Ghostbusters pisses me off like no other game I've ever experienced. Its anger and heartbreak combined because I love Ghostbusters as a theme so much, and the game looks so cool, but it is awful. I'd really like to play one that has mods in it to help prevent BS drains

Sounds fun

Probably my Fish Tales. Some days it seems like it just wants to be an unforgiving drain monster. Especially during multiball, or when you try to whack that center captiveball and it sends it back dead center. I just can't nudge it enough with the widely spaced flippers for a save without tilting at that point.

Well... i'm not the best player and lots of games come to mind. In general, I love and hate Steve Ritchie games. When I step up to a Ritchie game I generally know three things Ritchie does well:

1) Expect Flow
2) Expect Speed (especially during combos).
3) Expect shots to have major risk/reward (and the often WTF drains).

At the moment, that is what I am getting on #star-wars-stern-le .

games that don't work

Jjp pirates cuz I cant afford one...

Yeah my Fish Tales really pisses me off, i opened up the outlanes all the way and set all the timers to the shortest times, that combined with lightning flippers makes for some really tough games. But thats what keeps it fresh.

High Hand

The only game I owned that was unreasonably rage inducing was PinBot. So many bullshit no-flip / no-save WTF drains, sometimes right off a plunge. I'd go from ruling the universe on one session to hardly touching the ball the next - no rhyme, no reason, no predictability... just raw unfiltered whimsical mechanized spite. I got so angry once following a particularly frenetic session and failed nudge attempt that I shoved the game so hard it slid into the electric outlet plug and cracked the outlet cover. I loved the game otherwise and went through no small amount of effort restoring it and finding the right topper even after that incident... but I ultimately sold it. Because whenever it crossed the bullshit line, it did so with prejudice.

But it's funny - I'm fairly low-key, and no stranger to games playing the bullshit card, and rarely get that angry... and yet as the OP says, there are some games full o' shit I just can't get mad at. My Torpedo Alley routinely slings dung and yet I'm always grinning: it has just enough lightheartedness to keep emotions in check.

This Black Hole I just fixed tho - man, THAT game slings some effed up BS! I'm talking everything from balls tricking down a top inlane and grazing a pop toward rocketing STDM... to balls jumping over the flippers and even over the gate from a rebound all the way across the playfield... stuff so unbelievably BS you feel like you witnessed a haunting and can't actually get mad! I mean, if a game's gonna cheat, I appreciate being literally dumbfounded in the process

TWD Prem.

Flash Gordon. Ming is merciless

For me, my most aggravating game is definitely Stern Star Wars Premium. Plunge with immediate center drain, ball-save, immediate center drain combos are super common for me. I guess one thing it has forced me to do is get a whole lot better at slap saves. But, I still get burned enough in that game that it is the least favorite in my collection. None of my kids even want to play it.

Iron Man although I can't stop playing it.

You win Quote Of The Day for that delightful turn of phrase. Take your Upvote with pride.

Later,
EV

Willy Wonka.

Although I've only played it on location, I've played it quite a bit. In the middle of my best games I've gotten multiple pop drains.

Nothing better than stacking everything up only to know it could happen then watching it helplessly drain. <<<sarcasm..

I'm glad it isn't mine because I would have broken the front legs off of it at least 5 times by now.

Sorcerer punishes me without mercy.

BSD kicks my ass regularly.

Paragon. Not because it's a bad game....but because I'm really bad at it.

Goatf***ers is the definition of anti-fun. Weird that you know this yet love it and consider it a favorite? Bizarre. The game’s terrible design is the “something about it”. Made me so angry I cancelled my order & will only refer to it as Goatf***ers....I would never touch that game again. Too much joy in pretty much every other pinball machine to waste time with that trash.

TWD. I had to get rid of it because I was either going to break it or have a heart attack.

all of them!
anger issues!

Stars aka "you suck at pinball".

People might not agree with me, but for some reason I actually hate star wars(stern). I don’t know if the one on location that I play at is just a tough setup, but I will get the absolute dumbest, most unavoidable drains. Ill step up and sometimes lose 3 straight from the plunge. Then Ball saver eventually runs out and i get one good flip that send the ball flying in the outlanes or comes back STDM. Needless to say, I always leave angry and never have considered it fun. Sucks cause im the biggest Star Wars fan I know, yet hate the pin.

Another agree with TWD, those stupid drop targets to start a mode drove me nuts. Stupid targets.

Ghostbusters is honestly, one of Sterns best. Yeah it's hard as shit, but when it opens up, it's a hurricane of fun. Shit going on everywhere.

Most players who don't like it are not very good I have found, or they need the 45 min ball time to get their rocks off, and that's cool. Not everyone should like the same game.

TWD and BSD are the same thing.

Tell us how you really feel, oh wait you already have 10,000 times and wait to do at every opportunity.

Topic is about games you play, not games I don't play and still hate with a passion!

Taxi.
Collect 4 passengers.. drain... Start all over.

And for god's sake pinbot was a badass. Now he's stranded on a corner somewhere.

TMNT - we call it turtle face...the angry confused sad look we get sometimes

AFMR

Maybe yours is haunted?

-Rob
-visit https://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or my Pinball 2000 H+V Video Sync Combiner kit

Anyone who doesn’t list Ghostbusters either hasn’t put in enough time on it, or just has a better ability to suppress rage than I do. For the record NO OTHER pin makes me upset. I literally love ALL the rest.

Indy 500
Iron Man
Stern TMNT
TWD
AC/DC
Fish Tales (game is so cool but so awful at the same time)

THIS!

Iron Man leaves me overjoyed, or swearing and giving it the finger. It's like no other game. In only a few minutes, you will have emotions... you just won't be sure which ones.

TMNT (Stern) and GB.

The ball often has a heavy spin in Turtles presumably thanks to the spinning disc, so some of the typical caroms that happen in other pins happen differently in here. The worst section is the top of the left sling. Ball will come out of the left orbit fast or slow, it doesn't matter, and hit the top post on that sling. Instead of bouncing up/out at a slight angle like you'd expect, it rockets 90 degrees over to the outlane almost every time. I find it very difficult to defend against since it's counterintuitive to want to nudge a ball that is already in a safe area, but that's the only way to deal with this, nudge when it's about to hit that post to try and dampen the spin and keep the ball in the playfield. It's annoying as hell since it's an issue you're gonna have to deal with multiple times per game. Or maybe my level is off by a bit which is amplifying the ball spin, who knows. I'd try to fine tune the lane guide on the orbit if the game was mine, but it's a rental.

GB's frustrations have been gone over many times before. The flipper gap isn't great, but it's not a deal breaker. The magna slings though, woof. While it's cool to watch your ball get frozen in "mid-air" and then thrown in an unforeseen direction, it's not a lot of fun when that unforeseen direction is straight down the middle. Which happens a lot. There's pinball randomness and then there's just being obnoxious.

I agree with this - frustrating, just happened last night - 5 second ball straight to the outlane.

Ohp, here done the play-shamers, ignoring airballs and lane hops & blaming players.

I’m a great player. Skill is irrelevant when the ball flies over flippers or from inlanes to outlanes.

No they’re not. Those are well designed games that play well. I love playing those games & am good at them. There goes the “GB critique = bad player” theory. I also love IM & TNA.

I haven’t posted about it in years. But cool...now go yell at the other people posting the same thing.

Read the title of this thread. I’m on topic.

Flash Gordon. That game Hates Me yet I can't walk away from it!

Rick and Morty.

I will probably never own one and I love playing it but it’s expensive when I do.

In the same time, after playing these frustrating games for a while, i think they makes me a better player.

But i agree, GB is a drain monster and then very frustrating. Currently, i have the same feeling with my AIQ. I would have liked this one have a kickback!

ACNC ticks my wife off. She loves the music, layout, etc and WANTS to love the game, but...the language that comes from her mouth when she plays!

For me...just a single letter change: ACDC. I don’t even want to talk about it. F Off.

GB was our first pin. It was a Christmas present for my wife. It’s cemented to the floor. Frustrating? Absolutely! Top five ‘funnest’ games ever? Also absolutely.

Yeah, I love fun/frustrating games that force me to play better....GB isn't one of them, as the frustration is due to design flaw and not skill level. I LOVED playing the fast/brutal games of "Stern's dark days" like Iron Man, Tron, even Rolling Stones & Avatar. People shat on those games at the time...but they absolutely force you to up your skills to have a great game - and they succeeded. After having Iron Man for a while, other games started to all get waaaay easier.

GB is the clear winner. Any game that uses magnets to seize the ball and drop it between the wide-gap flippers is only entertaining to spectators. Yeah, it's funny as hell.....but not when you're playing.

LOTR for me... I both love and also very much hate that game!

Destroying the ring is very satisfying, but trying to collect the gifts of the elves to reach Valinor makes me so angry. I want to beat that game so bad but haven’t yet!

Totally agree
When I first got the machine I use to tell my kids
“As soon as I reach the Sun Iam trading this pin”

Why?

Comet and Hurricane.

Dammit Pinbot, I hate to love you so much

ANY game... when I'm eating it's lunch right up until the last ball eats mine.