WWE WRESTLEMANIA LEAK!

APRIL 1ST UPDATE: WHY READ THE PREVIEW WHEN I HAVE A FULL REVIEW HERE! 

I just got hold of some breaking news! Stern has announced their first title for 2015...

WWE Wrestlemania!

AND THE INTERNET HAS THE SCOOPS, BROTHER!

DANG! As a wrestling fan, this is too awesome!!! I'm not the biggest fan of the current WWE product but I bet it will make for a wicked pinball table anyways! There's a wrestling ring as a secondary playfield!

The announcement of the table was leaked over the weekend during CES 2015...

Stern made the official announcement today and you know that Bumper City is on top of things! Check out some of the sweet pictures Stern has released with the announcement!

Here's a full shot of the playfield to give you a better idea of what's in store!

I will be honest, I am a bit apprehensive right now because it seems that the ring is going to be a very integral part of the game. My concern is Wrestlemania becoming a one-shot game, where the only thing to really do is shoot the ramps to get up into the ring and knock around up there. Hopefully, there will be enough variety to shoot things other than the ring but seeing as both ramps lead up there, I am not too sure... I guess we will have to wait and see! I just got word that John Trudeau is the designer of this table which makes me a bit more cautious about this. Trudeau's first table with Stern was Mustang and it turned out to be a bit of a one-trick pony; much of your time is spent hitting the GEARS targets and the left ramp. There are the car modes but if a car mode isn't active, there isn't a whole heckuva lot to do on Mustang. However, Trudeau's track record prior to Mustang has had some pretty awesome tables. Also, it may have been due to the lack of code that Mustang had at release. I haven't had the chance to play an updated Mustang so who knows if the gameplay is any deeper. I am cautiously excited for Wrestlemania . The ring playfield could turn out to actually be a lot of fun to play on ala World Poker Tour's mini-playfield or it could become a gimmick that wears out it's welcome quite quickly. Hopefully the table is released with robust code so it's a full game out of the gate rather than being bare-bones on release. Makes for a weak table for those that have to play pinball in public places like myself. Again, I'm cautiously optimistic about this because Wrestlemania will feature Stern's newest hardware system, SPIKE, that is based on the Linux OS so hopefully this means coding is easier to do and will be better come launch time.

Of course, there will be a review of WWE Wrestlemania the moment I get my hands on it so stay tuned into Bumper City!