Future Spa is the one I couldn't wait to sell. It played slower than a 60s EM. Oh, and everything was rebuilt and working perfectly with a nice playfield.

don't know why popeye gets so much hate. lots of depth, item mb. williams widebody. upper pf. i haven't gotten enough time on it yet to love/hate it though. i can't get into

harley davidson (stern). the gameplay, the theme...nothing did it for me there.

Perfect topic for me to vent, and shoot down a whole group of machines that are a slap in the face to the very roots of pinball! I will not even play a machine where ther is no plunger, and the ball is released randomly by pushing a button or pulling a trigger! Before the advent of flippers, the launch shot was the most important part of the entire process! I think it's just sacreligious to remove that aspect of the game!

I wish I had been around when you sold it. Would've been worth the drive for me.

I get why the hate exists on the game between the play and the theme, but I like it. It's nice to have some polar opposites.

Fish Tales, Really? I always felt that FT showed all the right ways an unlicensed theme can be good.

Takes way to long, but the modes are pretty fun and the captive ball scene is damn near impossible. It's no TZ, but it's not a bottom of the barrel game. Well - it's all subjective I guess.

However. Moderised versions of "the skill plunge" like T2, CV and RBION is saved by the introduction of ball saver. Which is great the way I see it, because the shorter plunger lane is freeing up playfield space atop for other goodies of the game.

IJ4, TFLE, HD2 & 3, Hurricane, GI, Road Kings, Avaturd

I also greatly dislike Fish Tales, and I like the theme.

space jam, jurassic park 2 (sega)

Man, I wish I had tastes like that. It sure would make this hobby a lot less expensive. Ha-ha!

Ryan Claytor
Elephant Eater Comics
www.ElephantEater.com

Yup Here's why

Theme sucks
Playfield layout sucks
Rules suck
Music sucks
Topper sucks

Not a fan of shit tales. But that's just me. For other people that are hunters/fishermen, I can see it being very humerous and appealing. But that goes with every game out there. There isn't a universal game that everyone is going to hate and/or love. Hell, even Dan likes SF2. And I think that's one of the worst games on the planet (DMD wise). I think there are even people out there, who actually like Xfiles and ID4 as well. (Still hasn't come forward).

Also, How dare you greg, for including TFLE in that list I have a good mind to add Wh20 to my list now.

And popeye isn't that bad of a game. Yes the theme sucks, but it has a lot of unique aspects to it that makes it interesting. I'd take a popeye over a lot of the games some of you rave about.

Plenty of them here; I know becasue they keep yelling at me how awesome they are

I was trying to go as "universal" bottom as I could. Personal Stargate may be the worst ever.

Stargate? That's one of the greatest games ever made. It's in my top 8 of all time. Maybe you need to play one that's dialed in correctly.

I just got a Stargate, and I'm liking it more and more every time I play it......

It's so unconventional, that it's refreshing...

Stargate got old in 4 weeks and had to go but not a bottom 100. FT is a great game solid in the top 30 easily.All the shots are fun and challenging . Maybe too hard for the haters. Oh i don't fish or hunt.Layout is original,music fits perfect, topper is great,theme is great( not another boring super hero theme),rules are fine. I Can't get through a game of TF with out wanting to walk off but it isn't a bottom 100.

Bottom 100 - DMD- Teed Off, Hurricane,RCT,Striker Extreme,most Gotts

Two things:

1) Folks HATE the upper playfield, claim it blocks too much of the playfield visibility.

2) The theme was kinda botched. Since when did Popeye become an environmentalist???

Didn't matter to me, I think the game is kinda fun. Plays fast if you have it set up right, VERY deep as well. Good luck finding Swee Pea, that's tough (but it is possible...I've done it!).

It depends. Since I have tastes like that, I own more like 50 pins instead of like 7. It's going to put me in a new house sooner than later (new job first!!), and that ain't cheap.

I'm a creative type so any pin with horrible artwork is unbearable to me. So that rules out pretty much all Segas and many Sterns. I'll put a few bucks in one but I would never buy one no matter how cheap.

I also think there's a lot of truth to the comments that no matter how good a pin is, if it's not running smoothly and set up well then it's going be a lot less fun. I completely hated Congo the first few times I played it on location because it was a wreck, and I didn't understand it. But now that the op has sorted it out a bit more and I've been desperate enough to put more money into it I've learned it's faults and I absolutely love it. I REALLY want to own it. It has the most variation of any game I've played.

I absolutely hate LW3. Bleh!

The Rolling Stones is absolutely horrible.
Not a fan of Fish Tales either...

Orbitor 1.

I must say this. The Rolling Stones pinball is the worst pile of crap I've ever played. I would rather huff solder smoke till my lungs get coated in lead than play Rolling Stones.

TRS is an abortion of a pin attempt...

FT kicks ass!

Star wars episode 1----- I remember thinking wow this is going to be awesome - then after a few plays-- what the shit is this. It was like shaking hands with a fat sweety guy; I don't want to do it again. That was a turd and TRS.

1) Upper playfield does block your line of sight of the pop-bumpers, but do you really NEED to see that? There is a clear "knee deep pool" on the upper deck of the ship layout that is clear plexiglass so you can see through to the roll over lanes which is the only thing back there you need to see, so it works perfectly. There are 2 drop holes back there as well, but they have arrows in line to aim for and after a couple attempts you do not even notice that you cannot see them, you know if you hit it correctly or not.

2) I was a fan of the cartoon growing up and I understand people thinking the Popeye's Ark theme is strange at first, but really I think it is a clever and unique update to the long running series. I could definitely see the spinach eating good ole gentlemen navy boy Popeye piloting an ark to save Olive OYL and some animals. I think it is awesome that Bluto's face is front and center and you must hit both a right and left jab before locking a ball in his mouth.

One of my favorite things about Popeye is all the clever small touches in the artwork. Here are many ignored cool little art touches around the playfield:
-turtle and hare racing and hare is tired while turtle is easily winning
-lion and tiger playing shuffle board with turtles down the out lane
-deer lounging around the pool looking at a "Play-Doe" magazine sideways
-monkey playing xylophone on hippos teeth
-zebras playing horse shoes with sneakers
-mother porcupine knitting gloves for her young one who is being dropped off by a stork on the launch ball ramp/skill shot wheel
-Bluto being sat on by a huge elephant because he was causing problems with a chainsaw
-shark taking a bath in a trough with a baseball bat
-Various stages of Bluto evolving from an ape going up the escalator ramp
-ostrich sticking head in pipe on one side of outlane and coming up out of different pipe on other side of out lane
-birds made nest in antlers of deer on side artwork
-spider hanging from lizards tail on side art
-penguins are dressed in tuxedo's and are the servers on the ark
-snake chasing mouse up escalator
-2 giraffe's intertwined necks kissing
-bear lounging in chair eating honey from bee hive
-butterfly drinking from the bottle of extra pure virgin olive oil next to olive OYL on back box
-Bluto trying to chisel off elephants tusks in side art
-lion licking lips at zebra and zebra looking scared
-lizard's tongue going down out lane to catch a fly
-3 little pigs heading up to the knee deep pool
-3 monkeys on roll over area, 1 wearing headphones, 1 wearing dark shades, and one eating a huge sub sandwhich (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil)
-badger chasing ducklings which are following mother duck on upper playfield
-panda chowinh down on some bamboo
-gorilla eating bananas and leaving the peels behind him and penguin servers are slipping and crashing all over the place
-dolphin taking a shower in a bathtub
-huge gorilla holding Olive OYL by the butt on the side art
-sugar free spinach cola next to Popeye on backbox

Lots of little hilarious touches that make the artwork fun to show off.

Here is the hilarious deer with the pipe reading a "Play-Doe" magazine (sideways) on Popeye's upper playfield. Just one of the hilarious small details in the artwork:

image.jpg

Seriously, what do people who dislike Rolling Stones dislike about it? I think the game is spectacular, and the few people that I know that own them aren't giving them up either.

Amen! Bugs Bunny was the first and only machine I've ever wanted to walk away from in the middle of a game.

My personal choices would be: Bugs Bunny, Popeye, X-Files, Lethal Weapon 3, Gilligan's Island, SWE1, and 90% of Gottlieb/Premier's titles after 1985.

Shouldn't it be "Play-buck?"

I'll throw these in:
Pokerino
Contact
Spectrum
Pretty much any Atari pin (except Superman and Hercules)

And yeah, Caveman sucked! Boring playfeild, lame video game play, and awful sound!

Me too just bought a new in box South Park back in Feb took two months to decide what to do with it but my kids 11 and 8 are enjoying it, even with the crude humor but thats what makes it Southpark, its expected and the pin should be the same.

The game is horrible. I like the RS band too. but the layout is crap, it's the cheapest looking piece of junk on the planet, and the rules are garbage. Even if I had a HUO fall in my lap for 2k, I would pass.

TAF!

No, seriously... BBBB, Harlem Globetrotters, Bally Star Trek (this was the game I cut my teeth on, but it's as boring as hell!), Super Mario Bros, Southpark, Striker Extreme, SF2, Lectronamo and lots more... Even more when you consider some EM games from the 70s... Gottliebs Jungle springs to mind... Polo, Fashion Show...

FT rules I love it wouldn't be without one.

waterworld & wpt

I have never hated a game more. No rythym, no flow, no point. And then you score can becoe someone else's. Walked away just shaking my head.

Stern Playboy and TRS

The Rolling Stones.

Ok well since there is a thread about it:

IJ4, TRS, Avatar, Tron, TF, Monopoly, NBA Jam, FG/Shrek, WPT, South Park, CSI, 24, T3, RBION, IM, ELVIS. If all these machines disappeared from the face of the earth I would not miss them one bit.

Shouldn't popeye be saved from this thread, people think its so bad, it's not even in the bottom 200. (I actually like the game)

That's funny, I don't really like fishing, but I like the game. Go figure.

No MM for you then... you're missing a great game there!

Haha. Yeah I've played a few "dialed in" and right out of the box...truly awful.

I like that it's not the same as everything else. No outer loop and no repeating left-right ramp shots are a refreshing change.

What's awful? Explain what you don't like...

I don't like anything aboot it. The layout, the feel, the sounds etc etc. It pained me to rate something lower than Avatar...but I had to. But anyway, a lot of people like it and that's cool, just not for me.
EDIT: And I love FT

I actually had that same reaction. The helicopter magnet wasn't working on the one I was playing, and I did kind of like the audio clips, but I moved on pretty fast.

Stern NFL Football is just painful. A sports bar near my house has the Cowboys version and I have to say that there is a reason you don't see these all over the place. Like TRS, they took a great theme and botched it. I'm not a Stern hater; I love my LOTR!