I can vote with the two I own-

Harlem Globetrotters
Playboy

Not going to argue game play and gimmicks and features. To me these represent very early examples and both hit it out of the park on the art/theme integration.

I like playing both- I dont worry much about depth. A pinball game should be fast, fun and then game over. Not a fan of 20+ minute games and these fit that to a T.

Quick ball times is why I'll bring my Dolly Parton around to kick some ass. Even set to 5-ball and with a 4-player group, the game is over within 20 minutes.

I love the variety of Circus, but the only version I played had the most god awful sounds I have ever heard. Genie sounds awesome and Circus makes my ears want to bleed.

Mine makes little circus ditty sounds, kaleidoscope I think they are and of coarse those 80's computer type sounds.

There are 2 ways to look at this; technical and personal. They tend to intertwine, however.

Technical:
First, we should define early solid state pinballs as machines from 1977 - 1984.

Next, we can look at pinside's own top 100 (comprised of 1000s of pinhead's detailed rankings). Here are their top machines as of 5/22/2019:
1) Fathom #45
2) Centaur #58
3) Eight Ball Deluxe #65
4) Star Gazer #73
5) Barracora #75
6) Flash Gordon #76
7) Seawitch #88
Quicksilver #89
9) Spirit #92
10) Medusa #96
11) Black Hole #100
12) Firepower #102
13) Paragon #104
14) Catacomb #107
15) Joker Poker #115
16) Space Shuttle #125
17) Gorgar #130
18) Centaur II #133
19) Black Knight #137
20) Xenon #138
21) Frontier #139
22) Skateball #142
23) Haunted House #143
24) Stars #145
25) Laser Cue #149
26) Nine Ball #150

While there may be a few outliers, this list in the top 150 should pretty well represent the best machines of the early ss era.

We can cut out some of the similar layouts and styles like nine ball, haunted house, joker poker, and centaur II.

This is where it gets tough. Things like price, artwork, and availability become very important. Fathom, centaur, star gazer, and quicksilver are all expensive these days. There is some great artwork in this era (the best imo), but that leaves games like skateball and laser cue behind.

This leaves Flash Gordon, EBD, barracora, and seawitch at the top.

For me, it is tough to beat the quality, price, artwork, and gameplay of ebd and flash gordon.

Please Daditude tell me you are just kidding...…..top 100, "useless"

i used it as a jump off point...
Sorry if you are a fan of hyperball

Top 100 is actually fairly useless and subject to wild flucuations.

Take the EM top 100

Anyone notice that a month ago the #1 game suddenly became Olympic Hockey. Its now down the list a bit- but any top 100 list that can promote a game that was not previously listed to #1 overnight- that then slowly starts dropping in rating- is clearly to be taken with a giant grain of salt. These lists are fun but irretrivably bad from a trustworthy useful data standpoint-

ALSO. Who cares what you think- I like brunettes.

Pinball is personal we dont need bad data to help us decide what we like.

For the crowd: i agree, eight ball deluxe. I hope to own one someday.
For me: Trident.
I have had many early SS games but owned this one for 10 years before I got tired of it.
Unusual, I know but there was just something about that game

Star Gazer

TNA!

Please, no. Pinball enjoyment is a personal thing. I don't give a crap what someone says about a game till I play it myself. Everyone has different things that bring them back to play it again or walk away. Pinside's ratings (and IPDB) are based someone else's pinball idea of what they enjoy. I like drop targets & fast playing games. That's just me. Some like slow games like Space Invaders which to me is boring as hell. Great looker but a snooze fest player.

i too like HGTT

but doesnt agree your last sentence : if you want to simply make points (tournaments), go all day for the right lane drops targets, and its done...

Paragon and Flash Gordon in a tie

Well after the drops you work the spinner and top saucer. Then you get to recover as the ball comes out of the pops and bonus advance spinners.

Embryon

There is something just very pure and satisfying about Joker Poker, certainly not the zenith of technology, but just a great game to play again and again, always presents a challenge.

1) Quicksilver
2) DragonFist
3) Fathom

We can??? are you high?

I wish people would learn to give reasons when drawing conclusions.

Why would you arbitrarily cut off early solid state at 84?

I would cut it off at 85 and include sorcerer, but not 86. Why? Alpha numerics start in 86 and ramps become more common Grand lizard, high speed and forward.

Conclusion - reasoning

But I always blame OPs for lack of definition and not babysitting threads and keeping them on track. You shouldn't have to work this hard to pull conclusions out of thin air like this.

Carry on...

Yes, Joker Poker is one of the best drop target games out there. I had one on location and it out earned many DMD titles, and easily outearned a number of other early classics including Fathom and Centaur. Of all the classic games I have routed, the only classic games that kept up with it from an earnings standpoint were EBD, with Quicksilver just behind it.

Fireball Classic. Why? I said so.

So lazy you started another thread on this same topic, and then belittled people in it. You're not interested in a conversation, you're just looking for, I dunno, a free research assistant? Go outside and play pinball or something.

I agree with a lot of what people have said in this thread about the best games, Seawitch, EBD, Fathom, etc. I can't pick just one and i will add a couple of my favorites that haven't been mentioned:

Black Knight - spinner ramp shot, voice, dual level playfield, magnasave. I can't believe no one mentioned it yet.
Solar Fire - tons of features, drops, momentary magnasave, my favorite dual level playfield
Barracora - I love the stacked lane change, in order drops and the u-turn shot.

if we are including rare games...
Cyclopes - pop bumper by flippers, drops, targets behind drops, spinners, captive ball, deep rules for the era

Looks like I am a big Roger Sharpe fan!

Ballers

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:lol:I'm having a hard time seeing that guys future.

Even though there are many great games in this era I would have to say Paragon - Plenty of features to shoot at and traps if you aren't careful.
Or Centaur - I bought one and had never played one - I went on IPDB ratings which were spot on. Probably the last game to leave my collection - artwork, shots, speech and great game play.

Medusa and Flash Gordon are my two favorites from this era. Beautiful artwork. Great sounds. Challenging.

Flash Gordon is great. If it had the Queen soundtrack from the movie, it would be awesome!

I am going to cast my vote for Skateball. I consider it a darkhorse sleeper pin that wouldn't be if more people had time on it. Fast and furious but requires a good aim. Needs some nudging but careful not to tilt away that great bonus. Don't let the soothing surf sounds and soft art fool you - this game brings it.

if we're going as late as 84 then i'm surprised nobody's mentioned Cosmic Gunfight.

Casually mentioned above is bonus.
By the time ss machines of this era came along, bonus was so important to a good score.
I love racking up 5× 29k bonus on 6 million dollar man.
Many a game was won by the bonus points alone. It makes these games more fun.
Modern games pay homage to bonus but it is really insignificant to the outcome.

I own or have owned most of my favorites from that time frame (Black Hole, Centaur, Fireball II, Flash Gordon, Black Knight).

But recently I got to play a very well tuned Spirit. Wow. What an excellent game. Haven't played it enough to say if I'd rank it higher than one of the ones I own, but it might just be my #1.

The flippers in the out lanes gets me every damn time!

If there were more Spirits out there playing well, I think it might win more people over.
Paragon for me, otherwise.