Did Bally make any classics 1982-87?
1981 was a great year for Bally, they released many games and pushed 10,000s of machines out the door
but by 1983, the steam had gone out of pinball, only a few games produced, and building 2000 of a title was good business
did Bally produce any must collect classics during 1982 – 1987?
X's and O's 
seriously .. the list has some echos like ebd le and centaur2.. outside that .. hmm .. nope
adding 1988 gets you truck stop ?
http://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?mfgid=412&yr=1982-1987&sortby=name&searchtype=advanced
Quoted from mg81:I don't think it is a "must collect classic", but Eight Ball Champ is a very enjoyable pin that I would like to have in my collection.
Wish I had never sold mine.
Bally had good games in those years, but it's days of having blockbuster hits ended with the 1983 combining with Midway/Bally.
Bally started buying things like Six-Flags Amusements, health club chains, casinos........and finally had to start selling off divisions (like pinball).
Strange Science is... Good. I like it. I'd have it.
Quoted from vid1900:Bally started buying things like Six-Flags Amusements, health club chains, casinos........and finally had to start selling off divisions (like pinball).
You know, I always wanted to know if that was the same Bally that made pinball machines. Never knew that.
Whats funny, is the walk in freezers that we have at the amusement park I worked at when I was in high school had "Bally Engineering" stamped (with a placard) on the door. The word "Bally" was even stylized the same way as the pinball company.
Quoted from mg81:I don't think it is a "must collect classic", but Eight Ball Champ is a very enjoyable pin that I would like to have in my collection.
I prefer EBC to EBD.
Quoted from SealClubber:EBD is the only one I would consider a blockbuster. My opinion.
EBD was 1981. The other dates were reissues.
Quoted from vid1900:Bally had good games in those years, but it's days of having blockbuster hits ended with the 1983 combining with Midway/Bally.
Bally started buying things like Six-Flags Amusements, health club chains, casinos........and finally had to start selling off divisions (like pinball).
We can thank two idiots, Bob Mullane and Roger Keesee for wrecking all of Bally in only ten years.
Quoted from mbaumle:Strange Science is... Good. I like it. I'd have it.
You know, I always wanted to know if that was the same Bally that made pinball machines. Never knew that.
Whats funny, is the walk in freezers that we have at the amusement park I worked at when I was in high school had "Bally Engineering" stamped (with a placard) on the door. The word "Bally" was even stylized the same way as the pinball company.
That was a unrelated Bally. Similar logo but not the same. They were based out of Bally, Pennsylvania. Now in North Carolina. They also go under the nameBally Refrigeration.
Quoted from MrBally:Similar logo but not the same. They were based out of Bally, Pennsylvania.
Thanks for the clarification! Now that I look back on it, I can see that the logos looks almost nothing alike. I guess my mind just associated the refrigeration units with the pinball logo.
Quoted from MrBally:That was a unrelated Bally. Similar logo but not the same. They were based out of Bally, Pennsylvania. Now in North Carolina. They also go under the nameBally Refrigeration.
I had no idea this was the case. Wow! Interesting!
Edit: I re-read the post and see y'all were talking about refrigerators and not pins. My bad.
Quoted from swampfire:I prefer EBC to EBD.
Quoted from dasvis:You must be joking.
Uh, no. EBD has better art, but EBC is a better player. I know I'm not the only one who thinks this.
Spectrum, Vector, Special Force are noteworthy but imo it was Williams that actually made some classics during that era...Space Shuttle, High Speed, Sorcerer, Grand Lizard, Comet, Pinbot, F-14, Fire.
Quoted from swampfire:I prefer EBC to EBD.
I think you might want to lay-off the crack pipe.
lol
EBC isn't even in the same league as EBD.
EBC vs. EBD shouldn't be a discussion we're even having; EBD has one of the greatest, best-implimented rule sets ever. The art is good, but doesn't wow me like Centaur, Fathom, Embryon, etc. However, the rules make it one of the absolute best risk/reward titles ever.
There's a reason why EBD was made three times and to date remains the most sought-after Bally SS pin of all-time.
It's the pin more people want in their collection than any other from the era.
Quoted from Collin:EBC vs. EBD shouldn't be a discussion we're even having; EBD has one of the greatest, best-implimented rule sets ever. The art is good, but doesn't wow me like Centaur, Fathom, Embryon, etc. However, the rules make it one of the absolute best risk/reward titles ever.
I like both games but EBC with home rom has more going on. Lady Luck and Beat the Clock are fun too
Quoted from Gatecrasher:There's a reason why EBD was made three times and to date remains the most sought-after Bally SS pin of all-time.
It's the pin more people want in their collection than any other from the era.
I also like EBC more the EBD. EBD is too much "been there, done that". EBC is really unique and more of a shooters game. Both have great art packages.
Quoted from Silverballer:Spectrum, Vector, Special Force are noteworthy but imo it was Williams that actually made some classics during that era...Space Shuttle, High Speed, Sorcerer, Grand Lizard, Comet, Pinbot, F-14, Fire.
yep. once they developed sys11, williams produced some awesome games
(the 3 sys9 games are good too)
The Champ (EBC) can still hang with the big, new boys!!! Currently playing at The High Dive in San Diego.
I enjoyed playing it so much that I am picking up a project EBC next week. I also have EBD in the garage being fully shopped out. Everyone will be invited over for the head to head showdown when they are both done!
I'm partial to Party animal and Truck stop, but truck stop was the first merger game between Bally Williams.
Quoted from Blitzburgh99:The Champ (EBC) can still hang with the big, new boys!!! Currently playing at The High Dive in San Diego.
I enjoyed playing it so much that I am picking a project EBC next week. I also have EBD in the garage being fully shopped out. Everyone will be invited over for the head to head showdown when they are both done!image_(resized).jpg
Hey, that's mine 
Funny you should say that as it out-earns Metallica there...
Quoted from wiredoug:what do you think of vector?
never played it
but when it is mentioned on pinside, it is usually "Great game, when it is set up right'
which to me sound like, 'it looked great so I spent hours cleaning it up, so I keep trying to justifying to myself'
Quoted from oPinsesame:Strange Science +1
And when Freeplay40 repros the ramps, and CPR does the plastic set, I will be a happy man
In Pinball Magazine No. 3 I looked at Bally's heyday and tried to find out what happened that they went from building some of the most manufactured pinball machines of all time (Eight Ball, Star Trek, KISS) to disturbingly low production numbers compared to what they did in their heyday. Roger Sharpe was able to clear a lot of that up, which is an interesting read. Having Tom Nieman (also featured in PM03) leave the company resulted in Bally dropping licensed themes. The videogame boom didn't help pinball in general either. Someone told me recently there was a 9 month period in the '80s in which no manufacturer came out with a new game. Haven't checked if that is correct.
Quoted from PopBumperPete:...sound like, 'it looked great so I spent hours cleaning it up, so I keep trying to justifying to myself'
some days thats my view on pinball in general.
i have a vector in pieces.. one day ill get time to finish it.. its a cheesy mix of busy playfield and bad sounds .. it really is pinball trying to be a video game. n.b. ...'trying'.
took me ages to find a truck stop .. really looking forward to that arriving.
Quoted from PopBumperPete:but when it is mentioned on pinside, it is usually "Great game, when it is set up right'
Vector flippers, when set to the factory angle, make it tough to cradle the ball.
So the ball mostly remains in motion, rather than a constant cradle-study-aim-shoot
People cheat and set the flipper angle up higher to make catching the ball easier and file down the coil stops to make it easier to cradle. This is NOT how the game was meant to be played.
People also put a full size flipper on the upper playfield to make it easier. Again this is incorrect, ( verified by the designer, Greg Kmiec).
So, yes, Vector is a great game when set up correctly.
Unfortunately, I never see it set up correctly at the expos....
Quoted from MrBally:That was a unrelated Bally. Similar logo but not the same. They were based out of Bally, Pennsylvania. Now in North Carolina. They also go under the nameBally Refrigeration.
That is correct. They still have an office in Bally PA, btw - I used to maintain their PBX.
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/did-bally-make-any-classics-1982-87 and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Melbourne
Wellesley, ON
Paradise, NV
Sana'a
Merthyr Tydfil
Utrecht