Turn it up to eleven — this is Stern’s 2012 AC/DC in the coveted LUCI edition, a premium-tier version of Steve Ritchie’s thunderous tribute to rock’s loudest legends, decked out with the full complement of toys the streamlined models leave off. Here you get a moving bell, the rotating cannon, a Rock N Roll Train, a moving band-member diorama, and — crucially — the lower mini-playfield that the Premium and LE machines reserve for their trio of infernally-named songs. It’s the deluxe concert experience, dripping with mechanical spectacle.
The strategy rewards a player who masters the bell, the cannon, and the song selection. All multiballs are launched from the right ramp, with Tour, Jam, and Album multiballs fed by the loops, ramps, and target banks respectively. The bell drives the scoring, lighting stacked two-times and three-times windows that you extend by ringing it again, while the cannon is best aimed at the bell unless a truly big points award beckons, with the left loop as the safe fallback shot. That underplayfield is the LUCI’s signature: the trio of infernally-titled songs each send you down to that lower level via specific shots for a whole extra dimension of play. Hitting the three Devils Horns shots in sequence lights the saucer for bonuses and extra balls.
The LUCI edition is AC/DC at its most theatrical, a machine that turns a legendary discography into a mechanical rock opera. Ring the bell, drop to the underworld, and let it rip. This one’s a headliner in every sense.