Rush is a Physical Pinball TaMble designed by John Borg and released by Stern Pinball. After being teased
at the end of 2021, the machine was revealed in full during the Consumer Electronics Show in early January 2022 and began shipping later that month.
The premise of the game (such as it is) revolves around both time traveling and (unsurprisingly) the decades-spanning oeuvre of Rush. A Time Machine prominently sits on the playfield, allowing players who shoot it repeatedly with the ball to access one of three different time periods, each associated with a specific song by the band and a multiball themed around it. These aren't the only modes associated with Rush's back catalog, however - there are also six "planet" modes and three unrelated multiball modes that use one of 17note different songs from their past. (Each of these is accompanied by live concert footage correlating to the era in which they were released.) Exceptionally persistent players will be able to access three wizard modes themed around Rush's longest tunes: "Cygnus X-1" (in two parts) and "2112." All of this is accompanied by dozens of voice clips provided by the surviving band members (Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson) and the Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson.
The game comes in three different editions: "Pro" (the most basic iteration), "Premium" (which adds and upgrades a couple physical mechanics), and "Limited" (a run of 1,000 units which adds yet more bells and whistles). All three versions have a diverter mechanism on one of the game's ramps and two scoops connected to a subway system for holding balls underneath the playfield. The latter two add a moving ramp in front of the time machine and a miniature drum that doubles as a clock (with a motorized minute hand that factors into gameplay during certain modes). Meanwhile, the former two can also be outfitted with Stern's "Expression Lighting System," an official Game Modnote that adds LEDs to the side of the cabinet that change in time with the music and react to gameplay. (The Limited edition has it installed by default.) Finally, every version has different cabinet artwork, all done by Michael Barnard (and packed with references to Rush's cover artwork).
- "Working Man" (Rush (Album))
- "Fly By Night" (Fly by Night)
- "Bastille Day" (Caress of Steel)
- "2112" (2112)
- "Cygnus X-1":
- "Book I: The Voyage" (A Farewell to Kings)
- "Book II: Hemispheres" (Hemispheres)
- "La Villa Strangiato" (Hemispheres)
- "The Spirit of Radio" (Permanent Waves)
- "Freewill" (Permanent Waves)
- "Tom Sawyer" (Moving Pictures)
- "Red Barchetta" (Moving Pictures)
- "Limelight" (Moving Pictures)
- "Subdivisions" (Signals)
- "The Big Money" (Power Windows)
- "One Little Victory" (Vapor Trails)
- "Far Cry" (Snakes & Arrows)
- "Headlong Flight" (Clockwork Angels)
Rush contains examples of:
- Celebrity Is Overrated: Zig-zagged during "Limelight." While successfully making relevant shots adds to the player's fame (implicitly a good thing, since it awards points), the ultimate goal of the mode is to escape the limelight.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: All six of the planet modes highlight relevant shots with a specific color - "Working Man" is orange, "La Villa Strangiato" is purple, "The Spirit of Radio" is blue, "Tom Sawyer" is cyan, "Limelight" is (fittingly) lime, and "The Big Money" is pink. This also impacts another game mechanic: getting records of the same color before starting the mode will double or triple the relevant shot's scoring while it's running.
- Excuse Plot: Promotional material summarizes the game's plot as simply "travel back in time alongside Rush," a thin premise largely used to justify the use of concert footage and umpteen references to the band's back catalog.
- Ironically, the main goal in the game is to travel forward in time - starting at the year 2012, the main goal is to advance years in the time machine to reach 2112.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Far Cry Multiball recreates the original liner artwork for the song it's named after, which depicts a baby in a carriage being struck by lightning. The game's animation for getting a Super Jackpot goes a bit further: after the bolt hits their outstretched hand, the baby gives a thumbs up, clearly unharmed.
- Interface Screw: Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres has a different form of this for each phase:
- Apollo: Left flipper flips *all* flippers, right flipper cycles lit shots.
- Dionysus: Right flipper flips *all* flippers, left flipper cycles lit shots.
- Armageddon: Left and right flippers flip the opposite flippers.
- Cygnus: Pressing the flipper buttons lowers them, releasing them raises them.
- The Sphere: Both the swapped flippers of Armageddon and the "inverted" flippers of Cygnus at once.
- Match Sequence: The two-digit number cycles between different multiples of 10 before a snowy owlnote flies into it, knocking it into place to reveal the final result.
- Mythology Gag: The game has so many references to Rush's back catalog of music and artwork that it has its own page.
- One-Word Title: Just like the band itself, the game's name is just Rush.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: One of the voice clips that plays upon tilting the game ends with Ed Robertson angrily telling the player "Don't... shake... the... machine!"
- Score Multiplier:
- Planet modes can have certain shots' point values temporarily doubled if the player acquires the appropriate color record beforehand by shooting those shots. Color-coordinating all six of them instead triples their scoring for the mode's duration.
- Parodied in one of the fake mystery award options, which claims to offer "100x Scoring" (but, like the other joke awards, will never be chosen).
- Self-Deprecation: One of Alex Lifeson's lines ribs his own band's tendency towards Epic Rocking and Uncommon Time."Welcome back to 21.12 FM, your home for odd time signatures and unreasonably long instrumental tracks!"
- Shout-Out: The "Time Machine" insert text on the playfield◊ is written in a font mimicking the Back to the Future logo.
- Skill Shot:
- At the start of a ball, making one of the three shots available with the upper flipper awards points and some extra ball save time.
- A more valuable variant of the regular skill shot requires shooting the inner loop, immediately followed by the scoop (both of which require using the uppermost flipper).
- Spelling Bonus: Hitting all of the R-U-S-H targets twice lights Bastille Day.
- Take That, Audience!: A behind the scenes video shows Ed Robertson mentioning that he (and many other top pinball players) enjoy tables that taunt them. To that end, several voiceover lines in this game throw shade at the player's performance.Geddy Lee: I can play three keyboards and a bass, and you can't even hit the ball?
- Time Machine: The central toy on the playfield is a time machine that's tied to various multiball modes. When one is activated, the display animation shows the machine being set to the year the mode's namesake song came out and summoning something relevant to it out of a portal, presumably taking it from earlier in time. (For instance, "Red Barchetta" has the titular car drive out.)
- Waxing Lyrical: Some of the game's voice lines directly quote lyrics from relevant Rush songs during regular speech.
- Getting a tilt sometimes prompts Alex Lifeson to say "Driven to the edge of a deep... dark... hole," a phrase taken straight from the band's song "Driven." (The animation accompanying it is based on the cover artwork for the album it came from, to boot.)
- Successfully making a shot during Subdivisions Multiball occasionally results in Geddy Lee saying a line from the titular song's chorus: "Conform or be cast out!"
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Getting the Drum Clock to midnight lights Headlong Flight Multiball.
