Great read Nino.
It sounds like the pops and the flippers are turned down at Surfers TimeZone, then add in overheating and massively over used machines that require the pops and the flippers rebuilt and u have a batch of games that feel like the pops are down on power by 75 percent and the flippers are down to 50 percent.
I reckon everything on the game is hot from being on 16 plus hrs a day plus it's then played constantly for hours n hours on end and u get machines that play terribly. Personally, I reckon there has to be design faults and the games are now designed for low home use only playing. If it was designed for onsite flogging, it would stand up to a beating and not be so sloppy after only 3 months.
Don't get me wrong, any machine at TimeZone Surfers gets absolutely tortured, but they shld be designed to be flogged without suffering. We are only talking about beefing up the pops and the flippers. Two areas only that make or break how a game plays if the game plays sloppy.
My late 1998 and 1999 various Sega DMD pinnys I have being X Files, Star Wars Trilogy, Viper Night Drivin, Lost World JPark, Spacejam etc, have "SuperPops" which seem twice as powerful as the current Stern games, and the flipper systems seem twice as snappy and stronger. I collected all the concave Segas because they seemed very rugged.
Admittedly, if u play a Data East game or a Bally Williams game being a DMD with totally rebuilt flippers, the noise of the flippers is twice as noisy as the new Sterns, so maybe the current design of the new pinnys is designed to cut down a lot of noise ? Maybe the cost of noise reduction is a flipper system that is a bit or a lot weaker ?
Does anyone else notice how loud the flippers are on the 90,s DMD machines from all the manufacturers compared to the new Sterns.? I prefer quieter flippers and for HUO the Sterns are wonderful, but onsite and played to buggery and when hot, they are showing that the new stuff in the pops and flipper areas are not as robust.
Maybe the new coils and the new Spike System will improve the longevity of flipper rebuilds and Pop bumper area rebuilds for sited machines ??
