With A Purposeful Grimace And A Terrible Sound: Godzilla Enters the Barncade

Back in February I wrote about my 2022 year in review, and in that post I mentioned that I had picked up a Godzilla Premium from Next Level Pinball. Due to backorders, production delays, and limited runs, I was not optimistic about getting an affordable Godzilla Premium. Sure, you could find them occasionally on the secondary market, but usually for over $10k, which was out of my reach. So I was amazed when I was emailed that my deposit was due, as my machine was going to be made last July (2022). So I sent my deposit in and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally in early October, Next Level notified me my game was ready to be paid for and picked up. Woohoo! I drove out to to their site with a friend, only to discover that I had made a critical error - Godzilla wouldn't fit in my car! I could get it in most of the way but not all of the way. I had purchased a new mini SUV earlier that year, and it seems that when I measured the trunk height, I had done so from floor to ceiling, not taking into account the bottom lip of the trunk. That bottom lip pushed the game just an inch too high for the backbox to clear. So close! Fortunately we were able to get the hatchback mostly closed and tied down, and after an uneventful drive, I got it home, unloaded it, and set it up in the Barncade.

Godzilla was the first machine added to the collection since Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle in November 2019, and became machine #14. It was also the most expensive game I had purchased, $100 more than The Munsters LE. I'm still thankful I got in before the January 1st, 2023 price increase that took a new Premium to $9700 (but I'll have to pay that price if I want a new Rush, Deadpool or Mandalorian Premium someday). I got it set up but had a heck of a time getting the glass off to install the pinballs. The fit of the glass was so tight I couldn't get it to slide out and I felt like I was going to break it.

The game had an issue with the VUK that made it practically unplayable. The VUK would fire over 30 times at startup and then display a "VUK malfunction" on the screen. When starting a game, the VUK would work fine about 20% of the time; the rest of the time it wouldn't recognize the ball, causing a ball search and making the building multiball impossible. I took a look underneath, but everything appeared to be working properly...no broken wires, cables were plugged in (I unplugged and re-plugged them in just in case) and the optos appeared aligned correctly. It took some time, but I managed to get it working by simply going into the switch menu and selecting "Enable" for the VUK opto. After that is was fine until I installed the 1.05 code update, when the problem reappeared. The same switch menu "Enable" setting fixed it again. Weird. I don't know if I actually fixed the problem or just found a workaround. Time will tell.

Otherwise my Godzilla Premium is everything I hoped it would be, and it's easy to see why this had displaced Medieval Madness in the #1 spot on Pinside (MM didn't belong there anyway). This machine is a bit of a dream theme for me. As a kid I used to watch "Monster Saturday" every weekend on the local ABC TV station. I could not get enough of those kaiju movies: Godzilla, Gamera, Gargantuas, and Ultraman, although Godzilla was always my favorite. My uncle took my brother and I to a drive-in to watch Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster on the giant screen and it was glorious. Over the years my fondness for Godzilla led me to acquire occasional collectibles, such as an animated bank or Christmas ornaments from Carlton that would make noise and/or light up. I also have complete Godzilla and Gamera movie collections on DVD. If Stern had not made Godzilla, I might have picked up an Ultraman from Spooky, but I'm very happy that Godzilla is now in my pinball collection.

Before I had even ordered the game, I jumped on mods when they were released. Sometimes mods can be produced for quite some time, but often they are discontinued at some point (like the MikeD Video Mod for the Creature or various Medisinyl mods for Alice Cooper). So here's a short list of mods I've acquired for Godzilla:

• TDiddy's Tesla Strike Towers
• Flying Saucer Bumper Cap
• Stumblor's Tokyo Neon Sign (opted for the blue insert)
• Atomic Godzilla
• Dark Steel Bridge
• Stumblor's Noodle Bar Building (on the list, not yet received)
• Godzilla Roar Car Horn
• TDiddy's Naegele Oil Building

I'm on the fence about adding action figures, airplanes etc. There may not be another pinball machine that's more appropriate for installing a bunch of action figures in it. It would be kind of cool to have Ghidorah, Hedora, Rodan, and other figures floating around the playfield. But as I mentioned in a previous post, I like mods that either do something (interact with the game or light up) or they need to be upgrades of inferior features, such as replacing flat plastic buildings and bridges with more realistic 3-D sculpts. If I put Ghidorah on the playfield, it had better move all of its heads and shoot lightning bolts! 

Somehow I feel that there will be more mods coming in the future. And then there's the topper, which I'm curious to see and may purchase if I can get my hands on one. If I can't get one or don't like it, I might make my own.

I'm not going to post the ruleset here, the rules are far to deep and complicated for this post. Tilt Forums always does a great job so here's the link to the rules on their site. I doubt I will see most of the features of this game, but you never know. It's going to take me along time to learn those rules! In the meantime, below are some photos of the mods now installed in the game - except for the bridge mod, which looks pretty involved and I have set aside for now. The saucer was the hardest to install, I had a heck of a time feeding the wires through the tiny holes.

That's it for now - I'm off to play more Godzilla!