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

[Sean DonCarlos]

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.

 

[crazyflipperfingers]

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]

I voted for...

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

 

[Rudy]

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.

 

[Dutch Pinball ball]

I only voted for wcs, that is a fantastic pin. All others are meh to me.

 

[Pinballfan69]

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.

 

[Kolchak357]

I only voted for wcs, that is a fantastic pin. All others are meh to me.

You are tough to please. But I'd agree on WCS being great. I'm no soccer fan, but that pin is addictive.

 

[Creepykev]

I rememeber playing it once as a kid and feeling like I did something naughty.

 

[Creepykev]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Canadian365]

Whats the point of the polls now!? Bobby King Confirms in interview today, that a T2 failed Kickstarter is end of future Kickstarters and any chance of next Kickstarter for Addams Family table!
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/arch...h-farsight-studios-terminator-2-judgment-day/

 

[netizen]

Whats the point of the polls now!?

Unlicensed Tables :/

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Whats the point of the polls now!? Bobby King Confirms in interview today, that a T2 failed Kickstarter is end of future Kickstarters and any chance of next Kickstarter for Addams Family table!
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/arch...h-farsight-studios-terminator-2-judgment-day/

You're reading way more into that quote than is there.

 

[smbhax]

easy tables like Big Shot

Big Shot is easy??? : P

 

[Mark W**a]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.