Gilligan's Island is actually good.

Bally El Toro is really bad.

My local place has league night, and it's a guarantee that I will draw friggin' Amigo at least 2 times.

TS4
*calling it now

I thought we already crowned Thunderbirds?!?

If the scoring on shaq were to be fixed and more balanced, it would be better.

I am of course biased ,due to owing it.

Popeye should not be on this list. Owned it, liked it a lot and I’d buy it again if it was a good deal. Underrated rules set, great backglass art and freakin hilarious. Given all the other super pins made back in the day, Popeye was definitely the disappointment compared to the others

Gold Wings, Flash, Shaq Attack and Big Hurt. Owned them all
and they went away fast.

Phantom of the Opera. Shameless cash-grab that tried to ride the coattails of the Andrew Lloyd Weber muscial. Has none of the music or anything else. Total bait and switch. Awful game with shallow rules and a PG-13 art package.

Its a bummer so many people hate gold wings, when you max out that playfield multiplier and start multiball, and hit that aircraft carrier shot for like a 1,000,000,000,000,000 points then the game screams with the air raid siren for like 2 minutes long, its amazing!
Its literally Top Gun but the license fell through, come on everyone how can I be the only guy that loves this game? It has a freaking vertical loop, a space on the playfield dedicated to DANGER ZONE, the best 80s cheesy sound and art, and an air raid siren. And to top it off you have a fake Tom Cruise and Elizabeth Shue couple on the translight! What more does this game need to get respect????

I don't know, Shark seems pretty awesome in both the layout and sound dept...

Fun gameplay would help.

For modern games I would say Ghostbusters for all the air balls and cheap drains and AIQ for it's lackluster shots and hot shit mess for rules.

100% one of the worst modern games is ghostbusters and the rules suck on it too. AIQ is good though

Wow, it looks like it plays like Hercules but tiny

scuba

scuba sucks

I’m an easy to please kind of guy when it comes to pinball. I really don’t “hate” any game. But the few I had a hard time completing a game on were:

Jubilee/Darling
Dolphin
Ready Aim Fire
Black Pyramid

Everyone likes to dump on System 3 games, but I really like them. Even Shaq Attaq. Sorta. The street level games all have such fun, unique designs.

System 80B games are all hidden gems. Fun layouts, no mystery rewards, and those “fat boy” flippers are solid and feel great. I’d even take Raven. I like what they tried to do with the roving drop target (kinda reminds me of Cactus Canyon’s quick draw), even if the rest of the game is hideous.

Thunderbirds by far

I only came into this thread to see who said this first.

I feel like, with a few exceptions, all of the Data East games back then were trash. If you can hit the ramp repeatedly, then you'll get a good score.

I'm looking at you, Star Wars, BTTF, TMNT...

But seeing I'm here... Judge Dredd, by far the worst game ever made. I tend to keep games for a while, so if a game leaves in less than a year, it is a bit of a surprise. After 2 weeks, I put JD up on the block, and sold it quickly for a loss. It was weird, the game made me hate pinball. It dragged my whole collection down, so I shoved it out the door as fast as possible.

I know the game has its fans... but they are all dumb. I've played several different copies since then, and it wasn't the copy, it was the game. If it comes up in league, I'd just put myself down for forth place and go have a beer while I wait for the rest of my group.

Orbiter 1. I don't have it ranked last because it was unique with some neat features, but this game has the least replayability out of anything I've ever played and cannot imagine having one in a home collection. Spinning bumpers? Neat. A non flat wavey playfield you can see through? Balls that can drain from above or below the flippers? Just too different from regular pinball. If you have no idea what I'm talking about. It is a blast to play at a show... for about 10 minutes and then you will never want to see one again.

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/orbitor-1

Street fighter 2. It’s just not fun. Which was really disappointing because I like the arcade game and wanted it to be good.

The worst game is the one that is not working properly....I'd rather play a lousy game in proper working order than a great game that has broken features or is poorly set up.

Orbitor 1, Baby Pac and GatG are all fantastic games if you appreciate them for what they are.

Novelty games.

As novelty pinball machines they get top marks.
If you want a competitive “classic” pinball feel, then obviously they don’t fit in well.
I wouldn’t trade mine for the world!

I like most EM’s but some are kind of boring. El Toro, Ro-Go and Triple Strike are all pretty lackluster.

How is it that every Gottlieb game from this era had “the license fall through?”

I am curious as to why you dislike JD so much. I have one and I have owned for at least twelve years. I am thinking of selling it, that said. The call outs and animations in some of modes are funny. It does seem like a fast playing game: lots of drains and SDTMs for me. Ther are no pop bumpers and some people like that. It is a fussy machine to maintain with all of the optos and the Deadworld mech and the crane.

My vote for the worst game that I ever played was Hook.

Some good ones listed here.
Ro-go, Ghostbusters, AMH, dominos,
Barb wire

Motordome is an awesome game. Granted, for the era, the sound effects could have been better.

Looks like you don’t know much about taito…. Cosmic? I guess if you play virtual pinball most of the games are not fun anyway

Personally I highly dislike Gottlieb’s The Incredible Hulk. Replacing the slings with those weird kick out mechanisms really sucked the wind out of any flow that game might have.

Have you ever played one in real life? Virtual versions are dogshit. The music on taitos are very entertaining, as they are 8 bit versions of classical music. Most popular is vortex. Shark and Mr.Black are most sought after. If you have not seen or played these in real life, you can't really make judgement on them.

I don't know about "worst" but most overrated of the last number of years?

Ghostbusters and GNR.

All hype, D level games.

Ready aim Fire, worst game I’ve ever played. Worst sound package and terrible shots in that game.

I couldn’t get into barb wire or de simpsons of games I’ve owned

Ohhhhhh no. I’m not falling for that again!!

To all Transformers owners - i was so wrong. It might be the best game that i’ve never owned!

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Agreed, one of the worst ever.

As TnT put it: simple pinball. I finished a redesign of that game save for some roll over switches.