Indiana Jones is the newest pinball machine from Stern Pinball 
Now shipping in coordination the release of the new movie
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" !

One new addition is the Sankara Stone over the red (Temple of Doom) pop bumper.
This hopefully glows just like the stones did in the movie. Meanwhile, artwork has
appeared on the plastics over the captive ball and the scoop.

Elsewhere, other artwork has appeared on various plastic and on the spinners.

The Ark and surrounding area

The plastic behind the green standups has changed from generic hieroglyphics to
depict those who were foolish enough to open the ark suffering the consequences.
Below that, the golden idol has disappeared from the snake's mouth to move down
below the arrow and the Raiders text - like the Kingdom text in front of the
right ramp - has changed from white to black.

Side view of the playfield

Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted a different order to the different
bumper cap colours though it remains to be see whether this is intentional.

Certainly the blue one should go under the holy grail to match the game's colour
theme for The Last Crusade, in which it appeared. Similarly, the red one
represents Temple of Doom so sits under the stone, leaving the yellow
and green caps to match their respective positions on the playfield.

The left side of the playfield

The ball lock now includes artwork showing the temple of doom.

The bottom arch complete with decals

The bottom arch now has decals, although they are rather sparse-looking at this stage.

Reports from the show indicate the game does indeed have 16 modes (4 for each
movie) and that the dot matrix animations are of a higher quality than those seen
on Indiana Jones, resulting in a well rounded package.

As we saw before, the four movies are all represented with the Holy Grail sitting atop
one of the pop bumpers, the Ark of the Covenant at the top centre, the Crystal Skull
over the right ramp and a rotating stone wall allowing the captive ball to launch a
second and third ball into a bank of targets.

The upper half of the playfield

The front ball is captive while the two behind are free to bounce around the map room.
An initial hit sends the ball at the back into the targets while a second give 2-ball multiball.

The Map Room

The loose balls can spot the M-A-P letters on the yellow standups and
there are slingshot kickers on the side rubbers to increase the action.
Completing the M-A-P letters lights the 8-ball multiball.

And what happens when that stone wall revolves?

The four movies are colour-coded yellow, red, blue and green with appropriately
coloured inserts and playfield artwork. The crystal skull appear to be a static
object and only interacts through its lighting.

Detail of the Ark and the Crystal Skull

The ark looks nicely detailed and includes a magnet in front. The seven green standups
are not individually lit so must act as bank instead much like in Attack From Mars.

But the ark is more than just an elaborate toy. It holds balls within and raises
them on a platform to be released through the top as the lid opens.

Four locked balls about to be released

The platform pivots to send the balls rolling off the
front of the ark and onto the playfield for multiball.

It's multiball!

There are spinners on both orbits which can be lit for super spinner.

The shot through the pop bumpers, the holy grail scoop
and the levitating captive ball.

The lower half of the playfield

The movie modes

Sadly the stand-up budget and space didn't stretch to a full "Indiana",
so we just get "Indy Jones" spelled out on the playfield instead.

The game continues the split-display DMD started on Wheel Of Fortune although
it will be interesting to see what happens when the score gets above 1 billion points.

The Indiana Jones display layout

The instruction card gives more information about the game's features.

The game's instruction card

The front of the game

The right ramp features the crystal skull from the title of the movie
(Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) which appear to
have a vertical up-kicker to drop the ball at the entrance of the right loop.

The big toy is the ark (Raiders Of The Lost Ark) but there is also a Temple
Of Doom captive ball which rises up to reveal a saucer shot beneath it.
The five white standup targets spell out J-O-N-E-S so it's a fair bet there
are other standups or drop targets on the left side to spell out I-N-D-I-A-N-A.
The game seems to require the player to start four scene modes from each
of the four movies before reaching the wizard mode called the Final Adventure.


▪ Pinball News 2008