i like the way the originals play when they are setup and dialed in correct., the originals boards are are easier to work on vs the remakes.
The remakes are bling, but looks aren't always everything IMO.

Remakes are fine and it's nice having a modern game. Some people say they feel a difference in flipper feeling between versions but I don't. It could be down to me never having an original and remake side by side, maybe difference is noticeable then. The modern games normally have improved lighting with all LEDs and such too.

That said, I prefer the original version for two reasons a) they are proven stable and robust after 25 years of usage and b) you can actually repair/solder them if electronic breaks.

Remakes have surface mounted components and a modern data bus to save on cabling making it hard for the average Joe to repair stuff apart from replacing whole cards.

You definitely misspoke on rules as far a CCr goes. That game is leaps and bounds above the original in almost all assets but the fact the original only had 1 of the 5 main modes that count towards Stampede is unreal! Bionic Bart was finally put in the game as well and I can confirm it's a fun mode I played it last night. Give me Remakes all day!

Originals for sure.

What #Chad said ...

Plus a MMR Rerun in 2023 ? Wouldn't hold my breath, CGC is horrible with any timeline.

I think any collector of games would want an original. Sorta like owning a painting or a watch. You can get remakes or reprints of the original, but a collector who collects for the "heritage" is gonna want the real original deal.

But, being completely honest, most of us just want a game that looks good and plays good, and most importantly: be available to purchase and come with a warranty and support.

So, bottom line: Are you just looking to get a good game that fits your budget and plays and looks great? Get yourself the remake and enjoy the heck out of it.

The originals play better but the new ones have a lot of pretty bling and play fine.

Buy and hold as you build s collection=origional
. Buy and sell or trade out for different title either will do fine.
CGC ought to build Pinball Circus.

Shane

I have had an original MM and two AFMR remakes. The originals are nice new and full of bling. In order to make an original like the remake (new playfield, new decals etc.) it is somewhat cost prohibitive. Originals easier to fix, but I have never had any problem with the remakes I have had. That said, you cant go wrong either way, its pinball and its always fun.

I have a MMr and my buddy has a MM, i have played both extensively and while i don't really think one plays better than the other they do feel slightly different to me. The classic game has that softer flipper feel of a traditional BW game. The MMr feels a bit snappier to me, not exactly like a new GZ or JP, but more crisp. I can see valid arguments for both, so IMO this really just comes down to personal preference.

You will find people on both sides of this coin. Some will say "Original or nothing". Other will say "Remakes are the way". But in the end, it all comes down to you.

For my money, the best thing about the remakes is that they dropped the price of the originals a few years ago. AFMr came out, and I was able to scoop up a decent original AFM for short cash (compared to the prices before the remakes).

I know the original I have will last another 25 years without blinking. If a board goes bad, I can repair it. I have the parts and the schematics. The most likely failure points like batteries were removed immediately (yes, my Ruling of the Universe has the wrong date, oh well).

And finally, flippers. I'm not here to restart the war over flipper feel of the remake. I felt it was different. The remake feels just a tiny bit delayed to me. I'm sure I could have adjusted, but I don't need to. I guess that is just my preference. If I hadn't bought mine, I would have eventually bought a remake to just own it for a while.

I prefer the play of an original and the ability to work on the boards.

The originals for sure but in CCR I would take that over the original just because they finished and improved the rules. The the remakes are great and play great.

Debunked a long time ago using an oscilloscope, they aren't more delayed. My personal experience is I can do live catches on the remakes just as well as any other game, too, so to me anyway this is a non-issue.

Someone pointed out a while back that the coil stops might be different on the remakes leading to a different amount of flipper throw, but you can simply swap those parts out if you want/care.

The flippers are garbage on the remakes. I don't think throw is the issue, its just that they are weak and they fade super fast. If it wasn't for the crappy flippers the remake would easily be my choice. The problem isn't the throw, or delay, or any of that. It is how they are driven.

I love how the remakes look, but I prefer the feel of the originals.

If you have an original and a remake side-by-side, will they feel different? YES

But...

If you have an original and another original side-by-side they will feel different too.

The build quality on the remakes is excellent, they play so close to an original as to not matter.

Furthermore, did anyone really expect that a brand new out of the box machine would play exactly the same as a 25 year old machine?

The remakes are done extremely well. You won't be disappointed with either a remake or a (well-cared for) original.

I don't know where you are getting this from, especially since you don't own a remake.

The only time I have felt any flipper fade was near the end of my best Monster Bash game (over 3 billion) which took over an hour (and it might have really been ME that was fading). My "original" WhiteWater machine can get some fade on very long games too.

And as for the flippers being weak, that's just silly. I've had to turn down the flipper power on my MBr just to keep the balls from flying off the ramp shots.
If there is a complaint to be made about the remake flippers, it's that they are too strong...not too weak.

In my opinion, most of the people who complain about the remakes either haven't really spent any time with them, or are just pissed that they have brought down the prices of their originals.

Let me preface this by saying, remakes seem to be getting better.

I had an MMRLE. The t-nutted orbit posts were mislocated badly enough that one orbit was going STDM, and the other was hitting the top of a sling. I'm local to CGC, so they drove a hand-picked populated playfield to my house and swapped it. That one was slightly better, still not great. I had to bend ball guides and change post rubber sizes at the ends of each orbit to make it shoot decent.

Then it needed the "milk jug" plastic diffuser to not blow out the center white inserts. And upgraded panel speakers. I am NOT a speaker snob; the ones it shipped with were far worse than 20+ year-old cheap WMS factory speakers. And there's a sound emulation bug that drove my wife nuts, since MM is her favorite game.

Flippers always felt off no matter which strength I set them to. Could not play a decent game on it to save my life, never could dial the shots in. Eventually replaced it with an original. Literally the first game I played on the original at the seller's house, I beat BFTK. To this day I've never had even a decent game on a remake.

All that said, AFMR plays okay to me, as does CCR in my limited time on it. MBR always feels "off" to me like MMR did, dunno why.

My biggest current complaint about remakes is the stupid color-changing GI. Those games are already beautiful in plain ol' white light. Not sure why they need to blow out the art with all blue or whatever. Not to mention, can't see the damn ball.

You can measure it to the millisecond and tell me it isn't delayed. And I will say the exact same thing...

When I play it, it feels different to me. The key words there are "I", "feels", and "different". I'm always happy when people telling me what I think is wrong. But when I play AFMr, it feels different.

Your opinion is completely wrong. I don't actually think that, because it's just your opinion. I'm only discounting it because that is what you are doing to other peoples opinions. I've spent enough time with the remake to know it feels different. But I think the remakes were one of the best things to happen in pinball in the last 10 years. So many more people got to own these games than would have before the remakes. And more pinball is always awesome.

One thing I like better about the originals is lamp sockets. I don't like the idea of lamp PCB's with surface mounted led's. If one goes bad, how do you replace, and will they match. With an original I can customize my own lighting, colors, brightness and easy to change a bulb if it goes bad. I also prefer original boards. The color DMD's make them more like modern games. I'm hoping someday color DMD will make oversized versions of DMD's for the WPC games and someone will remake the DMD plastic's to match the larger footprint. I don't like the modern decals they use on the remakes and the way they overlap the corners. Originals for me.....

I don't need to own a remake when I have put in countless hours (and unfortunately, money) into them. I've literally never heard anyone say they were too strong. PinMonk has done the testing. The remakes have 1 millisecond+ duty cycles. The flippers get hot fast and FADE. Williams flippers don't have this problem (obviously they can fade, just at a much much much slower rate). This is fact, and I'm sorry if it doesn't line up with what you've been led to believe. The information you're talking about doesn't paint the entire picture. I can see in a game like AFM or even MB it being not as noticeable. Try playing MM with its steep ramps though and the difference is night and day.

At the price point you are suggesting (7k-8k), you are looking at remakes as they are new in the box.

Pinball is working right now on a scarcity model.

Because you can't get your hands on it easily, the price is higher.

When a pinball is produced new in the box, right now in todays market, that is the lowest price time to buy.

We've seen PRO's from Stern with (admittedly top of the market) advertised price points of $8500, for a game that was sold two years ago for $5995 new.

My experience with the remakes is that they ARE different, but in many cases the difference is a respectful fulfillment of what the designers would have done if they had the technology and the resources.

LED's in the remake are integrated into the package instead of putting LED bulb replacements in and hoping it looks good.

I like the SE models with the color screen that is wider than standard.

I can tell the difference between a freshly rebuilt flipper original vs. a freshly rebuilt flipper on a remake machine. The flipper feel is different. I'm picky about flippers... they have to be RIGHT. And I would gladly own a remake, or an original, with no particular bias one way or the other. Both are great.

Pinside has held Medieval Madness as the top tier machine (pretty much always number one, with rare drops and sharp returns) for a lot of years. For a home use pinball, it may be the best machine anyone could buy.

I'm looking forward to the Medieval Madness remakes.

So many dated opinions here...

1) Don't even put MMr and CCr in the same boat - they are vastly different. MMr had tons of issues and doesn't play like a well broken in MM -- This is not the case for CCr

The arguments about 'dont play the same' stop with MMr. AFM, MB, and CC all play wonderfully and beat out most originals unless super dialed in.

Then you have in all three of those games what CGC did 'above and beyond' the originals. AFM and CC are both worthy of a premium over originals.. by alot. MBr is better, but a very well upgraded MBr will be close in experience to a MBr. But I'm talking upgraded lighting, polished parts, upgrades galore. MBr is just a ton brighter than an original, and the RGB lighting plus other minor tasteful upgrades are well worth it.

CCr takes it to a new level in terms of the 'upgrades' they did along the way.. from reengineered parts, added art, completed software.. and then the biggies, the topper and future game potential.

The only negative to the game is concerns over future servicability of the CGC platform vs the well understood WPC-95. CCr blows the original out of the water in every other dimension. Build, detail, play, looks, upgrades, and more.

Unless you are the type trying to chase a trophy because it's so 'limited' -- CCr every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Having an original CC and then putting CCC in it is nice and something to be proud of.. but there is no reason to buy into that tier unless you really fear CGC's boards.

I’ve played a good deal of AFMr and CCr and have not noticed any of these flipper issues. They seem fine and can’t tell much difference from other machines.

Get what suits your budget, I operated pins for years with remakes and originals. Originals always need more attention for maintenance unless it had been properly restored. If the pin was any good as an earner, chances of finding a great condition original is slim and going to be expensive if you find it.

With that said, it’s pointless to pay more for an original unless it’s a unicorn that hasn’t been played much or you are collecting for originality. The idea of “original/heritage” goes out the door when a machine has been restored or permanently modified, it’s no longer original, it’s a hybrid of new and old.

Tech wise, originals are easier to work on but title specific parts may be hard to come by. Worn out ball guide, scoops, lamp panels (especially WPC95) to name a few. The aftermarket has done a good job with remaking parts, unfortunately these parts aren’t always available even though they’ve been reproduced.

If you want an expensive shrine you don’t want to add a lot of plays to (gotta keep that “art/investment” pristine) get a 100% original that nobody else can touch.

1 ms duty cycle. If that is so, and I don’t doubt it, that is imperceptible and also would have no practical affect in gameplay. A person can barely, barely notice 10-50 ms. 100 ms is perceptible by most people. 1 is nil. this isn’t an opinion, cognitive fact. And if you say you can notice that you are fooling yourself.

Then you will NOT be disappointed by a remake. Of course, the best thing to do would be to find someone who has a remake and put a few games on it to see for yourself.

Will it play exactly the same as the "one you remember"...probably not. But then, my Eight Ball Deluxe does not play the same as my brother's Eight Ball Deluxe either, and they are both obviously originals.

I have a CGC AFM and the quality has been excellent
I really don't care about collectability - and I think the remakes are the best package

Oh gee.. Not this again.

Remakes are just fine. Accept for one thing. Maintaining boards. Long term will there be replacement for the remakes.
I've owned all of them accept Cactus Canyon and my remake ATFM CE is all time fave machine.

Thats it.. You can purchase either with confidence.

Mixed bag.
Big Screens & upgraded graphics are awesome.
Stupid overbling lights are fucking stupid.

Wrong. I don't think you understand what 1+ ms duty cycle means. It has nothing to do with what you are "perceiving" other than the drawbacks you get due to the long duty cycle. Its not "how fast the flipper responds" or anything like that. It has everything to do with what happens to the coils due to these duty cycles. When the flipper is held, the coils get hot very quickly compared to Sterns sub millisecond duty cycles. Basically how long the flippers are pulsed with current, and due to this relatively long cycle time the heat builds quickly. This is one of the main reasons JJP flippers also feel so crappy. So I'm sorry but you're incorrect and aren't even in the ballpark of making a valid argument.

Everyone's opinion on this is different... but I almost think they go in order. Meaning the original MM is better than the remake... AFM and AFMr are close... I prefer the MBr over MB (mainly due to the XL screen), and from what I can tell CCr is a pretty clear winner over CC (Extended coded + XL screen).

At least for me... that is how I voted with my wallet. I own MM and AFM originals and remakes of MB and CC (at least will soon own the CC).

I wondered about the JJP feel .. I don't get this vibe with my CGC remakes

I have both an original MM and a remake. As far as maintenance, I have more plays on the remake, more than 25,000 total plays, and anything that has gone wrong I was able to fix just as easily as on the original MM. Oddly enough, some of the same things that broke on the remake I had replaced on the original years ago. Even board work isn't so tough on the MMr as the transistors driving the coils are through hole, and I have had to replace a couple of those over the years, too. It wasn't any harder than soldering a component on the original game. CGC support is outstanding and they even answer their own phone.

As far as gameplay goes, once you are playing the remake, I don't think you will notice any real difference in play. If you were to play them side by side you might, but otherwise I doubt it.

Play style has a lot to do with how fast/hard fade comes on some machines and that dictates why some people see it faster or slower on the same machine. If you trap on a non-Stern machine, you will get fade a lot faster. Ditto if you do defensive flipping on any machine. But fade doesn't always manifest as weakness. It starts as missed/bricked shots you usually make in your sleep because the timing starts to shift slightly. Also, some people aren't sensitive to the change threshold so they won't recognize fade until the flippers are limp, which is long after it actually started.

One of the people testing my new CGC universal cooling brackets on MMr said they didn't realize how much of a difference they would make with consistent coil performance across the whole game. They got to Battle for the Kingdom the first game after putting them on and can now get there consistently (maybe finished, I haven't checked back yet), despite only having been there a couple times ever before.

Likewise another tester who is testing them on Wonka got GC the first game after putting them on, despite having played it extensively for a year and already having a respectable GC. Blew his prior score away by like 5 million (That's a lot, Wonka is a relatively low scoring game).

I see, I was conflating the two issues being discussed. Flipper fade and perceived input lag. I stand corrected (maybe a first in Pinside history?). At any RATE, I have spent a lot of time on the remakes and never noticed anything wrong with the flippers.

For me it's game by game on how much more I prefer the originals.

MM I haven't played enough to say
AFM the remakes suck ass, original all day. And I owned both side by side. Kept the original.
The MBs and CCs I've played seem better. CC is way too easy, I can't imagine paying $10K to have one of those and get sick of it in a week.

All things being equal I'd rather have originals. But most people don't see the difference, or can't live without the toppers and "new" animations.

The extra bling is very nice but I agree, the originals play better. I had one of the first MMRLE that was made at Stern and the flippers were junk. They had a bad delay feel to them. AFMRLE was a ton better, at least mine was in comparison. Never had a MBR but played a few, they felt ok. I no longer own any of them, just original B/W's. I am getting the CCRLE only for the fact that Lyman helped on the remake rules...otherwise it probably would have been a pass for me. I definitely prefer restored originals with color DMD's in them.....just my 2 cents

Brick shithouse.

A “shithouse,” or in Australia a dunny is an outhouse used for urinating and defecating. These buildings, used before indoor plumbing was common, covered one or more toilets which were usually nothing more than holes or “latrines” dug in the ground. The buildings were usually built cheaply out of odd bits of wood and were meant to be easy to move once the hole was filled with waste. An outhouse built out of brick, therefore, would be one that was much more well-built than usual, hence the allusion in the idiom.

And finally, I got to use the word "shithouse" in context on Pinside. This day had become better than I could have hoped for.

Originals preferred except in the case of CCr. That is/will be the first remake significantly better than the original.

I have an original MM I bought NIB in 1997 and it plays better than any MMr I’ve played. The remakes have gotten better but there’s something special about an original. I’m not thrilled about the proprietary PCBs in every game but that’s the new standard.

I’d prefer an OG Attack but may consider an AFMr. But my decision there will be primarily a price/condition metric (with some tilt toward an original for sentimental reasons).

MB - had a beautiful original, not my favorite
CC - Getting a CCr. No longer would consider an original despite being disappointed I never got one when I had the chance.
Probably not interested in the other rumored remake titles.

I maintained an original Monster Bash we had in our company break room. I'd take a remake any day of the week, especially considering the price you would pay for a restored original of MM, MB, CC, etc. As this thread shows, you will have purists, pragmatists, and every opinion in between.

When it comes to purchasing, I would just try and find an original and a remake and see what you think!

I finally had a chance to look under a Monster Bash playfield. Dread having to pull the large board because of a switch fail. Unplugging all the connections, and being careful not to ESD zap any major PIC chip.

Is that any different than any other "modern" machine (i.e. a current Stern)?

The remakes are "modern" versions of the original layouts, with all the pluses and minuses that come with that...

And for those that say the RGB lighting is "bad/ugly/annoying", you can set them to be a single color (i.e. white), if that's what you want.

"Purists" will always say the originals play better....I've owned both and prefer the remakes due to the improved sound quality and graphics. Some purists claim there is a difference in flipper response, but I honestly coudn't tell the difference. My only complaint about the remakes is repairing boards is impossible for the average user. That being said I've heard of very few board problems with any of the remakes.

Yes, it is completely different.

I get it. You give complete full throated support to CGC. But it sounds like you haven't looked under the playfield of many games.