Battle of the Tables - Preliminary Round

[doveton]

ok, details for this can be found here http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/6666-battle-of-the-tables

as mentioned in there, the top 23 ranked tables on IPDB are automatically through to round one, so heres the draw to see which of the rest join them there.

Space Shuttle v Central Park
El Dorado v Flight 2000
Champions Pub v Harley Davidson
Gorgar v Goin Nuts
Cue Ball Wizard v Big Shot
Haunted House v Class of 1812
Genie v Teed Off
Victory v Dr Dude
Firepower v Black Hole


its pretty simple, pick your favourite table from each tie, with reasons if you can be bothered. Voting closes at 11pm Sunday night UK time, which by my admittedly shoddy calculations is 3pm Pacific time. and please god let there be an odd number of voters, cause ive not really worked out a contingency plan if any of the matchups end in a tie...

 

[doveton]

my votes....

Space Shuttle v Central Park - i quite like central park in small doses to be fair, but space shuttle is one of my favourites of the non dmd tables
El Dorado v Flight 2000 - both pretty meh and im quite down on flight 2000 cause it should never have been an A side, but its still way better than el dorado
Champions Pub v Harley Davidson - while it can be annoying i dont hate harley anywhere near as much as most do, and while champion pub is a nice idea in theory, in reality its a drainy twat
Gorgar v Goin Nuts - im not sure i ever actually played a real life gorgar, but they definitely must have had one in my local arcade cause as soon as i loaded it up for the first time and heard the voice of gorgar, the nostalgia and memories of those days came flooding back. actually made my hairs stand on end. the less said about goin nuts the better
Cue Ball Wizard v Big Shot - battle of the pool tables! not really much competition in my eyes, CBW has plenty of flaws but overall its still pretty fun
Haunted House v Class of 1812 - again not a massive fan of either, but haunted house doesnt have a chicken clucking along to the 1812 overture, so its out
Genie v Teed Off - despite the sterling efforts of goin nuts, genie is still comfortably the table i hate the most. swore once i hit 100 HOF points on it id never play it again, and i never have
Victory v Dr Dude - yes, im voting against dr dude purely because of the gift of the gab.
Firepower v Black Hole - neither table im a massive fan of, i may as well have tossed a coin to decide this one to be fair

 

[superballs]

Here's a contingency plan:

http://www.virtualcointoss.com/

Best of 5.

 

[doveton]

thats as good a plan as any. in later rounds im planning on deciding it by total votes over all previous rounds, but for now the coin toss it is!

 

[DrainoBraino]

Space Shuttle : Most anything is better than CP

Flight 2000 : Toss up here, I like both, but always multiball wins out.

Champions Pub : Easy choice there

Gorgar : Another easy one, and one of my favorite tables

Cue Ball Wizard : I love the sound in this, great quotes.

Haunted House : The color scheme and design of HH is great. Wish it had multiball. Never got into 1812, I dunno why.

Teed Off : Don't really care for either, but anything is better than Genie

Dr Dude : YES I said it, geeks! Dr Dude is one of my favorites, don't care. I like the gift of gab and all the quotes.

Black Hole : = LOVE everything about it.

 

[goo_back]

Space Shuttle
Flight 2000
Champions Pub
Gorgar
Big Shot
Class of 1812
Teed Off
Victory
Firepower

 

[fenderbendr]

Space Shuttle
El Dorado
Champion Pub
Gorgar
Cue Ball Wizard
Haunted House
Teed Off
Dr Dude
Firepower

 

[Naildriver74]

Space Shuttle. El Dorado. Champions Pub. Gogar. Cue Ball Wizard. 1812. Teed Off. Victory. Black Hole

 

[Logan812]

Love these threads. They're one of the very few "which is better" types of threads that rarely, if ever, cause heated arguments. I participated in a Beatles album thread similar to this one not too long ago. Anyway...

Space Shuttle v Central Park - While I do love EMs and I hope there will be more in TPA in the future, Space Shuttle beats Central Park for me. If that particular 60s EM would've been Slick Chick, however, then Slick Chick would've been my choice. *fingers crossed for it to eventually be in TPA*

El Dorado v Flight 2000 - Sort of tough to choose between these two. I went with Flight 2k because it's the only classic Stern in TPA, and it has some unique features among TPA such as the ball-locking mechanism.

Champions Pub v Harley Davidson - Honestly, HD would've lost no matter what. I despise that table and only play it for goals, tournaments, or multiplayer if someone else wants to play it. Other than that, Champion Pub is really cool.

Gorgar v Goin Nuts - Do I really need to elaborate on this one?

Cue Ball Wizard v Big Shot - Again, I love to have EMs in TPA, but Big Shot still has some detail innacuracies like no buzzing when holding the flippers or the score reel counting the bonus, which aren't really that important but make a huge difference to me personally. Other than that, Cue Ball Wizard is a definite guilty pleasure of mine. Not only is it the only pinball machine within 50 miles of my hometown, but I used to play Microsoft Pinball Arcade which included this machine. Also, I like CBW's cue ball gimmick.

Haunted House v Class of 1812 - I choose Haunted House not only because it's in Microsoft Pinball Arcade like CBW, but because it's my favorite among the two Gottlieb "lower playfield" tables - thought I wish Victory also had that gimmick like it did in the prototype. That said, I also like Class of 1812 but not quite as much.

Genie v Teed Off - Kind of tough to choose, but I never really got into Tee'd Off. When it comes to golf games like No Good Gofers and Tee'd Off, I'd choose NGF every time. Altough Genie's goals are kind of BS, I find it among the more enjoyable Gottlieb classics in TPA, and I've played Genie a few times in real life.

Victory v Dr Dude - Not a huge fan of either, but Dr Dude won the coin toss.

Firepower v Black Hole - Firepower is BY FAR my least favorite Steve Ritchie table. I know it's his first real Williams table, but it's not very comfortable to play, it's a drain monster, and I have bad memories of trying to complete the goals for that table in Williams Hall of Fame (I haven't really gone for those goals in TPA.) Although I prefer Haunted House to Black Hole, I still enjoy it. I like the theme and I'm looking forward to playing this when the ability to adjust the lighting is released.

 

[Kolchak357]

Space shuttle
El Dorado
champion Pub
Gorgar
Big Shot
Class of 1812
Teed Off
Victory
Firepower

 

[xNiCeGuYx]

Space Shuttle
Flight 2000
Champions Pub
Gorgar
Big Shot
Haunted House
Genie
Dr. Dude
Black Hole

 

[Bowflex]

I would choose (winners in bold for ease of finding in this long-rant):
Space Shuttle over Central Park. While it is a more on the easy side, it does offer some variety. Central Park tends to get repetitive quickly and the endless extra balls (only to be lost within a few seconds of play) add more frustration than accomplishment. Nudging mastery is required but Tilts are far too easy.
Flight 2000 over El Dorado. Flight 2k has a nice amount of challenge and variety of shots. The pace can quickly become insane. El Dorado is an okay table but tends to be a bit too easy and the ball just rolls around in a boring manner much of the time. Too much open space.
Champions Pub easily over Harley Davidson. These are actually more alike than one might think with having gimmicky toys and certain repetitive shots. Champions Pub overcomes repetition with amusing variety of sounds and effects whereas HD becomes very annoying and distracting. The overall gameplay of CP is way better in general.
Gorgar over Goin Nuts...you might as well just make Gorgar have a bye in the first round. Which is fine. It's the best game on this entire list and deserves a free pass.
Big Shot over Cue Ball Wizard. Big Shot has a somewhat addictive quality. Cue Ball Wizard is definitely well polished and decently fun but the cue ball seems to be black hole sucking up a good deal of your attention and shots which makes it too easy to neglect the other aspects of the table. The scoring is also ridiculous as high value shots seem easy while the challenging shots return minimal reward.
Haunted House over Class of 1812. This was tough. Class has some really humorous design elements and the chickens clucking the 1812 overture is hilarious. However it also suffers from lack of flow and events that cause major gameplay pauses. Haunted House is a less exciting version of Black Hole but the tri-level gimmick works and the game has great pacing.
Genie over Teed Off. It's amazing that No Good Gofers is such a rip-off but such a completely different experience in a positive way. Teed Off is one of the better Gottlieb DMD games. It actually presents some really good challenging shots. Yet in a case of the total product not being good as the sum of its parts, Teed off just seems to fall flat for me and I walk away with an empty feeling. Genie has a nice variety of shots and has a layout that is fun and challenge you to top your best score.
Dr. Dude over Victory. Both games have issues with game-pausing events. However Dr. Dude gets theirs done much more expediently. Victory is the pinball equivalent of watching paint dry. For a game about racing, it sure is slow.
Black Hole over Firepower. In the toughest decision, Black Hole wins by a best of 3 coin toss. Both have very challenging multi-balls to achieve requiring prerequisite shots to be satisfied and careful aiming. Both can become extremely fast paced, moreso in the case of Firepower. However, Black Hole wins with the challenging lower playfield that requires effort to not automatically lose your ball upon reentry as well as bi-level multiball creating an erratic yet satisfying experience.

 

[Pinballfan69]

Space Shuttle - if course Personal opinion but don't like tables pre 1980
Flight 2000 - For a first speaking stern it's pretty nice. I like the countdown drop targets when you lock the balls.
Harley Davidson - yeah surprise I love multiball ridden tables and this has different ones.
Goin Nuts - another personal opinion love Multi-ball can't get into single ball tables.
Cue Ball Wizard - Personal opinion but don't like tables pre 1980 or single ball tables.
Class of 1812 - same as above
Teed Off - Same as above.
Victory - Dr Dude is annoying sounds etc.
Firepower - Something about Black Hole just doesn't do it for me. I love accuracy needed on firepower.

 

[Bowflex]

Doveton...was there any method to the matchups? Just curious if it was done by seeding each one or just random or trying to match up themes as much as possible?

 

[doveton]

Doveton...was there any method to the matchups? Just curious if it was done by seeding each one or just random or trying to match up themes as much as possible?

no, it was completely random. basically i gave each table a random number 1-18, then paired all 18 numbers off together (4 v 17, 6 v 1 etc), then matched the 2 up

 

[SKILL_SHOT]

space shuttle
Flight 2k
champion pub
gorgar
cue ball wizard
class of 1812
t'eed off
Dr.Dude
firepower

 

[Bowflex]

no, it was completely random. basically i gave each table a random number 1-18, then paired all 18 numbers off together (4 v 17, 6 v 1 etc), then matched the 2 up

Gotcha. I thought theme might have played a role since 2 pool tables, 2 "haunted" tables, 2 space adventure tables did get paired up. Crazy how that turned out.

 

[doveton]

yeah when big shot and CBW came out together i did think for a sec "no-ones gonna believe thats random..."

 

[JPelter]

Space Shuttle v Central Park - This was a difficult choice. I like the aesthetics of space shuttle slightly better, although both are good examples of their respective periods.
El Dorado v Flight 2000 - Flight 2000 cleans this up hands down. I don't like the ruleset for El Dorado much and the staged multiball is just brilliant.
Champions Pub v Harley Davidson - HD is a terrible turd and I actually like playing champion pub.
Gorgar v Goin Nuts - Goin Nuts is another terrible turd and gorgar is, despite some scoring flaws, a really stylish table.
Cue Ball Wizard v Big Shot - I do like CBW a fair bit, but Big Shot is in my opinion easily in the top 5 tables released for TPA so far so it sails away the victor here.
Haunted House v Class of 1812 - Difficult choice, but I'm not a huge fan of the 1812 theme and haunted house is more fun to play.
Genie v Teed Off - Really tough choice here. Both are severely underrated tables and I like them both a lot. The art package on genie wins this by a slim margin.
Victory v Dr Dude - Dr. Dude is cool and Victory has too much stop and go gameplay.
Firepower v Black Hole - Both are classics but Black Hole is just a little bit more amazing in every single way.

 

[Crawley]

Space Shuttle
Flight 2000 - I know there's a decent table in El Dorado but the "drums" keep me away
Champions Pub - A bit of a peer pressure choice here. I actually don't hate Harley, love the easy multiball modes, but Champions is such a unique table I'm giving it a slight nod for my pick.
Gorgar
Big Shot - Tough one but Big Shot I know I go back time and again. Simple layout but difficult to master.
Class of 1812 - Didn't like HH when it was in the arcades and still don't.
Genie - Think I'm one of the few that enjoy this table.
Dr Dude - Once I finally got used to the terrible 80's theme it turned out to be a decent table.
Black Hole - Another tough one as I like both the tables about the same. But BH has grown on me since I initially had it.