A letter I sent to farsight. How do you feel about EM's

[Heretic]

Haha! Just depends which vibe you mean. It's a huuuuge state.

I thought us white thrash stuck together

 

[Crawley]

Most of the EMs I've played at shows are not well maintained and are slow. Figured that's how all EMs were until I played the ones at Vintage Flipper World which has the best maintained machines I've played on. Night and day experience between those EMs and others I've played. So the TPA EMs are not that far off from well maintained ones. But they still get crazy fast at times, faster than what I've seen on the VFW tables. So it's not 100% accurate but overall pretty close.

 

[vikingerik]

If you're playing a real EM machine where the flippers are strong and fast, that machine has been reconditioned and the flippers rebuilt. Nobody here under the age of 50 has played an EM when it was new to really experience and judge the speed.

 

[Kolchak357]

Flipper coil strength can vary by machine. But flippers designed to shoot up and around steep ramps on a modern stern probably are not the same used on an early EM. Many EMs I've played need a flipper rebuild and therefore play too weak (a real bummer). Some people also use weaker coils to save their plastics. I've played a lot of EMs and as long as I can make the needed shots, that's cool with me.

FL-11753 (yellow) Weakest
FL-11722 (green)
FL-11630 (red)
FL-15411 (orange)
FL-11629 (blue) Strongest

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Of the TPA EMs I've played for real recently, the best condition one was a Centigrade 37 that might as well have been NIB, it was that good. Honestly there didn't seem to be much difference in the way they played, part of that may be because C37 is not as reliant on its slings/pops and really does reward accurate shooting, especially to the top hole which is the money shot when you have everything lit.

The Jacks Open I came across played pretty well too, again, it's a pure target shooter, and since there are only rubbers, and no slings, that doesn't even come into play.

Now if we could get Target Alpha, a lot of people would be amazed at how the same layout (as El Dorado etc.) can produce a completely different game!

 

[yespage]

Sign me up for all the suggestions in this thread. I took my buddy to Coin-Op to go play a bunch of new stuff (Dialed In, Ghostbusters, Aerosmith, etc.) and while we did have fun, we both couldn't wait to get home to play my old Circus again. There's just something special about the old pins that the new stuff just can't hold a candle too.

They both have their charm. There are plenty of EMs that are boring or suck. But a well designed pinball machine is great no matter how fancy it is.