Assuming we're talking about 3-inch (or lightning flipper) games and ignoring the brutal 2-inch games from the 60s and earlier, I think my votes would have to go to:

EM:
Grand Prix (suicide lanes!), 300 (suicide lane!), Jacks Open (Slamming a very close target bank? Sure!), Flip Flop (bumpers that feed outlanes, 20 years before TZ did it!), Cherry Bell (this one is just stupid).

Early SS:
Flash Gordon (I don't think I ever feel safe on that game), Spectrum, Paragon, Eight Ball (Look ma! No left inlane/outlane!), Future Spa, Firepower (not hard in a good way).

Late SS:
F-14 Tomcat (Now you d-d-d-d-die!), High Speed, probably others that I'll think of later...

DMD:
The Shadow, BSD, Fish Tales (depends largely on the setup), Iron Man, CFTBL (pretty tricky multiball to score points in, plus no rubbers on the inlane/outlane posts from the factory!), NGG (how many times have you been shafted by a crappy kickout from the pops?), WCS (love those WPC95 coil stops).

Korn's Star Trek The Next Generation . Love it though wish mine played like that .

Solar Fire. Lots of timed drop target banks, hard to hit shot to advance bonus multiplier that has to be hit at the moment the letter you need is lit, and difficult to qualify locks!

BSD all the way for me.
Can't remember a game remotely as brutal as this one in all the pins I had/played often, IM seems the same at first, but after I learned the rules it was way easier, and there are not so many "drain shots" as in BSD.

Devils Dare is stupid hard...

Watch the PAPA archived videos for A division play....

That game can make you feel very angry....

Ft first game i have owned and not take down the grand champion score on the first week

Unfortunatly its most games out on location . Busted this , broken weak flippers, broken that. Real games it has to be BSD that game, I can say I have never had good ball on a game of that.

TZ is pretty hard out

acdc, tf-le, and tron

Eight Ball - some balls I get one or no flips...gotta improve my plunging skills. But I love it; it's like potato chips, can't play just one.

The Shadow - still haven't won the Final Battle. Some games make me feel like I won't ever get back to the Final Battle.

BSD

Of the games I've played Pinball Magic is the hardest I've had. I'll define hardest as toughest to beat the "wizard" mode (or get to it in this case). Having to do 21 things, in order, makes this game pretty tough in my opinion.

Dave

TSPP and Fishtales

8 ball deluxe and most luckbox EMs out there...

Just picked up a BSD and its punishing and UN-forgiving. I love it!

A properly setup high speed is ridiculously fast and unforgiving. Same for f14. I love sys11

Oribtor 1

The Shadow is just brutal-miss that left ramp, and all kinds of bad things happen...constantly.

1. Twilight Zone
2. Iron Man
3. Avatar
4. The Simpsons Pinball Party
5. Black Hole

The first time I played Spectrum and Oribitor 1, there was a lot of me yelling "OH SHIT!" in surprise.

ironman, superman,black hole, tron le - ironman is by far the hardest - the other 3 can be in any order - thanks ed

POPEYE!

AC/DC and Attack From Mars. Open play fields do a number on my skills.

bsd is tough to get going- JP lost world is hard as nails,

Tron, ball control is hard on a fast machine. And its the only one I can't finish, damn Portal.

1. RBION: Due to the difficulty getting to wizard.
2. BSD: Stupid hard.
3. F14: I swear that my games would be over in around 4 minutes.

toughest one I have is JD by a mile......toughest I've played, BK used to take a lot of quarters from me and take them rather quickly.

really, 8bdl is one of the easiest game i ever played, i know my machine by heart.

haunted house is one hard game to play.

I'll agree with dracula...Did not enjoy myself playing it either

BSD and FT can be a cakewalk compared to The Shadow.
damn that is a hard game!

The one that fell on me last week while replacing a leg lol

My first fishtales when the flipper was busted

Black Hole out of the box is notoriously rough. Setting up multiball is quite difficult. The game is brutally punishing.

- You need four separate clean shots on the lower right targets just to light the upper lock. It wouldn't be as bad if it didn't matter which targets you hit as long as you got four hits. But considering how hard it is to get a clean shot at those targets it is annoying to continually hit the unlit ones over and over.
- You cannot drain from lower playfield without open gate as it is automatic loss of ball. Lots of games with lower playfields allow you to drain out of the lower playfield and go right back into play. Not Black Hole. You need to 'beat' the lower playfield so that a drain there goes into the upper playfield's inlane and not immediately into the outlane.
- It is almost impossible to post transfer on both upper and lower playfields. The upper playfield only has one post but the transfer causes the ball to shoot up a few inches and then almost always drain SDTM. The lower playfield post transfers are beyond erratic. I find myself post transferring then going for a big move nudge on the machine to try to get the ball caught and controlled on the lower right flipper for that lock shot.
- There's hardly any ball control in the lower playfield. Shots immediately return to the flippers. You need to react before you can see them even. A power inlane return on Black Hole actually has an audio cue that plays warning you to hammer away on the flippers because the ball is screaming down towards the drain.

Obviously you can take any machine and make it harder. Look at the PAPA machines. At PAPA they take the games and set them up for easy drains.

- Removal of outlane posts or putting posts as wide as possible. On cabinets like Twilight Zone or Cirqus Voltaire you blink and you'll miss the bumpers shooting the ball right into the outlane at 1000mph.
- Blocking ramps and holes with yellow rubbers (making some shots physically impossible from one flipper). Find the PAPA videos of Medieval Madness or Guns and Roses. Yellow rubbers and posts all over the place. On MM you can get often hit the castle lock shot with the left flipper if the ball returns a certain way. Not on the PAPA cabinet.
- Setting the software on extra hard, locks need to be manually lit, more shots required to activate modes and so on. MM was set at PAPA so that castle multiball needed six shots at first. You can take Monster Bash and set it really hard, no Dracula Lights, no monster advances from Concert Hall, and so on to make things difficult.
- No extra balls of course. Some games will give you points instead of an extra ball bonus. However some games give you zero points for hitting the extra ball light.
- Putting lighting flippers on cabinets that don't normally use them. This makes everyone have to adjust their shots considerable.
- Putting extra bouncy rubbers on flippers to prevent live catches from being easy. I can't remember what game it was at PAPA but it was almost impossible to control the ball as it hit the flipper.
- Extremely tight tilt sensors. Small moves are danger or double danger. A big move is always a tilt.

+1

After reading others comments, I don't feel so bad about admitting that I was horrible playing some games on a *Flash Gordon*. That is a hard game when set up tough.

Ironman

I'd like to put my votes in for BSD, and TS as well! Both destroy me on a daily basis

So true! I've been known to use the stanley level app on my phone and make adjustments for non-leveled games on location.

So many of the old EM games I wonder why they even bother putting flippers on them as I usually end up draining the ball without even flipping.

But the 2 machines that I dread coming up in competition are I500 and FT. For some reason those games hate me and I rarely get a decent score, when I do it means that everybody else has got a fantastic score. I would be happy if I never saw either again.

Fishtales.

Silverball Mania. Miss that center loop shot and the ball hits the outlanes way too fast to recover. Set the tilt tightly and you're looking at 60 second ball times for a good game.

TSPP. Hardest.......Game.......Ever (done in my best comic book guy voice)

In my collection I've got to say Taxi. I had a 3 million Jackpot once and me and my buddy was playing. I collected all the passengers had trouble setting up for the Jackpot but finally hit the shot and split second before the ball landed in the Jackpot hole Marilyn got out. I had my hands up celebrating and everything then rejected! So then my buddy stepped up collected all the passengers and took the Jackpot. He holds the GC on the machine to this day. His final score is 6 million something. I just can't seem to get close to it. Just when I think I'm having a good game it smites me!

TRON - drives me nuts just drain crazy on those out-lanes, off kicker straight into out-lane, even down the right ramp and back spin as it drops at the bottom of the ramp and drains.. pisses me off to know end...

re my other pins...

BSD was hard at first, but I rack up big scores on it now and have very long games, there are just spots you don't hit, not as random (non at fault) out-lane drain crazy for me as Tron is...

Indy is easy to have long games and fish tales once you get consistent is pretty easy to have long games with high scores..

Dr. Who

The one that fell on my foot last week

I'll mix things up and throw in Williams "Beat The Clock" - the classic 1963 EM. This was January's "Game of the Month" at Silverball Museum and good God - what a tough game. One look at the setup of the 4 flippers standing alone like solitary islands and you know you are in for a tough time - no cradling here!

http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=211&picno=39058&zoom=1

Shifting gears........

I'm glad to see the much-beloved Fish Tales getting some recognition here. (I have one - so I am aware).

I LOVE THE GAME - but its charm and beauty belie the fact that it can sometimes bedevil and frustrate.

That Caster's Club/Ball Lock is NOT an easy shot off the left flipper - and in fact is actually an easier and more direct shot as a backhand off the right.

The game's centerpiece "Rowboat" can award MANY points but any shot that does not negotiate it cleanly will roll back down (including U-Turns) and SDTM is always a risk. Any "volley" between the slingshots ALWAYS brings the dreaded outlanes into play. Nudge judiciously.

Yet I always go back for more - I cannot resist the flopping Walleye topper and also there is a certain allure to the "Shoot The Waterskiers" video mode - comical and simple yet fun - I remember this being MY FIRST experience encountering a video mode on a pinball game back in the 1990s - and although counterintuitive for a "pinball person", I loved it - and still do - adds a nice "accent" to a great pinball game.

STTNG and BSD for me, yet to find any games as challenging as these 2 on a consistent basis

I've never had a good game on JP or TAF.

BSD & FT are difficult but it makes them more re-playable
You want to go back to them more often then the easy machines

Tommy by a nose over TSPP. But it's close.