It occurred to me earlier today that for all the blogging and posting I've done, I've never really done a list of my favorite machines. That stunning omission is about to be corrected!
The 10 machines below are kind of an eclectic mix, although heavy on the 90s Williams/Ballys, and I'm definitely presenting these as one man's opinion, not as some sort of pinball gospel. But these 10 machines are the answer to the question "If you walked into CP Pinball while it's open and I'm there, what machine would you most likely find me playing?"...which is about the best endorsement of a machine someone of my limited-yet-growing skill can offer.
Honorable Mentions - Attack from Mars, Fathom, Spectrum, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Whitewater
10. Scared Stiff - Obviously I'm not picking this for depth of gameplay. But even though it's a bit on the easy side, it's a great table to come back to after one of the nightmares of the pinball world has been having its way with you for an hour. Elvira's machine has ample assets - what? I'm talking about the art - not that art - OK, maybe just a little. Anyway, great art, absolutely hysterical sound bites from the Mistress of the Dark, a bit of flow - those ramps are very loopable - and all in all a great time.
9. Eight Ball Deluxe - Classic Bally timelessness still going strong 30 years later, strong enough to pull even me away from the dots for a little while. You've got drops galore (both a target bank and inline drops!), a bonus that gets big enough to make you very nervous - do I nudge and risk it all or do I accept my fate and let it drain? - and one beautiful playfield. This machine went through three incarnations. Give it a few quarters and you'll learn why.
8. The Addams Family - Yes, yes, yes, I know it's overrated. I know it's either a Whirlwind with a license or a rehearsal for Twilight Zone, depending on how you look at it. I know it's the table everyone wants for TPA and simultaneously is tired of hearing others ask about. But it's too much fun and too well-executed to care very much. One of the best multiball starts ever; some special features and tricks - a well-tuned Thing Flips is a thing of beauty, and you'll never forget your first Dirty Pool - even the little things like getting the flashers to strobe in time with the music for Mamushka, and you'll forget your complaint that the jackpot shot is the standard horizontal one. There's a reason this machine set records and earned a second production run.
7. Bram Stoker's Dracula - Patrons of CP Pinball will probably be surprised this is on the list, considering the amount of swearing I've directed at it. And that swearing is well-deserved: 19 times out of 20, a game of Dracula will end pitifully. But that 20th time, when the stars align and the multiballs stack and everything goes oh so right...it makes it all worth it.
6. Iron Man - Yes, it's a modern Stern. But this machine was deliberately kept simple as part of an experiment Stern was doing at the time to see if simpler tables with reduced ball times would be well-accepted. (It must not have been, because they went back to their more-complex-than-neurosurgery ways shortly afterwards.) But because it's simpler, mere pinball mortals like myself actually have a chance of reaching and completing even the harder wizard mode (Do or Die)...and who doesn't want to make a hurry-up shot that starts at four times the replay score of the machine? It's got a certain flow to it as well, but don't let it getting go too fast - those outlanes are on par with ST:TNG's.
5. Fish Tales - The FT at CP Pinball is soul-crushingly hard: I've won the extra matchpoint in league play for a commanding lead with a score of just 34 million. And yet I have a hard time wandering by it without playing a game. It's just too fun, even if it kicks my arse eight ways from Sunday. Even when it's screwing you, like by giving you 0 points for making the "Stretch the Truth" shot and having it land on "Total Lie", it's funny. Add a bunch of satisfying shots - like 6-way comboing the boat or making the Fast Cast off the plunge. And you get to shoot torpedoes at waterskiers, which admit it: If you've ever been on the water, you've always wanted to do this. Great sound and music package, too.
4. Whirlwind - Proof that even for a DMD snob like me, there are good machines from before 1991. While Whirlwind was one of the last machines of the alphanumeric era, it's had great staying power even as it's been overshadowed by later Pat Lawlor machines. Fast play, an alternative to just multiballing all day (the Mega Door Bonus), the element of unpredictability from the spinning discs, good lights and sound...what more could one want from a 1990 machine? Oh yeah, a fan. Someday I must find the Whirlwind that has the industrial-strength fan mod installed; multiball against a 40-mph wind ought to be fun.
3. Lord of the Rings - I admit, this table took a while to grow on me. Its rules make rocket science seem simple, the modes are hard and the multiballs seem endless. But patience was duly rewarded in the end. Once you learn not to flail around and keep to nice, controlled play, you can go a long time on this table, even if the outlanes are fully open. The sound package is amazing (during Destroy the Ring it makes you feel like the fate of the world really is in your hands), and there always seems to be something new to learn each time you play.
2. AC/DC (Premium or LE) - In general, I'm not a big fan of modern Sterns. They're bright, they're gaudy, the artwork is Photoshoppy, their rulesets are confusing morasses, etc. AC/DC is all of these things. I love it anyway, and not just for the music (which is suited perfectly for pinball). The Mississippi River would be hard-pressed to match this machine's flow. Yes, AC/DC has modes, but you choose when they start, in what order, and when they end. Some lucrative shot came up in the middle of a song? Go ahead and take it, there's no mode timer anywhere. And pick your poison for what you want to shoot; there's a song for literally every shootable object on the table. Yes, the rules are intimidating to a beginner (although I've tried to help, see AC/DC LE Ruleset Explanation and Basic Strategies), but since you can pick the songs, you can just learn the 3 or 4 songs you like to play at first and leave the rest for later. All in all, it's Ritchie at his finest.
1. Twilight Zone - I think we all saw this one coming. My obsessions aside, Twilight Zone has about as much variety as one can stuff into one machine and still have it fit into a reasonable-sized cabinet...and it all works to produce a coherent and awesome whole. From the freedom to choose how you want to play the game (no getting pigeon-holed into one specific strategy here) to the tiny little art details that make devotees of the TV show smile, from the ballbreaking challenge (of the real machine, not TPA's version) to the sheer sensory overload of Lost in the Zone, Twilight Zone's armada of features enabled it to become pinball's new standard-bearer in 1993 and to retain its flagship status in 2013.
The 10 machines below are kind of an eclectic mix, although heavy on the 90s Williams/Ballys, and I'm definitely presenting these as one man's opinion, not as some sort of pinball gospel. But these 10 machines are the answer to the question "If you walked into CP Pinball while it's open and I'm there, what machine would you most likely find me playing?"...which is about the best endorsement of a machine someone of my limited-yet-growing skill can offer.
Honorable Mentions - Attack from Mars, Fathom, Spectrum, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Whitewater
10. Scared Stiff - Obviously I'm not picking this for depth of gameplay. But even though it's a bit on the easy side, it's a great table to come back to after one of the nightmares of the pinball world has been having its way with you for an hour. Elvira's machine has ample assets - what? I'm talking about the art - not that art - OK, maybe just a little. Anyway, great art, absolutely hysterical sound bites from the Mistress of the Dark, a bit of flow - those ramps are very loopable - and all in all a great time.
9. Eight Ball Deluxe - Classic Bally timelessness still going strong 30 years later, strong enough to pull even me away from the dots for a little while. You've got drops galore (both a target bank and inline drops!), a bonus that gets big enough to make you very nervous - do I nudge and risk it all or do I accept my fate and let it drain? - and one beautiful playfield. This machine went through three incarnations. Give it a few quarters and you'll learn why.
8. The Addams Family - Yes, yes, yes, I know it's overrated. I know it's either a Whirlwind with a license or a rehearsal for Twilight Zone, depending on how you look at it. I know it's the table everyone wants for TPA and simultaneously is tired of hearing others ask about. But it's too much fun and too well-executed to care very much. One of the best multiball starts ever; some special features and tricks - a well-tuned Thing Flips is a thing of beauty, and you'll never forget your first Dirty Pool - even the little things like getting the flashers to strobe in time with the music for Mamushka, and you'll forget your complaint that the jackpot shot is the standard horizontal one. There's a reason this machine set records and earned a second production run.
7. Bram Stoker's Dracula - Patrons of CP Pinball will probably be surprised this is on the list, considering the amount of swearing I've directed at it. And that swearing is well-deserved: 19 times out of 20, a game of Dracula will end pitifully. But that 20th time, when the stars align and the multiballs stack and everything goes oh so right...it makes it all worth it.
6. Iron Man - Yes, it's a modern Stern. But this machine was deliberately kept simple as part of an experiment Stern was doing at the time to see if simpler tables with reduced ball times would be well-accepted. (It must not have been, because they went back to their more-complex-than-neurosurgery ways shortly afterwards.) But because it's simpler, mere pinball mortals like myself actually have a chance of reaching and completing even the harder wizard mode (Do or Die)...and who doesn't want to make a hurry-up shot that starts at four times the replay score of the machine? It's got a certain flow to it as well, but don't let it getting go too fast - those outlanes are on par with ST:TNG's.
5. Fish Tales - The FT at CP Pinball is soul-crushingly hard: I've won the extra matchpoint in league play for a commanding lead with a score of just 34 million. And yet I have a hard time wandering by it without playing a game. It's just too fun, even if it kicks my arse eight ways from Sunday. Even when it's screwing you, like by giving you 0 points for making the "Stretch the Truth" shot and having it land on "Total Lie", it's funny. Add a bunch of satisfying shots - like 6-way comboing the boat or making the Fast Cast off the plunge. And you get to shoot torpedoes at waterskiers, which admit it: If you've ever been on the water, you've always wanted to do this. Great sound and music package, too.
4. Whirlwind - Proof that even for a DMD snob like me, there are good machines from before 1991. While Whirlwind was one of the last machines of the alphanumeric era, it's had great staying power even as it's been overshadowed by later Pat Lawlor machines. Fast play, an alternative to just multiballing all day (the Mega Door Bonus), the element of unpredictability from the spinning discs, good lights and sound...what more could one want from a 1990 machine? Oh yeah, a fan. Someday I must find the Whirlwind that has the industrial-strength fan mod installed; multiball against a 40-mph wind ought to be fun.
3. Lord of the Rings - I admit, this table took a while to grow on me. Its rules make rocket science seem simple, the modes are hard and the multiballs seem endless. But patience was duly rewarded in the end. Once you learn not to flail around and keep to nice, controlled play, you can go a long time on this table, even if the outlanes are fully open. The sound package is amazing (during Destroy the Ring it makes you feel like the fate of the world really is in your hands), and there always seems to be something new to learn each time you play.
2. AC/DC (Premium or LE) - In general, I'm not a big fan of modern Sterns. They're bright, they're gaudy, the artwork is Photoshoppy, their rulesets are confusing morasses, etc. AC/DC is all of these things. I love it anyway, and not just for the music (which is suited perfectly for pinball). The Mississippi River would be hard-pressed to match this machine's flow. Yes, AC/DC has modes, but you choose when they start, in what order, and when they end. Some lucrative shot came up in the middle of a song? Go ahead and take it, there's no mode timer anywhere. And pick your poison for what you want to shoot; there's a song for literally every shootable object on the table. Yes, the rules are intimidating to a beginner (although I've tried to help, see AC/DC LE Ruleset Explanation and Basic Strategies), but since you can pick the songs, you can just learn the 3 or 4 songs you like to play at first and leave the rest for later. All in all, it's Ritchie at his finest.
1. Twilight Zone - I think we all saw this one coming. My obsessions aside, Twilight Zone has about as much variety as one can stuff into one machine and still have it fit into a reasonable-sized cabinet...and it all works to produce a coherent and awesome whole. From the freedom to choose how you want to play the game (no getting pigeon-holed into one specific strategy here) to the tiny little art details that make devotees of the TV show smile, from the ballbreaking challenge (of the real machine, not TPA's version) to the sheer sensory overload of Lost in the Zone, Twilight Zone's armada of features enabled it to become pinball's new standard-bearer in 1993 and to retain its flagship status in 2013.
