Seeing all the Spike 2 games listed reinforces that the LCD hasn't been a game changer for Stern IMO. Despite a handful of amazing games, overall they still haven’t surpassed the golden age of SAM with: IM, MET, ACDC, TWD, ST, Tron, GOT.

I'd only rank several above or along side the best SAM machines: Godzilla, Iron Maiden, Foo Fighters and maybe BKSOR. EHOH, BM66, DP and STh have great assets and code, but don’t shoot that well. I love LZ as a shooter but it doesn’t have the looks and enough “stuff” for broad appeal. Never understood the love for JP. Don’t have enough play on Beetles, Bond or Rush to judge. Others are bottom tier for me but still decent.

No matter how you stack them, this is one impressive list of games. I sat down to try and rank them but gave up. I'll just say that any list that doesn't have Star Wars and Rush in the top five or six games is wrong.

Stern is making a lot of just fun games.Seems, I collect B/W's ( yes they are fun as well), but love to play the Sterns. Interesting to see, Stern's now dominating the Pinside top ten

My SW has a custom sound track and pin woofer sound system. It would be the last game to leave my collection

B/W Munsters gets a lot of play in our house. It is low on every ones list but it is the game people are constantly reaching out to me to sell/trade. Thought about it once, but then decided no way. Dwights code updates made a big difference.

007 is going to be higher on every ones list once it is code complete. Some really satisfying shots. A lot of movie clips. large number of modes, great sound FX. I can see the concern about multiple same shot modes, hopefully that gets fixed.

Had a ST pro. Really liked it. Local Jersey Guy kept after me to sell. The usual "my kid really wants one" routine. Finally gave in. He kept it for like a month and then sold it . Would love one back. Would need to re mortgage the house to purchase.

EHOH and BM66 have tremendous code. Thought the shots were a little boring/simple, but necessary to process though the expansive code. Would like to get them back some time.

JP is also a cool game. Really like it when I am making the shots. Can be a clunk monster when not making the shots tho.

I can see why GZ is rated the highest on many lists. A lot of unique play field features / toys.

Never played Rush /FF. They look interesting. The Rush PF looks cool.

AS. Been there/ done that. Nuff said.

LZ, only played the pro. Racked up a ton of replay's. Must of been on easy play as I suck as a player. Need to get on a premium. My dream music title but not on the pro anyway.

I’m just curious, why did you rank The Beatles so low? I was just chatting with someone last night about it, and how I was really impressed with how it both felt like an old pin but it has all the bells and whistles of a modern stern. It doesn’t feel like anything else in their spike2 lineup.

I will say I never played Seawitch though

Agree but GOT wasn’t SAM it’s Spike.

I’ve owned more SAM than anything else and still have

Potc
IM
ST
Met
TWD

My Spike 2
DP
Godzilla
BM66
JP
SW

5 of each in my 15 pin collection. But I’ve owned Tron, AcDc, XMLE as well.

I can’t decide which I like better but probably slight edge to the Spike because I like the larger display. But probably SAM feel better built or shoot better.

I’d love some of older pins like Tron, SM, Iron Man upgraded with modern display and graphics. The dot matrix scene rips are pretty bad.

37D957E6-C3AB-4CC4-9F25-336D35D1BB21 (resized).jpeg

I just found it painfully boring. I have only played it on location, but it just wasn’t for me. I have maybe 10 games on it- but the last time I played it I walked away with a credit remaining

No one would downvote you if they actually saw you and thought about fighting you.

I'm sorry, are we in high school?

Fighting over downvotes on pinside is an insane concept.

Imo , Robin needs to drop the top 15% and bottom 15% from ratings to get a much more even ground . Let’s face it , everyone looks on Monday morning ,so might as well get it as right as possible .

The "easiest" way (sure its still a lot of work) to correct the top 100 IMO would be to have options for timeframes. For example have filter options to list the top games by "top 100 games by year", "top 100 games be decade", "top Stern games", "top Spike 2 games", "top Bally games", etc, and still have the traditional top 100 as the default as it's always been. I think that would be a good compromise.

Stern is doing a great job. There are a ton of machines on that list that I enjoy playing.
I'm a simple guy so Beatles is probably #2 for me. Godzilla probably my #1 for now. Others that I really enjoy playing in no ranked order are Deadpool, Black Knight SOR, Elvira HOH, Batman 66, Jurassic Park, Led Zeppelin, and Star Wars. There are a few of the newer machines that I haven't played yet. If someone forced me to fork over more money than I spent on my daily driver used Honda Fit to buy a pinball machine, I would buy the Beatles or Godzilla, with Black Knight SOR probably #3.

I think the joke is that SantaEatsCheese is something like 6 feet 6 inches tall. So I don't think anybody would want to fight him.

1. Godzilla
2. JP2
3. Iron Maiden
4. Rush
5. Star Wars
6. The Beatles
7. Foo Fighters*
8. Avengers
9. Black Knight Sword of Rage
10. Deadpool
11. Stranger Things
12. 007
13. Mandalorian
14. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
15. Batman 66
16. Elvira’s House of Horrors (sincerely, this is MM/AFM/STH without the risk or tension)*
17. Led Zeppelin (nothing on playfield)
18. Guardians of the Galaxy (totally unremarkable)

Never played: Munsters, Aerosmith

* Not played that much

Your ranking of bm66 and elvira tell me you don't like fun. You put effing turles above them both? Jesus christ, point on the doll where Lyman touched you.

Everyone loves GZ and I get it, but I still think a dialed in JP is the best game and the best layout so went with owning that. When you're hitting all those shots and combos after getting the muscle memory its amazing. GZ I do like the code and shots (with the exception of where the mode/battle start scoop is)
but Keith really had shit figured out with JP.

1. JP
2. GZ
Everything else (Still a list of great games)

My man! Every day my Fit is worth a little less and my pins a little more. Someday I'll own an EM worth more than my car.

Complete agree with @gjm7777's post, right down to the scoop criticism. Could've saved a lot of time just making this my list:

Agreed!

Art and callouts matter, too. GZ has that over JP as well.

I saw IMDN at 13 and bypassed to the end just to get the point across

Munsters B/W is a beautiful pin with that art imo . Love to get one some day. Easy to approach and play.

Honestly, I played Elvira in tournament and got a reasonably good score (and I'm a rubbish player), but it was - literally - the most bored I've been playing a pin since Data East Star Wars. It's basically AFM/MM if you removed the risk of draining from the central target on the building/saucer, so the ball just goes around, around and around.

I've played BM '66 a tonne of times at several different venues, and it's like the experience just slides off me. I don't dislike it and I don't like it either. It's what they say about love - the opposite is indifference, not hatred.

I reshuffled your list to my liking...

1. Godzilla
2. Iron Maiden
3. Deadpool
4. Jurassic Park
5. Foo Fighers
6. EHOH
7. 007
8. Batman66
9. Rush
10. GOTG
11. Star Wars
12. Stranger Things
13. Led Zeppeline
14. Black Knight Sword of Rage
15. Stranger Things
16. Avengers
17. Munsters
18. Beatles
19. Aerosmith
20. TMNT