I played it @ pinball hof. It's just plain ok imo and i loved the X-files.

I kind of liked it and I am a Scully,I mean X-files fan.

To quote a friend of mine. He once played this game and a bulb came loose. He said he had more fun trying to knock the bulb around on the pf then the game itself.

FWIW, the Mullet Crew over at PBReviews.com give it a 2.5 out of 10.

They list the game's designer as: "hopefully unemployed".

http://www.pinballreviews.com/u-zrev.htm

I played it at TPF. Really nice flowing pin. Feels like a poor mans TOM with the inner loop, bash cabinet, trap door and magnet. Nice ramps too. Ugly as sin, though. Dont know about the rules or longevity. If you are into the theme I would think this would be worth owning.

It's actually not as bad as some say. A bit limited and much too easy to get multiball but it was more entertaining than some higher rated pins IMO.

Thought it was boring. It does have great flow though since there isn't much to stop the ball.

Hey, It's a Pinball machine so you gotta love it anyway

We have an Xfiles at the clubhouse, and it gets quite a bit of play. The game needs to be clean and working to have any fun though. When we got the machine there were a lot of small problems that really prevented the game from being fun. Get everything fixed and it's an entirely different game. Also re-rubber with white rubber and red flipper rubbers. Set the filing cabinet multiball to "hard". It's "extra easy" from the factory, which makes the games too easy. It does seem like a poor man's ToM. But we have a lot of fun with the game, and there's no shortage of "good games" at the club for comparison. Xfiles get played A LOT. People like it.

Probably the worst game i ever had the misfortune to play. Utterly boring with terrible playfield art.....

JW need's to add his comment on this Thread. he bought the Banker's X-Files.. He's Loving it..
Everyone has their Own Game !!

I have the chance to buy one that needs minor repairs for $1300.

Since I have never played it, and it is currenly folded in a storage locker and might not be close to a power receptacle I made the seller a casual offer of $1000.00 He was utterly insulted.

His ad indicated it needed about $200 in parts so I figured I'd fix it and probably sell it in a month for $1400. This way I have a little project, get a chance to play it for a few weeks, etc.

This guy is standing firm on his price and I don't think I'd bump out anything in the collection permanently for it so I had to pass.

What does this title realistically sell for?

I have an X-files. I am a big fan of the show so that helps, but the gameplay is great too. If you like orbit shots with "flow" then you'd like this game. If you buy one be sure to check the wear in front of the file cabinet.

I was a big fan of the show back when this came out. I'm not trying to be rude to anyone that likes it because we all have different tastes; but I'd put this top 5 worst/uglyiest/forgettable game I;ve ever played.

I'm a total noob at this. The X-Files is the ONLY pin I've played in many years, and that's because it was at a retailer. I'm a huge X-Files fan, however my knowledge of pin's is pretty much non-existant. The retailer was charging $3,400 for it, and as much as I wanted this pin for sentimental reasons alone, I just knew better that to purchase it, thanks to all of you awesome pinsiders.

Oklahoma City!!! I know that's still kind of a drive from me, but not really too bad at all actually. Mind if I hit you up for some pinball knowedge? Broken Arrow (Tulsa area) Oklahoma here.

Sorry about the noob question, B_R, but... What's the difference between a "Banker's" X-Files, and a regular X-Files?

I'm a proud x-files owner. It was my first pin, and I'd keep it more than my ST: TNG. Like planters said, check that the playfield update has been properly done!

http://www.sternpinball.com/downloads/sb105.pdf

On mine, the metal plate had been installed slightly below where it should have. No big deal. However, they did not bother to fill the playfield and over time, the magnet actually pulled the steel down and wore it through! I was able to have a distributer source the steel plate from Stern (thanks Chas!), the roms still needed to be updated, so I got those through pinballroms.com ,and the clear plastic magnet shield from pinball life.

As been implied before, to get a good sense of this one, it needs to be clean and the features all working. If you want to make it harder to get multi-ball, choose Scully at the beginning. You will need to hit the cabinet more times than Mulder. Hey, it's his cabinet, he should be able to get into pretty easy.

I really enjoy the challenges of hitting the shots in the modes. The orbits can be wicked fast, and the game does enjoy accurate shots.

As for price, I rescued mine in dirty condition in a dirty garage for about $1100. Probably spent about $400 in parts easy. Picked up new right ramp, picked up extra flukeworm, picked up signed alien baby by Robert Hurtado!, New pinballs, some LED's, had to have a couple of transistors replaced on the power driver board. In general, when someone you don't have a trusted relationship tells you it needs $X dollars in parts, I'd double that

I think, as with all pinballs, if you can play it first and get a good sense of it, do it.

If you become an X-files owner, there are a few of us on the board that will be more than happy to help you get the most of out it.

Oh, one more on the magnet. It is so cool to hang one or two balls off it during multi-ball. At the same time, it makes it much harder to get back into that cabinet! It can also throw the balls out at crazy trajectories, kind of like the Recognizer spinner in Tron. When I finally got that feature working, the game felt complete!

Oh, I also did the stereo mod. http://www.pinballnews.com/learn/speaker/index.html

if you want to do that, I'll let you know my material list from mouser, as there are one or two confusing parts on the pinball news list.

Whatever pinball knowlege I have I'm happy to share. Just send me a pm anytime.

Shawn

BTW, it seems like one of the x-files I played was in the American Amusements auction area. They were asking $2000 IIRC. Maybe you could pick it up at the next auction if it didn't sell at TPF.

The Banker is a person, no difference in the machine. He seems to only buy clean machines though. He is now a member here as well.

Thanks for the intro BR, he's correct. Bought my XF from the Banker.

I put Cointaker's 555 Premium Warm White Super's underneath the playfield, it looks sharp and all
the inserts look bright and really pop with each individual color.

The XF's is a pin that people either love or hate. Being a super-fan of the show I love the pin. For those that say the pin is "ugly" I'm of the opinion "what do you expect?" The show was always a very dark show, alot of the characters from the show aren't warm and cuddly comic book color vibrant in nature. Every piece of art on the pin ties directly back into the show. If you don't know what something is on the pin you should ask someone that knows the show.

The show, and the pin weren't created to have a brilliant color pallet in mind, so I'm really left shaking my head when people say the pin is "ugly". If they had created this pin differently I doubt it would have stayed true to the show. Looking at the playfield, it has a dominant blue color, the inserts look great and during multiball when you hit a jackpot the pin really explodes with color. Want fireworks? Go to 4th of july celebration.

The XF's pin doesn't drop her panties and give up the points just because you started a game. It's a pin that makes you work for the higher tier point scoring. Hitting the ramps takes precision flipper skills, which might be the reason some people find it boring. Can't hit the ramps, you're gonna have a crappy experience in playing this pin.

Having the pin setup with the right settings based on your skill level as a player will greatly
enhance your having fun/not having fun with this pin. Having multiball set on extra easy you don't even have to work for getting it, it will happen as soon as you start a game. Having it set for hard or extra hard is best for those wanting a challenge.

Hitting the right ramp will open up the trap door, hitting the trap door opens an "xfile" which will display on the dmd, each xfile when completed will score certain bonus points. Several of the xfiles, when done correctly can give you more time in completing it which rewards can be massive if you constantly hit each ramp needed to keep the timer from running out.

The multiball jackpots can be huge when done correctly. Hit the left ramp 2X, then the right ramp once, then hit the file cabinet straight ahead for the super jackpot, and you can continue to do this if you hit the ramps in this sequence, and continue doing this without the timer running out. The more you hit the ramps and get confirmed jackpots it delays the timer from ending.

Going through the upper gates that spell out E B E will give the player multiplied bonuses, and hitting the pop bumpers a certain amount of times will enable the 20K scoring for every bumper hit.

For a person to say this game is "boring" I definitely know there's no way you mastered this pin and played through every xfile through the trap door. If you have done this, post a pic of your score and I'll believe you.

The one thing I found from playing is that if you have the pin set at factory settings you will always open xfiles through the trap door in the same sequence every single time you play. This for me got repetitive, so I learned how to change the game settings where the xfiles that open through the trap door are in a random sequence. This is great because going with the factory settings you might not open some of the xfiles before the game is over, so if you're always getting stuck seeing the same one's over and over it helps keep your interest in the game because you're going to get random xfiles to play through.

The one xfile that is your goal to get to is the episode "blood". This one is different from all the rest because it's one that requires you to rapid fire balls off the flippers into the file cabinet, there is a time limit. Once Blood is complete the pin goes into a brief period where it stops, pin resets and you continue playing, adding to your total score. You will not get to the blood xfile until you have completed ALL the xfiles, blood being the final xfile.

To say you've completed the Blood xfile, that's an accomplishment. If you're still saying that XF is boring, you either haven't completed everything there is to do within the game, or maybe you're one of the top players in the pinball world and it was no challenge for you at all.

I haven't completed ALL the xfiles to get to Blood in one session. I went through the game with the glass off, manually placing the ball through each xfile to see what the end game was and what it looked like, viewing the dmd through each episode.

SO...that's my thoughts. I think it's a great pin, very undervalued and very underplayed pin by a huge majority of players. Don't judge the book by the cover, which I think people do with this particular pin.

Have fun out there!

The looks are what they are. You might have to shake you head a lot as this pin came up more than a few times on the "uglyist playfield thread" awhile ago But your love and excitement for it have given me the itch to play it again, and I will this week.
I heard on of the big problems with the looks or whatever was Chris Carter is a total tool to work with and had to have his fingers in every aspect of design.

I don't have any scores to post as I stopped playing it like 14 years ago or whenever it came out.

I picked a XF from pinsider mattmain about 2 weeks ago it was filthy(first pin I didn't even play before tearing apart) I've been plugin away at shopping it out should be done by the end of the week and cant wait to play it. Thanks JWS for the detailed write up of the game I think I'm gonna love it! after all I love my Stargate and plenty of people here seem to hate it. glenn do you have a picture of the metal plate and do you believe it is needed mine looks pretty good and doesn't have this done. It was a routed game and survived. I wonder if it is necessary on a home game.

I can attest to the Banker's taste in pins. He doesn't buy garbage. The pins in his collection
are super clean and alot of them are close to mint condition.

The playfield on my XF was 100% mint,no imperfections. It is flawless.
The cabinet had some minor issues, but nothing to keep me from buying it. Nothing really bad like huge dents or missing chunks out of the wood.

The thing about Chris Carter is that during the time leading up to the first XFiles movie being released the show was the cool show to watch at the time. It was getting alot of press and the internet buzz was huge over the series. Making money for Fox didn't hurt matters either.

Carter was so hands on involved with the show I doubt he could not be involved with the creation and development of a pinball machine that was going to be around for a long time after the series was over.

I'm a sci-fi geek, so for me it's pretty cool to have it in my house, in my movie room with my other XF collectibles. It just screams XFILES bitches!!!

The one thing about the pin that's the biggest pain in the arse is replacing bulbs underneath the ramps. Getting to the bulbs in the pop bumpers is something I haven't done yet. Right now I have 2 out of 3 lights out. One weekend I've got to take the left ramp off and get those replaced. The entire top of the playfield is filled with the ramps, and getting to other bulbs in this area requires taking those ramps off. Same goes for lower part of playfield where you have left side and right side red targets. To get to those bulbs, remove ramps. I was able to do this by partially removing screws to lower portions of the ramps, removing plastics covering the target lights, lifting up on the ramps and removing/installing new bulbs. It was probably as difficult doing it this way than removing the entire ramps, removing plastics, replacing bulbs. My upper playfield needs a good cleaning, so that's gotta happen sometime in the future.

Well we can agree to disagree. I only know what I was told. Maybe he's good at time managment, as he had melinnium on the air when this was made.

As for the lights, are Sega's light different than other pins? You can't just unscrew them from the bottom of the playfield and replace them? Or are they all elevated? Yeah that's no fun having to remove all that just for some bulbs

From looking at the Pics that's a very nice lineup Clay.

JW you Say a mouth full.. I Like the Phrase in Yr 1st post, " She won't drop her Panties to give up the Point's " Well said !!

SS, I'll grab a couple a pictures of the metal plate. Tough to say on a lightly routed to home use on whether or not it needs the plate. At the minimum, make sure you are running the latest rom, which tweaked the magnet power down a bit and keep that part of the playfield well waxed. Watch for signs of wear, if you start to see signs of wear, then I'd put the metal shield on.

Getting to the lights are hit and miss, there are a lot you can do from under the playfield, and you can stand the playfield completely up and rest it on back glass. However, there are some bulbs that you can only get to by doing some plastic and plastic + ramp removal.

Glenn

That review's been long overdue. At one point, and I know within the last year the XF was in the top 200 pins on pinside. During the first year I've been on here it was hovering in the 195-200 range on the list. New additions to the bottom of the list have knocked it out and off the list.

It's what I call one of the Rodney Dangerfield pins, "it get's no respect".

Just got one and I do enjoy it. Mine was leded with color on the x and other places to liven up the PF. I did crank up the difficulty on multiball but it is easy to get. The game over all is enjoyable and to me is much a poor mans TOM. Has many of the same shots with a different theme. The sound is good. I think it gets way to little respect.