PAF Top Ten Most Wanted Table Poll Series : #3 - Bally (Closed)

What Are Your Top Ten Most Wanted Bally Tables

  • Black Rose (1992)

    Votes: 213 57.9%
  • Corvette (1994)

    Votes: 154 41.8%
  • Eight Ball Champ (1985)

    Votes: 49 13.3%
  • Eight Ball Deluxe (1981)

    Votes: 150 40.8%
  • Elektra (1981)

    Votes: 53 14.4%
  • Embryon (1981)

    Votes: 67 18.2%
  • Evil Knieval (1977)

    Votes: 48 13.0%
  • Fathom (1981)

    Votes: 101 27.4%
  • Fireball Classic (1984)

    Votes: 47 12.8%
  • Fireball II (1981)

    Votes: 35 9.5%
  • Flash Gordon (1981)

    Votes: 104 28.3%
  • Future Spa (1979)

    Votes: 44 12.0%
  • Indianapolis 500 (1995)

    Votes: 132 35.9%
  • Judge Dredd (1993)

    Votes: 197 53.5%
  • Mata Hari (1978)

    Votes: 52 14.1%
  • Medusa (1981)

    Votes: 75 20.4%
  • Mousin’ Around! (1989)

    Votes: 69 18.8%
  • Nitro Ground Shaker (1980)

    Votes: 14 3.8%
  • Paragon (1979)

    Votes: 86 23.4%
  • Party Zone, The (1991)

    Votes: 158 42.9%
  • Radical! (1990)

    Votes: 62 16.8%
  • Safe Cracker (1996)

    Votes: 191 51.9%
  • Silverball Mania (1978)

    Votes: 33 9.0%
  • Space Invaders (1980)

    Votes: 103 28.0%
  • Spectrum (1981)

    Votes: 59 16.0%
  • Strange Science (1986)

    Votes: 69 18.8%
  • Strikes and Spares (1978)

    Votes: 51 13.9%
  • WHO dunnit (1995)

    Votes: 196 53.3%
  • World Cup Soccer (1994)

    Votes: 199 54.1%
  • Xenon (1980)

    Votes: 162 44.0%

  • Total voters
    368

Sean DonCarlos

Moderator
Staff member
Mar 17, 2012
4,293
0
I know it's a very simple table and probably wont get to many votes because of that but Evil Knieval is legendary and definitely one of the most beloved older tables featured in just about every pinball museum there is.
Radical, weird science, and party zone although ive never seen or played any of them seem like very fun or at least seriously cool looking tables that I hope we do get. Who dunnit and judge dredd are both epic and must haves. Safe Cracker is ESSENTIAL, desighned by Pat Lawor who also did funhouse, family guy, Twilight Zone, The Addams Family, and many more. I hope eventually we get Pat's complete collection in the pinball arcade.
There's an Evel Knievel being used as one of the league machines on location here. I wouldn't say it's legendary, but I don't mind playing it - as opposed to Bally's Mystic, which does not agree with me at all!

Regarding Lawlor, his 2000-era machines are much less essential than his 1990s ones. I could easily give Nascar and CSI a pass without a second thought.
 
Apr 8, 2012
221
0
Regarding Lawlor, his 2000-era machines are much less essential than his 1990s ones. I could easily give Nascar and CSI a pass without a second thought.

I'm not a fan of these licenses at all, but I gave both tables a chance and ended up really liking them. CSI has some really cool features (centrifuge, skull eye locks, microscope turnaround) and the track running around the entire length of NASCAR is awesome.
 

WesReviews

New member
Jul 5, 2013
235
0
I voted for...

Eight Ball Champ
Elektra
Fathom
Future Spa
Mata Hari
Medusa
Paragon
Strange Science
WHO Dunnit?
Xenon
 

Rudy

New member
Sep 13, 2012
491
0
Personally I'm a huge fan of the simpler tables because they're more fun to pick up and play, and often feature a much clearer playfield. Big Shot has crept into my top five tables of all time and tables like Evil Knieval and Mati Hari look like great fun, tables that I don't have to mentally prepare myself for and dedicate an hour or two of my time if I want a quick game.

What bugs me is that there's plenty of tables that I would be tempted to vote for (like Xenon, Flash Gordon) but the potential difficulty of them puts me off completely. Paragon for example features such an unfair looking left outlane box thingy that I don't think I'd ever play it, it doesn't even have a chance to back out with skill like Genie does. As fun as they may be once mastered, do we REALLY want to see 40 tables that require 10 hours of playtime to get a decent score?

I'm getting a horrible feeling that by putting so much stock in the value of pinball fans over which tables to include it's going to result in the problem that killed pinball in the first place: It becomes incredibly elitist and impossible for a newcomer to find a nice easy passage in. I see everyone voting for very hard tables and, with a huge shortage of easy tables like Big Shot and Harley Davidson, we'll see plenty of people buying a table pack only to discover a brick wall of difficulty that will make them turn away from the platform altogether.

I also get the feeling that tables like the Star Trek:TNG Pinball machine may well have burnt potential players, even if they were fans of the show, having a table with such horribly unfair outlanes and targets that you must hit with the correct angle or they're instant drains is not a fun table, no matter how many quotes from the show there are. Everytime I show someone a table like The Twilight Zone they immediately hit the left post and drain from the start. These are the two 'biggest' tables in terms of liscencing and yet they're flat out impossible for a new player to get to grips with.

This poll has seen plenty of tables being skipped over because they look boring or too easy, when I'm looking at some tables like Flash Gordon which look very challenging to score a decent game. Extensive pinball fans are the ones who frequent this forum the most, and those types of people rarely play tables with simple rulesets.
 

Pinballfan69

New member
Mar 28, 2012
525
0
Personally I'm a huge fan of the simpler tables because they're more fun to pick up and play, and often feature a much clearer playfield. Big Shot has crept into my top five tables of all time and tables like Evil Knieval and Mati Hari look like great fun, tables that I don't have to mentally prepare myself for and dedicate an hour or two of my time if I want a quick game.

What bugs me is that there's plenty of tables that I would be tempted to vote for (like Xenon, Flash Gordon) but the potential difficulty of them puts me off completely. Paragon for example features such an unfair looking left outlane box thingy that I don't think I'd ever play it, it doesn't even have a chance to back out with skill like Genie does. As fun as they may be once mastered, do we REALLY want to see 40 tables that require 10 hours of playtime to get a decent score?

I'm getting a horrible feeling that by putting so much stock in the value of pinball fans over which tables to include it's going to result in the problem that killed pinball in the first place: It becomes incredibly elitist and impossible for a newcomer to find a nice easy passage in. I see everyone voting for very hard tables and, with a huge shortage of easy tables like Big Shot and Harley Davidson, we'll see plenty of people buying a table pack only to discover a brick wall of difficulty that will make them turn away from the platform altogether.

I also get the feeling that tables like the Star Trek:TNG Pinball machine may well have burnt potential players, even if they were fans of the show, having a table with such horribly unfair outlanes and targets that you must hit with the correct angle or they're instant drains is not a fun table, no matter how many quotes from the show there are. Everytime I show someone a table like The Twilight Zone they immediately hit the left post and drain from the start. These are the two 'biggest' tables in terms of liscencing and yet they're flat out impossible for a new player to get to grips with.

This poll has seen plenty of tables being skipped over because they look boring or too easy, when I'm looking at some tables like Flash Gordon which look very challenging to score a decent game. Extensive pinball fans are the ones who frequent this forum the most, and those types of people rarely play tables with simple rulesets.

Like your point of view. That said for me personally I don't like tables with simple rule sets. I'm a person who likes tables that have mutiball. The older tables like Big Shot, Central Park even Gorgar is too simple for me. I do like Taxi though. It's has simple enough rule set and has a 2 ball multiball

Tables that are challenging shouldn't be tables that are absolutely absurd with the difficulty. Personally I didn't find STTNG that bad for the outlanes. This tutorial video of Flash Gordon http://vimeo.com/20582052 is absolutely ridiculous on how difficult that table is. Even if the extra balls were turned off. I like challenging tables but that's ridiculous. Not saying a translation will be just as random as this was. I'm starting to find that even White Water is starting to get easy because when the ball shoots out from the whirlpool, you just hold the right flipper , the ball will safely go into the right in lane every time.
 

Creepykev

New member
May 30, 2013
10
0
I was super excited that Flash Gordon was made into a pinball table. I didn't realize that there was one made based on one of my favorite movies of all time. That quickly faded when I saw the gameplay video and realized how badly they wasted the opportunity to make an amazing timeless masterpiece. Where's the Queen music? Where's the great sound bites? What kind of table would Pat Lawler have made out of that great license?
 

Creepykev

New member
May 30, 2013
10
0
When the real pinball tables were in the arcade I found the new ones with the ambiguous rule sets quite daunting. But on TPA the rule sets are explained and I have all the time in the world to master them. The ones with the easy rule sets become boring quickly.
 

Sean DonCarlos

Moderator
Staff member
Mar 17, 2012
4,293
0
I was super excited that Flash Gordon was made into a pinball table. I didn't realize that there was one made based on one of my favorite movies of all time. That quickly faded when I saw the gameplay video and realized how badly they wasted the opportunity to make an amazing timeless masterpiece. Where's the Queen music? Where's the great sound bites? What kind of table would Pat Lawler have made out of that great license?
Flash Gordon was manufactured in 1980. Speech in pinball machines was still in its infancy (Gorgar was released in 1979), and the ROMs of the day would have had nowhere near the capacity for any sort of recorded music.
 

Mark W**a

Banned
Sep 7, 2012
1,511
0
I think Party Zone looks great. Have played Strange Science fairly recently... not impressed.

Here's a vid of PZ played in a tourney that I think shows it pretty well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q87FNS--Fj8&feature=share&list=PL9zlEXxtoaVVtZmdFQqVhA8DT26wJjlLg

Strange Science is getting a lot of votes. I think because of the clean video, it's making the table look better than it really is. Shame there's not a super clean video of Party Zone. The promotional one is grainy, and even this one is kinda meh. It needs a Papa tutorial, tournament, or playthrough video.

Oh well. We'll see what's winning soon enough I suppose.
 

Rudy

New member
Sep 13, 2012
491
0
Big Shot is easy??? : P

Well, not 'easy' but the ruleset is simple, the table layout is clear and games are short enough to not get annoyed at a SDTM drain from plunging.

Whereas an easy drain in a complex table is awful because straight away you've completely ruined your chances of reaching the later stages of the game and every other ball you have seems like a consolation prize.

When a table has a wizard mode, the goal is the wizard mode.
 

smbhax

Active member
Apr 24, 2012
1,803
5
Mm. Personally, I don't get too bent out of shape if I can't reach a table's wizard mode right away. But it's kind of disappointing if I (not being a pinball wiz) *can* reach it right away. I think that's where most people here are coming from. I don't really see it being a turn off for beginners, either... It's not like in the arcade, where I can definitely see someone being turned off after losing their quarter or fifty cents or whatever in like twenty seconds flat.

But maybe you're actually just talking about complexity rather than difficulty being a turn off, and with that I agree. Which is why we need more late EM / early SS tables. : D
 

ER777

New member
Sep 8, 2012
797
0
I ended up voting for these ten below with Party Zone and Space Invaders being the last two out.

Black Rose
Corvette
Eight Ball Deluxe
Elektra
Judge Dredd
Paragon
Safe Cracker
WHO dunnit
World Cup Soccer
Xenon
 

Sumez

New member
Nov 19, 2012
985
0
Strange Science is getting a lot of votes. I think because of the clean video, it's making the table look better than it really is.
I'm a little disappointed to hear it's not good, but I guess that explains why it's available so cheap. I'm loving the theme, look and gadgets on it, it _looks_ like a table that's fun to play. A lot more than Dr. Dude imo.
 

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