Your top-10 pinball machines from all decades

[PacDude]

Black Hole is so much better than even most '90s Gottlieb games, I have to wonder what went wrong thereafter. That game is awesome. I want a real one.

 

[davidsss]

I liked the Gottlieb target games even if they are uninspired to some.

Certainly Williams started to become the best in the late 70s and early 80s - Blue Chip is very difficult and a good game, Wild Card has deep rules. Then with Firepower and Black Knight there really wasn't any competition, they remain stand out games 20 years after being released.

DS

 

[mjrtoo]

Tudnut, isn't that what pinball is all about? Even the very first EM's had great graphics...

 

[tudnut]

Oh, now we're back on the graphics? (Man, thought we'd laid THAT to rest a long time ago in my own thread on pbf!)

Actually, though, if you glance through the old flipperless tables on here, you'll find that some of them have wonderful graphics already...and a lot of them are a bit, um...graphics deprived.

(And david, as I've tried to qualify my statements all along, here and in other places, I like the Gottlieb target games, too! The only thing "uninspired" about them was that the company was cranking out one after another of them for six or seven years there. They're all good games, but come on...the best you can do this year is give us another one?)

 

[tiltjlp]

Oh, now we're back on the graphics? (Man, thought we'd laid THAT to rest a long time ago in my own thread on pbf!)

Actually, though, if you glance through the old flipperless tables on here, you'll find that some of them have wonderful graphics already...and a lot of them are a bit, um...graphics deprived.)

Many of the flipperless with lesser than pristine graphics were done by me, and their graphics are pretty much as I found them. I simply feel that games that are 50-125 years old should relect their age, and the wear and tear of the fun they provided their owners over the years.

 

[tudnut]

I feel that's pretty much a matter of taste, John. Do you prefer playing an old game and realizing as you're playing it that it's old...or would you rather like the thought that you're actually back there, playing the game when it was new?

Given an old but valuable comic book, would you rather it was chipped and browned to show its age, or in pristine mint condition, as if it just came off the rack? (Value notwithstanding, I mean.)

Does it give you more enjoyment to watch an old, scratched-up and many generations darkened print of the original "King Kong," or would you rather see a nicely restored version? ("Generations" in film means how far along the "parent" print was from the current, "junior" print. Everytime you make a new "generation," it winds up darker. The very best print, therefore, is from the original negatives. Didn't mean to insult anyone's intelligence there, just thought maybe someone might need that explanation to understand what I was babbling about.)

(Sorry, I KNOW my bias is showing here, but I honestly can't think of a better way to put it. It's almost as if you're saying that the reason you love the old games so much is ONLY because they're antiquated...and therefore need to display so. I prefer to think of my favorite games as not being such at all...only equally good games from different years, eras and production lines!)

Admittedly, that can be taken TOO far...witness the cartoonish version of "Flying Saucers" on IR right now (my apologies to the author, no real offense intended). In real life I'm quite sure that game never looked like that...even brand new! (On the other hand, that version plays better than the "realistic one!")

At any rate, given my choice between playing a...(oops! almost said her name again!)..."Blue Chip" that actually showed its years and playing one that was brand-spanking new like I used to play, I'd certainly opt for the latter. Not only would the old one remind me of my age (AAAAAUGHHH!!!), but I think it would detract from the fun!

After all, "Struggle Buggies," your self-proclaimed favorite game (and, needless to say, one you actually have played in real life), has been rec'ed WONDERFULLY in VP...with no marked signs of age...and I haven't noticed you complaining about lack of authenticity because of it. Would you really prefer that someone rec it with a peeling backflash and worn graphics?

 

[tudnut]

By the way (and sorry about the quick double-posting, but this is along an entirely different line of thinking), I'm ASTONISHED that, after all this time (heck, I've been away almost a month! Sorry!) no one else has been pursuing this thread! It showed such promise at first, and I still think it was a nice idea! (Heck, I learned a thing or two about a few games from it!)

 

[tiltjlp]

Very good points tudnut. To be honest, there should be a happy medium with the older tables, since they aren't like museum pieces which are only to look at, and not to touch, play, and enjoy. Many of the flipperless I was ablt to play in my boyhood had seen better days, and were the worse for wear, so a lot of the ones I've made reflect "reality" for me. Struggle Buggies and later EMs were both newer and in better shape when I played them, but not always.

Keep in mind also that I'm not able to redraw playfields, so other than making then look as good as I can by brightening, removing glare when possible, and minor things like that, I have to use what I find. Leon and others do redraw their plsyfields, and their tables look great, On the other hand, Druadic, who made flipperless also, redrew most of his playfields, and they simply don't look right to me, given their true age. Maybe Leon uses a different technique than Druadic did, I don't know. All I know is that some redraws look great while others look a bit artificial.

I always try to use the best looking images I can find for my relics, but if what I find is 3rd rate, i'd rather make a table that plays as close to perfect as possible with 3rd rate images rather than not making the table at all. And sometimes someone will offer to improve an images for me, such as Shockman did twice with Harvey's Boom Boom. In those cases, I update the table and credit the person who improved the image for me. And the second image Shockman sent me was squared, which meant I was able to do a minor readjustment to the cups and nails on the playfield, which really improved the game play. So there is seldom one cut and dried solution.

 

[tudnut]

Well, I guess my point was that I would prefer games to look as if they just came off the assembly line. Not "cartoonish," not the absolute ideal of what the designer intended (ever see a "concept drawing" of some up-and-coming condo? Nice how they eliminate all the other "unsightly" buildings around it!), but how it actually looked when new.

Of course, I realize that's hard to do, and a lot more work. And I still appreciate everyone's efforts on here, even if they're just taking what they have to work with, and going with that.

It just somehow didn't ring true to me (sorry!) when you said that you preferred the machines to look OLD.

 

[tiltjlp]

I'll give you an example of my thinking on this tudnut. I just found an image of a cast iron flipperless game from 1901. In the image I have the majority of paint has been worn away. Now, if I can do a perfect color match, I'll at least consider making it look better than it does now. But making it appear as if it was made yesterday would be wrong. It's had a rough life, and being 105 years old, should it look brand new? Not in my opinion, and since I'm the fellow who will be making it, I don't want it to look pristine, since that wouldn't be realistic.

 

[tudnut]

Well, I guess my point is this: you're working with a game from 1901. None of us (I presume!) is old enough to have actually played that game when it was new. Given that, you feel that you're imbuing some sort of "honor" upon the game in keeping it looking weathered. (And I do see your point, by the way, even if I'm disagreeing with it.)

But I'm quite certain that, were I to haunt pinball gatherings, I'd see some of my old favorite machines, ones which I haven't seen or played in years, like "Blue Chip," or "Bow and Arrow," et al, and they'd be in considerably worse condition than when I remembered them. The backflashes would be wearing away under the lights, the playing fields would have their paint worn down...

Personally, I would find that very sad. 50 years or so from now, after we're both gone (???), if people were rec'ing newer games, they'd be using the same philosophy you are, and considering it an homage to them.

I don't consider it that way at all. I think these games are timeless AS GAMES...they're not just museum pieces.

Obviously, I'm (and we all should be) grateful that there's the opportunity to have them again, to make them come alive again.

But as museum pieces?

We (and I mean that as "you guys," more than as me, of course, given that I'm not really a rec'er) have the opportunity to keep these games alive for people. Of course using whatever resources you have to rec them is better than nothing...but I feel it's doing a disservice to the machines, and to people discovering them for the first time, to INTEND to keep them looking old. There are REAL museums to harbor the real things for that!

I guess what I mean is: is your argument that the games are an antiquated yet valuable part of history...or are they still valid games?

I think they're still valid games, every bit as valid AS games as they ever were. As such, they deserve to look as if they just came out of the box, given the opportunity.

(Of course, they're not the SAME kind of games as new ones...but they're still VALID and enjoyable games.)

I guess it's just two different ways to look at the machines.

But tell me...don't you think "Struggle Buggies" is still just as good a game as it ever was? When you talk to people about it, do you consider yourself some kind of curator, telling them how games used to be...or do you find yourself to be an enthusiast, trying to persuade them to give this game a try?

When I talk about "Blue Chip" or "She Who Will Go Unmentioned This Year," I'm still an enthusiast. I don't want people unfamiliar with them to think of them as OLD games. I want them to think of them as GAMES!

(P.S. It occurs to me that, given that I made my vow on another forum, maybe I could speak her name over here. Still, I'm not sure how I worded it, and I'd have to go back and read the fine print! lol)

 

[Furio]

I have made a directory of the pinball real of years 50 on which I have played.
I have given also of the personal appraisals in tenth.
Quartette-Four Star 8
Crossroads 9
Chinatown 8
Happy Days 8
Grand Slam 8
Arabian Knights 9
Lovely Lucy 9
Lady Luck 9
Gispy Queen 9
Auto Race 9
Ace High 10
Royal Flush 10
Word Champ 9
Silver 10
Saluti dall'Italia
Furio

 

[tiltjlp]

Tudnut, old buddy old pal. Actually, as I mentioned in passing eariler, most of the images in my tables that are less than ideal are that way mainly because I'm not able to redraw them. The reasons are that I have low vision, and I also have slight tremons in both hands. About all I can do with most images is brighten and maybe improve the focus some. Now if you were to volunteer to redraw images for me, I would gladly use them. I still think that some old games simply don't look right after being redrawn. Druadic redrew all his images, and some, like Bonanza, are beautiful, but others really don't look quite right, sort of artificial. But unless someone were willing to redraw a lot of images for me, I'll have to continue to make do with what little improvement I can make, and leave it at that.