i old man did your dreyfus didn't didn't sound like he cared and it was really distracting for me and see i'm not as attached to the movie as you are so that part didn't bother me but i didn't really feel like there was anything to write home about yeah there was no really other than the yep yeah that was like an iconic piece which came up every once in a while other than that there were a few call-outs that were memorable but not really like i mean how long has it been since we had this machine we we had it a few weeks yeah it's been a few weeks since we've had it and i'm trying to even think of the sound portions or pieces that i remember yeah it was not very memorable sorry did i hate it no no did i remember much about it no for you i gave it three it met expectations it was fine i didn't love it I didn't eat it. I gave it a 2.5. You were, yeah. I was a little bit, just because, like, parts I like. Yeah. And then a bit too nervous So for me 2 So that averages out to 2 2 Yep Okay Anywho the feel We onto the feel of the game The feel Yes the feel of the game I feel like this machine is good for early pinball players or even middle to step up and feel comfortable. Yeah. It's not hard to hit ramps. No. There's a lot of fun things to do from like the reel, you know, at the top that goes around. It's not hard to hit things where there's still the complexity in other places for more experienced players. So I feel like anybody can step up to this machine and feel comfortable playing it. Yeah, I love the center 180 ramp that just comes right back at you super fast. The boat on the Pro or the shark that pops up on the premium is super cool. It's too bad that there isn't a shark for the Pro. I know, I miss it. It feels really stripped down for that. We had the Pro version in our home. On the premium, the Orca is cool even though you don't spend a whole lot of time up there. But even without that, the Wave Ramp is a fun one to hit. Sam Quinn's Shack on the right-hand side, fun shot to hit. I like what the Pop Bumper is. The Pop Bumper, yep. And the Fin. The Fin is so fun. The Fin is such a showstopper. Yep. I love that it stops you to see it and it starts moving when you do that Jaws multi-ball. So cool. Like, that's one of the best features. Yeah. really immerses you in the theme of the game. And it's just such a fun pinball moment. And like I said, it's so easy for beginners. And then the code of the game, which we'll get into next, really adds that complexity in. So all levels of players can play this game. Can play this game and enjoy it. And feel happy walking away from it and not just completely frustrated. I do feel like the layout is, it's more of a fan layout. It's just shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. Yeah. With the mech in the middle. um i found myself personally after a little while getting a little bored okay a little too simple of a layout simple of a layout so i i found that after a while like i started off really high in terms of what whatever if you had asked me in the first two weeks we had this machine to rate it oh yeah it would have been really high yeah on the field you were high on jaws early i was really high on jaws and i think i really cooled off on it over time uh to the point where for me the feel gets a 3.5. It's still good. It's still a little bit above average, but not like the amazing that I thought it was at first. Yeah. And I gave it a 4. I really enjoyed the feel of the game. I really enjoyed that there weren't shots that I wasn't able to hit. On other machines, there are some that just feel impossible. Yeah, you just can't get them. Yeah, but every single one was accessible. Every single one was a bit of a challenge for me, at least to hit consistently. And so I liked that because, I mean, there's still that challenge there, but it's possible. Yeah. I really like the layout. I like, you know, I talk about the fin all the time. I think it's really cool. It's fun. And we had people over to play the game. Yeah. And all of them were like, oh, that's cool. Exactly. It's kind of like the, oh, it's a surprise thing. Yeah. So I gave it a four, which our combined score, 3.75. Okay. And last, but certainly not least, the play of the game. So give me your initial thoughts. What do you think on the play? So the play of the game, again, as a beginning to medium player, it was a little hard to get down all of the rules and to figure out what I was doing next. If I'm going to step up to this game and I'm just going to play for fun and I'm just going to play as a social thing, it's great. Like I can, I can go in and I can get some points and things, but if I really wanted to master this machine, it would be really challenging for me. I would have to do a lot more research and a lot more studying. I feel like to figure out how to start modes to how to complete modes. I mean, we had our tutorial. But we had to split into two parts. Because there was so much. There's just a lot to it, which means if you are a very advanced player and you like those complex things, like this is a great game for you. And that's why, again, I say it's great for both levels because I can step up and play and have fun. And then Cameron can step up and play and really dig in deep. But for me it was a little complex Yeah it is a very there so many things and if you watched our review oh sorry our tutorial and if you haven please do You can have so many things going all at once You can have feeding frenzy and a shark encounter and a fish finder mode and something else all active at the same time. Which, if you're not able to keep track of those things, is going to confuse a beginning player. yeah um the script that i wrote for the tutorial took me longer than other scripts it was very long because i had to figure out how to play all these different modes and so i would do you know okay bounty house i would focus only on one thing and try and just figure out that one thing because there's so much to do yeah so for me though i kind of like that yeah right i like that in a game exactly uh and it kind of made up for what i felt was a a layout that kind of got stale after a while so for me i gave i gave the play a four yeah i gave it a three yeah so i mean it was good it was it was good not great not bad like just it was good it was good yeah so combined 3.5 3.5 yeah so if we add all of those scores together i'm going to put them on the screen for you um we end up at an overall score of 18.25 18.25 which is like a solid b yeah that's a solid b right it's number three out of four machines that we've rated so far right so if we pull up the list of everything we've rated so far we've got jurassic park is still at number one yeah at 22 yep we love jurassic park we uh foo fighters at 21 21 hot take uh it's not gotten a lot of love recently we love i don't know why i thought it was great i love the music uh and then now we have jaws coming in at third 18.25 and we still got alvira you know we liked it and love it uh at 14 and so i feel like coming in three out of four sounds like oh that's not great but i mean it's still relatively close to the others yeah it's not far off i mean there's there's a fight for the top here's the thing though and i think you would agree with me those top two jurassic Barking Foo Fighters are games that I kind of miss. Yeah, they're home runs. Those are two that we would say, yeah, we want that in our home. We want that in our home. I don't know that I would say, yeah, I want Jaws in my home. Yeah, I don't know either. Like, I like it. I think it's a great machine. It's a fun rental. It's a fun one to have for six weeks. Yeah, which is what we had it for. Love that. But I don't know that I'm, like, aching to have it back. Yeah, you're not craving Jaws right now. Yeah. So, is that a hot take? Probably. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people love their Jaws machines. And that's fine.
    15:15
    You didn't grow up with the film. No. I like the film. I didn't grow up watching it all the time. Jurassic Park, much more of a theme for me. Me too, me too. Iconic childhood memories. So, but I still love it. Jaws is a great machine. It's a triumph. It definitely was the best machine I think was released last year, of all the games. We haven't had the other ones in our home, and we're planning on having a few of them here soon. So we'll let you know on that. But yeah, that's where it stands. this just really solidified to me why renting before buying is so important to us yeah because you were so high on it for the first few weeks i was you loved it so high on it and i mean every time we would go to an arcade we always play joss we have a few that we always play you know at certain i always wanted to go to a job yeah exactly yeah because i loved it but then you learned that you kind of got a little bit yeah i cooled off on it a little bit so love the rental game yep we'll talk more about rental games in a future video yeah we'll film a video we have a whole thing yeah but uh anyway that's it for us now um we are recording this the weekend i forgot to mention this at the beginning of the video probably should have this is the 50th anniversary of jaws coming out in theaters oh my gosh yeah 50 years ago this weekend it came out that's crazy i know it's an old one now but it's a great film love the film so if you haven't seen it go watch it definitely worth a watch definitely worth a watch um but anyway that's it for us right now and uh until next time keep flipping