Just picked up a Marilyn Taxi for my first pin and loving it. My wife an I quickly realized that a house with one pinball machine really needs two pinball machines

So I'm looking for <=$2500 "player" condition pins. I'm gravitating towards early 90's stuff, early DMD, but would be up for an early 80's solid state as well. Low maintenance is important to me. Right now I'm looking at a T2 for $2500, but my wife is interested in an X-Files for the same price. I was going to pick up a Paragon but the seller got cold feet. We'd both like a Jurassic Park, but those seem to go for about $1k more than my budget.

We love Taxi because it is simple to explain, but difficult to play well. It requires decent aim. T2 seems like a step up in complexity which I think I might enjoy.

It's an open ended question, but I thought I'd ask the community: what to pair with Taxi in a 2-pin household?

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

I've been dropping quarters into F-14 Tomcat lately, and love the change of pace from Taxi, but too many people say it gets old too fast in a small collection. The Getaway and High Speed are on the short list. I'm realizing that maybe I want a faster pin to pair with Taxi. X-Files is supposed to be pretty fast from what I read. The X-Files scares me a bit because of some of the hate it gets, but mostly because I fear it would require quite a bit more in time/money to maintain it compared to an early Williams DMD. They only made 1,500 X-Files, so I'm a bit worried about replacement parts.

Wow, great feedback everyone, thanks a bunch. I happen to live close to the Pacific Pinball Museum, and I get out there sometimes, but I've been meaning to make a "resarch trip" where I'd play a few titles I'm interested in owning.

As Chosen_S said, I'm probably rushing things. I've only had Taxi for 5 days. But I might get hit by a car tomorrow, so I better keep going! Just kidding, there is probably much to gain from being a bit more patient. Being new to purchasing pinballs, I don't have a great idea of how often machines on my wishlist come up locally. Am I going to wait 1 year for a Whirlwind or 1 month?

I actually really enjoy single-level games, but they are a more difficult sell to everyone else in my family. I love old drop-target EMs and early solid states. I was bummed when the Paragon deal fell through. These types of pins seem to fit my budget pretty well too. Someone mentioned Eight Ball Deluxe, and I like that game on Pinball Arcade at least, someone is selling a very nice one for $3.5k in these parts. Maybe two pins to keep the masses happy and then my third one can be in rotation and just be the most hardcore straight-pinball machine I can find.

One thing my wife mentioned is that it would be nice for our next machine to have more than 2 flippers. I would like that as well, I'd like a nice side shot into a loop or some targets or something. A game with modes is also something we'd like to explore one day. A licensed theme with great callouts and music is also something I want to try. All these things point towards Jurassic Park I suppose. X-Files only has 2 flippers, but it has the other things mentioned. T2 also only has 2 flippers, but it does have a cannon! A T2 with upgraded sound sounds awesome, but man Jurassic Park with good sound must be soooo great!

I would love every system-11 and early DMD suggestion so far I think. Those are the machines I remember in the pizza parlors growing up. X-Files and Jurassic Park came a bit later and I don't remember them, but I love the media they are both based on.

I made a trip to the Pacific Pinball Museum to try some games out. They didn't have T2, X Files or Jurassic Park but I did get some time on a poorly maintained High Speed. I liked it. A bit simple, but it seems like it would be fun for a while. The Theme drew me in. I had a bunch of fun with Laser Cue also; I would love to have a well-maintained version of that one. Black Knight also stuck out. I played some Pinball Arcade last night and read the rules and played The Getaway and Black Knight 2000, and I think those would be great machines. They both seem like a good change of pace from Taxi and I really like the theme and rule set for both.

The big takeaway I got from the trip is that a poorly maintained pin can ruin a game. I think I'd rather have a dialed in no-name pin vs a poorly maintained big-name pin. The pins there were not in great shape, and I felt that some of the machines had too little slope making the gameplay floaty. A bunch of the machines had flipper-hop going on. I'm assuming they don't put their best stock out for the public to beat up, and they keep some tables floaty so people don't get discouraged. I played Centaur for the first time, but it was a float-fest. I think I would have liked it more if it had a steeper angle and had a cleaned up playfield. EBD was enjoyable but it had some bad bulbs and the ball would get stuck at the top of the shooter lane sometimes. The right flipper on Black Knight couldn't get it up the left ramp. It was a joy to come back to my Taxi and get some smooth and fast action going. Another random thought from the trip: Indiana Jones is fun but cluttered.

So maybe I need three pins

I say that because I can see a spot in the lineup for a "fast-action" game and a "deep" game. By "fast action", I mean a Steve Ritchie type game like some games I'm gravitating towards recently: High Speed/Getaway, Black Knight (original and 2000) F-14. Especially BK2000 and HS/Getaway: I'm not sure how to express what it is I like about these games, but they draw me in with their action and flow, and especially in the case of BK2000, the music pounds right along with the action. The BK2000 music and play makes me feel like I'm playing the climax of a He-Man cartoon, and that is a very good thing! What are the words I'm looking for here? What is this quality that these Steve Ritchie games have?

Then I can see a spot for a "deep" game, which I don't really have much experience with and don't fully understand but it seems like people recommend these types of games for home because they don't get old fast. Something like LOTR I guess. A bunch of modes, maybe linked modes, that create a long skillful path toward a wizard mode. Am I close? Is Ripley's in this category? I enjoy Ripley's, I have one at a location near me, but yeah, I don't see any for near my budget and the theme is kind of wacky.