I think the code has come a long way, but it seems like it needs a minor update to clean some things up or make it gel. I hope the book is not closed on this code.

Hard to believe that XMLE is actually winning this poll (currently 56 IM and 59 XMLE)

Couldn't agree more. The game itself is great, but I find myself just wishing multiball would end so I can get back to the the goal (finishing modes). Once you beat magneto or weapon x it seemingly goes on pointlessly. First game I have EVER had where I did not like the mb...interesting to see I'm not alone.

Same here. XMen felt like a flail fest whenever you had more than one ball. Three or more balls and it seemed almost impossible to make any shots. I loved the one ball play, but hated starting a multiball, and I love multiballs. That was one of the deciding factors when I decided to sell my LE.

In Mag MB. The only shots that I seem to make on a regular are the Black Bird hole and Magneto shot. Those are two good shots needed to finish this mode. The BB hole is a must for add a ball and ball save. Mags shot to beat Magneto. All the other shots are icing on the cake IMHO. Multiballs are suppose to be chaotic and somewhat flailing.

What are the rules of Magneto Multiball?

BH and HF MB are great modes as well. Similar to MMB. You try to keep balls in play long enough to finish the mode. Strategy is same as Mags MB. With the exception of the HF and BH side targets count as shot to their perspective modes. You have to pick and choose your shots when you can. Balls are always wild. IMO these are brilliant MB that make me want to keep playing.

Scoring or progressing through the mode? Or both?

Modified Magneto Multiball to be up-to-date with other changes.
*Jackpots scale per completion
*Number of X-Men available to battle Magneto affects damage done to per shot.
*Direct hits on Magneto do more damage.
*Initial X-Men shots that are not available do greater damage when less X-Men are available.
*Relight message now on Magneto shot awards

This is from Sterns WS.

My strategy to progress through MMB is to do direct hits to Mag. Once he is completed and you are still in the mode. Keep hitting him. The value for each shot is 900,000.

Mmmm...a little bit but maybe not as much. TF gets really boring cuz it's shoot-shoot-shoot-shot-startmode-shoot-shoot-shoot-finish mode. At least in X-Men, the pace/logic of the hero shots is totally different than the villain modes, and there are stacking options unlike TF. My prob with those games compared to the "true deep" game games like TSPP and LOTR is that they just kinda feel like you're working on a checklist - there are less satisfying rewards & "side quests". TSPP and LOTR always feel like they're bursting with fun things to do simultaneously. For instance - LOTR...playing all the multiballs gets you to Destroy the Ring. FINISHING all the multiballs is a requirement for Valinor. Finishing Wolverine just gets you the Wolverine insert. I don't think finishing Magneto really gets you anything. Finishing LOTR modes gets you a Elf gifts. Finishing X-Men/TF modes just gets you a checklist insert.

I dunno, both games are about equal to me, each with critical flaws that blow the overall experience. For TF, it's the pointless Ironhide PF. For X-Men, it's Wolverine...not only is it a poor physical design for a bashtoy, but the ease of starting his Multiball (just a few hits, bam, in Multiball) was the dealbreaker for me. I get "gimme" multiballs for newbs, but that one is too much. Multiballs are more satisfying if you truly feel like you earned it. This could be solved through software, but it's not gonna happen at this point.

Surprised, but happy to see, that XMLE is getting some love these days. Two great Borg games in this vote.

Sounds like a check list to me.

"Simultaneously" in X-Men if you finish all heroes you have a chance to destroy DR, or finish all Villains and play DF.

You don't understand what I meant at all.

Almost everything you do in LOTR rewards you in some way. Shots have many multiple purposes based on context. Stacking is organic nothing feels repetitive. X-Men doesn't really have that.

Yah. I disagree. No pissing contest here.

Stacking with X-Men is also organic and does not feel repetitive.

I have to agree XM is not as bad as it's reputation IMO

It's hard for me, I mean the Storm / Rogue shots are much more difficult than the Side ramp / Gem shot on Tron, as I think the cyclops and ramp shots are more difficult than their respective shots on Tron.

In fact to me, the difficulty of XM is a minus but at the same time if I was able to make some shots and complete modes I feel like I earned it.

Well, I didn't "call it" anything. I expressed my fears, based on things I've heard/read about this game. And my memory of thinking at first that TF had a bunch to do and was hella fun...but that the game became very weighty after playing it for an extended period. Kind of like BDK...for me anyway.

If I'm playing a deep ruleset, I want a storyline. I want objectives interlaced with that storyline. I want to feel genuine reward - and story resolution/continuation - for accomplishing objectives. I DON'T want the game to seem like just hitting lit shots for no reason and getting random DMD dots and callouts as a reward.

There's a lot going on with XMEN, so I haven't figured out yet if the gameplay really delivers on what I like best or not. It seems like it could go either way. Let's face it, the game has been severely criticized by many for the rules in particular. I'm saying "I like it so far, tell me more".

This is what I mean. I don't have enough time on the game to know whether XMEN "has it" or not.

Greg, what other games remind you of TSPP and LOTR in this regard?

Chopping wood comes in many forms. It's when the game starts to feel like work more than fun. It's Like what RareHero said, when you're collecting objectives as if checking off a list, as opposed to feeling you're on a quest.

And games don't necessarily feel this way in the early days of release/ownership, but can become that way over time. IJ4 felt like that to me right away....t took me 6 months on Transformers. I never felt that way about LOTR and SM.

After 18 months with AV, I still don't feel its work...but since I've seen the whole game a number of times now, I'm ready to try something new. I want another deep game....something I can play for over a year without getting bored. Is XMEN that game? I'm considering it, and looking for opinions.

Newer games will usually win a poll... though as maligned as XM was with the original code, I'm glad it's finally getting its due in finished condition. It's actually a great poll comparison as the games are very complimentary in even the smallest collection, and neither have been mastered by even the best players in the world.

Xmen "has it" in a non Keith Johnson way. Unless KJ does the software, it doesn't really exist. TSPP is my all time favorite, and I hadn't put any time on Xmen until a league night a few months ago. After that night, I was on the hunt for an Xmen Pro. I would say Xmen is the 2nd best Stern I have played just behind TSPP. If you aren't making the shots (and they are tight), you are going to hate the game. But, if you can string some together, you get a much better feel for what the game has to offer.

My scores on all of my other machines have gone up since I got Xmen. My previous best on IJ was 900 million (I setup my games tough), and recently I just dropped under 2 billion on it as everything suddenly felt wide open.

Xmen is sort of like hitting a golfball with a baseball bat. After hitting a golfball awhile, a baseball seems easy....

I would say if you like Avengers, you will love Xmen.

I love X-MEN and have yet to care much for Avengers, though I have not put enough time on Avengers to cement my opinion in stone

The software plays fairly similar, Xmen just added another 400 shots I don't have *that* much time on Avengers, but enough to know that I like Xmen way better.

I have had the game for 2 years now and have grown more fond of it over time. The game has evolved over the two years into a highly addictive challenging mode based game that is a favorite to many Pinsiders including me. Over the two years of owning, I learned about the characters in the game. This helped me to enjoy and appreciate the detailed modes put into the game. If you know of a stock one around....go play it. Happy hunting.

Not always do newer games win the poll, I mean there are poll about Met vs LOTR or various other polls, I did a poll about XM vs Avengers and it was not even close.

I just looked, overall there are more pinsiders that list XM in their collection by a small amount, but probably more overall who have owned IM since it's been out longer more time to change hands multiple times.

Interesting that IM is just one spot higher on the top100 list at the moment.

While I was contemplating selling my XMLE for an IM the difference in price was around $600 more for a nice but routed IM that did not include such features as full side rails.

But on playing IM, I did find it fun and my type of theme, I felt that there was more to do in XMLE with both heroes and villain modes seems like 2x the code. I am not saying more stuff to do makes it a better game, but I could see IM could become like Tron where you need to complete 7-8 objectives which are really like 5 objectives since some (on Tron) could happen accidentally. I'm not saying that's bad but having Tron makes me more likely to want a different type game. To me, XM is kind of like Tron with more rules such as Tron with SM rules.

I am not 100% satisfied with XM rules but they are at least interesting.

From another thread..... and on of the many reasons XMEN(LE) is awesome. The music.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/PT0181SbDsk?autoplay=1&rel=0

I agree that the X Men rules and shots are interesting. I particularly enjoy collecting more heroes and then racking up points on the Magneto multiballs by having more heroes engaged in battle. I also like the Deadpool combo shot concept to advance through Villains.

It is a shame that there are no major high adrenaline callouts for Jackpots and Super Jackpots. Well maybe Magneto yelling NO counts.

It will be interesting to see what the X Men sound project yields as that could really change things around with respect to the overall playing experience.

Rcade published a HUGE ruleset description. Search for that

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/rcades-x-men-v12415-rule-breakdowns

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/x-men-13-le-rcades-initial-rules-findings-and-other-stuffs

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/-rcades-x-men-v15-changes-and-rules

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/-newer-xmen-bug-fix-code-update-218-on-sterns-site

Funny, now that I think about it IM doesn't really have jackpot callouts other than southern military guy saying "drone jackpot." Whiplash jackpots are just whipping sounds and even the Monger SJ is just a sound effect.

answer for now....WOZ

Keefer is the man!

We need a Keefer vs Lyman thread
LoTR is my favorite pin ever. But if I had a top 5 between the two, I'm pretty sure Lyman would be on top.

Actually, looking at my current top 10; my top 5 Keefer vs Lyman games would be in order:
1. LoTR - Keefer
2. FGY - Keefer
3. ACDC - Lyman
4. MM - Lyman
5. Afm - Lyman

So is having 3 Lyman games > 2 Keefer even though the Keefer games are #1 and #2? Hmmm...

I think Keefer and Lyman are everyone's favorites!

There are definitely some bad call outs in XMEN, but I find IM call outs to range from blah to cringe. In the end call outs are very minor part of the game to me though. The music in XMEN is top notch, and custom to the game.

Despite not having the Keefer or Lyman stamp on XMEN(LE)s rules, and the issues it once had, I find the XMEN(LE) ruleset to be one of my all time favorites. After looking at my audits, it seems I have played more games on. XMEN(LE) than any game in my collection. Some of my games I have owned for 3 or 4 years. I never just play one game of XMEN, like I will LOTR (not that it matters) I normally play XMEN at least 5 times every time I intend to play it once.

Same here.

IM has Jeff Bridges.

IM wins....end of that debate.

Damn it you had to play the Jeff Bridges card didn't you!

Yeah yeah, I get why people dig him...Lebowski, Tron...The best thing about Iron Man is the layout IMHO not the dude. Speaking of Tron....."Libations for everybody" is the most annoying call out of all time to me, and the biggest problem is the frequency you hear it....that being said, I can't think of much else bad about Tron....The art could have been better, but its not offensive.

Take it easy Tron crew, I love the game.