I'm going to say all of them since robocop none have been themed after robocop.

Transformers, monopoly, and prepare to hate me but I think hobbit. Hobbit will definitely be a good game but it won't be the great game it could have been. Lotr is my favorite game and I wanted more from th, I wish stern had gotten the license.

I have a feeling that a lot of people who got into the hobby more recently will say really recent games, but none of them have been as disappointing as what happened with games like 24 or Wheel of Fortune. 24 had a really rocky development with Steve Ritchie not finishing the design he started, and the code on it just doesn't "feel" right. Wheel of Fortune is a great game with an outstanding and unique layout, but the software on it is clearly not done with stuff that literally isn't there and confirmed by it's programmer that it was never completed.

The Avengers

5/19/02 - The Undertaker pinned Hulk Hogan for the title.

ghostbusters with hand drawn art, we need more games with photo-shopped art. Like the old days.

Monopoly?

Pat Lawlor tried to warn you people back in 2001 when he was working on that game LOL

"Everyone is all excited because they think we're gonna deliver something like Twilight Zone. That's not the case. What we're working on is going to be a very good representation of what this kind of pinball is capable of being. But the limitations of the current pinball market are such that you can not go out and tool some ungodly devices, you cannot spend the kind of money we were spending in 1992 and 1993 to put things on a playfield. Just can't happen.

"We can not sell enough games to make that possible. So what we have to do is take our best shot at what we are able to do and make it a very fun game and that's hopefully what we are doing. But for all these people who are claiming that what I'm working on is gonna be some ground-breaking tribute to pinball ... it's not gonna happen. Is what we're building gonna be a good game? Yes. Is it gonna be a smooth, fun game? Yes. Is it gonna have three Rudy heads? No. It's not, because in the current marketplace you can not afford to do that."

The Rolling Stones. AC/DC and Metallica got great pins and the Stones got a turd.

I don't really know if it was hyped as being awesome or not, but I just can't get into the Transformers.

Stern Indiana Jones

IMHO any of the pinball 2000 if they can even be called pinballs. they were horrible

Stern Mustang! I'm a Ford guy and the Mach 1 I drive is placed prominently on the playfield. What a major disappointment.

Transformers, I get bored after ball 1. Doesn't help that I have zero interest in that theme. Mustang and Avatar as well. Rolling Stones was bad, 24, Sopranos gets flat fast. There are alot of games I would never consider owning. To each their own. The second pin I ever bought was TFTC. I love the theme, could not get into the game. Could not sell it fast enough and I only paid $1000 for it.

With a bullet. IJ4 is the definition of disappointment. An almost total waste of one of the top themes of all time. There are several games that aren't great and coulda, shoulda, woulda been better, but IJ4 is the king.

I like my ij4. If they would finish the software, I would put it in the same class as met and Twd. It is more complete than wof so there is that....

Does PRED count (3 were produced)??? You never specified game play - this was disappointing in a whole new level!

I really can't get into WOF, Monopoly, Mustang or WWE.

Sorry to break the news to you, but hobbit is amazing! I got 8-9 plays on it last night and watched several others play. JJP crew did a fantastic job on all levels. Code is still early, but LOTR is one of my favorites and I see hobbit easily surpassing it on every aspect.

The display, animations, edited scenes...are choreographed perfect. The code needs a lot of work, but knowing Keith is on the job does not worry me. And before you ask, no I do not have a hobbit on order and do not own WOZ.

Monopoly is a game I enjoy but it saddens me because it could have been more.

Probably Avengers. but 20 years is a long time, I'm sure there were worse. I see a lot of people dislike Transformers, and at first I felt the same way but I really got into it. Often I do that, I discover something about it I really like about it. Monopoly, meh... Rolling Stones, meh... just typical Stern games of the era. Stern's games have improved since competition has come into play.

I disagree on The Rolling Stones. It would have to be vastly improved to each "typical". Mick on a stick?

SWE1 and Transformers both failed to meet the high expectations that were put on them. Avengers as well...where is the six ball multiball they promised?

Harley Davidson. What makes it even worse is they had 2 tries. The first one, the Harley 2nd Edition made by Sega and then Stern 1999/2000. The 3rd Edition Harley (no doubt bought & paid for by Harley for their 100th anniversary) came out in 2003. Both are turds. They could have done so much with the theme....and did so little.
The only thing that keeps the secondary market on these from totally collapsing is the demand by Harley owners, looking for accessories.

Too many candidates to pick just one.

With TH, how on earth could the code still need a lot of work?

It's now delayed over a year. Woz is great and I'm thankful for continued updates and Keith, Ted and crew are fantastic but code should be very advanced.

I guess Pat's game and #4 are eating up a ton of manpower and time

Maybe the production machines will ship with more advanced code than the prototypes were running?

How do you find the actual flow of the game? I was disappointed with the two ramps being so close together and the upper flipper being there just to be there.

What's not complete? I thought it was all there.

24 is actually pretty good once Lyman finished up the code a couple years later. But if you play the crappy future pinball clone of it once you can see immediately all that could have been done code wise. The FP version plays a video scene from the show which could have been on a small led type monitor and has each scene feel like it ties into the game. The software on sterns is fun but doesn't engage you into the theme or which scene you're on. A couple actual tois to replace the cheap plane and helicopter would have been really helpful also.

stern-pinball2011-10-1406-22-10600_(resized).jpg

Interesting that there is a lot of hate for Monopoly. I play at least 5-6 games of it per week and enjoy the simplicity along with the classic theme. It is also the pinball that I can most easily introduce others to where they are not overwhelmed with the rule set.

WWE, Avatar, Mustang

This topic needs a poll!

I played WWE last year at TPF. I dislike the theme, but I wanted to see how the idea of the wrestling ring worked. Clever concept, but poorly executed and poorly integrated into the game, as far as I could determine. I played several games of it and just couldn't catch the buzz. It doesn't get lots of love here on Pinside; was it a flop sales-wise?

It didn't have Ritchie ramp style flow but there was plenty of action to be had for the player and the flippers. The Orc pop ups felt good and there was no klunk about them. Fun to hit and integrated well.

The Ramps close together didn't bother me, the left ramp seemed to need more code as the right ramp was the more important shot. Going for a ramp shot definitely needed a controlled shot and flailing from a ball return would result in a 'U-turn' ramp shot. Speak of the 'U-turn', it needs rules and sound effects associated with it.

The upper flipper seemed pretty useless, but I can see Keith integrating some key jackpot shots using it; think left loop to upper flipper to the drops/stand ups for some kind of rule advancement or to the VUK behind the drops for a mega jackpot shot.

I agree with those who say "24". As a fan of the show, I have seen every episode and consider it one of the top 5 shows ever. While not a horrible game, it does not capture the excitement of the show. Very little to no voice soundbites from Jack Bauer or even Tony would have gone a long way to draw you in. The end product is just ok, but feels generic. Too bad, because this theme deserves better.

All of the machines that had black as the dominant color on the playfield. Is it even a color?

No, it couldn't have, unless it came out several years later.

If you look at the stuff stern was putting out at the time - NFL, Sharkeys, and high roller- you'll realize what a big step toward respectability monopoly was.

For me, the Rolling Stones is just ugly and boring.

24 is great and TF's is quite the fun pin but Rolling Stones sucks, the latest game that did nothing for me is WWE but any pin is fun to some degree and if I only had the Stones pin on an Island with nothing else to play I'm sure I would find the good with in pretty fast.

Labnip's $15000 Tron LE.

Won't work because ...

On the nose.

Going back 20 years there is only one answer, Star Wars Episode 1. There can be no debate. It was a hugely anticipated movie and a brand new pinball platform full of potential.

What we got was a lousy movie full of uninspired special effects, a symmetrical play field with an uninspired rule set and the game that was directly responsible for the death of Williams pinball. That game was the start of the lowest point for the industry and nearly killed pinball.

Vacation America by Chicago Gaming

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=4848

image-7_(resized).jpg

There are many other reasons for the death of pinball but I think it started with the acquisition of Williams by Bally along with the dumbed down rule sets put forth in the WPC95 games. They were trying to appeal to the lowest common arcade denominator and ended up turning off the hardcore pinball players.

No way. SWE1 had very little to do with the demise of Williams or pinball in general. In fact it was the other way around...the decline of the pinball market is why SWE1 didn't have more development and Williams closed -- a decision made before SWE1 was even released. In fact just looking at the Star Wars licensed games I would rather play SWE1 than SWT or maybe the Data East SW...if the SWE1 movie clips were able to be skipped faster.

If you're talking about disappointment from hype/expectations and cost (new), I would say some of the newer games. Mustang probably gets my vote, followed by WWE. Expectations were low in the early 2000s so I wouldn't pick those.

For the theme/license possibilities, probably BDK for me.

For how the game looks? WOF, because some of the stuff you see literally isn't coded.

GOT is probably the most disappointing pin ever made.