Judge Dredd Pinball Review

Hello everyone,

          A few years ago I was browsing craigslist when I decided to search for a pinball machine, if I saw one for a reasonable price, I thought i'd add one to my game room, this was a concept I hadn't floated by my wife yet, I was just bored searching. What I never thought would pop up as one of the first result was a Judge Dredd pinball machine, almost a days drive away for much more money than some inferior non branded pins which were closer by than this machine, I had to get it.

        Pinball has always been a love of mine, but I had never considered a Judge Dredd machine's existence, even less had I considered the possibility of one existing before either of the movies, made in 1993, based entirely on the comics and oddly in the United States where I reside. I immediately showed my wife, attempting to be strategic I jokingly said, "honey, look what was posted on craigslist this morning" expecting a dismissal she took one look at it and cried out "Dude, that's awesome! let go buy it!" and the rest is history.

          Before Writing this blog I checked the stats in the menu and found that between the two of us, and family and friends at get togethers we have played 3896 games on it, I still have quite a ways to go before it has saved us money because of the $2,500 price tag it came with but we are getting there

My own machine in action

         Many Easter Eggs are throughout with the dark judges being the main attraction on the the play-field.  Other characters make appearances, Judge Anderson, Walter the Robot, Mean Machine all make appearance too.


        Judge Dredd pinball is somewhat infamous for how hard it is. At times it feels like the designers just threw all the ramps they could possibly fit onto the extra wide framed playing field, ran out of conceivable shots for the standard to flippers, and added an extra two just to make even more skill shots available.

        The machine is very skill based with no bumpers sending the ball in all directions its very much about timing shots and some of them cannot be reached without passing the ball from one flipper to the next before shooting.

        The main attraction of the machine is the Dead-world, the upper left corner captures pinball's but if you can trap three balls in it they'll all launch out at once including judge death announcing "Prepare to face the immortals!" and it blares a special rock tune just for that event, it. is. awesome. 

This is a busy play-field

         As various shots are made we hear Dredd call out various sentences, "Warning for smoking" "Death for Murder" "Seven Years For Arson"among many others. Unfortunately I couldn't ind much info on the voice actor besides his name Paul Heitsch, as far as I know he was technically the first ever actor to portray Dredd. If anyone knows more info on the subject I would greatly appreciate it.

         The Dredd machine completes itself with great side art which makes it welcome in any game room and a massive law abiding eagle which sits atop it.

I'm a terrible photographer but there are some great pics online which show off the machine in all its glory

          Because of the high skill curve, this machine actually gets much more fun the more you play it, learning timing is crucial on any pin but the lack of random elements escalates this ones required skill even more, I am sure it is quite a coin pig for everyone who finds the machine in the wild (only 6990 were ever made)

         Ultimately this machine is a hard one to learn but has enough skill shots to keep anybody hooked for a long time.