I own both. All of my friends prefers White Water.

When I play The Shadow, I feel like I’m in for a brutal grind. It can be frustratingly difficult. But it’s rewarding, and the depth of its rules keep me interested. Audio is rich sounding, but shallow. How many times do I have to hear the lady randomly say “Lamont?!” It gets annoying.

White Water is bright, fun, and doesn’t take itself seriously. It has a fantastic sound track (much better than Shadow, imho). And call outs are clever (Ya Weiner!). I love when you fail to save the man overboard, and Wet Willie says lackadaisically “Dang. Lost another one.” Like he’s running the worlds unsafest rafting business, and he knows it. Sure, it’s not the deepest game, but it’s pure fun.

For me, White Water is the better game.

I respectfully disagree. White Water does a really excellent job at randomizing shots on the lower playfield to let the player advance rafts. If you focus on the VUK, all you’ll get are boulder awards, which is only 1/4 of what’s needed to get to the vacation jackpot. Then there are the hotfoot targets, and the lost mine kickout to advance towards goldrush.

White Water is one of the few games where every shot has some type of importance or emphasis, at least if you want to make it to Wet Willies, complete wet willies, and get the vacation jackpot.

The Shadow, on the other hand, can be played completely to the final battle without ever touching a single ramp. Sure, vengeance is cool, but it’s completely ignorable. In my opinion, other than the gripes I previously mentioned, The Shadow could be immensely improved by adding a combo requirement to the scarf to advance to the final battle to force the player into making quick ramp shots in succession while using those badass diverters.

The link isn’t working, but I’m super curious to see it. Do you have the link to the page of the forum post?

Glad you asked this. I’m also in the same boat. Got a good deal on shadow, it’s a fantastic game, but it doesn’t scratch the itch like I thought it would. I’d prefer a trade for another B/W game, and a TZ would be absolutely my ideal trade in a heartbeat, but it’s a little over budget.

First world problems...

Same. Hell, I feel lucky when I get even one or two regular jackpots with shadow multiball, let alone getting a double or a triple. I think I've only ever got a super a handful of times, and getting a super during Khan? Fuggedaboutit!