Can I Play With Madness: Iron Maiden Premium Enters The Barncade

In my previous post I talked about how Deadpool entered and then left the Barncade. I put it up for sale or trade, and when an opportunity presented itself that allowed me to exchange it for the #3 game on my Top 5 list, I jumped at the chance. That's right folks, Iron Maiden Premium has entered the Barncade! My lineup continues to be transformed, and to be frank these changes have been really exciting after years of games being bolted to the floor. When Deadpool and Popeye left the collection, I was down to 11 games, but the addition of Iron Maiden brought the number of pins in the collection back up to 12. 

Like Rush, Iron Maiden is a band that I listened to while growing up in the early 80s. I remember hearing "Run to the Hills" for the first time and being floored by the Native American influence in the music and lyrics, as well as Bruce Dickinson's operatic voice. Then Piece of Mind came out and I ran out and bought it on cassette tape (haha!) just for "The Trooper", probably my second favorite Iron Maiden song. As I read the inserts and lyrics of Piece of Mind, it struck me how educated these guys were, with lyrics inspired by classical works such as Frank Herbert's Dune, Greek mythology and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade. When Powerslave came out I was busy with other things and didn't pay much attention to it, although I did love the Egyptian artwork and the song "Aces High". Somewhere in Time was released while I was in the military, and I picked that up on cassette as well just for "Wasted Years", my favorite Iron Maiden song and one of the greatest rock songs ever written. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was the last Iron Maiden cassette I purchased, and the last of their albums I listened to, as I was a bit disappointed by it.

High score #1 on my second game

So again, why Iron Maiden? First, I do like several of their songs. I wouldn't classify myself as a superfan, but I do enjoy them. Their melodic tones are much more pleasing to me than the non-melodic, blistering thrashing that appears on Black Knight Sword of Rage. Second, I lost Zombie Yeti artwork when I got rid of Deadpool but got it right back on Iron Maiden. If I acquired the machine it was always going to be the Premium model, for the Powerslave-style Egyptian art. I've spoken in the past about how The Mummy movie franchise with Brandan Frasier is one of my dream themes, but I don't think it will ever be made into a pinball machine. If this is as close as I'm going to get to a mummy theme, I'll take it. And finally, every time I played this on location, I absolutely loved it. From it being the highlight of my first attended pinball show when I went to the 2018 Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show and said someday I wanted to own it, to playing it multiple times at Next Level, the shots always felt amazing, especially the 4 flippers which remind me a bit of Twilight Zone, but smoother and faster. The game just felt special.

And this game should be special. Keith Elwin, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, competitive pinball players of all time, spent 7 years working on this machine, initially with the Archer theme. Granted, some changes had to be made to switch the theme to Iron Maiden, but most of the framework is unchanged. Like Rush, Iron Maiden has epic, long, story-driven songs that are perfect for pinball. Zombie Yeti's artwork is simply amazing, drawing from comics and a mobile game for inspiration, with Derek Rigg's Eddie character ever-present. The comic illustrations/animations here bother me less than Deadpool because it isn't superhero-themed and feels suited more to an adult. I also like the concept of playing as Eddie to try to defeat Satan. Iron Maiden were, back in the day, constantly accused of being Devil-worshipers by some misguided church folk and people who just did not like heavy metal music. But if you read their lyrics closely and look at some of their album art, they are pretty neutral with regard to theology, and in some cases take positions against the Devil. That's where the game's story draws its inspiration from - opposing the Devil - and the Beast mocks you in the callouts as you try to defeat him.

Like other recent acquisitions, the game does not disappoint. There's a lot to learn with this game, and no single "right way" to approach it, as there are multiple paths to high scoring. It's so satisfying passing a ball from flipper to flipper, and ripping the ball around loops. There are some features that are very tough and challenging though. The speed of the ball is insane, I think this might be the fastest game I've ever played for ball speed...hitting loops more than 2-3 times is tough, much tougher than it is on Godzilla. The dead end target reached only from the upper flipper is pretty difficult. But those ramps! The right ramp is in a hard place to hit - I can find it, but not consistently. And that left ramp? Yowsers! The shot through the pop bumpers to reach the left ramp is insanely narrow and hard to pull off, most of the time I do it by accident.

Very narrow shot through the pops to the left ramp

The call outs are phenomenal and are new to me as I had not been able to hear them when on location or at a show. As I mentioned above, the Beast mocks you as you try to defeat him, while the Clairvoyant tries to help you by giving you useful information. The clarity and richness of the speech and the voice acting are some of the best ever produced by Stern. The dialog is clever and funny. Most importantly, all of the big hit songs from Iron Maiden are in here, and I can't think of any that are missing, although again I'm just a casual fan of the music. I do like "Stranger in a Strange Land" which isn't in the game, but it may not be the best song for this pulse-pounding adventure as it's a bit slower-paced. I'm not as familiar with the songs Hallowed Be Thy Name or Fear of the Dark, as they were released after I quit listening to the band, but they seem like a good fit.

Back panel sculpting by Art of Pinball

I've bought a few mods for the game already - the backboard 3D temple sculpting by Art of Pinball (which is now sold out), the Anubis and lighted Clairvoyant figures from Sleal16, the lighted Egyptian arch from Mezel Mods, and I'm on a waiting list for Gouveia's sarcophagus mod if there's another run in the future. I've been debating about the topper - whether I should go with the stock Aces High topper, which is expensive, minimally interacts with the game, and doesn't match the Egyptian theme; get the Tilttopper which is Egyptian-themed with a light show and a great price, but doesn't truly interact with the game; or build my own that is Egyptian-themed and interacts with the game. Right now I'm leaning towards the Tilttopper with the possibility of building my own in the future.

Egyptian-themed topper from Tilttopper

There are a few negatives I should point out.

• The lack of toys in the game. It's missing that one fabulous mech/toy that makes a game unique and can be found in other Elwin games, such as the collapsing building in Godzilla or the ball-eating T-rex in Jurassic Park.
• The ramps - I want to hit them more, especially the left ramp, but that opening is so darn tight!
• Many features in this game are time-based. It can be frustrating not hitting the shots you need within the window of time given. Some of the timers seem unfairly short.
• Some of the animations are pretty poor.

And that's about it. Nothing major and no deal breakers there. Normally the lack of toys would be an issue but there's a lot of things to shoot at, and the flow of the loops are addicting. It's also fun hitting the jump ramp into the backboard or going underneath the ramp when it lifts to enter the Underworld. This game is simply incredible, and I have no regrets about letting Deadpool go in order to get this game instead. In fact, I'm pinching myself that I have managed to end up with one of my top 5 games that I wanted from the very first time I flipped it when it was released in 2018. I always thought that having an Iron Maiden Premium would be a pipe dream due to finances and pushback on theme from my roommate, so I never expected I'd truly own one. Sometimes dreams do come true.

The spinner is satisfying to rip

At the time of this writing, Iron Maiden is sitting at #6 in Pinside's Top 100, just below Deadpool and just above Elvira's House of Horrors. I think EHOH is rated way too high. I also think that Iron Maiden is far better than Deadpool, but that is just my own opinion after having owned both games. Being in the Top 10 is a fine ranking...I understand Iron Maiden is either a love it or hate it theme for people.

Like Godzilla and Rush, I'm not going to post the ruleset here, because the rules are far too deep and complicated for this post. Tilt Forums always does a great job so here's the link to the rules on their site. Also, The Kinetisist has a tutorial titled Legacy of the G.O.A.T. which is really good. Pinball For Mortals has a brief overview of the rules with some strategy provided at the end of the article. Like Godzilla and Rush, I doubt I will see most of the features of this game, but you never know. I've been studying the rules, and with multiple paths to rack up points, I should be able to enter my initials every now and then...

That sums up the arrival of Iron Maiden Premium. It is with guilty pleasure that I can announce yet another game has since entered the Barncade, pushing the collection's count back up to 13 (can't seem to get away from the number for long!), but I'll leave that for a future post.