Stargazer. Better overall art package. Better sounds and sound integration. And three spinners.

When you use the Star Gazer custom ROM the rulesets are very similar. I give Quicksilver the nod for better flow, the insane pop bumper nest and best sound package for 1980. And another +1 for the history of the artwork.

I have to agree. SG gets the edge on this one, but not by much.

QS by a mile. SG is decent but no idea why it gets the love it does.

SG blows QS out of the water with its middle spinner/middle drops/pop setup

Another vote for QS. Just watch this video...Bowen has it right

I have both. They both rock. Star Gazer has the best backglass in pinball. Quicksilver has some of the best gameplay.

I've never played SG with custom ROMs so I can't talk to that but QS is my favorite.

Phew. Very difficult to vote. Have both and both have their reasons to win. Stargazer 'wins' for having three spinners. If you get them set up right and can make 100+ spins shots clocking the machine is not too difficult. At least I lost once with 11 million plus . Quicksilver is than different and surely the diagonal bank in the centre is something to take care of. Like the extra bonus of 75,000. At one Pinball Expo Doug Watson did a seminar and told the visitors he was told not to use green as a main colour. Well, Doug didn't really listen it seems . And as a personal touch my favourite Stern backglass is on the game I like least... Viper.

Seawitch

Seawitch has the weakest art package but the best game play of those. 4 flippers, 3 drop target banks, incredible "rip tide" loop shot, pop bumper nest and excellent layout. Both Stargazer and Quicksilver are on my wanted list.

Oh man, you have to try the custom ROMs. Forcing you to shoot the entire field to spot all of the constellations makes it far more challenging. In fact, many games I don't even complete them once to get the 12K super bonus. I also like the way it handles the extra ball target differently and being able to reset the bonus multiplier.

However, I'd still like the ability to spot zodiacs. Maybe after you max out bonus multiplier, target banks spot zodiacs.

A nice, fast Seawitch is four-flipper frenzied fun.

The rip tide shot has a great light and sound effect, but unless you have a maxed spinner there isn't much incentive to shoot it, unfortunately.

Somebody needs to make a custom rule for the rip tide shot. Just like the drop targets that increase in value as each target on the playfield is hit, I think the rip tide should be multiplied by bonus x. Could you imagine having spinner at 1K, rip tide lit for 2x with 7x bonus multiplier? Instead of 22,000 plus the spinner, you would score 11,000 x 2 x 7, or 154K plus the spinner. With a well tuned spinner that could be a quarter million shot!

At TPF 2016 the provided Stargazer had a weak right hand flipper. At TPF 2017, a different Stargazer was down on the left flipper. So I have no real experience with SG. Quicksilver is only a dream for me. However, I have to agree with the Seatwitch arguments are spot on; I love my Seawitch.

But one Stern that does not seem to get the much love is Big Game. It plays fast, has two spinners, makes lots of noise (I love the soundset), is not easy to beat, and cranks out lots of points.

I’m voting Stargazer, with Seawitch second. Quicksilver after them.

Stargazer has “it”. Art, play, spinners, those crazy swooping guides by the flippers. It’s just wonderful. When you nail one of the spinners when it’s fully loaded, yum.

Seawitch is my favorite. chasing purples is a blast. Riptide shot maxed feels great. Fast..

Nineball with Oliver's Rom adds multipliers to multiball based on balls on the playfield. Love the spinner shot

QS and SG are incredible as well. Wish I had both of those

Star Gazer, Quicksilver, and Seawitch are definitely my top 3 classics Sterns. The order of them is debatable, but all three are absolute classics imo and easily rival the best Bally and Williams games from this era.

I own a QS and not a SG, so I would be biased and I will not vote. I have only played SG twice over the years and I didn't "get it".
I would be willing to buy a SG to give it another test drive though!

Cheetah got a whole lot of respect at the State Finals in Michigan. It was the game that was selected the most at my place out of all the games available.

Would love to have either one in the collection.

I did not mention Catacomb because I did not want to derail your post but Catacomb kicks ass !! Super fast !! Four drop target assemblies (A,B,C, and D) with three drops each. People don't like the back box bagatelle function which is less than 50% skill with the rest left to chance. But the rules are simple: Knock down drop assemblies A,B,C, and D in rotation four times which lights all 16 lights in the bonus/bagatelle part of the game; Easy to say---hard to do. Essentially, the better you play the play field, the less you have to mess with the "dreaded" bagatelle. Gives lots of points but every point is hard-earned.

If I had to choose between Seawitch (which I love) and Catacomb I would let Seawitch go first. Catacomb vs. Big Game would be a very difficult choice although I like Big Game's sound set better.

Yeah, Catacomb is awesome. Dig the bagatelle; you have to be quick-thinking and fast button-pushing! I think I've only completed the 'Toast' twice since owning. Tough!

But Quicksilver then Star Gazer are great too. Not a big Seawitch fan.

Had a Star Gazer for years, love it, so much more fun to shoot, play and look at than QS, IMO. QS does have pretty cool art though.
Had a pretty nice QS for a few months, years ago, and just found it very meh. Put a good number of plays on it too, but it just didn't last. Never had any desire to get QS again and actually passed on getting my original one back some years later. There's several sterns I would put ahead of it actually.

Funny thing is what I remember most about QS is the sad AAAWWWWW sound the ball saucer shot makes when you hit it. It's not a bad game, just didn't click with me.

I need to get my SG and QS done before I can vote properly. I have played both at VFW. From that experience; QS gets the game play nod, SG for the art and sound.

Also can't forget about Meteor. There is a reason it sold the most...

Honorable mention: Nine Ball. Love the sounds and fast game play.

Get a better cabinet speaker and hook up a subwoofer. When the saucer shot vibrates the glass you won't feel sad anymore.

Top 8 Sterns for me:

Quicksilver
Star Gazer
Nineball
Stars
Seawitch
F2K
Ali
Big Game

Expanding to the next 3 to get to top 11:

Cheetah
Stingray
Meteor

-DD

I’ve got tons of love for Stars, but it wasn’t in the poll. At the end of 2015 I took a road trip to Pennsylvania to get one. 770 miles for a Stars that needed quite a bit of work, and I love the game.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-roadtrip-goodbye-2015#post-2879429

It took me a while to get it into the lineup, but the game is an absolute blast. It is such a simple little game, with what most would consider strange chime sounds (Stars has a very distinctive sound). Nothing beats getting the special and hearing the points ring on the low chime. Great stuff.

Big Game, then Star Gazer, then Seawitch, Then Nineball, Then Quicksilver.

I am willing to admit quicksilver is low on the list because I have only played the one in Banning and its not setup well (something I hope to address the next time I am down there and get to tech).

Big Game is one of the best games from the early 80's, period.

I now have a restored Dragonfist. Love it. Top 5 at least.

Thanks Frippertron. =)

I can't quite comment yet on that as I played a hurting Stingray years ago and liked it a bit so bought one and scored a NOS playfield for it that I had Bill Davis auto-clear. It's waiting it's turn in the resto line. I've played Meteor so many times over the years that I never set it up in favor of something else. I'm thinking Stingray with it's chimes will charm me like Stars did and win me over more so than Meteor. But we will see....

-DD

I had 2 Dragonfists a few year back. One gorgeous condition one with minty playfield, backglass and cabinet that I thoroughly went through to make perfect playwise. After play testing it for a weekend to see if it would be a keeper, I was underwhelmed and called it a poor mans Star Gazer. Sold it off for a pretty penny. =)
Got another one that wasn't in as good of shape but restore-able. And sold that one as well.
As I did with the pair of nice shape Iron Maidens and the pair equally nice shape of Catacombs and Free Falls.
Never bothered with acquiring a Split Second after I played one at a friends house. Decent game but software didn't feel finished and again it's play underwhelmed me.

-DD

(Updated my top 10 to top 11 to include Meteor since it is deserving of a top 11 Stern spot.) =)

I haven't played too many old Sterns. I owned Seawitch and never got into that game. Felt kinda cramped.
I am on my second Meteor and love it. I really like Stargazer too and will be building one once I complete my current project. Never played QS. I think I played a Big Game at Expo but don't remember much so I am not counting it.

How do these games compare to classic Ballys? I admit I love and enjoy playing both. Seems the STERN runs had far fewer units built. I assume that was due to distribution "issues".....

I hope you get to play a QS that's set up properly. When you do, you will appreciate its speed and flow and understand the genius of its design.

Here is my quick opinion on the games I have owned:

Stargazer - A pure joy to play and has the most satisfying spinners of any classic Stern.
Quicksilver - Great game with strategic shots. I think it has the best bonus sound of that era.
Big Game - A lot of fun with a huge amount of shot variations. Never gets old.
Stars - Simple but great short term fun in an early SS.
Trident - Hugely underrated with the unique bottom layout and smart drops.
Cheetah - A widebody with shots all over the place. Not for everyone but a lot of variation.

I, too, am not a big fan of Iron Maiden and Split Second. Iron Maiden is very cool and I'd love to have one in my collection, but I've played a few of them and all left me unimpressed playwise.

Played Split Second a few times in the arcades, never again. Maybe I need to give a nice example another chance. I don't know....seems everyone that picks one up moves it pretty quickly.

I have my concerns with Freefall. No one ever talks about it. I'm going to try to set mine up right and tweak it. We'll see what happens.

Meteor is awesome!

I'll admit, when I played it in the arcade I didn't care for it that much. Then I bought one on the cheap and thought I'd kick it around a bit for something different to play. I had just sold a Trident, which I liked, and was falling in love with QS so I wanted more classic Sterns.

Well I got it running, rebuilt the mechs and started playing it. It played well, but it was still just OK. I could roll it at will. I put the divide by 10 ROMs in and that ended the rolling, but I was still scoring into the millions all the time. It just wasn't challenging enough and wasn't giving me that "just one more play" feeling I wanted from it.

So I decided to make it harder. I raised the back legs all the way and put it on blocks. I jacked it up so high it felt like you were playing pachinko. Ok too much. I dropped it down just enough to the point where the physics started to feel normal again. Still really steep, but at least the ball would actually bounce off the rubber instead of dead hits and dropping. I also gapped the lower flippers EOS switches as close as I could to give them more power to fight the added slope.

It was there that I found its sweet spot. Now it's hard to max out the rockets. The ball moves so fast up top that it's harder to hit all of the Meteor targets. I tweaked the spinner to make it very lucrative. Even so, rolling it is a thing of the past. So challenging. You know if you can just have one good ball -- get Meteor targets up to 6x and get the extra ball -- you might have a chance of breaking a million.

Now it gives me that "just one more play" feeling, and I love it.

quicksilver all day long...

Quickgazer, er...Starsilver

10 (resized).jpg

Once I finally get to restoring my Meteor, I'll do just that! Sounds like you made an easy game into a just one more play game. =)

I have a Dragonfist in very nice condition. I have had it for about a year now. It was not love at first play. It was OK but I usually turned on Seawitch first.

Dragonfist is not an easy game to play; It is extremely fast. I love the speed but some of the drops are hard to access.

After playing this pin for hundreds of games, I finally found the skill shot for this pin and it changed everything. After one wild session, I moved over to Seawitch and got bored with it and I have never been bored with my Witch before. Now, Dragonfist is the one I fire up first.

Of the Sterns I have:

1) Big Game (down for restoration). Big Game is the one that brought me to the pinball dance
2) Catacomb
3) Dragonfist
4) Seawitch
5) Nine Ball.

cheetah has sounds from QS and SG.
so if you are in it for the sounds, there is an alternative.