Found 83 ratings (with comment) on this game

Great game I wish I had. Great layout and artwork.

A nice early SS game, more typical Bally. Not close to top 100 in my opinion when played.

For an older table, it’s fun.

I personally was shocked to see Fathom climb out of the depths of obscurity over the last few years and land a place on many top 100 lists.
I used to think Fathom would always be floating around somewhere in the top 200, because most of the machines that used to be in public locations sailed off to private owners or got broken up for parts. It’s hard to get a good score from new people if they can’t play it. (Emulation players please stay out of these rating systems!!!)
The first time I played Fathom was as a little kid and I was hooked. It floated around the arcades, the roller rink and bowling alleys where I lived for years. You knew it was the same machine because some couples had carved hearts with their initials in them on the right side. In the early 1990’s that machine was cast off to a private owner, and I didn’t see another until about 2008 at a bar on Pensacola beach… Irony!
As a kid I couldn’t imagine the scale and depth of the gameplay, I was looking at the (heh heh!) mermaids and shooting the ball randomly. I got better as time went on and really realized how much I loved Fathom. Years later at the bar on the beach, I played it as much as I could fathom. I even asked if it was for sale but it was still making good money for the owner at the time. Probably mostly my money!
Again, I never thought it would be a top 100 game, There’s even a nostalgia trip modern remake, for all those people who are too young and have no nostalgia for it but just right for investors and flippers!
It’s a good game, but not $6000+ good! Maybe $2000 in good condition.
You would think the people remaking Fathom would try to make new games instead of riding on the coattails of the past, but that’s what happens when people want to make some of that fast and easy lucrative nostalgia $$$ and have absolutely no creativity, skill, or ability to make or do anything original. Stay attached to your shark remoras, and feeding on the scraps left over of the stupid people who went out in the water.
I am at a loss to think of any time a copy or reprint of anything by a knock off company sold for two to three times the value of the original… except in the pinball hobby.
Unfortunately, I believe Fathom did not make it into the top 100 because of its own merits. It’s probably a bunch of hype and fake reviewing by those involved in flipping originals and those involved with or invested in the remake. Which is too bad, but money talks and scammers are everywhere.
I suppose if anyone wants to stop pinball from going through the same hobby destruction that coins, cars, comic books and videogames have gone through, I suggest we all refuse to play along. Pay only fair market value…
That value is determined by how much YOU and other HOBBYISTS are willing to pay not flippers and blue chip investors. Check out ebay for stupid people pinball prices! $4,000 to $6,000 for a Kings of steel that’s worth at best $1200!!!
Also, don’t buy the remakes. Make them realize that pinball is not their free ride to fortune. In other words, treat them as the crappy overpriced off brand knockoffs they are.
Ask yourself, would you buy a brand new copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #1 printed by WhetFaartz publishing under “official license” from Marvel comics? Would you pay twice the price of the current value of the original comic for the tear resistant gloss coated paper, minor bonus story material, limited reprinting run, and special gold colored foil cover they slapped on it? I didn’t think so, but pinball people do.
Anyone wanna buy a fake medieval madness? Oh yes please!!!
How about an 1878 Morgan silver dollar made from all new space age materials (plastic) for only $399.99?
Would you buy a brand new 1968 Mustang fastback assembled with the cheapest aftermarket reproduction body panels China has to offer for $200,000? It will have the Mustang logo (licensed product) but it won’t say Ford, instead it will say Nanjing Automtive Group limited edition and be numbered for your personal bragging rights.
No? Then I ask again, WHY pinball???
Unfortunately this won’t stop anyone from being dumb and soon the top 100 to 200 pinball machines will all be owned and controlled by shady big name auction houses and shareholder investors gambling on the prices increasing and frequently selling those machines back and forth in huge fake news articles to create money. Oh wait, it’s already started with the Museum of pinball auction!
My review: Fathom - a good $2000 game, but it isn’t anymore.

A classic classic, one of the best.

This is easily my favorite pinball game of all time. I love how if you learn to hit the shots that hit the traps/inline drop targets, you build up your bonus multiplier AND trigger multiball once it's at 5x. It's such a gratifying machine to play, colored in soothing blues. The one I play even has a blue plasma display for the scores. I am lucky enough to live near one in the wild and I play it many hours a week. I learned how to live catch and dead flip and nudge on this machine.

Entirely biased review here :) First game I ever owned, love the game, which doesn't mean it couldn't do things better, but this is as good as it gets for pre-90's games for me.

A solid Bally Title, and an amazing art package.
Great use of colors and the illustrations are quite frankly some of the best i've seen in pinball.

Lots of fun drop targets and even multiball.

A simple, fun and elegant game to play and a wonderful piece of art to admire.

My buddy, Glen, bought a fathom and restored it to its former glory. I have always enjoyed looking at the fathom art on the cabinet and backless, This is when i could find Fathom in the wild. Glen proceeded to showed me the rules and the shots!! OMG! What a great game. Spinners, saucers, drop targets!!! The rules are deep. Glen explained the backless. Mermaids dragging a scuba diver down into the bottom of the sea. Beautiful and crazy..

Simply the greatest early SS pin from any manufacturer...nuff said!

Glad I was able to put quite a few games on this one that you do not see too often.

Not my favourite of the classics (gasp), but generally a solid game overal.

Impressive pinball from 1981.
Excellent gameplay, design, art, addictiveness, sounds, etc.
One of the best machines of that time.
Classic of the classics

Wish I could put up a higher score in this game...one day.

Looks the part. Real fun. Unique theme. One of my favourites as a child.

Fathom. Ahhh, Yes.

Up front, I am fond of early Solid State games. Fathom ranks at the top in my humble opinion.

I love the inline drop targets. The task of knocking down barriers for a greater reward is very satisfying. Drop targets appeal to me in general and adding in two banks of the standard variety along with the double inline targets gives us plenty to aim for.

Good shot options. Hitting the left orbit shot to the inline drops/saucer with either right flipper makes me smile. Good spinner shot. I like spinners as much as I like drop targets and this one is well placed/directs the ball nicely to the A-B-C rollovers. The only clunky shot I find myself hitting is the area between the right pop bumper and outside edge of the Cave Trap. Every drop target and the standup can be hit with a well aimed flipper shot. . . I just need to work on my aim ;).

Artwork is amazing -- the backglass, playfield, and even the cabinet draw you in and provide a treat for the eyes. Enough said.

Sound is very good, especially considering the era and compared to my other games of similar vintage. The speech incorporates well with the sound -- not sure if its normal but my game provides a lot of "Ahhhh"s.

Lighting is decent. A little dark in the middle of the playfield but translucent rubbers help.

Scoring and gameplay seem to consist of two parts.

Scoring involves collecting playfield points but a good score also involves a well built bonus. Luckily you have two area of bonuses to build and multiple ways to multiply it!

Gameplay has a right/left or green/blue feel. Using the large drop target bank and center 1-2-3 target bank to build your blue or green bonus ties the two sides together. Hitting the 1-2-3 in sequence lights the yellow standup. . . but can you hit it in time? I appreciate like the additional features provided by the A-B-C rollovers and the fact the letters can be moved with the flippers. The inlane/outlane reversal is a fun mix up of the usual anatomy in this area. Multi-Ball is great; the fact that playfield scores are doubled/tripled during makes achieving and maintaining MB worth your while.

I really do like this game. No ramps, no DMD, no modes. . . just classic pinball. It is a treat to look at and a blast to play -- very glad to have the opportunity to restore and add one to my collection.

I had one for awhile. Pretty game with the blues and greens. For me the play was so-so, and I quickly tired of it. IMO it is overrated. Again, beautiful, but far from a total package.

Gorgeous game! It has that old-school charm. It is easily one of the top early SS games. It is a blast to play and it has that "one more game" feel.

Having read all of the hype with this game, I was excited to find one to play nearby. I must say that I was a bit underwhelmed, and maybe that's the reason for my scoring - I may have been more generous without the lofty expectations. I feel that the game plays a bit too slow for my taste. I also didn't find it all that enjoyable while I was playing, though some of that may have been due to the setting (a bar). I'll give it another go if I come across it elsewhere and see if my impression changes. If so, I'll be back to edit my review for sure.

Fathom is a beautiful game that should be in every early solid state collection. Multiball and speech are great in this game!

Just became the proud owner of one of these games. Played one in mint condition at pinball at the zoo in 2018 and loved it. Took almost another year to aquire one under $5000. If you appreciate the early Dawn of multi ball talking pinballs,; whereas, the entire goal is to achieve multi ball, then Bally fatham is right there with firepower! I have firepower and for the longest time couldn't appreciate the increased cost to fathom, but if you collect early solid state pins as your hobby, having a fathom is required in your collection. Great game and even better shots, unique outlanes....Fathom!

One of the brightest points of Bally's super, super hot streak of the era and a game clearly designed by people that understood inline drops are the greatest thing ever. The game also looks amazing. Fathom came out within 4 months of Centaur and Medusa. Can you imagine if 3 works of art were released in such short succession today? 1981 was really the good old days.

"Fathom" is everything "Paragon" wasn't -- a great theme and art but with better audio that goes far beyond "bloop" and "bleep" and much better gameplay thanks to a reduced playfield and the removal of the awful "double right flipper". This one had interesting "water" or "wave" sounds as you played and a voice that taunted the player as they played. It's dated as hell but one can tell that effort was put into it with great targets and a rewarding set of shots that actually work thanks to much smoother gameplay. Even in the dark, the lighting makes this table look great in a gameroom.

After revisiting this game, I have learned a new appreciation for it. Art is beautiful. Still quite pricey, but nonetheless a good game.

This is the first ‘80s game in the Top 100, and it’s a Pin from 1981! Amazing! Art, theme integration , layout, gameplay, it’s got it all. Get one while you can.

I know I'm in the minority but I just can't get into the gameplay. Better than flash but not near as fun as the system 9 and 11's of its era. Backglass is really cool.