Why is AFM so good?

Lol, come on over to my place and see how safe and easy it feels and how long your ball lasts when you flail away. All games can be setup easy, all games can also be setup hard. Mine probably has the shortest average ball time of any of my DMD games.

On the flipside, most missed shots go to the center or to the slings. With open lanes and a tight tilt, as it should be set up, AFM is actually pretty dang hard. There are a lot of games with safer layouts than AFM, to be honest.

The tutorial bored you? That's really how
You judge games? It's all opinion. If I owned Spider-Man I'd be sick of it in a few days (I'm already sick of it). Afm has replay value built into it and that's why people like it so much.

You might want to watch it again.

Sure, you will need a bunch of shots up the middle to complete the Attack Mars objective, but the main point of that video is that he doesn't just fire away at the saucer. He is using the multiballs strategically to get the saucer hits in a safer manner.

Also, Attack Mars is one of six objectives needed to Rule the Universe. The goals are sometimes conflicting. For example, I'm in multiball, do I attack the saucer, or do I attempt to collect the Super Jackpot?

Yea just shooting up the middle is a death sentence.... my afm is the fastest pin i have owned. Its simple but yet very hard to master...case in point after thousands of games i have yet to beat mars or rtu.

Here's one cool thing I like about AFM, which is a quite a challenge, and that's the "Dirty Pool" feature. The Dirty Pool happens in multiball, when you have the 3 drop bank target down and you make the final shot to destroy the mother ship, and just as the target bank is going to rise, you shoot a ball underneath the mother ship (and not down the hole into the subway) trapping the ball against the now raised 3 bank target. If you now hit the 3 bank target, it will transfer energy to that trapped ball and it will most likely knock it down the hole under the mother ship. This will display "Dirty Pool" on the screen and you will get credit for destroying the next mother ship and the next city will be cleared by just that one shot.

It's tricky, but a blast. I've only been able to pull it off about 3 times in all the times I've played AFM. I always wait to start multiball until the 3 bank target is down, just so I have a chance at pulling off a Dirty Pool.

I hope that makes sense. Dirty Pool along with Strobe Multiball are 2 of my favorite things about AFM.

I don't know if this is worthy of its' own thread so I'll ask here: what's everyones' opinion on Revenge From Mars? Was it a worthy successor to AFM, or was it too hamstrung by the P2K limitations?

I find SWE1s regularly, but I've rarely come across any RFMs. Even at Pinball Perfection, I was so stoked to see both the P2Ks next to each other, but then RFM wasn't working and I was once again stuck with playing SWE1.

AFM is priced what it is because demand is high and supply is low. Just because there are many more people that want AFM than there are AFM's available does not mean that everyone has to like it or want to buy it. Basically what I'm saying that it's ok and perfectly normal to not like AFM and not see what the fuss is about. People like different things.

However, it's perfectly reasonable, just like you have, to ask the question "Why do so many people like AFM?" and you've already read many answers. It could just be that what you value in a pin at this point is different than what others value and that's ok - for example lots of stuff on the playfield.

Sometimes things achieve greatness because of the things they don't have - because things are pared down to their essence without bloat. For example, just because you add more and more spices to a soup does not always make a better soup - more is not better. So I don't think anyone who appreciates an AFM wishes it had more features but rather, that the features it has and how it all came together hit a sweet spot in the history of pinball.

I've did the dirty pool once... super cool. I really enjoy the seizure induced stobe mb in a completely dark room.... awesome effect.

I am really out of room .... but i am sure i would find room to cram in a AFM!!

Mars is the better of the two Pin2ks by far. As far as a worthy successor? I don't know...I mean, the art isn't right (clearly a different artist did it), but the rules, theme, sound and video are all pretty good. The rules are kind of similar in some ways that are cool callbacks like hypno mulitball, similar lock/mb rules, martian attack etc. I'll say it isn't an insulting sequel - it's no Robocop 2 - and I like playing it now and again but it's certainly not in the class of the original Attack From Mars.

An interesting thing about RFM is it is one of the only games - Junkyard too maybe? - that is still priced almost exactly the same as it was before pinflation. $2000-3000 still gets you a nice RFM just like back in the day.

https://vimeo.com/31981006

If you're talking about this video, he does start off attacking the saucer directly, but after the first two, he specifically avoids it. The third saucer, he takes out using Martian Multiball. At 5:45, he says it takes 12 shots to complete this round, so you're just not going to be able to do it without "help". So, then he starts working his way toward the regular multiball.

At 10 minutes in, he still only has 2 of 6 goals for RTU. He makes the five way combo look much easier than it actually is, and he is a good enough player that he has Total Annihilation one shot from starting right when he is ready to start Attack Mars.

At 16:45, when he says it's unusual to not have the Super Jackpot, the reason is that he only played the main multiball once, and he used it to attack the saucer. The Super Jackpot requires you to shoot all of the ramps/orbits, so shooting the saucer will prevent you from collecting it. The lack of the SJ is was prevents him from being able to Rule the Universe in that video.

Here's another video (on my AFM, but not me playing, BTW) that shows the game well.

I'm actually servicing an AFM on route right now--the pop bumper skirts were all broken, so balls kept getting stuck there. It's also running an early version of the software, so the reduction in pop bumper power isn't in place (which was the fix for this exact problem). Long story short, getting at those pop bumpers is a pain. The saucer assembly and the right ramp need to come off first before you can reach the pop bumpers.

I've also seen other AFMs with a malfunctioning saucer target bank and awful ball jams in the VUK. Non-working switches in the SOL hole and saucer hole will also severely hinder a game.

But granted, there are a lot fewer parts on this game than other WPC titles. That's probably why this game has managed to last for so long on location--it's been there since 1996!

Kill the saucer, than go for Super Jackpot. If you get the lock shot down, you can easily get 4-5 separate regular MBs in one game. Saucers take precedence in any MB - particularly as you kill more of them as the number of shots required to take each one down jumps considerably.

Dude, how could you get bored of Spoderman? It's a badass game and it's a blast to play. If I didn't need the cash to buy o motorcycle I would still have mine. Now they are worth too much money.

I owned a pristine RFM that maybe I shouldn't have sold. It is not as fun as AFM but it is very cool. It is a multiball-fest with some pretty cool mb's and modes. In a lineup of 6-8 pins it just couldn't hold its place but I'm very glad I owned it for a while.