Surprised people are saying GTF. It's bad, but not that bad and will get better with time. GTF Classic is way more fun for the buck than Woz, Thunderbirds, ToM or TS4

Wow, lowkey ToM hate, thread is getting spicy.

The Trump version is great. "Build the wall!" "Fake news!" Lol

Harley Davidson or Austin Powers...not sure which one is worser.

.

Worst game ... JJP GnR (yes I am going there)

Band/music is amazing, the light show on the game is amazing, even though its old Axl on the screen, I'll give it a pass. But damn, that gameplay blows. So many for sale at discounted prices (should cost way more than some used Sterns). Sure they sold a lot so a lot of used will come up, but there's a ton always for sale and they don't move quickly.

Worst Game Made Ultraman / Halloween. I should of gone with my initial instinct. Somehow I let myself get wooed into it.
Art was fantastic though. Fun Factor ZERO. Sound ZERO. No idea what happened here. Flop like Jetsons.

I wouldn't even Tbag the lockdown bar of a WOZ thats how horrible that game is

You already got released out of the pinside penalty box?

i was only thread ejected from your Lame Ass FuckBoy bitchfest thread

I hear there’s also a HUO Stern ranked in the Pinside Top 5, priced well below NIB, and that’s sitting too!

Fucking dreadful

Game people love to hate now. It's as hip as "Led Zep stole all their music and suck."

Very 2021

I turned down a local Police Force for $600 like 6 years ago. I play tested the game and shot the middle ramp like 15 times in a row and just thought that scoring exploit was dumb. I was also a few games over my limit and didn't feel like having to justify another game that I didn't have space to store or setup to my wife. It's far from the worst game ever made and I probably should have bought it but the game kind of feels like a waste since the rules are so unbalanced.

the worsest game ever is SWEP1. Change my mind.

I prefer “ more better!” I almost bust out laughing when I hear one of the masons on the crew who works at my sites says it. The best part is the other guys on the crew love it and also say it even though they know it’s not correct. One of them told me he had to stop saying it because he lets it slip at home, his young daughter picked it up from him and obviously is not in on the joke.

I agree and that is only slightly more better than Vacation America.

I couldn't agree more. I played it again this year at MGC with the intention of maybe buying one. The game layout is so bad and it's just not fun to shoot. The layout is almost GTF bad, but not quite. I'm really glad I ended up passing on this one. I still really like the music and lightshow but that's about all it has going for it.

That music is something special....

I get the joke, but hey Bad Girls is an awesome machine. I'm looking for one now! perfect mirror complement to EBD.

I’m so sorry to hear that; I had a bad feeling when Joe Balcer was gone and they got rid of Rosh. He has some phenomenal gameplay ideas and the first 3 AP games are excellent

Why are you asking the question? What are your thoughts on the worst game ever made?

+1. I've warmed up a bit to Bond 60th gameplay, BUT the really awful artwork, oddball scoring reels and poorly utilized LCD make it really hard to even drop 15k on this quirky game. Sure, the figure 8 left orbit/twisty is cool to shoot, but everything else in the game is "meh". And to make things even worse, many of the PF's weren't prepped properly and have awful wood grain showing. Poor sanding/prep isn't unique to this title, but you'd hope the QA on such a limited, high value game would be better than a Stern Pro. Guess not.

Image 5-13-23 at 8.09 PM (resized).jpg

+1. I tried so hard to like the gameplay, but just couldn't do it (my collection is music pin heavy and I love the band). Sold mine for 9.5k one year ago and now it's pretty easy to pick up the same game for 2k less! JJP built too many and a lot of people feel like we do. I don't doubt it's a party favorite for non-pinheads, but for many "players", it's just a huge disappointment. The scoring is just so awful.

This game is wretched. People talk about games they walked away from and this is the one I walked away from. Awful. I honestly had more fun playing Hercules at Expo than SWEP1 at an arcade

…worst games EVER ‘Halloween’ and ‘Oktoberfest’?

When I opened this thread, I KNEW I would be reading some dog-sh*t takes, but I am IMPRESSED!

I’m on the same boat.
I’ve played some late 90s/early 2000s garbage that doesn’t hold a candle to these two titles. They’re not “stellar”, but not “worst” holy F

Wow, over 100 posts and no one has brought up Bugs Bunny Birthday Ball. BBBB truly is a horrible pinball machine! It only has 4 targets to shoot for.
1. A ramp that drops into a cluster of 3 pop bumpers
2. Right orbit that drops into the inverted upper playfield, where you have a flipper that hits the ball back to the left in-lane
3. A saucer
4. 3 standup targets.

That is the entire game and it sucks! Oh, and it was designed by a child sex offender.

I challenge you to find something worse than this one.

I must've been super lucky. Mine looks like a sheet of glass, best Stern playfield I've ever unboxed. I assumed they went above & beyond for the 60th; sounds like that's not the case.

Yeah they're pretty high on the list.

I can’t get excited about most Chicago Coin games not even at $100

I agree, no more nudes, remember this gem?
What, what?
Oh, wait, you said nodes, my apologies.
Pinside_forum_7404939_3247986.jpg

200w.gif

Ok ok Rich look
I was VERY VERY VERY anti-spike (more than you) just before Covid, to the point where I stopped routing new games.
I had a heart to heart conversation w a cool chap from Stern in person at Freeplay Florida 2021 who gave me their personal number and told me next node fuck up they would personally pay for the board out of pocket and fly down and install it themself.
Since then I’ve gone out of my way to route Spike 2 and have had no issues.
Aerosmith to roughly Deadpool releases were ass. It’s a lot better now, save the odd Rush node 10 or whatever that is.
Yeah, I love me my B/W but will route the FUCK out of spike till about 15k plays

Yep that early 2000's era was full of some truly terrible games, folks are really just trying to be controversial or crapping on some recent things. Truly awful games 2000-2010 especially, like zero effort, just random themes and layouts, terrible rules, nothing fun.

It depends on what you look for (or don't look for) in pins. Here's my take:

Oldest to newest: Bingo machines, Toro, Big Ben, Raven, BBBB, thunderbirds.

Pinball1987 We’ve messaged a bit and I’ve invited you to come play in league or our monthly tournaments, or spend the day at the arcade and I’ll gladly answer all your pinball newb questions. For $20 each day you could get all the pinball you want. The replays are very generous on my games!

You’re only 25 minutes away! Why keep posting silly nonsense on Pinside that didn’t even work 5+ years ago? I would gladly give you the honest, no-bullshit rundown you need to understand what you’re getting into.

Instead you come and post “Hey, what new game does everyone hate that maybe someone could get for cheap? *wink wink nudge nudge* I bet nobody thought of this before!”

I think it's fun.
Get's boring talking about good games, and there's too much arguing.

Talking about the truly terrible games - that just brings us all together in the glory of our shared negativity and pessimism.
We're all miserable.

There’s been just as many “worst machine ever” threads, and seems like there’s a new one at least every month.
Shaq Attaq is a great game, and shacklersrevenge has an awesome write-up about it.
I got mine because it was “cheap” (still probably too pricey for OPs taste) and I’ve found the rules, while seemingly convoluted, are actually very fun and challenging once you decipher the esoteric playfield inserts that appear meaningless. The issue is the last-minute art change from the licensors that just tanked the game. The inserts in the rarely-seen prototype art made perfect sense.

After spending a lot of time on this game, it is quite deep for a late 90s Gottlieb, and offers a very rewarding challenge for tournament players. If you play it in tournament mode, obviously. In regular mode, the game just hands out millions like candy.

I had several different Sterns reboot randomly in the middle of a game at MGC. I'm not saying it's node board related but it didn't inspire me with much confidence to spend over 10k on a new machine.

Shaq Attack in my opinion is underrated and gets a bad rap for the wrong reasons. You can play for basketball points only, and this is where it gets interesting with friends/multiplayer. The super jackpot is super cool too and the scoring is balanced, plus the game is loaded with a unique layout of drop targets, spinning disk, spinner, vari target, etc.
Same with Silver Slugger, which will never leave my collection. It’s a street level game, and you can just crank runs, playing for pinball points or baseball points. It’s criminally underrated.
My friends and I play this game all night long on the weekends, making up our own rules like first to five wins by baseball points only, playoffs, 2vs 2 with combined points, etc.

How do you gauge how bad a game is and which one is worse?

For me it was how long the game lasted in my home.

Johnny Mnemonic-weeks(because I had to try and get the glove dialed in-then dumped it)
SWEP1-days
Slugfest-hey I had fun for like 5 minutes until the novelty wore off
Iron Man Classic without magnet-had to trade for contractor work because I could not sell to a pinhead-years to try and sell
Pistol Poker upper killed it for me-couple months
Rocky and Bullwinkle-forgot how annoying that cartoon was as a kid-weeks

P

You obviously haven't played Thunderturds

Oh man I forgot about Iron Man Classic. Thats a rough one. I never played it but I can imagine it just stinks to high heaven and like you said, impossible to sell. Another one of those curse games that you just have to hope you can pass it off onto someone else to free yourself.

That gives me an idea for a new but maybe too similar of a thread. "What game could you not wait to sell/trade quick enough?"

I had a late 80s standup arcade racing game. I bought it in a non-working state but decided that since I tackled several successful pinball projects (focusing mostly on the electronics side) I wanted to give arcade games a shot. Turns out that pretty much any arcade game made after the very early 80s has one or more proprietary chips that if dead bricks the entire project. Fortunately I had spare boards and was able to swap parts around. Then there was the fussing around with the monitor and overall it was no where near as fun as tuning up/cleaning a neglected pin. Silver lining is I found a guy who loved the game as a kid and paid full asking price which wasn't a lot but more than I expected.

To stay on topic, and I really don't like to say it, but Stranger Things doesn't do it for me. I really liked the show, at least the first season, but for some reason I don't jive with this pin. I gave it a few tries at the local barcade over the years hoping something clicks but it doesn't. Not crazy about the art/illustration/photoshop job done on it either. I'm betting if I had it in the collection and gave it a proper go, hearing all the sounds/callouts/music, and getting a better chance at digging into the rules I'd like it.

It's not fun because of the coding...which does beg the question; "What is worse, IJ4 or South Park?" Since they basically have the same code.

Agreed. Horrible and annoying. Even passed up cheap Spy Hunters for sale around me.

I had a Bally Hi-Lo Ace (EM). Dreadful. Of all the card themed games, this has to be the most boring. No targets, no spinner, nothing to really to do. Easy special, no return to the top arch, etc. And a single player, so you can't challenge anyone other than high scores.

Came for the drama, stayed for the puns...

Everyone likes and dislikes games never the same I have learned over the years like most games I like most of my friends don't and the other way around

People have already posted my top worst games so I'll nominate my next in line.

Whoa Nellie