Agreed, and not disputing its greatness...but " best" a very subjective question ( dependent on the player). Just using general observation.....newest always seems to be " best" until the next...( I love MET btw, and want to love Kiss, but neither is moving my TRON )

TSPP...ahead of its time on so many levels.

PotC

Met and St for me..... would like to upgrade my met pro at some point

I am surprised too. GoT ranked last!? Metallica has a good rep but seeing it with 2X+ more votes than the pins fighting for second place!?

That's an idea we discussed that between mods - someone made a simulation by getting rid of legacy votes. No big changes. Unsure if worth the efforts.

Really? That's a surprise. In that case it's not worth the effort. I would have thought maybe the newer titles would have improved a bit.

Wrestlemania.

#ultimatesternfan

Lotr is amazing! Rules. Gameplay. Flow. Call outs. Long games but intense. Just bought it again. It's a keeper.

Met is so close to being amazing. I owned it and sold it after a few months. Had the latest code. Everything is awesome I just really didn't like the rules. Multiballs are pretty well pointless. In my opinion it felt like a lot of cool ideas just thrown on the table. The rules just didn't make sense to me. You make a pin with a layout and art that good take the code to Lotr levels and integrate everything. I think frying sparky should be mandatory to Progress to wizard mode. Same with the other multiballs.

IM. Awesome. Brutal. Will own again at some point. Only thing I didn't like was it was impossible to score points!

Twd at first I thought was lame! Kept playing it at the local arcade and I must have one now! Unique layout. Sweet rules. Brutal. Intense. Huge scoring shots. So good.

Tron is another pin I would like to own. Played it a lot and it is amazing. Looks amazing. Great sound. Nice simple rules. Intense. Addicting.

Met , twd and even acdc have the best code of any stern pin. Yea lotr and tspp may be deeper in a sense but that dont always mean they are the best code. Met , twd and even acdc to a extent are the best coded stern pins imo .....not just bc of the rules but the way the games play , light shows, scoring and the way everything comes together seamlessly when playing . Its really something special when Lyman gets on them and every game he does just gets better and better .

Good idea - just some filter options for the Top 100 would do the job. Eg: show top 10 Stern games, top10 Bally/Williams, top 10 games from years 1990-2000. Top 10 based on results of last 12 months. You could even sort by the rating variables - top 10 by art, top 10 by rules etc etc. all the info is already there, just need to give the user the option to filter it.

Lord of the rings is king!!

Met is a beautiful game and has the best "show" of any game I ever played. But I think I will sell my MoPLE. I am not in the honeymoon phase with GoT anymore but I think as ugly as the PF artwork is and no matter how bad some of the DMD animations are. I just have way more heart pumping fun with GoT.
Perhaps I am playing MET the wrong way. But it's a lot of work to get to the real fun parts of the code. So from the games above, I say AC/DC and GoT are Sterns best. Met is only on third place for me and if I like the GB or JJP3 gameplay it has to go.

It's a Ritchie. A bad Ritchie. Like 24.

I just can't get into they layout. Way too open and the drop target heaven thing just doesn't work on a modern game. I'd rather play Dimension or Jungle Queen. The upper playfield is lame and this game has zero flow for a Ritchie.

People go on and on about the fantastic rules but they just can't overcome the half-baked layout, horrible art, and rotten theme and sound.

For me its X-MEN Magneto LE

It has everything going on with a great layout, art, and gameplay. From magnets that interact to spinning disk that throw the balls to moving ice ramp, pop up night crawlers, tight shots, well integrated shaker, third flipper and great lighting from factory. Yes it took some time for the code to come along and now it has become a challenging and fun pin.

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I feel schizophrenic trying to vote in this poll. I currently own 4 of them that I think are keepers, and I'd welcome any of the others into my house.

So here is the problem. I walk into my gameroom and I'm in the mood for something short and brutal. Tron or IM gets the nod and feels like the best modern Stern. On a different night I walk in and flip on LOTR and I begin a long quest that makes LOTR the best modern Stern. It is all about my mood and what I want to play.

Really all of them are the best modern Stern if they are what you want to play at that moment.

I love my Metallica. Have been a fan of the band for many years, love the tracks in the game and the artwork. It looks amazing in my line up. But....when I play the game, I get hammered on 3 balls (5 balls is cheating. Haha). I can play 4 games in a row and may get to Crank It Up mode on the last game. At that time, i'll turn the machine off. It feels like such a chore after a while. With Tron, I can progress through modes and still want to play it again. Metallica, not so much? What am I doing wrong?

You're worrying to much about CIU and forgetting to play the game. Move your goals around. Play one just to see how good you can do on Graveyard. Then Sparky. There are a lot of ways to play the game (goes for a lot of games). If you focus on just one of them, the game starts to feel stale. If you play it the exact same way over and over (15 of this, 15 of that, 15 of the other thing...) to get to CIU it just limits the progression. Just have fun and switch goals.

ACDC.

Look at that list. It rivals the 90s BW games. All of them are great.

My favorites have been SM and LOTR with usually long balls times. Also enjoyed ST layout and plays nice with flow. But I also enjoyed my first time playing TWD and GOT this past weekend at Zapcon pinball event. I actually surprised myself and put up great scores on these new Stern games and did not get destroyed like I always seem to do on Metallica (which always goes out left out lane) or AC/DC or Tron Or IM in which if you miss one shot ball seems to find its outlane rather quickly. I don't need long ball games all the time but feel some recent Sterns are real drainers for a decent player. On a side note really looking forward to GB which I think has the most Stern has put into a game for what've can tell so far.

Metallica ... it is the whole package. I really feel it is the MM of it's time, but with better software than MM. Very similar lay out and shot pattern.

TWD a close second.

Then a tie for 3rd ... SM,LotR, Tron, AC/DC

Use the MB's to advance towards CIU and Seek and Destroy. Get those lanes lit up!

It'll be interesting to see which games become classics and which ones get pushed down the list.

Yeah yeah yeah. I might give met another shot at some point.

So many great games to choose from... Dang. If I have to pick one I think it would be Spider-man. Everyone has spoken of all the others and I agree with most but In my opinion RBION and KISS definitely not comparable to the others. GB should not be on list yet.

The super jackpots at sparky can really add up too. While you're lighting those lanes you're making progress toward a super at sparky. Collect more than 1 or 2 of those and you'll start racking up the points.

Back to the topic.. All of them are great, but Metallica is awesome

For an entire package from depth to breadth to pro vs PREM to sounds and experience, I voted ACDC.

STLE is close but it suffers from breadth and I'm not a fan of the pro VUK and kick back (or lack thereof)

Metallica is another great contender but progressing through the game requires a lot of bashing of the main 4 toys which all feel like bash toys (sparky, grave markers, hammer, snake). Not a bad thing but a little too much work for me to vote it as the best all time. And I'm not the biggest fan of the hammer and magnet and its functionallity. still a great game, just not the best IMO.

Hey dude thanks for the down vote

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28 votes (to this point) for GB... that should tell us everything we need to know about Pinside polls.

The art, theme and call outs are too much to overcome for some people.

The layout is fun. The upper play field is TBL like and fun when you know what you are doing.

Some shots are long, tight and difficult.

Different is a good thing imo.

"Flow" is good if it's set up right. And flow is so overrated anyhow.

Thankfully it's not like every other Ritchie pin

Ripley's is pretty much the only one I can stand. And Tron was fun for a while.

Shouldn't this thread and poll be titled "What Modern Stern do You Own"

Of course. You love it if you own it right?

I guess that depends on who's doing the ratings...

LoTR is the best stern made TWD is the only other that I feel has come close. Then im tron sm met are close behind that.

Just sold my LOTR and ACDC Premium. SM stays, the only Stern remaining!

This^^^^^^ wisest post in the thread.....all of these polls are just current popularity contests, w flavor of the month on top....nothing wrong w that for discussion, but another reason that the true " top dogs" have remained relatively unchanged ( and probably won't) in the rankings

A great machine will always be a great machine ( TZ for example) ....not even a popularity contest....you may not like it personally, but as a fan of the hobby, you can't deny it...no " undoing" great......

Oops...not a Stern.....ahh, don't care.....drinking scotch and playing IM at the moment.....

Mmmmm, Scotch...

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Finished off my bottle, dammit....guess I have to go Monday for another 1 ( or 2....secret code for Flank)....

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Is it allowable to switch to just whisky? ( Oh wait...this isn't even a Club thread...that means yes...Saturday rule applies)

I don't know what it is about Stern games. They always feel so lack luster to me somehow. Not that they're bad; they just never suck me in. Granted, I haven't played them all so who am I to judge?! That being said, if a gun were to my head I'd choose SMVE.

Top 3 Stern:

Spiderman (Black is best)
Tron LE
Ripley's

Haven't played a few of the most recent releases.

When I started collecting pinball machines seven years ago, all I worried about was keeping the ball alive. Then I purchased AC/DC in 2012. My focus changed to beating my own top scores, as well as the scores of people online and this is when I really started to have fun. My focus then changed to completing modes in games and I think maybe the fun in simplicity has been lost a bit when I play now. "I must complete the progression of modes. I must complete the progression of modes"....and then turn the game off. My scores are also low because of this. I will take your advice with my other games as well.

Thank you!