"PLAY BETTER!"
Steve Ritchie

But seriously: multiball in Black Hole is difficult to achieve, but very attainable. Shameless plug to my own video where you can see it happen twice in one game:

This.

Bought another Wipe Out last week and this time it's staying for a lot longer. Just a fun game, great call outs and neat toys. Plus the price is right.

I also enjoyed Rescue 911 when I had it and played Big Hurt although never owned one.

Perhaps one of my favorite games was Gottlieb's 1977 Big Hit.

This is indeed one of many problems of the amateur hour Premier code you see on so many of these games - the "random award." Gottlieb fell in love with this concept in the late 80s and they never really let it go. Multiballs, EBs, Jackpots...they just seem to pop up whenever the hell they want to.

But for the Premier fan who has everything...I'd suggest checking out the Pinball for Sale FB group. There's a beautiful blinged out powdercoated Wipeout for sale in MD for $3,000. Time for you guys to put your money where your mouth is!

Give Al some love!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-nice-is-this-stargate

Three inexpensive pins that each have some cool ball tricks, shots and toy features. I recently sold my XMLE, which I had a blast with, to once again go with a low budget lineup. I have a Shadow in the workshop that I'll play for a bit again before selling and a TFTC that will be a keeper since my wife misses the previous one. I can do without Bally/Williams and new Sterns beause we just enjoy playing pinball.

It's easy to get caught up with the Pinside opinions of A list, B List games and it just boils down to fanboy attitudes like most other forums - cars, trucks, Xbox vs PS4, etc. Gotta just have fun and who cares what strangers on a forum think of a pinball machine you own? It's like, "whatever dude", when I read most Pinside threads. Fun is fun when it comes to pinball.

20170213_104058 (resized).jpg

Need to jack those legs up son!

Agree 100%

I've owned a Black Hole for a year now and I've gotten multiball exactly 1 time. Love the game though!

Same thing happened to me with Freddy. I waited 4 damn months to get a really minty one from a friend of mine, only to bring it home and have my then 3-year old daughter tell me she didn't like it, and pretty much demanded that I get rid of it. So I had to. Only had the game for a week...what a shame. She tolerates a lot of horror pins already without issue, that one just freaked her out. (Freaked me out a little too when the "1,2 Freddy's comin for you" singing would start.

Freddy is definitely one of the better Premier pins...awesome audio, and the artwork is ridiculously cool and colorful on the cabinet.

On 3 ball, definitely one of the hardest multiballs to get on a game...every shot has to happen and be just right.

And I posted it before, but I had a Raven when I got into the hobby, and had gotten this alt translite for it. The gameplay still isn't great on Raven, just because the ramp is tiny, the pops block direct shots to some of the standups, etc., but having this translite in it definitely made the game VERY pleasant to stare at.

Raven alt trans (resized).jpg

It's like BSD, but better!

What I can't believe is that after two years in the hobby (or more) and owning Stargate for a year, you only have 1 machine still.

As much as that was meant to be at least some sarcasm, and I couldn't agree with you more on Spring Break, the playfield on that thing actually looks friggin amazing. Every SB I've ever seen had severe planking for some reason. Maybe more moisture got into the games due to the chipboard / fiberboard cabs? (which in any circumstance for pinball WAS a horrible idea to use)

And I absolutely love so much about 1812. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a nice one to buy close to me......But I will say after staring at Amkoepfer's pics for 5 minutes, WTF is that thing on the left sling plastic? A mid-transition werewolf with a hat holding a flower? (pic reposted for convenience) It's as weird as the baby with the Phantom mask on POTO, on the plastic to the right of the spinner.

1812 2 (resized).jpg

Any thoughts on Hollywood Heat .Ones for sale locally for 950 Just never had a chance to play one but not to bad of a looker

In my experience you spent most of your time shooting the ramp to get to the mini flippers for MB. Entertaining, but I wouldn't pay that much for one...

I actually like the cheesy. I have a bad girls and would really like to get genesis, Hollywood heat , Hard body and others. The price to value ratio is way higher than a new stern. ROCK GROUPS and other Franchises. Premier is like a great dive. bar. STERN is like an Applebee's, always good, cookie cutter, and expensive for what you get.

I haven't yet seen or heard the actual games in person, but after playing TX-Sector and Bone Busters on Pinball Arcade, and subsequently looking up a few YouTube vids...

...I have to agree with the comments on superior sound quality vs. B/W of the era. I own a Pinbot, Space Station, Whirlwind and Dr. Who which are rough contemporaries to TXS and BB- in some cases coming even later - and IMO the Gotts' sound is just way better. TX Sector has always gotten a lot of love for this, but I was amazed at how immersive and composed Bone Busters was. The "songs" in the Gottliebs have actual structure and progression and seem like they'd stand alone as individual 3+ minute tracks, whereas the B/W pins use standard loops and layers and chords. And once you get to the actual fidelity and quality, there's no comparison: GTB is better, ears down!

Of course I agree that GTB fumbled in other ways. Dr. Who and Cue Ball Wizard both came out in 1992: I had Cue Ball Wizard for a while and it was fun, but how did they ever expect that to "compete" with games like Dr. Who? CBW's sound is much better but its dots and animations (wait, did I say animations? Oops, there almost aren't any!) are laughable.

So on a feature basis GTB won some, lost some. I've enjoyed the few I played. My main complaint is that GTB callouts are far too repetitive and become tiresome, but then the older games don't have that problem.

I'd love to show some restoration love to an older GTB... or even a Bone Busters for "newer". After Louisville Expo I plan to get back to rebuilding my Big Hurt... assuming I can remember how it came apart before we moved last year...

Hahaha (not to sound like Levi), but I wouldn't go that far!!!! BSD is one of my fav games of all time, and not just because I'm a vampire nut. It's a perfect package (art, audio, complex ruleset, and difficult but fun play even for an experienced pinballer). When it comes to Premier (GTB), Freddy, Stargate, Big Hurt, 1812, Bone Busters and Robo Wars have all around great packages as well IMO. When I was playing my BB last night, I noticed that some of the music actually sounds like the Ghostbusters theme music...perhaps a jab because they got stiffed with the licensing? My daughter always asks why the skeleton topper is talking to her...hahaha.

I think thats willie the warewolf? Definately a creepy drawing though!

Definitely. As creepy as this little guy.

image-10 (resized).jpg

Ya ive never seen that before. That is creepy!!!!

I like class of 1812, i wish i would have held out for a better example of it, but whats done is done. It was a routed game, Nd it looked like the glass broke at one point and they didnt clean it too well so glass ground the playfield quite a bit

That's a real shame...but at least you still have one to enjoy. I almost bought one last year, but luckily I was able to force myself to leave before I loaded it up. The guy said it had "some touch ups done really well", but when I got there it looked like his 8 year old touched up more than half the PF with his Crayola kit. Half the time that happens, I still take the game but didn't in this circumstance.

I'll take that and your Bally Atlantis whenever you're ready... I've missed out on a few of those in the last two years also. I think the art and play are great on that game. Ok, back to Gottlieb

Ill keep that in mind if i ever sell. Atlantis is fun and has great art. Class is just hard to find. Id love to find a nos playfield for it one day

Terrible, terrible game. Now I'm not partial to novelty roulette wheels in pinball machines - it's probably my least favorite feature - but if you are into it knock yourself out.

It was funny bad back in the 80s too . I was a teenager when it came out ... still looked silly compared to other games of the era. Gottlieb was playing around with that "Vitragraph" approach to applying playfield art.

What I absolutely love about many of these System 80Bs is the retro-sounding sound/music in the right developer's hands.

If the first 80B game you hear is Hollywood Heat, you will want to drive an icepick in your eardrums ... especially with that frigging "La Cucaracha" sound (the music from that cocktail pin "Night Moves" would work great with this game, but I think Night Moves uses a different sound board).

If you hear TX Sector or Robowar and love retro sounds, you're going to fall in love with the sound system ... it's 8 bit synthesis bliss. They used 2 6502s on their sound board ... one drives two audio chips (total of six channels of synthesized sound), the other drives a DAC for sample playback (for example, the "TX" speech sound in TX Sector).

Diamond Lady has good sound ... it's a very underrated table ... I'd like to replace the translite on that to one that features a woman like Adriana Lima or some other brunette . It's not like the woman on the factory translite is ugly or anything ... it seems like translites with more modern women are driving the prices of these games up (like Raven's alt translite as a "for example" ).

I swear the value of Raven jumped a couple hundred dollars after that translite came out .

Actually, I came *really* close to buying a Mr. and Mrs. Pacman last weekend, but I ended up deciding to buy a Switch instead, since I'm probably going to go to college in the fall and I can take that with me. If it wasn't for that, I'd definitely have another machine by now!

This. I have to agree. It doesn't keep the games from being fun, but sometimes it can be pretty ridiculous. I was playing a friend's Super Mario Bros. once, and I thought it was tons of fun, but I also noticed that one of the awards you can get from the slots is 200,000,000 points! It took me about 15 to 30 minutes to get that many points playing the game normally. Way too much for a random award.

It's also worth noting that Stargate is actually one of very few (if not the only one) Premiers *without* any random awards. That's probably a large factor as to why it's so good. Any other Premiers without any random awards?

I implore you to ignore Levi's completely worthless opinion and leave it to someone who actually OWNS the game - it IS super fun. Great music, interesting gameplay and one of the best multiplayer machines around. I'd rate it a solid 7.

Aren't the modes (which one you get) random?

Going back to the fun of generic/knock off themes; I like to put other collectables by my machines. For instance, I have an LP of Top Gun soundtrack by my Gold Wings...and a Miami Vice LP by my Hollywood Heat.

I started my collection of Gottliebs with a Gottlieb 300 I purchased from Fun 'N Games in Thousand Oaks in 1977.

Jan Hammer kicks serious ass! (That's probably the first time that sentence has ever been written)

No offense but you must be a Millennial , Everyone knows Jan Hammer is an ass kicker.
Just wait till you uncover "Schon & Hammer"

Man I just turned 44!

I do have to check out Schon & Hammer for sure.

I have one lots of fun when you play one that works 100% and after learning the rules. Music is pretty good, the 10 million point shot is like hitting a slot machine, if you break a million its not a bad game so if you get lucky and time a 10 mil shot you just got 10 times a normal game. Most of the high scores on mine are between 10 and 13 million. They should have made it a million point shot and figured out a way for you to earn a chance at it. The way its sey up i think you can set it for random or 60 switch hits. Its a decent game, and can be had for pretty cheap.

Well, I guess sort of. It cycles through the available modes whenever the slingshots are hit. It's not really an issue though because there's never really any reason to start specific modes in specific situations, mainly because there's no stacking. The only time it's annoying is when I want to show someone the glidercraft; I can never light the mode, and when I do I can't seem to shoot the pyramid.

I'd say it's pretty important because then I can just go for battle and avoid Glidercraft like the plague

I have owned Bad Girls, Lights Camera Action, and Big House. The Big House the longest, and its not going anywhere. I have found them very reliable and fun.

IMG_3737 (resized).JPG