The problem with reviews is that, if you read/watch enough of them you can be influenced to see mole hills as mountains. X game has cheap drains. Y game is too floaty. Z game has a particularly annoying callout. Then you play them and that's all you see hear is the floaty callouts with cheap drains. Of course, you also have an immediate distrust of a review that just fluffs a game too! Everyone is influenced by a review/opinion especially when it is repeated more than once. Anyone who says they are not influenced by a review/opinion "at all" is either lying to you, themselves or are simply not human. Human beings take all information available to them and synthesize it to form an opinion. We are hardwired that way.

The problem is that these are very expensive and heavy machines that you not only have to buy but eventually you have to resell. Doing a little research is prudent on a game you don't have a lot of experience with. Nobody wants to have a boat anchor sitting in their collection that they can't easily get rid of without taking a substantial loss.

Then again, you have to go with your personal preference or you wind up with "cookie cutter collections" made up of games in the top 20. Whenever I see pics of a collection consisting of MM, AFM, Tron, Metallica, IJ, TZ, BM66, Latest Stern, etc, I just think "well there goes a person who can't think for themselves!". Those sort of people are usually collecting for some other reason than the love of pinball and usually are out of the hobby within 5 years. Not that any of those are bad games, mind you. Just seeing the same top 20 lineup over and over leads me to believe those people are in it for the status symbol aspect and likely came from or will move on to some other hobby where they collect the "best" of something.

The solution? Well that's tricky and takes a lot of years to develop. Understand what you like in a pinball machine. Don't be afraid to take a chance, knowing you will be in the hobby for a long time. Don't think about a game as "bolted to the floor" forever. Your opinion on a game WILL change after playing it several hundreds of times. You SHOULD get bored with a game after awhile. Choose your collection based on different shots, themes, different layouts and have the ultimate goal of experiencing ALL of them for yourself. Everyone has an opinion and most of them are correct to one degree or another. Make sure you can separate those opinions from your own and find what appeals to you. This is not easily done but is usually the sign of a person who really likes pinball.

Anyway, these are just like my opinion man. Your mileage may vary.