# I'm looking at pinball machines again (poll) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 27, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859 "2017-08-27T19:36:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859/21 "2017-09-01T21:15:27Z")
> [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](#): > > Has anybody here seen the virtual pinball machines that you see on eBay? I’d really like to take one of those for a test drive. I’ve played those. No fun whatsoever. No lug on the flippers, and they are upright, so they don’t duplicate the 3D of real pinball very well. Have decided to wait for Black Knight. I had to put a deposit on it, which is refundable if the game ends up not working well. The drawback to waiting is that the other games I’m interested in may sell while I wait for Black Knight, and then Black Knight might not work out for some reason. Also, Black Knight is kinds similar to Lost World. But the guy is pretty sure Space Shuttle won’t move because he’s had it for a while. He says if Black Knight doesn’t work out, and he still hasn’t moved Space Shuttle, he’ll sell it to me at a discount. Personally, I like Space Shuttle. Yes, Simpsons does rock as a machine, but I’m not a fan of the show. So I have mixed feelings about it. Doctor Who was mostly throwing a bone to my husband, who is wild about the Doctor, but not about pinball. He said it was one machine he might actually play. It’s a good machine, but for me personally, it really isn’t worth the price. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2017, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859/22 "2017-09-02T04:20:33Z")
I really like multi ball action, so I’d go for one of those. I think Captain Fantastic is my all time favorite. I haven’t played that in decades though. When I still worked at Microsoft, they had a couple over in the Commons area. Every once in a while, I’d have an hour to kill and head over and play whatever they had. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2017, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859/23 "2017-09-02T08:12:52Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I voted for Simpsons because it’s the only one in the list I know for certain that I’ve played. For me it was Black Knight (of the four in the OP, that is). I remember _hating_ Pinbot, but not minding Cyclone (“We have a WINNA!”) No love for Stern?😛 They might not have been quite as bells n’whistles-y as Bally or Williams, but I seemed to prefer them, for some reason. The only game I can remember was called Pantera, but can’t find it anywhere in the internet. (No, not the Stern Metallica machine.) Big Ben was the first machine I ever played on, and the funniest was Zenon, which had the voice of some prurient milksop intoning “Enter Ze-non!” and when you put in a quarter or used the flippers a woman’s voice would orgasmically go “aahh!”. The Black Knight, IIRC, was the first multi-ball game? Always fun getting all those balls going. Chronic tilter. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2017, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859/24 "2017-09-02T09:08:28Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > No love for Stern? Lots of love for them, since they’re pretty much the only pinball manufacturer left. Bally and Williams gave up pinball for slot machines (Williams became WMS Gaming), and Gottlieb foundered for a bit, being bought and sold by various entities and changing names before folding. But Stern machines are in my local sports bar, and get a lot of play from me. They are challenging and fun. But I do wish that Stern would consider some more original themes, rather than designing games around popular TV shows, movies, and rock groups–right now, at the bar, we have “Kiss,” “The Walking Dead,” “Game of Thrones,” and “Ghostbusters.” Where are the western themes, the billiard themes, the racing car themes; and yes, “Big Ben” and “Old Chicago,” and “Royal Flush” themes? Those were terrific games, and didn’t need pop culture to sell them to players–they were just plain fun in their own right. I do like Stern’s games, and I’m glad that Stern is still in the business. But I’d like to see some originality from them, rather than designing a game around the\* pop-culture-du-jour\*. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859/25 "2017-09-19T01:43:01Z")
There’s always Data East, that did the original Star Wars pinball. I would love to have one of those, although I have no special love for Data East. I just love anything with a big R2D2 head on it. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859/26 "2017-09-19T02:10:45Z")
isn’t there like 3 different star wars pinball games ? segas /the original and one that had a pop up death star in the middle you shot the ball through … ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859/27 "2017-09-19T03:16:09Z")
My favorite pinball machine of all time was Gorgar. > **[Gorgar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgar)** > > Gorgar is a 1979 pinball machine designed by Barry Oursler and released by Williams Electronics. It was the first speech-synthesized ("talking") pinball machine, containing a vocabulary of seven words ("Gorgar", "speaks", "beat", "you", "me", "hurt", "got") that were combined to form varying broken-English phrases, such as "Gorgar speaks" and "Me got you". The pinball machine also has a heartbeat sound effect that increases in speed during longer gameplay. > Gorgar was available on FarSight Studio... ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859/28 "2017-09-20T00:38:05Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > isn’t there like 3 different star wars pinball games ? segas /the original and one that had a pop up death star in the middle you shot the ball through … There are. I was pretty sure Data East’s with R2 was the first, because I remember it coming out really close to the movie, but it was a long time ago, and my memory could be faulty. > [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > My favorite pinball machine of all time was Gorgar. > > [Gorgar - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgar) That’s a good machine. It was the first talking machine. I looked at buying one a couple of years ago. I bought Star Trek instead, just because I already have Lost World, and it’s kinda similar to Gorgar. What is it about pinball that gets the serotonin flowing? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-at-pinball-machines-again-poll/794859.md?page=1)