Mesa, AZ
86'-- High Speed and Pinbot--both still great today!
(Topic ID: 85169)
Pyongyang
1981 is my favorite year for pinball. I put them in order of my favorite from each manufacturer.
Bally:
Centaur
Fathom
Medusa
Spectrum
Vector
Embryon
Elektra
Williams:
Black Knight
Barracora
Gottlieb:
Spirit
Haunted House
Black Hole
Stern:
Iron Maiden
Viper
A couple of these may be late '80 or early '82.
Quoted from PopBumperPete:The 40-50yo will pick late 70's early 80's as that is what wr played when we were kids
43 here, and although I started on the late 70's early 80's, it's impossible to top the early 90's.
Can't we lump this in to 3 or 4 year clusters? It's super hard for me to decide between '79 &'81. Likewise for the entire period of about '92-'95. That said, I voted for '81, with '79 a very close second and '93 a very close third.
Also mentions not in the poll-
1963- The year they made Big Daddy
1972- Fireball released. A revolutionary machine that features multiball, kickback, skill shot, and a spinning disk.
1980- Black Knight. The first solid state machine that I actually enjoyed.
1989- BK2K. The legend continued...
1991- T-2, Gilligans Island. The DMD era was born.
Abbotsford, BC
Might make more sense for the poll to be structured by era rather than year (sans flipperless):
Woodrail 50's
Score Reel 60's, post woodrail
Late EM, mostly 3-inch flipper, Early 70's
Early SS, Late 70's into Early 80's
Alphanumeric Late 80's
DMD Early 90's
Current era (LED/Color Display era?)
Quoted from Max_Badazz:1992....Addams Family comes out and brings a whole new group to play
but since this is not an option, I will go with 1993
IJ is a great game (why I am trading mine is beyond me?)
My taf was built in 1993
I Can't single it down to 1 Year .. 92 to 95 .... 2010 w/ Iron Man , 2012 w/ AC/DC & Tron ..
2014 is lOOk-n gOod 2 !!
Quoted from nocreditdot:1981
Barracora
Black Hole
Centaur
Eight Ball Deluxe
Elektra
Embryon
Fathom
Flash Gordon
Iron Maiden
Mars God of War
Medusa
Plus I would add the Stern titles from 1980 81
Seawitch (1980)
Cheetah (1980)
Quicksilver (1980)
Star Gazer (1980)
Flight 2000 (1980)
Nine Ball (1980)
Lightning (1981)
Catacomb (1981)
I'm also in this camp.
1993 followed closely by 1981 for me.
Also 1997 and 2013 no slouches I just like a larger quantity of games in the previously stated year groupings.
IJ and Centaur
1 week later
I appreciate the votes, and more importantly... the comments.
As suggested by some, I am going to re-run this challenge by era.
Pinside allows for voting of up to 9 categories. I am going to choose the strongest years in each era. It won't be perfect for everybody, but it should appease 98% of us.
If you think any year within each group has a better replacement year, make your case in the next 24 hours for it, otherwise, I'll start a poll on a Friday, and let all 4 groups run for a week, then we can have the final run off of 4 best-years the following week.
I need the most help with EM, since I don't know EM pins *at all*, an I am basing these based on reviewing the top-100 EM list on Pinside.
==============
em
==============
1965
1966
1967
-
1971
1973
1974
-
1975
1976
1977
==============
early solid state
==============
1978
1979
1980
-
1981
1982
1986
-
1987
1988
1990
===============
dmd
===============
1991
1992
1993
-
1994
1995
1996
-
1997
1998
1999
==============
modern
==============
2003
2007
2008
-
2010
2011
2012
-
2013
2014
2015
==============
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