Taxi
Pinbot
High Speed
I recently spent a little time on Big Guns and was thoroughly impressed with it. Top 5 for me anyways. Probably BK2k 4th and Big Guns 5th.

I agree with your top three. Amazing games

HS is my Mecca, and will never leave. WW is 2nd on that list. I'm actually sniffIng around for RG, as I played one for the first time at the Ottawa show and loved it.

Bk2k

Cyclone, without a doubt. Best single ball evar. We don't need no stinkin' multiball.
We have a winnah!

I'm picking up a cyclone AND a high speed next weekend for 1000$.

@ Blackbeard: Wha? Where the heck do you live? I want in on summa that action.

Top secret. Found an older lady wanting to sell both.

Splitting them w a buddy as I own both already.

"I'll be your Hucklebuddy..."

I've seen a few too. Gets zero love.

I'd like to snag one though.

I wonder where?
I was just telling the gf tonight how I can't stop playing BG. Taxi is giving me dirty looks lately. How long is the new pin honeymoon supposed to last anyway?

The best sys11's are the ones I can get my hands on! Personally, I've only had the pleasure to play a select few. (Small town.) Here's my list based on the ones I've actually played at some point.
Taxi
Cyclone
F-14
Big Guns
High Speed
Whirlwind
Banzai Run <-- Need more time with this one. (Lost Ark arcade in Greensboro, NC has it.)

Some I REALLY want/need to try are:
EATPM
Grand Lizard
Pin*Bot
Jokerz!
Space Station
Fire!

While looking at a Cyclone FS, gonna play a Police Force tomorrow for the first time at a friends.

I hate you....

RK sucks the big one....

I've had the pleasure of owning or playing nearly all the system 11 games....The only ones missing from my bucket list are mousin' around and bad cats.

From that experience Pin*Bot has been my favorite, followed by HS and F-14.

I like the layout, but I think the game get's too easy soon. I recommend owners to set a lot of the gameplay to 'hard'.
I own the game, and I'm programming it with P-ROC (after some hardware-adjustments with the CPU + selfmade interfaceboard and DMD installation). Why Road Kings? Because I like the theme and the layout and think it can be made a nice game.
I haven't done much programming for the game the last year, but hope to start again real soon.

Original software: nice lights, sounds and music (though quite simple, just like other early system11 games). Gameplay is nice, but too easy on standard settings.

1. High Speed
2. Cyclone
3. Taxi

Banzai Run is a bear to play. I played the one at TPF, and while it played great, maybe it was just too dark for me to see what is going on with the upper playfield. Seems kinda crazy. I'd like more time to play one, but frankly, with all the awesome stuff at TPF, even if it makes a repeat apparence I doubt I will allocate the time to play it more... =\

Pardon my ignorance, but...TPF?

Thanks,
Ryan Claytor
Elephant Eater Comics
www.ElephantEater.com

I'm assuming he means The Pinball hall of Fame, but that's the first time I've seen it abbreviated like that.

My favorites -

BR

ES

EATPM

Big Guns

Ah. Thanks Dewey.

TPF= Texas Pinball Festival

The 2013 show will be 45,000 sq ft!!!

Hands down, Banzai Run. Too sophisticated for it's own time/good. A fine tuned BR is not impossible and will play like a piano. A game that will never be duplicated, either.

Other than that one, I suppose WW but I was never crazy about it like some. It's okay, but not great imo. I think I would give the nod to TAXI over it, it's just so classic and crazy (And I'm a big Lawlor fan)

That would explain why I've never seen it abbreviated like that.

Thanks to Doot77, I finally landed a gorgeous Pinbot today. This is the one that he has been meticulously restoring for months. I can't tell you how happy I am to finally have such a nice example of this classic game in my collection. Ever since I sold my SoF, I have felt like there was a huge hole in my lineup. Now that I have another System 11 to take its place, all is right with the world again.

Taxi baby!

High Speed, Pinbot, and Swords of Fury.

Heh heh, didnt want to name any names without consent!

Here is a website dedicated to system 11 machines.
http://www.system11.org/

My favorites.
1. Diner
2. Earthshaker
3. Bad Cats
4. Taxi
5. Black Knight 2000

Got a Dr. Dude trying to get ready for the Houston Arcade Expo loaded with Pinball Life's 3-LEDs.
My Earthshaker won the Best Original pinball at the 2011 Expo.

Whirlwind, but it's mostly nostalgia for me.

I have owned Pinbot, Taxi, Whirlwind and Diner and that is the order I would rate them (best to least best, all are pretty damn good). But hopefully it's F-14 because I am picking one up soon!

Pin*Bot ... but Bad Cats a close second.

Totally agree

1. Diner
2. BR
3. Pinbot
4. Big Guns

I'm really surprised to see big guns on these lists. I thought this game wasn't that great?!

It can be a brutal drain monster. Takes skill to win consistently on Big Guns & some folks can't see that. They just think the game sucks. I was once a hater myself.
I freakin' love Big Guns now.

1-Banzai Run,
2-Whirlwind,
3-Bad Cats (more for the theme than for the game)

F-14 Tomcat does not get a lot of love here. I just purchased one and it's pure fun. It has the best light show of any 80's pin. It just makes you smile. Top 5:

F-14
Black Knight 2000
Whirlwind
High Speed
Taxi

I played F-14 and BK2K in college and love them for the Nostalgia. I have owned Grand Lizard and Pinbot and I currently own Earthshaker. I also recently played Whirlwind for the first time and it was a lot of fun. Seems like most of these games are fun to play. My Favorite is Earthshaker right now but I would love to own a nice Pinbot again with the Red/Blue LED Displays as well as a Whirlwind.

WW and HS

Pin*Bot has always been my favorite but Hi speed is a close 2nd. Best thing about system 11 pins is that it doesn't cost the shirt off your back to own one. I enjoy playing my Pin*Bot as much as my MM.

Black Knight 2000 - GIVE ME YOUR MONEY... GET READY FOR BATTLE.... STAND UP AND FIGHT!!! Epic sound track and awesome game play. Banzai Run is a Close second. That upper play field is super cool and the music is very awesome.

Banzai Run is still my #1, but Mousin' Around just came in at #2. I just played this game for the first time. What an all around fun game and awesome layout. Love it!

Whirlwind is the best by far. Great layout, awesome art, love the fan, and the rules make you play the playfield. Just a fantastic game.

Would be tough, for me, to list number 2. Lots of great sys. 11: Taxi, Banzai Run, Space Station, Transporter, Mousin Around, and Swords of Fury are all great games.

Easier for me to list ones I don't care for at all: Bad Cats, Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash, and Millionaire.

Personally, I think EaTPM and BK2K are way over rated. EaTPM is completely stop and go. Humour gets old fast. BK2K is all upper playfield. Fun to play, but wouldn't want to own it.

I may have ignored this thread the first time around but here's my rankings. I've had a lot of time repairing and owning a lot of system 11 machines over the last 15 years. I am fairly critical to the design of tables and prefer balanced scoring and difficult machines so do keep that in mind.

1. Whirlwind
I feel like it is the transitional game that connects the older system 11 machines to later killer games like Funhouse, Addams, and TZ. I concede that it is the best system 11 but it's not my personal favorite.

2. Taxi
Difficult shots. A somewhat unbalanced jackpot feature can be addressed by a hobby created ROM that can set the base jackpot value. Amazing sound track and I consider it to be the classic 80's machine that a lot of players gravitate towards, after being in the hobby for a few years.

3. Radical!
Sadly, most people don't get a chance to enjoy this game. Many of them were exported and it seems very few of them survived in the US. Reminds me of DE's Torpedo Alley, in that regard. The shots and sounds are all good and it has balanced scoring.

4. Mousin' Around
Very cool layout and sounds in this game. Center ramp shot is poorly placed but other than that, it's a hell of a lot of fun in a 4 player group.

5. Swords of Fury
In my opinion, this game has the best sounds of any System 11 game. Certainly that does not make it the best system 11 machine however, this game does have a very unique layout and no pop bumpers. Some say the multiball is too easy to start but you can make the game a lot harder by putting a big rubber in the left lock lane or putting lightning flippers on the game and/or removing the center post or, doing some or all of those things.

6. Earthshaker
Also an important step towards pins in the 90's that elaborated on a lot of the features in this game. Not my favorite game but I like a lot of the features and design elements in this game.

7. EATPM
Some great art and great sounds in this game. I've owned it more than once. Only criticism I have is that there isn't enough to do after collecting the jackpot in multi-ball. Feels like it is missing that one feature to make it a killer game. Also, stealing locks is either something you love or hate. I personally think that a game with that feature is a bad thing, not a good thing. You can address that if you play single player games but takes longer.

8. Dr. Dude
People will typically love or hate this one. I think it's good for what it does. Sounds and theme can be annoying after a while but if you can get over that, it is a great game.

9. High Speed
This game changed the industry in my humble opinion. It has so many firsts in pinball for the player but often overlooked are the firsts that it helped to make operators more money and make PINBALL overall, more reliable. Simple things that we don't appreciate now, like a ball search and auto replay percentage settings, tech alerts, and the diagnostics in the game really did change the industry for the better. Not to mention this is the first game to feature a wire-form ramp, a Ritchie design element that was used on 100 pinball machines thereafter.

10. BK2000 or Rollergames.... neither are the best but they both have some killer 80's cheese and both of them have layouts that are dramatically different than anything else made before them both in pinball history. I feel BK2000 does contain the first wizard mode in pinball and should be the true #10.

--Banzai Run: I really do think the backbox is sweet but when it comes down to strategy and competitive play, this one just falls apart for me. I watched (and waited) for a group of 3 "A players" in Pinburgh each roll the game years ago. It's a fun, unique and collectable game but I would never own one.

--Cyclone: Game has a great skill shot, fantastic sounds, and cool 80's feel but it's just a tad better than Comet to me. A game that I really can't stand.

F-14 Tomcat and Diner are both good games and I've owned them both multiple times but they just have too many damn multi-player flaws, crashes and rule exploits to place them outside of an honorable mention.

I find system 11 games are harder but more fun than WPC
The ones i own and like

Earthshaker (i play the most)
Whirlwind its a pig of a game like my BSD
Banzai run
Rollergames

The ones i would like to add

Diner
Bad cats
Blacknight 2000
Police force
F-14
Swords of fury
Mousin around
Radical
Fire
Road Kings

I agree. System 11 games are harder mainly because there are no ball saves and I like that. There are also not any idiotic 30+ million point jackpots like on WPC and many Stern games, which are just ridiculous.

Also, why the hell do newer games need ball saves turned on during multiball at all especially for like a damn minute long on some Stern games?

"Diner" is my Fav.!!

PAGG raffle pinball!!

1/ ELVIRA ATPM
2/ SWORDS OF FURY
3/ DINER