(Topic ID: 180867)

Who Here Likes Premier/Gottlieb?

By Pinball-DOOD

7 years ago


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There are 880 posts in this topic. You are on page 2 of 18.
#51 7 years ago
Quoted from Dopes214tx:

Just picked up a Black Hole. It's been as fun as my 90's dmd games have been and just as fast. Great Game.

Beautiful game! Getting multiball on that game makes my hands sweat haha especially when there are balls on different playfields at the same time haha absolute chaos

#52 7 years ago

My dream game! The artwork is just totally detailed and cool. Nice example too! Leds look great

#53 7 years ago

Like having my hi-score up high for the world to see hahah

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#54 7 years ago

i'm looking at that pic and i'm confused like the backbox head is missing or cut in half.

#55 7 years ago

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#56 7 years ago

Hahah look how tall Excalibur is. It was insane, I'm taller than most pins but that and Gladiators made me feel like a little kid

#57 7 years ago

My pride and joy! Pro Pool!

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#58 7 years ago

I better not see all your Premieres up for sale soon.

#59 7 years ago
Quoted from TheLaw:

I better not see all your Premieres up for sale soon.

Ha this thread would be a great lead up to a big Gottlieb Premier sale! I keep thinking of selling my Wipeout, but it is so fun to play, AVALANCHE!

#60 7 years ago

I like Gottlieb up until they started using those weird pointy flippers that angle up to like 45 degrees.

#61 7 years ago

I like pins of all eras and all makers but of all the Gotts I own my fav is Black Hole . Cactus Jacks , which I was given in 2005 (that's the right price to pay for pins LOL) is my guilty pleasure. Cant complain about the build quality either. My Genesis hasn't had a fault since 1990 when I got it!

#62 7 years ago
Quoted from Whysnow:

What flipper mod?

Clay's guide... putting Sys 1 stops in...

Cuts down on the ability to instantly cradle every single shot no matter what.. makes Sys 3 games more difficult. Vast improvement

See his Sys 3 guide for specifics.

#63 7 years ago

Love me some Genesis

#64 7 years ago

The problem I have is for every hit there's a couple misses. A lot of them have some great sounds though and I love the idea of parody themes like Deadly Weapon and Hollywood Heat. But even though a lot of the layouts are unique not all of them are good.

I hope to own a Victory some day. I love how it makes you work for multiball.

#65 7 years ago

Huh, and here i thougt the "Gottlieb hate" was Sweden only.

I am A-OK with them, some fun games to be had, but the system and its problems....hurrrg

#66 7 years ago
Quoted from CaptainNeo:

Stargate is still one of my top 10 favorites. Gottlieb has some pretty good toys in their games. Layouts are unique, and the games are built better than ANYONE else. But a lot of rules are lacking. If they could get a rules overhaul. some could be made great.

Not just rules, per se, but some simple "functionality" quirks could use correcting. My Cue Ball Wizard is fun, but every time I have a new player try it I have to explain a few things that I shouldn't have to. When the multiball mode is started, the ball sits in the trough and there really isn't anything telling the player to plunge the ball. The player will sit there waiting for something to happen, and I will have to mention "You need to plunge the ball to start the multiball play". I shouldn't have to do that.

#67 7 years ago
Quoted from TheLaw:

I better not see all your Premieres up for sale soon.

you wont!

-4
#68 7 years ago
Quoted from 27dnast:

Clay's guide... putting Sys 1 stops in...
Cuts down on the ability to instantly cradle every single shot no matter what.. makes Sys 3 games more difficult. Vast improvement
See his Sys 3 guide for specifics.

That is not a mod! That is a flat out hack and he thinks he is smarter than the designers. Laughable and insulting to some of the best designers in the trade.

Do whatever you want to bastardize your games, but pretty silly for him to sell that as a mod. Most likely scenario was he did not have a GTB rebuild on hand one day so decided to use sys11 stops and then sold it as an 'improvement'.

GTB games have the extra flipper travel for a reason. For many it is because they have awesome long tight shots up steep ramps which require the full flipper travel to move the ball. Others it was because if you could post pass then the game would be too easy and too controlled. A properly set up GTB with correct flippers is plenty difficult.

For any new person reading all this, PLEASE dont ruin an awesome gottlieb by hacking it with the wrong flipper parts.

Clay knows lots of great stuff and even though he is the pinball ninja, he sometimes does flat out hacks like this. Luckily, this can be easily corrected to be stock.

#69 7 years ago

Yeah, I always enjoy System 3s. I'm the kind of person who can usually enjoy any pinball machine just because I get to flip the ball around, and System 3s usually have enough going on and some really cool toys to keep things interesting. They're fun, just not great...

Except Stargate, that is. I'm still loving it as my only game for a year now, and I'm so glad I listened to the good reviews and bought it, despite never playing it before. (Despite how bad of an idea that is!) The design, art, music, and sound (excluding the boring stock Gottlieb callouts which consist of nothing more than "shoot this", a little bit of positive reinforcement, and the echoey "jackpot!" [Which is, at the very least, voiced by David Spader here]) are awesome, and the rules are very deep, offering some different strategies. The game makes sure there's always something you can work towards, and is unique in that it doesn't offer instant gratification, but rather requires you to set things up, and if you do that well it will reward you greatly later down the line. Probably the only major flaws with the rules is the 3X scoring timer glitch and the fact that after you complete both wizard modes, you get a feeling of "now what do I do", although there's still plenty to do.

Man, my posts always end up being way longer than I intend...

CrazyLevi Really curious if you've ever played Stargate. Surely you can say it's "good" or at least "decent", right?

#70 7 years ago

I think it's really funny that some people either love every game from a manufacturer or hate every game for a manufacturer. I played SFII at a friend's house, love it. I played Stargate at another friend's house, meh. I played Waterworld at a local arcade, hate it. I can say the same for Sterns (I hate GB, don't care for KISS, but love LOTR, SM, and TWD) or Williams, or Ballys. Why can't we look at each individual pin, and judge them as one, not all?

It's like racism for pinball machines (pincism?). You don't have to hate an entire manufacturer or line up. All pins matter.

#71 7 years ago
Quoted from Whysnow:

For any new person reading all this, PLEASE dont ruin an awesome gottlieb by hacking it with the wrong flipper parts.

If I ever get my hands on a sys3 first thing I'm doing is tearing out those horribly designed flipper mechs and sticking some sys80 or wpc mechs in. Not because of the angle so much as how sloppy they feel.

#72 7 years ago
Quoted from FatPanda:

It's like racism for pinball machines (pincism?). You don't have to hate an entire manufacturer or line up. All pins matter.

i lol'd

You need to come play my stargate again so I can teach you how to play it. One of the best games out there once you figure out the strategy.

#73 7 years ago
Quoted from zacaj:

If I ever get my hands on a sys3 first thing I'm doing is tearing out those horribly designed flipper mechs and sticking some sys80 or wpc mechs in. Not because of the angle so much as how sloppy they feel.

feel free to hack your own machine however you want in order to enjoy it. I just dont want people thinking that is a widely accepted 'mod' It is a hack, but if it works for you then all good.

#74 7 years ago
Quoted from Whysnow:

i lol'd
You need to come play my stargate again so I can teach you how to play it. One of the best games out there once you figure out the strategy.

I'll give it another shot. Excalibur was fun. Cant ever get enough of galloping horses. Reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail

#75 7 years ago
Quoted from Whysnow:

feel free to hack your own machine however you want in order to enjoy it. I just dont want people thinking that is a widely accepted 'mod' It is a hack, but if it works for you then all good.

It's not a hack. A hack is when you do something the wrong way because you can't (no parts on hand, available, to time, etc) do it the right way. If it's a mistake from the manufacturer (as the whole sys3 mech is), then it's not a hack. Like the ground *mods*.
A hack is installing a secondary extension spring on a flipper because it's binding. A mod is replacing the compression return spring with an extension spring to improve the flipper action.

You see something that you think is wrong with a game, and you attempt to fix it. That's a mod

Also, the opposite of 'widely accepted' isn't 'unknown' (as this mod seems to be from the reaction in the thread).

#76 7 years ago
Quoted from Luzur:

I am A-OK with them, some fun games to be had, but the system and its problems....hurrrg

If you are having a lot of problems the needed mods have not been done. I have Star race and Circus now and they are the system80 pins most complain about, mods have been done and they are rock solid!

#77 7 years ago

Once you set the ball save timer to something low like 6 seconds and turn off all of the consolation, "shoot again" settings and make multiball harder to attain, Big Hurt becomes a really fun and reasonably difficult game. I'd rather have it plus the cash difference compared to several hyped Williams System 11 or WPC games.

#78 7 years ago
Quoted from RWH:

If you are having a lot of problems the needed mods have not been done. I have Star race and Circus now and they are the system80 pins most complain about, mods have been done and they are rock solid!

Yeah, other than the few mods, the interconnect (which williams also has trouble with), and the under-playfield transistors (which also need a small mod to fix) I've never had problems. Some of my most reliable games

#79 7 years ago

I like some of them. I would say that Robo War, TX, Alien Star, Deadly Weapon, and Star Race are my favorite ones. I also like Black Hole but never enough to own one.

I had a Hollywood Heat, Sinbad, Joker Poker, Victory and a Stargate and thought those were all VERY good games too, but I eventually moved them along.

I guess they are all just too similar to hold my interest. Hell, more than half of them were designed by my favorite pinball designer.

I still have Alien Star and quite honestly for what it's worth, it has the best 80's space theme, sound and graphics for any pinball from it's time.

I will never sell my Fast Draw. I've had it for over 10 years now.

#80 7 years ago
Quoted from snyper2099:

I still have Alien Star and quite honestly for what it's worth, it has the best 80's space theme, sound and graphics for any pinball from it's time.

Don't know about best space theme but, you are correct it has great graphics, sound, and damn good play.

#81 7 years ago

Not me.

#82 7 years ago
Quoted from zacaj:

If I ever get my hands on a sys3 first thing I'm doing is tearing out those horribly designed flipper mechs and sticking some sys80 or wpc mechs in. Not because of the angle so much as how sloppy they feel.

*cringe*

Sys3 flipper assemblies feel different than most games, but they were designed the way they were for the layout they were used in.

Most people don't like they simply because they don't act quite like a WPC assembly and don't feel "right". However, different doesn't mean broken, and replacing them would be a hack simply because it's wrong for the game.

#83 7 years ago

I wished everyone hated them, in my opinion percentage wise i think they have increased in value in the last couple years more than the other brands, i started buying them because they were the only games I could afford, when i first got into the hobby i avoided the local sales of a system 80b cause of my inexperience with gameplay but after playing them at the expos it changed my mind, just wish i bought all the $500 and less games i passed on.

#84 7 years ago
Quoted from RWH:

If you are having a lot of problems the needed mods have not been done. I have Star race and Circus now and they are the system80 pins most complain about, mods have been done and they are rock solid!

Nah, had some troubles with those Pop-bumper boards with my old Volcano, but i traded it off ina deal as it was, sent the modded boards with it to the new owner.

Game was pretty rad, so no evil on that, and soon enough i will have a Gottlieb Arena.

#85 7 years ago

My three Premiers:

My Stargate would be one of the last to go if worse came to worst. It was my second game, after Funhouse, when I got back into pinball in 2008. I was so lucky to find it, minty and local and cheap! (Still have Black Knight and Gorgar since 1990, although I still haven't gotten around to fixing them.)

Robo War is a keeper as well. Some of my favorite pin music, sometimes I start it up just to listen to it.

Excalibur is a great if simple multiplayer game, drop target heaven! Everyone watches, knows what's going on, and cheers!

Operation Thunder, on the other hand, is the fastest I've ever sold a game after buying it. Didn't grab me, the missions were interesting but the "running out of fuel" ones were too aggravating for me I guess. Sold it to a friend where I'll still be able to play it often enough for me!

In the Gott EM department I also have a Diamond Jack that has been patiently waiting for me to finish cleaning her up and getting her back together for way too long, and a 1957 Ace High in pieces even further back in the queue...

#86 7 years ago
Quoted from crlush:

I wished everyone hated them

Yeah it was much easier to get one in great shape cheap then. Most have now played them and learned if the right corrections are made they really rock game wise and of course the art has no rival in the pin world.

#87 7 years ago
Quoted from ForceFlow:

*cringe*
Sys3 flipper assemblies feel different than most games, but they were designed the way they were for the layout they were used in.
Most people don't like they simply because they don't act quite like a WPC assembly and don't feel "right". However, different doesn't mean broken, and replacing them would be a hack simply because it's wrong for the game.

It's not that they're different, it's that they can't do a dead bounce. There's just too much play in the bushings. Same with the links. The whole mech is just sloppy. Shots are hard to make consistently, it's hard to drop catch (not that you need to, both because of the angle and because the slop deadens the ball).

The extra travel isn't needed for their layouts or anything, they don't have shots especially lower than other games. In fact the extra travel should make those shots harder. Any good flipper mech should make all the shots just fine.

I actually prefer the feel of sys80 Gottlieb and 70s bally flippers better than wpc. If they'd just put their new 50V coils in their older mechs (with their nice plastic links and dual bushings) the sys3 games would have been fine. They weren't designed that way on purpose, it's just cost cutting.

#88 7 years ago

Guys sorta beat me to the punch...

I was going to say; everybody, please don't like these...I really need their prices to stay down...till I buy them

Yes, they are different/unique.
Yes, they are fun.
Yes, I own many...but not enough yet

#89 7 years ago
Quoted from FatPanda:

I think it's really funny that some people either love every game from a manufacturer or hate every game for a manufacturer. I played SFII at a friend's house, love it. I played Stargate at another friend's house, meh. I played Waterworld at a local arcade, hate it. I can say the same for Sterns (I hate GB, don't care for KISS, but love LOTR, SM, and TWD) or Williams, or Ballys. Why can't we look at each individual pin, and judge them as one, not all?
It's like racism for pinball machines (pincism?). You don't have to hate an entire manufacturer or line up. All pins matter.

EXACTLY, people will play one machine by Gottlieb and just because everyone of the internet hates them, they do too. Had a friend and we were playing pinball at this arcade and I was playing a Gottlieb there. Tells me he doesn't like Gottlieb and I asked why and he couldn't give me a good reason! He played a few of them and now it's his second favorite company. Sometimes you just have to give games a chance!

#90 7 years ago
Quoted from ForceFlow:

*cringe*
Sys3 flipper assemblies feel different than most games, but they were designed the way they were for the layout they were used in.
Most people don't like they simply because they don't act quite like a WPC assembly and don't feel "right". However, different doesn't mean broken, and replacing them would be a hack simply because it's wrong for the game.

THANK YOU! Exactly!

#91 7 years ago

I have nothing but love for Gottlieb/Premier games!

I currently own a Big Hurt and a Gladiators (both never leaving) and am about to head out on an 1,100 mile journey to pick up a Robo War! YEAH!

#92 7 years ago
Quoted from pacmanretro:

Guys sorta beat me to the punch...
I was going to say; everybody, please don't like these...I really need their prices to stay down...till I buy them
Yes, they are different/unique.
Yes, they are fun.
Yes, I own many...but not enough yet

RIGHT

12
#93 7 years ago

Some of my favorite pins, like classic Sterns as the novelty of 90 DMD's wears thin these are becoming more sought after for the purity and simple greatness that they possess, plus the high, high stench of 80's cheese, has any decade reeked so heavily while also being so fantastic, I think not.

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#94 7 years ago
Quoted from RyThom:

I have nothing but love for Gottlieb/Premier games!
I currently own a Big Hurt and a Gladiators (both never leaving) and am about to head out on an 1,100 mile journey to pick up a Robo War! YEAH!

NICE! After college (yes I'm young), when I get my own place, there will be some Gottliebs in my collection

#95 7 years ago

Woo! That's some hot stuff, right there, Hazoff. Might want to mark those pics NSFW

#96 7 years ago
Quoted from Hazoff:

Some of my favorite pins, like classic Sterns as the novelty of 90 DMD's wears thin these are becoming more sought after for the purity and simple greatness that they possess, plus the high, high stench of 80's cheese, has any decade reeked so heavily while also being so fantastic, I think not.

That's what I want my collection to be like when I get older! Check out that Arena, so badass hahah

#97 7 years ago
Quoted from zacaj:

It's not that they're different, it's that they can't do a dead bounce. There's just too much play in the bushings. Same with the links. The whole mech is just sloppy. Shots are hard to make consistently, it's hard to drop catch (not that you need to, both because of the angle and because the slop deadens the ball).

Have you had a chance to play one that has rebuilt flipper assemblies with new parts?

Just like any other assembly, they're going to have slop when using the old, worn parts.

#98 7 years ago

Drop catch and dead bounce is much less pronounced on a Got. As a player, you just have to adapt.

It is there for certain on rebuilt Got. mechs. I know most will not agree with the following modification but I always stick the longer plunger stops in the GOT flipper assemblies so that they don't go up to the sky.

Also on a side note, Genesis and BOP were both by my favorite designer... shouldn't be that much of a shock, given the themes involved.

#99 7 years ago

Having to adapt to different flipper styles flexes your grey matter and makes you a better player!

#100 7 years ago
Quoted from ForceFlow:

Have you had a chance to play one that has rebuilt flipper assemblies with new parts?
Just like any other assembly, they're going to have slop when using the old, worn parts.

Yep, I've played multiple freshly rebuilt games and they've got it. I hoped it was the worn parts but rebuilding didn't fix it and none of the parts I replaced were that worn anyway. It's just a bad mech design.

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