Zach Sharpe is really good at pinball.
I'm standing with Sharpe, director of marketing at Stern Pinball, in the company's top-secret, badge-accessed Pinball Alley, located inside its headquarters in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, (a suburb 20 miles northwest of Chicago, the pinball capital of the world). And the game we’re playing is none other than Stern's newest title, King Kong: Myth of Terror Island. The games are available in Pro, Premium, and 932 Limited Edition (LE) models, with prices starting at $6,999.
This title has been guessed at by Reddit sleuths and arcade bloggers with a penchant for monitoring trademark filings, teased by Stern on social media, and after getting exclusive hands-on early access, I’m happy to report that the new machine is my favorite Stern release since 2021.
I first got into pinball at CES in 2020. I was playing the newly launched Stranger Things, and while I flipped frantically and hoped for the best, this nice gentleman with long white hair kept telling me to “be patient” and “slow it down.” (I found out later that man was quite literally Gary Stern, the founder of Stern Pinball, whom I also spoke with during my tour for this piece but was too panicked to greet properly. Sorry, Gary, I’m a huge fan.) After that, my friends and I attended the Midwest Gaming Classic, and I was hooked. I googled “how to stop a pinball from draining.” I learned about slap saves. I joined a league and played tournaments. I broke a billion points (on Star Wars, if you’re wondering). I didn’t know it for a long time, but I freaking love pinball.
