A true classic. When rulesets were more simple. Love playing a few games whenever I see it on location. Not my favorite theme, so won’t make it into home collection.

Fun game. Sometimes too repetitive. Feel like I couldn't own this one. Great music, funny call outs, but it gets old.

One of my favorite pins; the remakes are certainly better but this was the table that hooked me first and really got me into the hobby. I think a lot of people will complain that it is too easy, but when you have gotten your butt kicked and failed to progress on a high tech stern table, it is a lot of fun to have longer ball playtimes and make some satisfying shots on this thing.

Good theming but this game didn’t grip me. Looping the ramp is satisfying but otherwise I didn’t feel much flow in this game, there is a lot of stop/start when initiating gunfights etc. and those drop targets can be annoying to line up (maybe I just need to get good!). I played this on location in the same room as Monster Bash and Medieval Madness and they both made CC feel like an inferior pin.

I finally got the chance to play this game (original).

Cactus Canyon is a classic WPC-95 game. All of the shots feel unique, there is a lot of flow and there are unique features like the "Bad Guy" drop targets, the moving mine and the train.

One of my favorite components of WPC-95 games is the easily understandable rules. This game doesn't disappoint in that regard but it feels very unfinished. Almost as if there was a lot more to come. Obviously CGC do their best to complete the code. But it is a real shame we will never see the originally finished product.

The unfinished game code leads into my next major issue with this game. It is very repetitive and that leads to a low replayability. For me it gets old pretty fast. I guess every fairly good player will feel the same.

But apart from that the art package is looking perfectly for a Western-themed game. I just love the look of the playfield art.

Overall Cactus Canyon is a very unique and fun game which is sadly flawed by the unfinished gamecode. It still a very good game, especially for beginners.

Fun, but after a month you don't play it anymore.

Great theme and beautiful machine. Fun game to play a few times but gets repetative and boring after a while. Miss that ”just one more game” aspect

Fun machine with a great layout, but doesn't have the same effect on me that the other 90s Bally/Williams games do. The code gets old relatively quickly and I just couldn't see it lasting in my collection. It is very fun to play on location though.

I cannot confirm the high ratings of this table. The style of the table and the flow of the game didn't convince me.

This is my rating for the original game.

Unlike some of the other reviewers, the most appealing component of Cactus Canyon for me is the theme.

I like the fact that there is no license for this Western focused game. Would a game with a "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" or even "Blazing Saddles" theme be great? Probably, but so many opportunities for material exist with a simple Wild West theme so I like it in the generic state.

Visually all the Western imagery of cowboys, railroads, gunfights, mineshafts, etc. are spot on. The translite, cabinet, and playfield are cohesive and represent the theme well.

Gameplay is adequate. . . by that I mean I enjoy the Western theme enough that you could probably put a spinner, pop bumper, and set of drop targets out there and I'd be happy. Re-theme this layout and I may not think so highly of it -- I feel the same way about a game like Back to the Future (CC is a much better player!). The bad guy drop targets are definitely fun to shoot for when they pop up and having a scoop/several ramps adds to the fun.

Will I ever own a Cactus Canyon? Maybe. Right now its a game that I enjoy looking at as much as I enjoy playing. There are other games that I enjoy playing more but have a less appealing theme. It is difficult to justify taking up a space in the game room because I like looking at a machine. . . but if the right opportunity comes along I'd fit it in.

A really good game, for all the family.
I played a lot with my 7 years old son, he discovered playing pinball on it !
Sad after the barman replaces it by a Metallica pro.

I played the original in the late 90's and it was good. Can't wait to play the new one. I would like this in my collection, maybe one day.

There’s a Cactus Canyon Continued in FlipOut in Croydon (just outside London). It shares a warehouse with several other pinball machines that it’s compared with, including Monster Bash, Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars.

I’ve played MB, MM and AFM on iPad, which may explain a slight bias, but I personally found CCC a bit ‘meh’. It had a couple of decent toys, including a bandit and a moving train. It also has a cute Western theme, but - speaking as a woman with kids - I found some of the animations a bit sexist and not entirely family friendly.

I’d definitely place it in a second tier of 90s Bally/Williams era pins and I suspect some of the people shelling out for the CGC remake are going to be very disappointed.

Seems to be an excellent game, but I don't care for the western theme personally.

This one fits right up there with White Water, Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, and Monster Bash. Just a very fun table to play!

I usually don’t rate games I’ve played on only one occasion and never ones I have only played on digital pinball simulators.
Furthermore, if you rate a “Holy Grail game” too low, certain butthurt users will flag your comments because you dared to be honest.
Everyone has a theory why WMS (no longer called Williams, even then) stopped making pinball. The bottom line is that the powers that be wanted out of the pinball business for years before Pin2000, the pinball division was losing money. Slot machines were the cash cow.
The 1990’s pinball explosion left locations owners and vendors with a mountain of great money making games to choose from that never needed replacing with anything new.
Those are just a few contributing factors (certainly not the whole story!!!) to the pinball implosion of the late 1990’s.
My personal opinion as a player back then was that I was happy playing Addams Family and a handful of other classic pinball machines that I loved. The newer machines appeared to be trying too hard to stick out like a sore thumb and weren’t nearly as addictive.
Also they were slapping any movie or TV license they could on most of them, without regard to if the product was any good. Non licensed product games were still being made, but no longer as attractive to operators or the general public. This eventually led to all your modern pinball releases. It’s all rare machine/nostalgia remakes or popular licensed products.
I think it’s important to point out that pinball manufacturers never learned what videogames figured out, sequels and upgrades sell! You can sell a Street Fighter alpha 3 machine because SFA2 is obsolete in the players eyes. Same with the Mortal Kombat series and so many others. Sequels sell and everyone wants to play the newest familiar installment.
When the rare pinball sequels were made, they usually didn’t take the original concept to the next level of entertainment and gameplay. Good games like Firepower, Black Knight, and High speed, for example, received sequels but those sequels didn’t always a big hit. Stern does sequels today, sort of, with a new Marvel or Star Wars game just about every year or two it seems.
While many video game machines of the 1990’s had swappable software to upgrade existing cabinets, Pinball had nothing of the sort. Pinball2000 was an attempt at making modular interchangeable playfields and artwork, with it’s easy upgrade system. But by then it was too little, too late with nothing to swap except for the two games that came out in their own cabinets. The concept was good, but it was never practical.
Finally, pinball machines that weren’t designed well, incomplete, or buggy left the factory floor “as-is” with little or no post sale support or upgrades.

I know, I need to review Cactus Canyon, so why “the history of pinball” lecture? Because it’s place in the best pinball lists is entirely based on that history, and it’s value in the marketplace solely on the number produced.
Cactus Canyon checked a lot of negative boxes.
It was buggy and incomplete.
It didn’t have a movie or TV license, but somewhat pretended to. (Not a bad thing, but in a time when everything was getting a licensed character, it would be overlooked by the general public.)
Although it brings nostalgic feelings for old western classic pinballs, like Gun Smoke among others, nobody (TV movies etc.) was doing anything successful in the western genre at that time.
It’s rare, didn’t sell well, and was largely ignored and forgotten in its time.
It was “the end of pinball”. (Present day renaissance excluded)
It eventually received an unofficially official upgrade to fix the problems and make it good, which brings up the argument of preservation versus playability, which I won’t touch with a ten foot pole!
And finally, It’s getting the remake treatment like Medieval madness, Fathom, and Attack from Mars.
This is one of those few times where the remake may be better than the original, only time will tell.
In all honesty I wanted to love Cactus Canyon, and wondered why I never saw another one. It wasn’t until the internet became better organized that most of us found out why the game simply didn’t exist anywhere. Thanks to the IPDB we learned that there were less than 1,000 units made… Ugh!
Until recently, the only place to play this game was at shows, museums, or digitally on the now defunct pinball arcade season 2 pack. How shortsighted was Farsight studios not to lock down those licensing rights?
I am not a big fan of digital pinball emulation, but it helps draw in new and old fans to the hobby, so I can’t complain.
In the end, Cactus Canyon was a good game that needed time to be finished. In both the concept and artistic sense it is a great machine. As a player… it needs the unofficially official upgrade.
As it was released, not looking at the rarity or it’s place in history, it was okay at best. Not the worst game of the era, but it certainly wouldn’t earn its place in the top 100 without the rarity or the history.
That’s fine though. These lists aren’t about the bestest great playing addictive games, they are simply popularity contests and about driving the prices up.
That’s not a complaint either, all of pinball gets a boost in popularity and value. You’ll never hear me say ranking lists and competition is not good! It’s for fun and entertainment. Also, thank you Casey Kasem and the American top 40 for making popularity lists important back in the day!
If these lists were just about quality and gameplay and not the licensing deal or the rarity, the top 20 wouldn’t be packed with all the newest remakes, Rock bands, and Mandalorians.
So Cactus Canyon… I want to love it, it makes me smile and the potential for best game ever is there. As it was, it was a sad, incomplete, broken end to a great era.
Flag me if you like, but thankfully we all don’t have to love the same thing, and that’s what makes the diversity of pinball over nearly a whole century so great, so many games, so many different styles, all of them are good, most are great, and few are true Holy Grails. I really can’t wait to try the Cactus Canyon remake so I can (hopefully) love it!

Love this game!

Very nice game

This game is fun and not hassle, the ramps connect well, the cowboy theme is great.
For an evening with friends this flipp is great.
My favorite pinball machine from the 90s

Can't wait for the CGC re-make which I understand is coming soon. A classic game only in need of more code, which I assume it will be getting.

If it’s not Continued it’s not worth it.

Under-rated classic. Love the train ramp, and the “bad guys” that pop up. Great layout and fun theme. One of my favorites of the older generation.

Ramps and toys.

I picked up CC over a month ago added continued and wow it funny, challenging and lots of fun. I am enjoying it immensely and highly recommend. I feel this pin would be rated higher in the ratings category.