The Stern Pinball tournaments have reached the UK, with a well-attended competition held at the Funland FEC in the Brunswick Centre, in London’s Russell Square.
The event, heavily backed by London distributor Electrocoin, was organised by self-confessed pinball fanatic Neil McRae, the founder of Pinball Republic (once known as Flip Out London Pinball Club).
Neil has his own amusement arcade at home, with a heavy emphasis on pinball games. He ran two competitions at Funland, using the new Stern Rush game and Neil came out the winner.
Also held in the location at the same time was the first round of the London and South-East Chapter of the UK National League. There were 40 players and the round was won by Ed Rojas.
The next round will be at the Pinball Republic on March 20. Four more rounds will follow with the final at the UKPinfest in Daventry at the end of August.
Talking with InterGame, McRae said the new Stern Insider Connect was an excellent start to an online platform, with the key launch focus being achievements to those regularly seen in video games.
“Players can score points but also collect achievements of different difficulty levels and build up their achievement points," he said.
“As a first release, I think Stern has done a great job but I would encourage the company to open up the platform for others to create their own local challenges and interface with other platforms for tournaments. I am sure that in time Stern will do this.
“For operators, Insider Connect gives much more insight to game performance and offers reassurance that games on site are running and working properly. It also allows automatic code updates, which is really useful to ensure the latest features are on the games.”
