Lock and load — Stern’s 2010 Big Buck Hunter Pro brings the wildly popular bar-room shooting game to the playfield, and John Borg’s design is all about stacking up the hunt. The license practically demands chaos, and the game delivers it through three distinct multiballs that you can pile on top of one another for a glorious, target-rich free-for-all. With a Mark Galvez dot package and Lonnie Ropp code, it’s a brisk, accessible Stern that rewards aggression and a steady trigger finger.
The hunting grounds break down cleanly. Shoot the left orbit repeatedly to start Elk multiball, then keep pounding it for jackpots, where hitting that orbit briefly lights a two-times scoring window worth chasing — relight the jackpot through the inlane rollover and the points keep flowing. The narrow center bird lane, guarded by a post that pops up, kicks off a Bird multiball when you work it over, and the Buck rounds out the trio. The real money is in the stack: Buck, Elk, and Bird multiballs can all run simultaneously, turning the playfield into a blizzard of silverballs and big numbers. There’s even a bit of factory-setting trivia worth knowing — cradle and wait on the first multiball and the buck wanders out, while later you’ll need to hit it to get it moving.
Big Buck Hunter Pro is unpretentious, fast-paced fun, a machine that captures the rowdy energy of the arcade cabinet it’s named for. It’s a great pick for a player who likes their pinball loud and their multiballs plentiful. Light the orbits, stack the hunts, and let the herd run wild across the glass.