1. Simple but immensely replayable software. It's simply genius how everything works together. This game never gets old.

2. Simple but immensely replayable playfield. It just rules. Smooth, great flow, every shot is satisfying and usually sets up another shot. Plenty to do with either flipper.

3. Awesome art, theme, and humor (it's actually funny unlike MM).

4. It's created an instant litmus test to separate good pinball players from bad ones. If they say "I hate that game it's just shooting up the middle" they are bad players.

5. Awesome sound, dots, voice work.

It's the most replayable game, ever, and no matter how well you do you you always think you can do better the next time. You want to hit start even after hanging 50 billion on it, unlike so many other games were long games are brutal chores that leave you never wanting to play it again.

It's the best game ever made and that's not going to change anytime soon.

Which problem, getting 50 billion on AFM or never wanting to play POTC again after an hour-long game?

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I prefer the theme in a big way, and also, the rules are much better.

MM actually suffers from the misplaced complaint people often issue at AFM - it really IS just about shooting up the middle. The software doesn't really reward going for all of the shots or trying to "beat" the game and get the wizard mode. It really is all about the castle. Multiball is just another tool to get more castle shots in. The trolls just get in the way, unlike the AFM "gimmick" of moving aliens which is much cooler and a much more attractive target. When I get trolls on MM, I usually just time them out when I'm trying to win.

I understand why people like MM but I've always felt AFM was a much better game, and when MM was going for $7,000 and AFM was going for half that, I always wondered when people were going to figure out how good AFM was. Didn't take too long, really.

You got any (good boozy) locations in Berlin I should know about? Will be there for a week this Summer.

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.

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.