ausretrogamer pinball

Thrill of the Chase: Hunting Down the Alien Ellen Ripley Edition Pinball Machine

August 12, 2025 By ausretrogamer

In space, no one can hear you… PLAY PINBALL!

Every pinball collector knows that some machines don’t just turn up—you have to hunt them down, stalk them like prey, and pounce the moment the opportunity arises. For me, that white whale came in the form of the Pinball Brothers Alien Ellen Ripley Edition.

This wasn’t just any Alien. This was the beautifully reimagined version celebrating Sigourney Weaver’s legendary role, wrapped in an ominously gorgeous cabinet that looks ready to burst open and unleash a xenomorph. The moment I saw it announced, I knew: I have to have it.

The hunt was on.

After years (yes, years!) of scrolling through listings, firing off hopeful messages, and hearing the usual collector heartbreak phrases—“already sold” or “sorry, mate, they’re not making them anymore”—I finally spotted a lead: Mr Pinball Australia. They didn’t just have one… they had the one.

Of course Mr. Pinball Australia had one on the showroom floor for us to check out!

Here’s where the story took a turn from “transaction” to “pinball pilgrimage.” Mr Pinball himself didn’t just ship it. Oh no. He personally loaded it, drove it out, delivered it to my door, and set it up in my games room like some sort of silverball Santa Claus. We’re talking bolts tightened, tilt levelled, software updated—by the time he left, the machine was purring (well… growling) and ready for battle against the xenomorph threat.

The first plunge was everything I’d hoped for—dark, atmospheric lighting; that eerie, tension-building soundtrack; the thunk of the ball ejecting into a playfield full of cinematic callouts and teeth-baring toys. It’s the kind of machine that’s as much an experience as it is a game. And for a lifelong Alien fan, it’s perfection.

Preparing its final resting place

Hunting it down was half the fun. Playing it? That’s the payoff.

Have you chased down a grail machine? Did it take months of detective work and collector whisper networks? Let’s hear your pinball trophy stories.

Hello MU-TH-UR!

Get away from her, you b1tch!

Mr. Pinball Australia threw in the original machine’s backglass!

The RGB lighting on the Alien Ripley Edition is something else

Argh, my eyes!!!!

Things Are Afoot At The Ausretrogamer Fun Factory in 2021

January 5, 2021 By ausretrogamer

With having a lot of time at home in 2020, we had been thinking about changing things up in the Ausretrogamer Fun Factory!

Things are afoot with designing the new space, which will see new additions, things being moved around and unfortunately, stuff that will go to a new home. We are quite excited with the next chapter of our games room, so we’ll be sure to share our journey throughout 2021 of the new and improved Ausretrogamer Fun Factory.

For now, you can have a read how the Ausretrogamer Fun Factory has evolved over the years.

Taking one last look at the current Ausretrogamer Fun Factory (click to enlarge)

First Impressions: Black Knight – Sword of Rage

July 3, 2019 By ausretrogamer

Watch-out, that Black Knight’s flail is one mean mech! This game is brutally fast, unforgiving and a whole lotta damn fun!

The thumping soundtrack from Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian greets us as we approached Stern’s new offering, Black Knight: Sword of Rage (Pro model) at Zax Amusements. The striking artwork is typical Stern, it’s high calibre like their other titles, something that we have grown accustomed to, and possibly take for granted. The Black Knight mech with it’s glowing menacing eyes, the spinning flail and shield are the centrepiece of this Steve Ritchie designed game. Oh yeah, we can’t go any further without mentioning that Steve Ritchie lends his voice to the Black Knight.

Just in case you weren’t around 40 years ago, here is a quick recap: the iconic pinball character, the Black Knight, makes his return in 2019 to entertain new (and old) generations of pinball players with the third game in the Black Knight trilogy, the Stern Pinball made Black Knight: Sword of Rage. Dare we say, this could be Steve’s magnum opus (Ed: Actually, all of Steve’s pinball creations are magnum opuses!).

Before we get to our first impressions and thoughts on this game, we can tell you that this machine comes in three models, Pro, Premium and Limited Edition. We got to play the Pro edition at Zax Amusements with the optional mirror blades, which we highly recommend you get with your machine as it adds depth of field. Since we only played the Pro model, we can’t really compare it to the Premium and Limited Edition models which both feature a transparent upper playfield with a distinct 3-ball lock mechanism for a 6-ball multiball.

OK, here we go, Black Knight; Sword of Rage is a helluva lot of fun! Our games on the machine were short, brutal and enjoyable. Most importantly, the game had us coming back to it over and over again. We actually wondered why we wanted to play the game again since it was so brutal, but the simple fact is, the game is just so much fun to play and we just wanted to keep battling that damn menacing Black Knight and see if we could progress further in the game.

We read a lot of negative comments about the game’s playfield lacking toys and other interactive mechs, but we are here to tell you that sometimes less is more! In the case of this machine, once you press the start button it does a great job in immersing you in the battle against the evil doer and his horde. This immersion is accomplished via stunning hand-drawn artwork, brilliant integrated LCD visuals, a ripper soundtrack, great call-outs from Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson and of course Steve’s voice as the Black Knight. And the cherry on top of this yummy pinball cake is the custom sculpted, interactive, and multi-functional Black Knight bash toy. But wait, there is more to this bash toy than meets the eye – the Black Knight has a bi-directional motorised flail, a glowing RGB helmet with individually controllable expressive lighting to taunt you with and a sliding (coil-driven) shield that brutally bashes and blocks your shots – we found this was the quickest way to drain our silverball, even with the Magna Save button (which is on the lock-down bar), we were constantly too late at activating it – perhaps the Magna Save button would have been better served near the right flipper button, but that is a slight niggle we could overcome by playing the game more.

The old expression of never judge a book by its cover comes to mind when attempting to write about our first impressions of Black Knight: Sword of Rage. We admit that when we first saw the game on the net, we thought, “is that it?”, but boy were we wrong! If you are or were a fan of the previous iterations of Black Knight, then this game compliments them perfectly and brings the franchise into the 21st century. Our final word, reserve judgement till you stand over the machine and have a go. You never know, you may be pleasantly surprised. Now go to battle!

Black Knight: Sword of Rage pinball machines are available right now from Zax Amusements.