VALIS666's ratings

A good beginner bingo to get your feet wet as it's really straight forward -- "shoot a line" of 3, 4, or 5 matches on any of 6 cards (nickel each) to win prizes. 3 in a row gets you 4 nickels back, while 4 gets you 40! No idea what 5 gets you, maybe 100? There is also one yellow highlighted line on each card that increases the prize amount if you get a run within. Simple mindless fun.

Nice enough looking game, it's hard to get a playing card theme wrong. But there's just nothing to shoot at here. Every shot is up the sides at those opposing top corner standups and from there you hope the ball will careen over to the side rollover switch, or the pops will be merciful and bounce you back into the rollover lanes, even though that almost never happens. And that's about it, that's your game. It can be pretty lively if you play a nice copy, but even then it's hard not to get tired of it after a few plays.

I think I rated every single category a 4/6, making this the most mediocre game possible! It's really fast for a game from '74 with a wide open playfield, 4 flippers, and lively slings and pops. A nice clean version of this will see the ball fly around like you wouldn't believe for its time. So that's something. But there's just not that much to do. Hit the center rollovers or the left side standups, the end. Artwork is functional, but I like that black backglass.

What a shame this is so rare as it's a banger! Really fun, varied gameplay with a little bit of everything -- two banks of drops with standups behind them, a pop down by the flippers, two long, satisfying spinner shots, one with a lock hole on the opposite side, 3 flippers, 2 ball multiball, a captive ball shot that you might not even notice until game 3, etc. It feels almost like a widebody there's so much going on, yet it plays faster than one.

Excellent rules, too, simple but challenging to knock down both drops, then hit all the standups behind them to qualify a roving extra ball and also jack your bonus up. Or advance E-Y-E-S with the captive ball. Or qualify the lock shot, rip the left spinner up and around, and feast on points during the 2 ball multiball.

The artwork is pretty wild, ranging from an excellent haunted castle styled playfield to a godawful cabinet, with the really strange, amateurish, but fun backglass featuring our titular monsters.

This and Game Plan's Andromeda are two of the most underrated pins ever, partly due to their rarity of course, but Game Plans can also be an absolute beast to keep running with obscure parts and knowledge needed.

A shame this Aussie-only game is so rare as it's rather fun. It's similar to Stern's Magic, created in the same month. The two games even share the same code supposedly. This game is all about the drop targets in terms of scoring, as knocking down the first sequence (of 2) lights the 2x bonus, then the next sequence of 3 drops is 3x, etc. Those two big fat spinners are sitting there wasted unfortunately! I also don't like lane guides instead of slingshots down low but they do allow for double inlanes on both sides, and there are lively slings mid playfield anyway that often send the ball ricocheting back and forth.

It's a fast, lively shooter thanks to a wide open lower half of the playfield. It's fun to concentrate on the drops since they're reachable from both flippers, it's just a shame the spinners are secondary as you can really rip 'em thanks to the clear sightlines and extra wide lanes. Those spinners will send you back up to the five rollovers, but you can't change lights via flippers so you have to hope for a bit of luck when trying to light all five.

The artwork seems to be going for some sort of mythological goddess with vague hippy elements. The red, yellow, and blue playfield is loud and not ideal, but not terrible.

About the only good thing I can say about this rare game is the artwork is pretty good, otherwise it's a mess and one of the worst SS pinballs from the US. The playfield is just clunky with a mini-flipper dead smack in the upper middle killing the middle of the table. The game's big gimmick, "going uptown," sees you trying to whack two balls across a plexi ramp into a series of standups with a different mini-flipper, and it's about as fun and skillful as hitting an elevator button.

The game steals some sounds from Space Shuttle and High Speed and probably others I'm not remembering -- yeah, why space sounds in a game that's themed around old time gangsters? But also why a tiny upper playfield with a pop in the corner? Just to make things even more miserable, there's a large flipper gap and both outlanes are extra wide.

Just a long series of really curious decisions.

Baseball makes for a nice pinball theme but unfortunately this is a bit of a stinker. There's really nothing baseball about it other than the beautiful backglass -- you're not scoring runs, advancing runners, hitting home runs, or anything that you might have seen in previous baseball-themed pins. The sounds are also generic mid-'80s digital and don't fit the theme at all. The game shoots OK, there's a nice spinner that rips well, and I like how the mini-flippers essentially protect the outlanes as long as you have the patience to not flip when the ball is careening side to side. Rules are very basic.

An early solid state (early enough that there was an EM version as well) and you can tell by the lack of sounds going on. I could swear those Coleco handheld games of the same time period had more sounds in them than this pinball. It's not the greatest shooter either. Wide open with a lot of top-to-bottom motion is nice, but the upper left is utterly pointless -- shoot the ball there and will rattle around and come back. Nothing happens there, ever.

Rules are basic and so is the artwork. Almost definitely the worst System 1. The maligned Dragon of the same year at least has a spinner and some vari-targets and just more do to. Charlie's Angels has two banks of drops and some roll over lanes, the end. Would be a lot more fun if the left side wasn't a waste. It all seems quickly put together.

Solid "pinballer's pinball game." By which I mean it isn't flashy, isn't particularly unique or noteworthy, and weirdly despite being a popular game (7300 made, though 4400 for Europe), few people seem to talk about it or even own it these days. The theme is cards which is probably the most used theme in pinball's history, but I've always found it to be a perfect setting. The backglass paints a lively scene of casino gambling, but the playfield art is simple and dull.

But we're here for the play and rules, and that's where Big Deal works. Two sets of approachable drops and an important lane back up to the rollovers, with a horseshoe tucked up in the upper right that awards an extra ball when qualified. The rules are perfectly understandable after one read of the instruction card, which is never a bad thing. Like a lot of the '70s EM card themed games it isn't glitzy, but it's really solid and playable.

Startup company Astro's first and only game, although based in Elk Grove, I'd have to imagine there was a pinball veteran or two involved? Targeted at the home market, although it does have coin slots and coin drop tracking. They seemed to have modeled it after mid-'70s Bally EMs -- a spinner lane, a saucer up top, a lane for playfield multiplying -- standard stuff for the time. The flipper gap seems larger than average. Decent enough shooter but you've played it before elsewhere, and better. Artwork (especially the cabinet) is very plain. Based on the barely remembered TV show of the same name.

Very similar layout to 1965's Bank-A-Ball and Flipper Pool, but this version (and its clones Spot Pool and Bank Shot) add kickout saucers where the old ones had more standups, plus 3" flippers over 2s. Other than that it's a nice game but really standard across the board in theme, layout, rules, etc. I love billiard themes, partly because they fit so well with pinball and partly because the rules are usually self-evident (collect all the balls) and it's the same here. This (as Bank Shot) is the famous game Roger Sharpe called his shot on, which led to pinball being de-classified as a gambling game in New York.

Very similar layout to 1965's Bank-A-Ball and Flipper Pool, but this version (and its clones Sure Shot and Bank Shot) add kickout saucers where the old ones had more standups, plus 3" flippers over 2s. Other than that it's a nice game but really standard across the board in theme, layout, rules, etc. I love billiard themes, partly because they fit so well with pinball and partly because the rules are usually self-evident (collect all the balls) and it's the same here. This (as Bank Shot) is the famous game Roger Sharpe called his shot on, which led to pinball being de-classified as a gambling game in New York.

Very similar layout to 1965's Bank-A-Ball and Flipper Pool, but this version (and its clones Sure Shot and Spot Pool) add kickout saucers where the old ones had more standups, plus 3" flippers over 2s. Other than that it's a nice game but really standard across the board in theme, layout, rules, etc. I love billiard themes, partly because they fit so well with pinball and partly because the rules are usually self-evident (collect all the balls) and it's the same here. This is the famous game Roger Sharpe called his shot on, which led to pinball being de-classified as a gambling game in New York.

This is a dual review for Astro/Star Trek (1971). Both are add-a-ball versions of 4 Square (1971). Astro and Star Trek share the same playfield art including saying Star Trek right in the middle, it's just the backglasses that are different. Yeah, a bit confusing. The game has no relation to the TV show but I'm sure Gottlieb didn't choose that name by accident. Although, it's only the Italian export that's called Star Trek officially.

Anyway, it's a solid if standard shooter for the time. Very simple rules, spell S-T-A-R-T-R-E-K basically, and that plus the two extra star targets light the two Wow targets for bonus points. Extra balls awarded at 20K and 40K or 30/50 depending how the game is set up. Hits a nice sweet spot in difficulty, hardly impossible to get all 10 key lights lit, but you're not going to do it every game.

This is a dual review for Astro/Star Trek (1971). Both are add-a-ball versions of 4 Square (1971). Astro and Star Trek share the same playfield art including saying Star Trek right in the middle, it's just the backglasses that are different. Yeah, a bit confusing. The game has no relation to the TV show but I'm sure Gottlieb didn't choose that name by accident. Although, it's only the Italian export that's called Star Trek officially.

Anyway, it's a solid if standard shooter for the time. Very simple rules, spell S-T-A-R-T-R-E-K basically, and that plus the two extra star targets light the two Wow targets for bonus points. Extra balls awarded at 20K and 40K or 30/50 depending how the game is set up. Hits a nice sweet spot in difficulty, hardly impossible to get all 10 key lights lit, but you're not going to do it every game.

No game I've owned has risen further from zero to hero than this one. Usually they go the other way. When I first got it I was less than impressed by the game play. Right from the uneventful opening plunge (though it's very similar to Twilight Zone's and no one complains about that), GnR is a bit chaotic, confusing, and hyperactive, like a toddler after a few too many juice boxes. Multiballs are everywhere, the lights and music are blaring, the flippers seem unresponsive. I can see why it wouldn't immediately impress after a few on location plays.

As usual, Jersey Jack pins need more tweaking than Sterns. Turn up the flipper power in settings but keep the hold power lower so the coils don't get overheated after a game or two and start to fade. Those aftermarket flipper fans might go a long way as well, but I haven't gotten them yet. I also raised the lower flipper angles a bit and now the flippers feel much more responsive and powerful. As well, once I learned the rules (to a degree, anyway, I'm never an ace on rules) and the game's angles and caroms, what was constant multiball mayhem isn't any more, what was confusing is now a lot more obvious, and boy, this game is fun. Wait until you see some of those mini-wizard modes, like the War Games-themed "Shall We Play a Game?" mode. That one had me smiling all night the first time I got there.

GnR leans very heavily into its rock 'n roll theme with close to two dozen songs and lots of video clips, really great skull-and-roses artwork that fits the band, and all sorts of instrument and concert based playfield items, like a shot that travels down drumsticks, or another shot where balls travel up a guitar neck and get locked in the head, or a mock stage area with swirling spotlights. As a lover of rock pins, I couldn't ask for more in that department.

It's not a pinball so never mind my rating, I matched it up as well as possible with the categories but obviously a lot of them don't apply here, I just wanted to get a few words in on this neat old game. This is a novelty bowling game, and a rather clever and stunning looking one at that. The left knob turns your bowler either left or right, and the goal is to try and line his right arm up with the head pin and throw a strike. The right knob fires the ball forward, and the pins are on cords and I believe they make some sort of contact with a metal plate below them, so when the contact is broken the machine knows to score those pins. At least that's my guess on how it works, I've never owned one but played the one at Silverball Museum a bunch.

It made by Williams so there's a lot of pinball parts involved from the cabinet, backglass and scoring reels, and the bowling ball looks to be a standard sized pinball. I need to dig out my old Arcade Treasures book and see what they've said about this and if they explained how it works. Love those old EM arcade machines, so much ingenuity involved in the design, but again, this isn't a pinball and shouldn't be compared to others.

Probably the king of the mechanicals (pure mechanicals, bagetelles, whatever you want to call them), but I've played maybe 15 of them at most, so I'm not an expert. But this is just gorgeous, clever, and fun. A strong plunge circles the playfield and comes out back on top, and from there there's the usual "land in this slot for X points," but World's Fair Jigsaw has a second method of scoring that depending on where your ball landed in that row, it will also turn over 1 to 5 jigsaw pieces in that row. Can you uncover all 5 rows in 10 balls? Challenging but hardly impossible, making it fun to keep at it. Beautiful style with an Art Deco cabinet and legs, and Industrial styled elements on the playfield.

Note: This rating isn't entirely accurate because of mandatory categories that don't apply to this game, like Lighting and Backglass. I also rate games compared to others in their era. It makes no sense to compare an unpowered mechanical game to a 21st century pin full of lights and glitz.

Played a few times and while I don't speak Spanish, the game is on the simpler side so I think I pretty much figured it out. Hit the top 1-2-3 rollovers in any order to light all four outer pops to 100 and the middle one to 1000. Big points there as the ball can stay in that cluster of pops for a while, but the bonus is on a timer as that "tiempo" flower spins and presumably counts down. The other goal is front and center -- the three standups. Hit those in order 1-2-3 and light "bola extra" on the outlanes. There's also inserts that advance on the playfield, but I'm not sure why. They don't add points at ball over, so I have no idea what they're for. Maybe you have to fill all four columns before something happens?

The playfield art is basic but the backglass is an eye popper with bikini cheesecake on the left and a trio of grungy hippies on the right. Must have something to do with the Spanish TV show this pin was based on.

Really fits the definition of mediocre in every way. Which is to say, nothing about Pioneer/Spirit of '76/New York is bad, but there's nothing particularly noteworthy about them, either. It's a decent shooter with two banks of drops, something of a skill shot with the C target only being available up top, and no slings anywhere. The no slings part makes this a particularly slow game unless the pitch is made steeper than standard, as there's a lot of slow doinks and dribbles off posts every which way. But this also makes this game a little more predictable, along with more controllable given both flippers have in-lanes, which was far from a guarantee in the EM era.

Playfield and cabinet art is also just fine, nothing more, but I do like the backglass, which looks even nicer if you put some flashers under the rocket ship exhaust.

A simple game with basic goals (plunge over a bonus multiplier and knock down the 5-bank, pretty much), but an open playfield makes it fun to shoot with a lot of long shots and fast up/down movement. The aforementioned drops can be swept two, three, or even four at a time from the top left flipper, which is always fun. Really could have used a spinner or something else to shoot for, like a better way to get back up to the important rollover lanes. You can get back there via a long upper right shot through a gate back to the shooter lane, it just would have been nice to have a quicker way there.

The art is comic booky '70s sci-fi, maybe a little generic in that style. You can't go wrong with electric horses. Color scheme is loud, primarily red and yellow.

Star-Jet has to be considered one of the major releases in pinball's history. The first game to feature a 3-ball multiball as well as possibly also the first to have a multiball system where balls are locked and released upon hitting a certain target, but I'm not sure on that last one. Beyond the innovation, Star-Jet is a good player and an even better looker, with wonderfully charming and stylish space age art. Some of its ideas were certainly taken from The Jetsons, the new ABC cartoon of the previous year, but the design also fits in the Googie and Space Age styles that were popular at the time and have become highly collectable in the years since. A very hard game to find for location play or purchase, unfortunately.

Theme wise, it's not really for me. I read the black and white comics in the '80s as a teen, but was too old for the cartoon when it came out, which is what this is based on. And it does have really nice art from Zombie Yeti, although with less humor and weirdness than his usual, almost certainly by design as this is a kid-friendly license.

It's a fast shooter that's all about the combos, a lot of fun to pull these off but not easy unless your reflexes are on point that day. The three ramp shots are both the strength and weakness of this game -- they're fun shots, but it's the majority of what this game has to offer shot-wise; ramp ramp ramp ramp. The other shots are orbits, standup bars, one scoop/lock up top to start modes, and a fun behind-the-flipper shot ala Stern Star Trek. There's just not enough variety in shots for my taste, you spend most of your time on the ramps.

Rules are decent and straightforward. Easy to start a multiball, which I never mind since it gives you a goal right off the bat. Different characters enable different perks and skill shots, also a nice touch.

An okay game, but the similarity of shots and lack of things to do in the lower half brings it down for me.

I've always wanted to own this oddball since it's difficult to find to play out in the wild, and I did for a year or two. It's one of the strangest, most creative pinballs ever made, featuring a 3D playfield of hills and valleys, and motorized spinning bumpers that fling the ball away when it gets near them. The theremin-like electronic whistles, digitized voice, and 3D backboard bring it to the next level of weird. There's really nothing else like Orbitor 1 out there in pinball history, and it's not even close.

But is it fun to play? Well, depends on what you're looking for. A few games in a pinball museum are certainly well worth it, just to see what this is all about. But having had it at home for a good while, it doesn't get flipped on very often. The rules are on the shallow side, which is not as detrimental compared to how random Orbitor plays. You can kind of aim the ball, but those hills and valleys are going to pull you off your target. It feels like throwing darts after 10 beers. Traditional flipper skills aren't very useful, but Orbitor has its own tricks to learn, like raising the flippers when the ball is circling behind them, giving it a chance to come back through. You can also bat the ball backward in hopes of bringing it up around the outside of the flippers, but that one is tricky to pull off.

Also as an owner, I really suggest other owners/operators give this game a very flat pitch. This may go against your traditional pinball instincts as sometimes there won't be enough speed for the ball to come back to the flippers from the top, but this is what the spinning bumpers are for. The ball should orbit (ah!) those bumpers often, and then get spun out by them. If the ball is constantly speeding past those bumpers, it's missing the main point of the game. Also, too tall a pitch and the ball will spend too much time behind the flippers, and it's going to be drain city back there.

Clever scoring carries a lot of the weight on what is otherwise a dull table. First, the theme. Royal palace guards? Oh boy, how, uh, exciting. That drab theme is matched with similarly unexciting playfield art -- ugly colors with a whole lot of yellow and a bland brick building that takes up too much space. Art Stenholm has done far better.

The game is also a drain monster and doesn't offer the player much chance to shoot (and no chance to trap), but makes up for that by handing out extra balls like bubblegum in Palace Guard, the add-a-ball version of this game. The snap targets are the playfield's best feature, complete them all in their left position for an extra ball and corresponding bonuses, same when they're "snapped" to the right.

Even for a Zaccaria game this seems extra stoned. The day-glo candy colors on this leap off the playfield and can probably be seen from down the street. Very creative cabinet for '83. Speaking of 1983, I'm not sure why a hippyish theme at that late date, but you could do worse. It's a theme like Gottlieb would've had in the early '70s, but, again, more stoned.

The layout is weird, but of course it's weird, it's a Zac. 6 flippers, 4 pops, and 17 drops! Upper playfield! It's mostly about hitting those drops until you can lower the ramp, then getting the 6 drops on the upper playfield, then the special up there. Not the smoothest shooter, but there is a ton to shoot for both far and near. I like it, but a bit too clunky to love.

Has to be the smoothest shooter ever made. The ramps seem like they're made of ice. Except for the Warp ramp, the other two appear to have a lower profile than your average pinball ramp, so almost anything you send at 'em is going up and around. It's a great idea I wish more tables used. The layout is fine otherwise, but it's stuff you've seen before. The center drop target to scoring (and kick-back) area under the ship is AFM-like, the shot behind the upper flipper is a neat idea (something Stern would re-use for TMNT about 6 years later), and I like both the saucer and spinner shot on the left. It's a great shooting game, hands down.

And while shots are the most important thing, the praise runs out there. The light show is pretty good yet seems stuck in the past compared to WoZ of the same year, the art in all three areas (playfield, cabinet, backglass) is bland and cookie-cutter, and the call outs are weak considering how much they had to work with. The rules are fine, but a bit on the simple side. Play five games of this in a row, and four of them will feel alike.

It's a game that does one thing really well, and thankfully it's the most important thing. Beyond that, though, it's lacking.

Consider this review as incomplete as I need more plays on this to get a better feel. I'm so used to my Quartette (1952 Gottlieb) that also has a set of flippers on each side, but those work in a way that feels more natural or I'm just plain used to by now, which is left button flips both L/R on the left pair, right button for right pair. Rocky has left button flips left flippers on both pairs, right button for right flippers. So I'm usually just flailing away at Rocky, can't get my brain to undo what it knows from Quartette, and it plays like a clunky mess. And it's not like I have a lot of opportunities to play this anyway, being something of a rare game by this point. But even when I do get locked in for a bit, I just don't like Rocky's layout. That alleyway leading to the center drain is just unnecessary, and it honestly feels like one of the sparsest widebodies I've ever played.

The art is what you'd expect, you can't go crazy with any of these big media properties. The Rocky pinball machine that a drunk and bitter Paulie throws a pint of J&B into during that great opening Rocky III scene is not the same as this one, although it's in an arcade with many real world pins and video games, and situated between Paragon and Playboy!

Gorgeous mid-century space race art, looks like it could've come from '57 as easily as '67. Bold, bright colors, square-jawed astronauts, and drawings of all the planets in our solar system (minus Pluto, disrespected even then!) when we knew a little less of what they looked like.

It's a clever and deep game for the time as well, with rules that have you advancing through the planets as you achieve goals in the game, with the corresponding planet lighting up in the backglass. Main problem is it's pretty hard to make this happen. The top half has a whirling "spinning bumper" which bats the ball around into those mushroom bumpers, but only hitting the lit ones award you a letter in the R-O-C-K-E-T series and you need a whole series to light just one planet. However, to help you achieve your goals it's another Ted Zale zipper flipper game, and on top of that the game features a left outlane kickback and right outlane gate back to the shooter, both which are triggered after certain conditions are met. There's a lot going on here in a game from its era.

This review applies to both Blue Note (Gottlieb 1978) and Rock Star (same), the Italy export version. Identical layout with slightly different artwork, just the logo, I believe.

My least favorite component in all of pinball might be standup targets surrounded very closely by posts, and this game has eight of them! So, yeah, off to a rough start here. The standup between posts is usually such an unsatisfying shot. Often it's hard to know if you even got the target or the post, if you're off by a hair the ball is going to go careening around, and there's just no satisfying physical feeling when hitting the target, unlike drop targets or spinners. Did I mention there's eight of them here? Not fun to shoot at.

But, Blue Note/Rock Star makes up for this clunkiness my eliminating the left outlane entirely, and putting a pair of spinners in easy to reach locations just in case you'd like to have some fun while playing. Assigning Do, Re, Me, (etc.) to each target is clever, and the art is fun if kind of generic. Rules are straight forward but hard to accomplish -- get all the Do Re Mes so you can light the WOW saucer, land in there for extra balls. Not a terrible game, just mediocre.

This review applies to both Blue Note (Gottlieb 1978) and Rock Star (same), the Italy export version. Identical layout with slightly different artwork, just the logo, I believe.

My least favorite component in all of pinball might be standup targets surrounded very closely by posts, and this game has eight of them! So, yeah, off to a rough start here. The standup between posts is usually such an unsatisfying shot. Often it's hard to know if you even got the target or the post, if you're off by a hair the ball is going to go careening around, and there's just no satisfying physical feeling when hitting the target, unlike drop targets or spinners. Did I mention there's eight of them here? Not fun to shoot at.

But, Blue Note/Rock Star makes up for this clunkiness my eliminating the left outlane entirely, and putting a pair of spinners in easy to reach locations just in case you'd like to have some fun while playing. Assigning Do, Re, Me, (etc.) to each target is clever, and the art is fun if kind of generic. Rules are straight forward but hard to accomplish -- get all the Do Re Mes so you can light the WOW saucer, land in there for extra balls. Not a terrible game, just mediocre.

It's pretty bad yet a lot of fun (in short doses), if that makes any sense. Ugly and shallow, but I still have a good time playing it. Launch the ball up there and watch the pops bat it up and down and around. The circus music and balloon popping sound effects are catchy. Gottlieb were kings of weird in the '80s. Reminds me of other System 80 rarity oddball, Goin' Nuts, but not as deep or clever.

Interesting artwork that plays the whole thing polite and serene, something your granny would happily hang on the wall, except for the lower corner of the backglass featuring a food-stealing hobo! It's so out of place, but very amusing. Elegant bow-front lockdown bar, love those.

Gameplay is fine, but I didn't find a compelling hook in my plays. The roto-target is key but very dangerous being front and center, so it's a much better time to go up the sides and let it bang around the pops. I do like how rollover lanes light the bumpers (for 10 per hit) below them, or a higher scoring 100 point center rollover. I find all woodrails fascinating and enjoyable, but this one is pretty basic all around.

Wonderful artwork, especially the playfield, which presents one large scene of Peter Pan lying on rocks on the shore. The backglass features some rather funky, brightly colored and busily patterned palm trees, which look a lot like the very stylized trees Dr. Seuss would later be known for.

The gameplay and rules are quality as well. This game (like some others of the time) allowed you to put an extra coin in for added bonuses, in this case it affords you the chance of a match (and a replay if you match) after every ball. The game is a bit replay-happy, really, as there are multiple ways to score them, like landing all five of your balls in the center gobblehole, or even a method to score 200 replays! Are you allowed to take the machine home at that point?

Otherwise it's a pretty standard woodrail player, you'll be watching more than you're flipping, but I really like the idea of placing a key shot, the 500K kickout that also spots you a rollover, above the larger gobblehole. A tricky shot you have to angle in.

Psychedelia of the groovy, flower power variety rather than the LSD-influenced version like seen on Dimension, Strange World, and some other trippy games of the time. This is the Italian version of Gottlieb's Crescendo (1970) and Groovy (also 1970). All three games have identical playfields and playfield art, but the art on the backglass is slightly different on all three, changing the "camera angle" of the scene and adding a little extra where needed.

Gameplay wise it's not a terrible shooter, but it needs strong flippers to be fun. If the flippers on the machine you're playing can barely get the ball up past the drop targets, you're gonna have a miserable time. Love the useful bottom bumpers protecting the outlanes, but the flipper gap here seems larger than average to make up for that and make the operator some money.

Another pin typical of the late '60s/early '70s era: generic, simple design with decent artwork.

Well, someone has to love this game. No idea why it has lower ratings than other widebodies from the era when PP has a great layout with a lot to do and a three flipper setup that feels useful rather than tacked on. The playfield art is very nice, various locations in a castle painted spooky shades of dark blue with the cartoon Pink Panther here and there. The backglass is more of the same, except oddly featuring some blonde lady in a pink jumpsuit. Good/standard sounds for the era, except it plays the Pink Panther theme song now and then, which sounds great and gets me smiling.

But really where this shines is in the layout and gameplay. A well-placed bottom pop on the left outlane that is helpful. Two "secret entrance" type shots that open up once you qualify their neighboring drop targets, and capture for potential multiball. Plus an alternate scoring system of diamonds, which are awarded both during single and multiball, and increase the multiplier.

It's not super deep but it is fast thanks to an open lower third that allows for a lot of both vertical and horizontal motion. Just a fun player with some good early chiptunes.

Wonderful art by Stenholm, particularly the backglass, possibly his best ever. Rich colors and character and humor. The game itself isn't too shabby, either. Six flippers(!), albeit the 2 inchers, so there's a lot of whacking and not too much aiming going on. Although you can cradle the ball with the upper four, maybe even the bottom two if you get a lucky bounce, but there's still not much to aim for. The upper two go back above the rollovers, the middle two either put it back into the pops or hit a standup target, the lower two you want to aim for the A-B-C bonuses. The rules are simple and don't provide for much strategy. A mediocre game in a mediocre year for pinball.

A clone of Playboy (Bally 1979) in every way except in the extra ball lane, Playboy uses a star rollover while Oba Oba uses a standard rollover switch. And that's the only difference I can find besides the artwork, of course. I think the sounds are the same as well. Hard to remember as I've only played this twice, but still feel justified in rating it since it's the same game as Playboy.

Beautiful artwork and a unique design make this rarity a nice one to display, but it's not the greatest player. Reason is, with the flippers on either side of the playfield, you're going to be doing a lot of watching rather than flipping. And a lot of nudging, as this is key to get the ball out of the triple bumper drain area, and that area is where the ball always goes before long. Once you get the feel for how it plays it does open up and develop a "one more try" feeling, but it's just not a very compelling shooter.

The replay version of 1968's Cue-T, also sharing a lot of playfield similarities (the bottom half) with 1966's 8-Ball, this is a great playing, fresh looking game from one of pinball's rougher years of 1969. I personally love the lower pop bumper design as seen on here, the previously mentioned games, 1972's Spanish Eyes, and others. It really demands the player changes up their strategy and practices a lot of patience as the ball can and often will work its way out of a drain with the right nudge (or lack of one!) at the right time. The main scoring goal here, the extra ball, it achievable but on the harder side, something I'll get one of every three to five games.

The art is nice. Elegant. It's not Christian Marche's first "pointy people" game, but among his earlier games in that style.

A cult classic among experienced collectors and players and for good reason, it's a fun, fast shooter at the tail end of the EM era that plays and has rules more like a solid state. You like spinners in your pinball machines? Of course you do. So how about two of them right next to each other, with a horseshoe behind them?! Oh yeah. Makes this game one to own based on that alone. The rest of the playfield is decent, especially the upper left. There's a lot of room to shoot there and helps give Mars Trek its top to bottom speed. The third flipper is pretty useless, which is a shame, but I usually forget it's there anyway.

The backglass is freaky cool, and the playfield art toned down a bit, but some really nice color bands. Cabinet art is a treat as well. A great value for collectors, and you really need to give it a spin if you see it on location.

Early solid state widebodies are one of my favorite types, and Mars God of War demonstrates why: There's so much to do! Two banks of drops, a ramp that you can either travel under or catch it when it's down and ride through a clear tube Xenon style, some saucers, some standups, and four pops and four flippers. The extra flippers really add something as you'll notice when you play a lot. At first Mars seems like a pretty wicked drainer, but ah, use those top flippers to steer the descending ball into safer spots, not to mention they can hit most of the shots in the game. So many choices.

The theme is enjoyably puzzling (Romans in space? Okayyy) and the playfield art is functional, decent. The backglass isn't very exciting with the power off, but that's because it's an infinity glass setup, so you don't want to hide the lights and mirror effect behind a large drawing. Cabinet art is so-so as well. Art is the one area this game is lacking, instead of making it memorable it looks like they kind of made it quickly.

Strong game all around, a good shooter with quite a bit to do and a lot of ways to do it. In space. With Romans.

Fitting that the second to last Gottlieb was one of their worst. Bland art and clunky gameplay drag this one down. The center horseshoe and standup are very important for scoring and progressing, and it's never a very good use of the entire table when so much needs to happen front and center, nevermind how big of a drain monster it is. And those damn spinning cars! It's a pretty neat gizmo, but they're constantly in the way of your shots up the sides. There's nothing fun about that. The skill shot is also rough as you're bumping a captive ball, and it's really hard to get a finesse on that.

Because the game is a clunky, drain happy shooter, there's a lot of save type mechs from an up-post between the flippers, an outlane kickback, and generous ball save rules, but they feel like a bandaid on top of an open wound.

Let's not even talk about the art, suffice it to say it rarely got more bland in pinball history. The playfield falls under the "fine, functional" category, but the backglass is ugly.

I like most pinball tables and I don't care for this one. It's not as bad as some of those sparse early '70s EMs, but for the SS era, it's underwhelming across the board.

Top flight game in every single way from the theme, to the art, to the gameplay, to the rules.

On the art side, Roy Parker turns in another beauty in a long career full of them, this time mixing magic and mysticism, swamis and lucky rabbits, with a good bit of raciness. The art is an attention grabber, and a bit out there for 1954. Maybe one of his ten best efforts.

The gameplay and rules are simple but challenging. Two evil gobbleholes dead center, with the big bonus standup right behind them. Hittable, but tricky. Very interesting flipper area as well -- instead of the usual outlanes galore, this only has one smallish center drain and upward-facing slingshots that can keep the ball in play a long time. People could get good value for their money on this back in the day, which is perhaps why it was one of Gottlieb's "Double Award" games -- pay twice on one credit for double the reward points.

We also have a 5-light indicator in the apron area, indicating which ball you have in play. I'm not sure if this was a first here, but I haven't seen it around very often.

Owned it for two years before I traded it, and if I said I had a love/hate relationship to the game the whole time, that would be a little overly dramatic. Like/dislike is more like it. It's a tough shooter, but unlike other modern tough guys like Houdini and Alice Cooper, it's not tight shots that makes R&M difficult, it's the bottom third and keeping the ball in play. It's just one of those pins I just could never get the angles down smoothly, even 500 plays later. Generally there's a long drop from where you will be missing shots around the scoop, horseshoe, and ramps, and you have to make your decision quickly which way you're nudging when that ball starts falling back down. The lower pop is a beast at first, but you'll learn quickly that you need to keep the left flipper extended to deal with that.

The difficulty is also what makes R&M fun, though. It has a hardcore "one more time!" vibe, helped out by the fact a lot of games are going to be under 5 minutes. "If only I did <this> last game," hit start, repeat. Climbing that hill. Feels great when you have a good game unlike a lot of modern pins that take a half hour nearly every play.

Like/dislike is also the same way I feel about the show. Liked some episodes, found some irritating. But regardless, the A/V is really well done in this game. Very funny callouts, great modes, a lot of attitude in an era where there's a lot of safe, family friendly media properties. As usual, Spooky has some of the best lights and sound in the business.

Ultimately I decided to trade my R&M because a good trade popped up, but also because there's just not that much to do after a lot of plays. The garage teleportation gimmick is genius, but honestly a lot of the shots in the game aren't very satisfying, and there really aren't that many shots to begin with. The game needs to be leveled to perfection to hit a lot of the shots, and even when you do, eh. A good game, not a great one.

(I'm repeating my review for the Pro model here as they're very similar. The premium does have better lights, a USS Enterprise ship on one side, the left side saucer kicks to a wireform-to-inlane instead of down to the flippers, and some random moon rocks. It really doesn't play differently, and the cosmetic upgrade is pretty minor as well.)

Has to be the smoothest shooter ever made. The ramps seem like they're made of ice. Except for the Warp ramp, the other two appear to have a lower profile than your average pinball ramp, so almost anything you send at 'em is going up and around. It's a great idea I wish more tables used. The layout is fine otherwise, but it's stuff you've seen before. The center drop target to scoring (and kick-back) area under the ship is AFM-like, the shot behind the upper flipper is a neat idea (something Stern would re-use for TMNT about 6 years later), and I like both the saucer and spinner shot on the left. It's a great shooting game, hands down.

And while shots are the most important thing, the praise runs out there. The light show is pretty good yet seems stuck in the past compared to WoZ of the same year, the art in all three areas (playfield, cabinet, backglass) is bland and cookie-cutter, and the call outs are weak considering how much they had to work with. The rules are fine, but a bit on the simple side. Play five games of this in a row, and four of them will feel alike.

It's a game that does one thing really well, and thankfully it's the most important thing. Beyond that, though, it's lacking.

Presumably inspired by Jack Kirby's cosmic comic book art (he was having a bit of a renaissance in the mid-'70s), Magnotron and its 2-player brother Duotron, is a bit of a smelly fish wrapped in beautiful paper. The backglass is stunning, and so are the plastics. The playfield art is nice, but more plain and functional.

Alas, the good things to say about this game run out there. The center captive ball horseshoe and saucer are really hard to hit, and are big time drain monsters being front and center like they are. Even worse, they take up enough area in the middle that it really reduces the flow of the machine, cutting down your angles for getting the ball back up top. But even when you do get it back up top, not much happens. There are a pair of kickbacks on either side, but landing in those is luck. It's also pure luck to bounce around enough to get your ball back over a top rollover. Just not a very fun shooter.

Very peculiar game that's really half pinball, half bowler (alright, 3/4ths bowler). The main problem is there isn't much to look at, from the playfield layout to the playfield art, or lack there of. Most of the time your ball is hidden under the upper level, doing something, and that's not very exciting once the novelty wears off. Amazing backglass. A lot of hit and miss here. Creative, unique idea that's not very fun to play after a short while.

It's a very stylish game -- a mix of light, dark, and aqua blues with checkerboard patterns, and I always love playing card themes, unfortunately the lower half of the playfield is practically blank. It's a fun playing, easy to understand game with one crippling flaw: It hands out extra balls like a broken gumball machine. If you fill in the spade suit of cards, you light the center drain "Wow" for an extra ball. But if you light the heart suit, hardly impossible to do, the "Wow" target straight ahead hands out an extra ball every time you hit it. I had already played about 10 balls and had 10 more waiting when I walked away. What a shame. Maybe this can be set to only hand out one EB per ball?

What a funky, junky little oddity. With art that seems to have been lifted off the cover of some random '80s German heavy metal record, and a playfield layout that goes every which way including places you never see, this under the radar weirdo sure is unique, and I like unique. Actually has a fast, lively flow, four flippers, and one of those XL-sized saucers in the playfield like Gottlieb's previous Mario Bros. game. Speaking of video games, this was originally supposed to be based on the Legend of Zelda, and then on the Gladiators TV show, but both those deals fell through and they ended up basing it on, um, heavy metal album covers, I guess. One of a kind.

Clever scoring carries a lot of the weight on what is otherwise a dull table. First, the theme. Royal palace guards? Oh boy, how, uh, exciting. That drab theme is matched with similarly unexciting playfield art -- ugly colors with a whole lot of yellow and a bland brick building that takes up too much space. Art Stenholm has done far better.

The game is also a drain monster and doesn't offer the player much chance to shoot (and no chance to trap), but makes up for that by handing out extra balls like bubblegum. There are five different ways to get extra balls, and the backglass lists up to 10 balls remaining. The snap targets are the playfield's best feature, complete them all in their left position for an extra ball and corresponding bonuses, same when they're "snapped" to the right.

Given there were over 5000 made I'm not sure why this is so rare these days, but regardless, this sexy and silly pin is pretty middle of the road for the era. A big, bold widebody with hippy-fantasy cheesecake art and a beautiful glittery cabinet, unfortunately the playfield isn't nearly as interesting. A couple sets of drops, one spinner, rollovers -- a very standard layout, spiced up a little by the fact the drops and rollovers are linked by colors. Complete one color, increase your multiplier. Love the early digital sounds, that mock panther roar gets me smilin'.

A tough one to find since it only saw 1000 units and was probably nobody's favorite growing up, so examples have just fallen by the wayside over the years. I really didn't like this at first, but on a re-visit about a year later found some elements to enjoy.

The theme is a head scratcher (tiger taming? who thought that was a seller?) and the art is bland, doing the table no favors. It shares playfields with 1971's Orbit and '72's Outer Space, both far better looking.

The layout is sparse and it features one of my least favorite elements ever, a vari-target. I avoid the thing and shoot around it. However, at least we have a spinner on the other side, but it's placed at a real odd angle at almost straight down instead of lined up with the flipper, not allowing you to get good fast rips but instead clunky ones. There's a shot to get back to the shooter lane, always welcome. Rules are pretty standard for the time. Underwhelming, but okay. Probably forgotten for a reason.

Interesting game modeled off American football, particularly in that there's two different scores here -- the usual pinball scoring plus a separate column of football points, scored in 3 point field goal (the center spinner) and 6 point touchdown (advancing 100 yards in the game) increments. You can get replays by getting a high enough score in either category. With four stacked bottom flippers and two vari-targets, it's a faster, more chaotic game; not one for the traditional trap & aim strategy. It's unique and decently entertaining, but probably has a limited range of appeal.

A rather ugly thing, especially compared to the beautiful pitch & bats of the '50s and '60s. No style at all, just very basic and green. Plays pretty well, though. The pitcher has three different pitches, and in single player mode these will be randomized. Keeps you on your toes, and you can devise a strategy for each pitch. Kind of easy to get home runs off the dead center ramp, but usually only on fast balls. I'd probably pick two dozen other pitch & bats for the home instead of this one, but again, it plays well enough.

Had a good opportunity (read: local and relatively cheap) to buy this game, watched a bunch of Youtube playthroughs and decided to go for it understanding it's beautiful but flawed and unfinished. With only 25 made it was an opportunity to get something really unique in the collection for a decent price. In a small collection this game could be unsatisfying, in a large one it's more of a conversation piece.

The flaw is the layout, but there are good parts to it was well. The two side ramps are long and steep, they need solid shots to make it around but when you do the ball will come back screaming. A lot of fun. The drop targets on the right give you a path back to the shooter lane when knocked down - a great idea. The center horseshoe is also fun when it works, but now we start getting into the flaws in that horseshoe doesn't work more than half the time. Your ball will start out fine at one end, but not cross over to the other half of the horseshoe and dribble down to the pops. Or will just fly offline in some direction. Or make it though but seemingly not register that it did. The shot needed more fine tuning.

The other main playfield problem is a scoop front and center surrounded by posts. Loosen the nuts above the posts a bit and at least the shot will be more forgiving rather than a drain maker, but it's never fun when a scoop/target/whatever is front and center anyway. And since this scoop starts modes and awards mysteries (which are very random from nothing to tons of points or extra balls), you have to use this scoop a lot.

The artwork is excellent throughout the playfield, translite, and cabinet; a top notch bit of neon psychedelic horror by Donnie. It looks something like a modern version of some of the spacier moments from Zap Comix. An eye catcher for sure.

Finally, both the rules and the A/V elements are unfinished, adding more problems to this beautiful but flawed game. Often it's hard to know what to shoot for or even what mode you're in because there are rarely callouts for it, nor are there LCD screen indicators. You have to look at the mode inserts to see what's blinking. What's there in the A/V is good, there's just so little of it. The story goes that the rules and A/V just got cut off at some point as Suncoast ran out of money in a hurry while producing this machine. Nowadays most pins from every maker are released with a more basic code and beefed up through post-release updates, but Cosmic Carnival never got to that point.

As a fan of the previous two Elvira pins and old cheezy horror movies (I've seen every movie in this game multiple times), I was there front and center at an EHOH launch party shortly after it came out. Highlight of my month. And... well, I didn't hate it, but boy was I disappointed. Such a bland, basic shooter. So much standing around watching Elvira talk. Bareboned rules. What a bummer.

But the code kept improving, and in a dark, quiet location (ie. not a bar!) I finally saw how beautiful the house and tombstone mechs were, the fantastic eerie lighting on them, and how lights on them would also indicate gameplay conditions. I could also finally hear and see callouts to past Elvira (and other) pins, and it all started to come together what a great package it is in total. Very much like Batman '66, another game that was basic out of the box with underbaked code that just kept improving. And like BM66, Elvira still is a plain shooter, but fun is fun, every pin can't have (or shouldn't have) all the twists and turns and odd angles of an Elwin or Lawlor game. Atmosphere is a major thing on modern pins with RGB lights, video clips, and the like, and EHOH has a fun, cheezy-creepy atmosphere in spades.

A fine fitting tribute to one of the greatest TV shows of all time with plenty of clips, music, humor and perfect artwork. Hands down one of the most fun atmospheres in modern pinball and just a gorgeous package.

As a shooter, it's fine. Kind of bland and simple -- two ramps, the 'ol Stern orbit, a really mushy and unsatisfying turntable shot, a scoop -- meh. But sometimes you want to boost your confidence, y'know? Any decent player is probably playing 20-40 (or more) minute games on this all the time, and this is by far BM66's biggest fault and why I eventually sold mine despite being head over heels in love with the atmosphere, any game that shoots that easy just won't get turned on very often after a while, and that's what was happening with mine. I miss it and yet I'm sure after two lengthy plays I'd be ready to slap a price tag on it again.

Nice freshman effort American Pinball. It's refreshing to see someone make a tough game in an era where most lean toward the easier side of things. Sure, some shots on here will frustrate you to no end, plenty of people will mention the inner loop as one of the tougher shots in pinball, and the 2x/Lock shot may be a little wider, but there's a better chance of SDTM when you brick it. All depends on where you play it. I can see disliking it in an arcade where you're paying per play or a convention where people are waiting behind you, but at home it shines when you can wrestle with it all night. When you're dialed in on shots here, you feel like you're accomplishing something.

I love the theme, early 20th century magic and death defying feats, including some clips from Houdini's movies. The ethereal giggles when the ball hits the slingshots gives the game a creepy feeling, and the different modes are all based on Houdini routines, such as the Indian Needle trick. The game also has a great sense of humor between the darkness and morbidity of some of Houdini's tricks, and there's one video sequence that takes a funny, playful swipe at a number of modern and recent pinballs. Overall the feel is kind of like halfway between Theatre of Magic and Ripley's Believe It or Not.

Tough, funny, and quite unique, Houdini is perfect if you want some variation in your collection. On location, yeah, probably not.

Amazing theme and theme integration. Probably in the top-5 as far as those go. The idea of combining a classic monster movie with a light hearted '50s drive-in theme in general is pinball perfection, just the kind of atmosphere than can make pinball so much fun in the first place.

It shoots well enough too, but it's one of the most cluttered looking games ever made. Really, a twisting spaghetti of plastic ramps in every direction, blocking the sightlines of at least half the shots. And woe is you if those ramps are dirty as those hard to find shots can get downright obscure.

Then when you get down to the rules they're rather simple and there's a lot of rinse & repeat. I don't mind that it's only a two ball multiball considering you can restart it by hitting the Snackbar scoop. Lighting F-I-L-M is fun enough, but there's not much more to do.

What looks like should have been a home run hits the wall for a double.

This one was (and still is to some degree) all over the Northeast USA growing up, and I assume it's prominent in most areas where hockey is popular. Really fits the definition of "solid but unspectacular." Two banks of drop targets which are accessible from all four flippers, a kick out hole up top, two lanes of rollovers, and a post that comes up between the flippers, kind of representing the hockey powerplay. Standard '70s Bally stuff. Top flippers are nice to mix things up but are limited as it's tough to get the orbits from them. Love the little tune it plays on the chimes.

Simple layout and scoring with some amazing old time artwork. Big bank of drop targets at the top, wicked outlanes -- usual EM stuff -- spiced up a bit with two top flippers that are useful. Nothing amazing but very decent, a little better than the average for the time.

It plays well, and at the end of the day that's what's most important, but I think it has one of the uglier playfields in modern pinball. It looks like the haphazard collages I used to scotch tape on my bedroom walls in the early '80s by cutting up copies of Creem and Circus magazines. And in several spots there's raised, 2D rectangles of drawings of fire, and one of them is a cannon, I think? What the hell are those?! They're some of the ugliest things I've ever seen under a pinball glass.

But it is a beast of a machine -- loud, fast, forceful. The shaker is strong and frequent, the bell chime will send a shiver down your spine, and the bassy, loud rock takes this to a different level than most other machines. Lots of multiballs, the lower playfield is a nice diversion even if very basic, and the cannon is fun to shoot but a bit of a pain otherwise as it really obscures your view of the right lanes.

AC/DC was an experience the first time I played it right after it came out (Lanes & Games in Cambridge, RIP), and I'll always chuck some quarters in it every time I see it. It's the perfect barroom pin. The band themselves play great drinking music (even if the demon hooch killed one of them), and this machine is just loud and rowdy, like a barfly who had a few too many.

It was, and still is to this day in late 2019, the most beautiful pinball ever made in my opinion. The wide body with the ever-swirling candy-colored LEDs, and the spinning house up on a platform above the bright RAINBOW targets (among many other features) looks like a fantasy world under glass, like you're in an art museum looking at an exhibit.

As far as how WOZ plays, though, is another matter. Some days I love it and other days less so. There's a nice variety of shots from easy to difficult, two raised playfields that aren't hard to get to but difficult to complete (well, the castle, anyway), and the two different outlane ball save features are nothing short of brilliant ideas. The rule set is also nicely simple on the surface yet very deep underneath, appealing to both novices and veterans. But some days WOZ can be a lot of floating, it can feel like you're watching as much as you're playing, and this is a heavy, finicky machine that is often set up incorrectly or just malfunctioning in public. Its hulking weight (350 lbs.) also makes it a bit difficult to nudge. First few times I played it in public right after it came out, at two different locations, the flippers were weak and the table pitch was too flat, leading to some boring, confusing games. But set up in home or at a location where they take pride in their pins, WOZ is unlike anything else out there. It's really a work of art, but like all JJPs, it needs tweaking and a quiet environment to bring out its best.

F-14 puts on quite a show, especially if you have a chance to play a refurbished one with LEDs. Quite possibly both the fastest and loudest machine out there, it gets points just for that. Completing some modes will get everyone's attention in the arcade or wake up everyone in your house. On the downside, the theme is mediocre (no love for Top Gun here), there isn't much variation in shots, and a lot of what makes F-14 neat is watching the balls get shuttled around the wireforms. It's a solid, unique machine, but there are dozens from the era I'd rather own, if given the choice.

Top notch early solid state gameplay on speed, with some of the nicest overall design I've seen. The powder blue playfield, reproductions of mid-'60s Beatles posters and pennants and other memorabilia, twinkling white and more powder blue lights, the spinning record, Cousin Brucie with the old time radio-styled call outs, girls screaming; it's a cohesive and gorgeous design from inside and out. They nailed the look and feeling of British Invasion-era rock 'n roll fandom to a tee.

Now, the band/theme and the play style, either they're your cup of tea or not. Yes, it's Seawitch, but a slightly modified Seawitch to make the top loop a bit easier to hit, plus jacked up flippers (this game is fast), a big rotating disc dead center to throw you off, bonus targets behind the drop targets, and a clear and relatively simple rule set, anything more than that would've bogged this table down. A long, complex game like LOTR or The Hobbit is like smoking a bong and listening to Led Zeppelin for the next 4 hours, but The Beatles is supposed to be like putting a nickel in the jukebox, dancing up a sweat for three minutes, then going back to your cherry coke at the counter.