The Pinball Arcade table ratings

Update 3/24/18: Since new table releases appear to have ended, I've closed voting for new users. Those with existing votes can still modify them.
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I've made an IPDB/Pinside-style 10-point user rating scheme for the tables in The Pinball Arcade:

The Pinball Arcade table ratings survey (http://smbhax.com/tpatr)

^ Visit the survey to register your ratings and see the latest results. You can register one set of ratings per IP address, and you can always go back and edit them.

That being said, depending on how you connect to the internet, your IP address could change at any time, and although the site also backs up your ratings to a browser cookie on your device, cookies can get nixed too. So I encourage you to make a backup of your ratings somewhere, and if you've already entered them they're easy to copy down from the survey site, for instance you can just click the text box at the bottom of the results page to highlight it, ctrl+c or whatever to copy it to your clipboard, and then paste the scores as text data into a text file on your computer for instance, or even onto a post on this thread. Here are mine, automatically neatly formatted from that text box at the bottom of the results page:

My Pinball Arcade table ratings
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9 — Funhouse
9 — Monster Bash
9 — Ripley's Believe It or Not!
9 — Star Trek: The Next Generation
9 — Terminator 2: Judgment Day
8 — Centaur
8 — The Champion Pub
8 — Firepower
8 — Medieval Madness
8 — No Good Gofers!
8 — Space Shuttle
8 — Tee'd Off
8 — The Twilight Zone
8 — Whirlwind
7 — Attack from Mars
7 — Flight 2000
7 — Pin•Bot
7 — Scared Stiff
7 — Taxi
7 — Theatre of Magic
6 — Black Knight
6 — Central Park
6 — Creature from the Black Lagoon
6 — Harley-Davidson Third Edition
6 — The Machine: Bride of Pin•Bot
6 — White Water
5 — Big Shot
5 — Cactus Canyon
5 — Genie
5 — Tales of the Arabian Nights
4 — Black Hole
4 — Elvira and the Party Monsters
3 — Cirqus Voltaire
3 — Goin' Nuts
3 — Gorgar
3 — Haunted House
2 — Dr. Dude
none — Class of 1812
none — Victory

Done.

Thanks smbhax, cool idea.

Cool idea, up to 11 participants already.

16! Thanks for the quick responses. I've updated the static results table so it isn't just my votes. ; ) Surprised at how well Taxi and Pin*Bot are doing, and how low ST:TNG and especially Funhouse have placed so far!

I gotta think on this. Gonna rank them all from what I like best to least. That means for each 'point' on the chart, there'll be 3+ titles. This'll be fun!

Voted. Neat idea!

Naildriver74 has too follow the clawhammer I'm in.

Not too surprising Ripley's isn't doing that well. Didn't get it at all at first, didn't like the theme, and it seemed unforgiving. But about two months ago I sat down and went through the instructions, watched a PAPAs video, and after a few games it clicked. It's a pretty deep game with a lot to do on it and knowing what to do ramped up the fun, and challenge quickly. It went from being one of my least played tables to one of my most played.

Ripleys was one of the two tables I voted a 10 for. The other being AFM.

Ripley's is definitely one of my faves. I fantasize about getting to Frog Multiball again some day. : D

smbhax said:

16! Thanks for the quick responses. I've updated the static results table so it isn't just my votes. ; ) Surprised at how well Taxi and Pin*Bot are doing, and how low ST:TNG and especially Funhouse have placed so far!

Click to expand...

Taxi is a decent table, I think I gave it a 5 or a 6. Pinbot is just a classic, that got a 7. However, Funhouse is just an awful table, with annoying music and annoying gameplay. I gave that a 1. STTNG is ok, again, not a fave of mine. It got a 5-6 if I recall right.

I didn't give anything less than a three. Even if I rarely play a table, I like having the option. I also don't have any tens.

Funhouse got a 10 from me. Great implementation of a fun table. I love the voices and theme. I can see people not liking it but can't see any way to justify giving it a 1.

Could not give AFM a 10 because of the stupid loop lockout.

Only 1 I gave was to Genie. Bad implementation of a terrible table.

Okay, done. So I ranked the tables by how much I enjoy playing them in TPA. I didn't go off of best art, best theme, or even play in real life. It's simply when I sit down to play TPA, which would I play most. I wanted to reflect that from top to bottom, so 10 meant tables I play the most, 1 the least. I also wanted it to be an even distribution across the numbers, meaning 3 or 4 tables per number. Here's how it broke down for me in order but according to how many points I gave 'em...

10. RBION
Monster Bash
Medieval Madness
9. Creature
Centaur
Whirlwind
AFM
8. T2
BoP
NGG
Cactus Canyon
7. Funhouse
Cirqus Voltair
Twilight Zone
6. Scared Stiff
Firepower
Dr. Dude
5. Space Shuttle
Pin*Bot
ST:TNG
4. White Water
ToM
TotAN
3. Champion Pub
Elvira atPM
Taxi
2. Black Hole
Gorgar
Big Shot
1. Harley
Black Knight
Genie
Central Park
Goin' Nuts

I didn't rank Flight 2000, Haunted House, or Tee'd Off since I haven't played them more than once. The same could be said for Goin' Nuts except I had an immediate hatred of it, which is why I placed it dead last!

This was an interesting exercise for me. For instance, while I really do hate the humor and sound of Creature, I find I play it A LOT, which is why I gave it a 9. Conversely, I like the look and sound of ToM, but I can't get into the game play at all, which is why it ranked so low for me. If someone asks me what my favorite machine is, I say Whirlwind without even thinking, yet it placed 6th on my list. Now some of these tables I just plain haven't given a fair shake yet to. I've spent very little time with White Water yet, and odds are it will leap frog up quite a few spaces once I've put some time into it. RBION is a clear reflection on what spending time on a particular machine will do to how you feel about it. Took me months to like it, and then it became my go to table and still is.

Like I said, a good exercise in being honest with yourself. Or at least that's how I approached this. If I ranked off of best looking to worst, there'd be all sorts of changes to the list. Or which was least buggy. Or even best presentation of theme, rules, and game play. Again, I chose by which I play the most. This was fun, thanks for the survey.

Mechanix77 said:

Funhouse is just an awful table, with annoying music and annoying gameplay.

Click to expand...

Carny themes often annoy me (I feel this way about CV, for instance), but for some reason Funhouse's doesn't. What do you find annoying about the gameplay? The whole dorky talking doll head thing? Hm as I say this it occurs to me that on the basis of those things I shouldn't like Funhouse either, but I don't know, it just works so well when playing somehow. Got some unusual shots, too.

Tabe said:

Only 1 I gave was to Genie. Bad implementation of a terrible table.

Click to expand...

It *is* a shame about the PS3 version of Genie. I think it's neat the way the particulars of the scoring system have you utilizing every last bit of that huge playfield, though.

shutyertrap said:

This was an interesting exercise for me. For instance, while I really do hate the humor and sound of Creature, I find I play it A LOT, which is why I gave it a 9. Conversely, I like the look and sound of ToM, but I can't get into the game play at all, which is why it ranked so low for me. If someone asks me what my favorite machine is, I say Whirlwind without even thinking, yet it placed 6th on my list. Now some of these tables I just plain haven't given a fair shake yet to. I've spent very little time with White Water yet, and odds are it will leap frog up quite a few spaces once I've put some time into it.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty much the same with White Water--haven't managed to get anywhere on it, and kind of getting frustrated by the narrow playfield, loud sound effects--like the constant yeti howling during Boulder Bash --and frequent hurry-ups. But in the middle of all that today I *almost* got into a flow on it--there were bits where I'd hit a couple combos and the ball was just *flying*; you can generate some surprising speed on that table if you link things up! And then on my last ball I had a multiball where I was somehow just hitting jackpot after jackpot. So yeah I think there's something to this table, gotta work on it some more.

Creature's a funny one for me--I liked it a lot early on, the rich dark look and the nice sound effects (okay except for MOVE YOUR CAR >_<), but it's never *really* come together for me as a game; I don't find that the separate parts of the playfield go together all that well, and I *never* last very long in multiball, I guess maybe because of the relatively constricted central playfield area. I think maybe another thing hindering my enjoyment of this one is that it's possibly the table with the laggiest flippers in the PS3 version (ToTAN comes close).

When I was trying to play Theater (whose female voice I just *hate* ; P) for score, hitting just specific shots and all, I was finding it really annoying. So I got tired of that and now just flip at whatever looks good to me, and that's been working way better, both in terms of fun *and* score. I guess I understand the table intuitively way better than I do consciously.

smbhax said:

16! Thanks for the quick responses. I've updated the static results table so it isn't just my votes. ; ) Surprised at how well Taxi and Pin*Bot are doing, and how low ST:TNG and especially Funhouse have placed so far!

Click to expand...

Voted.

FH, it's one of my fav! Rudy is a cool dude. I am not surprised about ST:TNG, I have no clue what this table has to offer besides 2 annoying cannons that destroys the flow of a good pinball game and makes you feel like a 2-years old with a plastic toy gun. But different strokes for different folks.

night said:

I am not surprised about ST:TNG, I have no clue what this table has to offer besides 2 annoying cannons that destroys the flow of a good pinball game and makes you feel like a 2-years old with a plastic toy gun. But different strokes for different folks.

Click to expand...

I guess I was surprised because the real table is so highly rated. I'm not all that keen on the cannons but they're kind of growing on me as a change of pace. I dislike some of the missions and realize that scoring-wise they're kind of a shambles because the smart player will just time some of them out, etc... Still, there are some shots (warp ramp, woo!--and hitting that first shot in the Asteroid mission, for instance) and sound effects that are really satisfying to me.

Really I just want Patrick Stewart talking to me in a dark room.

Updated the table, now that there are about 50 votes things are starting to settle: Taxi and Pin*Bot are down (waaaaay down, in Pin*bot's case! : o), AFM moves into second ahead of Monster Bash, and ST:TNG has moved up briskly.

Another thing that's somewhat remarkable is that there are only five tables on the bad half of the ratings--wait six I guess, since the midway point between 1 and 10 is 5.5, not 5.