I personally rate pins in the four general categories of okay, good, very good, and great (with room inside each category). I haven’t yet played a pin that isn’t at least “okay.”

No its the fact that to me it belongs in the top 10 and u think its shit that makes the ratings useless. SW is an amazing game.

My old calculator added up what people wasting time rating games “1” need instead of pinball:

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SW is very, very good. I think "amazing" might be a bit over the top though. It definitely has some room for improvement in some areas. I don't even mind it being in the Top 10 or Top 20. But #2 is ridiculous, and it's only rated that high because of 27 raters for the Comic Premium version. Doesn't seem correct that those 27 outway the hundreds of other much-lower ratings for the other versions of the game.

Since when did Sternwars hit #2? Looks like bunch of newbs bought one during lockdown and gave it 10s. There is no where near an overall positive consensus on that pin.

I never heard of the guy, so I took a look. I don’t think I can rely on his ratings, since MM (consensus #1 pin of all time) is #465 on his list, behind at least 100 EM machines that are IMO unplayable, because who would play an EM if a SS, even a bad SS, was available?

TOM (#1 rated game on IPDB) is #769 on his list, behind Baby Pac-Man and Granny and the Gators, and I assume at least a couple of gumball machines with flippers.

He downgrades both MM and TOM because of “scoring imbalance”. Not sure why that would knock a game down 400-700 spots, but hey, balanced scoring must mean a lot to c2s. His comments seem to be directed at tournament players, which I am not.

I’m looking for fun, not balanced scoring, so MM and TOM are in a perpetual battle for the #1 spot on my list.

Thunderbirds deserves to be exactly where it is. I think the ratings system should be based on an aggregate ranked choice system. It's hard to game that depending on how it is done.

Let's all say it together: Read the actual reviews and ignore the numerical ratings. Even if you disagree with the reviewer's rating, you do know more about that machine and whether you might like it or not than any numerical rating will tell you. Everybody has different tastes and just because you see something rated high doesn't mean yer gonna like it. Read the reviews and see what people like or don't and decide if you like the same stuff too!

Like anything else where there's a top 10 or whatever, it's all about bragging rights.

Uncle Pinball

Finally put my pants on to go get a hamburger and fries...

You were right dammit...

Sweet, now I can say I own the second best pinball machine in the world and I didn't even have to shake up the collection to acquire it!

I'm a fan of Stern SW, obviously, but agree it's a little surprising to see it ranked #2, especially given the mixed reception it gets around here. Maybe all the old Pinside dogs have quit reviewing games after reading one too many of these threads bitching about the Top 100!

This is a long-standing issue on any internet site allowing 'the masses' a vote. So the best sites report/feature the avg. reviews from approved critics and then they show the 'user avg score' separately.

I have rated just a few games as a 10. I only do so if it is EXTREMELY fun and I just can't envision how it could be better. I have no issues with a "10" rating.

A "1" rating on the other hand...i just can't imagine. I think all pinball is fun (some are obviously much more so than others), but I couldn't even imagine rating that low on even some of my least favorite games.

Please don't burst my cozy pinball bubble.

If I find out that the top-100 has been manipulated -- in any way shape or form -- I'm going to f***ing lose my pinball mind.

-mof

I think Robin should rework the ratings to only two options: 1) better than Thunderbirds or 2) A pile of crap that belongs with the Thunderbirds turd

After that we could all agree that the rating is impossible to get fair/good and we could all ignore it.

Ratings for any item/service are widely subjective (I work for a real estate agent review platform)
What you’re looking for in any review should not be the score as such but a combination of the following:
*Does some comment in the review resonate with you? Points about style of game etc
* Buying advice, what to look for
* A gimmick or something that stands out about the game
* Potential add ons/mods
I have only rated 30 odd games but I’ve owned all of them and feel I need extensive play to determine what to say in my review.
I also try to be consistent, reviewing all games in a similar manner to make them easy to follow
I have edited many ratings after further play to avoid what may be considered reviewing in a honeymoon phase of ownership
No rating system is perfect, we all just need to read what is there and determine whether a review has value to you and if not, move on

Part of the problem is the combining of Pro/Premium scores. Some machines (like Star Wars) are much better/worse between the two versions. It's unfair to give Star Wars Pro a great rating just because Star Wars Premium is good. And it's unfair to give Star Wars Premium a bad rating just because Star Wars Pro is not.

I think if the machine plays differently (not just has powder-coating and a topper) then it should be rated separately.

SW is a good game yes amazing no it's not even Sterns best

Part of the reason many of us value Caucasian2Step reviews is he has rated almost 900 games. He has not just given them a number but also written a detailed review of each using a consistent format. These are games he has actually played and not just repeating the popular opinion of the hour. Many of us enjoy reading his reviews and use them to seek out games we might not have played otherwise. I don't think it is fair to discount these just because you disagree or because you aren't a tournament player. I don't always agree with him but I respect this thoughtful opinions.

It is very difficult to compare modern SS games to EMs and pinside actually has different top lists for each. Many of the criteria used to rate modern games (animations, sound) aren't even applicable to EMs. So I don't think you should discount a reviewer because several EM games are rated higher than solid states.

If you look at his MM review his major complaint about the game is that the main scoring strategy is just to hit the castle repeatedly. This is a legitimate criticism which even the games programmer has acknowledged. He still gives it a 7.53 which is lower than average for that game but I don't feel that constitutes the type of extreme rating that others are complaining about.

For years felt Jpop games were wildly inflated on here. They have always been known for their poor code. Pretty, nice layouts, terrible code. Can dig through comments on RGP from back to when they were released. Yet they get highly rated

Now, one thing I wonder is if the old b/w games keep getting new code how long it would take for their ratings to reflect this. Mystery Castle had an updated version of the code rediscovered and it took a good 6-8 years for people to catch on.

How would this work in a rating system? If your scale is 1-10 but nothing on the scale can be a one then you really have a 2-10 scale. What is the purpose of a one in such a system?

Setting an objective criteria is impossible for some things (art). Other things it’s impractical to measure (flow) because there is no clear definition.

Bottom line is defining a criteria is hard and bad actors will usually find a way to game the system if there is any incentive to do so.

Uh.... I would? I have an EM in my collection, along with some of the top modern games. Guess what? I play my EM as much as my other games. Sometimes you don't want to play a 5-20 minute game. That is also why I have brutal short SS games as well (e.g. Paragon).

That, and... pinball is fun. Having different flavors of pinball available to you is... guess what? Fun.

And SW being a number 2 pin is a joke. The game shoots okay sure (fan layout, I think we could have laid that out ourselves at this point...) and the code is interesting... but for me every time I am tempted to buy it I think of all the times I have "had" to play the video mode 2x in a game. Even 1x is too much. I am not stepping up to a pinball to play a stupid 2 button video game for a minute or two every game.

That is good to know. I still think that is 1x too many. It is fine for a location game but not something I would want at my house I think.

I agree 100%. Thank you for writing out what I was trying to convey, lazily, in my short posts.

You have to rate games against their own era. An EM can certainly have a higher rating than a DMD or LCD game.

Rating systems like this are always flawed.

They're completely subjective and they depend on voluntary ratings, so you're only getting a small, skewed data sample.

I remember back in the 1990s some cinema magazine did a poll and "The Shawshank Redemption" was rated #1.

Because... it had come out a year or two earlier and it was a popular movie. You think it would still top the list today? Is it really THAT good? The BEST movie ever?

ALSO, most of the ratings are going to be from people who only played the game a few times. Sometimes you have to play a pinball game for a while before you "get it."

I bought an TAF for myself and a CV for my wife. That's what we both wanted. Now she camps out on the TAF and the CV is my "go to" pin.

But when we first got them, I hated CV so much that I was literally disgusted with it, I thought it was a flat waste of money.

She did not like the TAF because she had never seen the movie and didn't get all humor and nuance of it.

The point is, a pin rating by someone who played a game 3 times isn't much of a rating.

ALSO, some of the best pins are so rare that very few people really know them.

For example, I have a Bally Atlantis that everyone LOVES. It's a just an old-school smash the ball around game, it plays with a VERY satisfying, zippy flow. A real fast-playing game. And it has great non-PC artwork from the days when the USA was a fun place. But it's a simplistic 80s pin so it's ignored in the ratings.

Pinballs with a lot of fancy features get better ratings than pins that are fun to play.

AND, it's pretty obvious that some people are rating their pins really high in an effort to make their collection seem more valuable. If someone gave Bally Atlantis all "10s" and says, "It's the BEST PINBALL EVER EVER EVER", is that an honest rating? Probably not.

Moral of the story: take it all with a grain of salt, it is what it is.

The thing is, the Pro version of SW is also still a good game. I've never played the Premium, but I really enjoyed my Pro. But I do agree that combining the different versions of a game into one slot on the Top 100 can create problems. But separating them out, also creates different problems. It's tricky.

The ratings system would be more accurate if they had one for Stern games and one for everything else. Stern has too much of the market for these ratings to be even remotely close to accurate.

I think it's fine for somebody to think that Star Wars is the best or second game ever. It's all subjective just like music. Nobody really cares who says which songs are the best ever. You listen to what you like.

However, what I don't like is that people are being dishonest. If a person uses the Pinside system as is, there is no way many people are being honest. I don't care how much you like Star Wars, there is no way you can say that it has the best or second best toys and gimmicks, cabinet art, playfield art, backlgass art and/or theme integration and give these categories a perfect 6 out of 6. If you think so then you are either lying or have incredibly bad taste.

It's irrelevant.

You're talking about nuances for a rating system that's got about the same level of accuracy as an applause meter at a spring break wet t-shirt contest.

If I play SW at some pin convention for a few minutes, my rating counts the same as someone who owns it and plays it every day.

Plus, the ratings are mostly being done by COLLECTORS. There might be some brand new pin that's 10x as fun to play as "Monster Mash", but the collectors will never rate the games to reflect that fact.

The ratings are a crude tool at best.

I would use the ratings only for predicting what would be a good "collector" purchase if I was a newbie.

SW is just at the #2 spot right now for the same reason most *any* new Stern pin ends up in the top 5 shortly after release... There are a very low number of ratings on the newer released comic art edition, which gives new raters/owners the bullhorn for a minute. Having 4-5 editions of every game these days helps muddy the waters further. This is probably obvious to most seasoned pinsiders, but this will quickly even out just like with any other title. The more reviews, the more sticky the rating.

Absol-fucking-lutely

My pinball goes to eleven.

You've obviously never played Thunderturds

It is to me. That's all that matters. People think WOZ is amazing and I can't stand it. This just goes even further as to why the ratings stink and have no real purpose. Well outside of sellers loving to post how their game for sale is rated #3 or whatever on pinside, or how it makes pinsiders feel about the games they own, in others words crap. Who is this Steren u speak of?

What are you guys saying? My rating of CSI 3 years ago is wrong?

The problem is that nearly all of the movie clips are sized really small, and only take up a quarter of the screen. They've got a nice-sized screen in the backbox, but then Stern barely uses any of it for movie-clips. This is because of the mode-stacking decision that Dwight made. Since you've got to be able to show multiple mode's clips at the same time, he made them small enough to fit on the screen simultaneously. It makes it harder to enjoy the scenes being played, and it really contrasts with some of the final battle modes, or duel mode, where the full screen is used.

This sucks, since I find it a lot more immersive to play with mode-stacking off, but I still have to have the tiny-sized movie clips. So for me, that would be a knock on display and animations, a slight knock on rules/code, and a small knock on theme integration.

I don't think you could ever say there was a best movie but if you did "The Shawshank Redemption" would be in the running

I have. But because I love pinball, it's still not a 1. Better than no pinball at all...

One thing that I'd really like to see added is a way to see the ratings a reviewer gave to each aspect of a game, as well as a top 100 for the different aspects such as music or artwork. I like how the rating system requires you to rate reach aspect individually, but I feel like it's a bit of a waste that the feature isn't used for more than just creating your overall rating.

If people can’t even give Thunderbirds a 1 then why bother with a ten point scale?

Is 1 supposed to be “no pinball”? That makes no sense with a scale. That’s a zero

#getaway-high-speed-ii
Nascar
Both have a wireform the ball rides on as it’s propelled around the playfield.