Stern Elvis
Elvis is probably the pinball game with the best known license Stern released the last years.. It's designed by Steve Ritchie who's designed a lot of popular pinball machines for Bally/Williams in the past. The game was a big step forward for Stern in attracting good designers and making great pinball machines.
Gameplay
I like the Elvis the pinball machine. First time I saw the game it had only arrived 2 days earlier in Belgium. This was at the Belgian pinball championship. Friday evening we set up the games in the hall and played a few games on the brand new machine. What we all remember is that the music was annoying.. the quality was bad (it sounded like an old jukebox playing scratched records) and when we finished setting up the games near midnight, we didn't want to hear any Elvis song for a long time !
The next games I played on the Elvis pinball machine were a few months later on location in a pub. And I have to say the game was better than I expected. Games with a very known license like Harley Davidson usually are no fun to play. They will sell because of the license and are targetted towards a non-pinball playing audience.
Elvis is different. The game is not the best Stern ever made, but it is a good one. Good enough to attract and convice regular pinball players.
There are a lot of things to do and shoot at. Just finding out and controlling all the different skill shots already takes a lot of practice. The video mode is nice, and if you succeed in earning an 'encore' you're guaranteed to earn a lot of extra points.
I also like the artwork, both on the playfield as the cabinet itself.
Trivia
This is probably the first Stern game to have that many promo plastics.