I honestly don't know too many people who unabashedly love it.

I own a Popeye. To me, it may be the greatest "art" pinball machine with how everything is linked together. They spent stupid money on this thing making it so that the whole game looked like a boat. It's really neat.

But the game play is a problem. The art made it so the majority of shots are covered and hard to see what is happening.

The theme also is weird. I mean, I like Popeye and I like animals, but Bluto was never an anti animal crusader or whatever so it feels really odd. It's like they stuck a serious theme on a cartoon meant to be goofy. It doesn't work.

But, I still have my Popeye while I just put my Stargate up for sale.

Stargate is a much better overall game. It suffers slightly from the usual Gottlieb System 3 clunkiness, but that doesn't really bother me (I have about five System 3s). It's an overall very solid game with lots to do.

It's for sale though because while it is really good, in a larger line up it isn't that different than other games I have from the Era. Good modes, good unique Gottlieb tech, but ultimate similar to other things. Popeye's art is keeping it around.

It also doesn't hurt that my buddy has one that is in nicer shape than mine that I can play whenever.

In your situation, I say Stargate every time. Unless you just think the art on Popeye is so cool, and then get one and look at it in between games on better machines!