1979 Williams STELLAR WARS pinball machine

Here we have a 1979 Williams Stellar Wars pinball machine for you to hook your peepers into.

See a long and boring video about this particular machine here:
   • Warehouse survivor! Raising a 1979 Wi...  

This game was the last of Williams' System 4 machines. It was made at the beginning of the widebody craze when manufacturers were trying new gimmicks to attract players away from the competition. Pinball was red hot in the late 70's and Gottlieb, Bally, Stern and Williams were all trying to one-up each other.

Stellar Wars is a pretty obvious rip-off of Star Wars. Clearly Williams either didn't bother to ask or didn't want to spend the money to acquire a proper license and came up with this knock-off as a result. The artwork lends itself well to the Star Wars theme without actually using the likenesses of X-Wing and Tie Fighters.

Gameplay is quite fun, in spite of the large playfield. There's lots to shoot for and the shots are quite satisfying. Each drop target bank corresponds to a different feature on the playfield. For example, completing the middle drop target bank advances the saucer. Completing it three times lights the saucer for extra ball. The spinner shots are fun to make and are satisfying when they spin forever. Completing the words STELLAR or WARS advances the bonus multiplier, as does completing the 1-4 lanes at the top. Completing both STELLAR and WARS awards 50k points.

Stellar Wars can be setup with background sound, but it's pretty terrible, so I leave it off.

Stellar Wars was designed by Steve Ritchie with artwork by Constantino Mitchell and Jeanine Mitchell. Sound and software were done by Paul Dussault. See here for more information on this game: https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2372