My Top 50 Pinball Machine Rankings

Pinside and IPDB are great sites with lots of useful content. I've spent a lot of time on both sites. One thing I disagree with on both sites, however, is pinball machine rankings. Rating pinball machines is a very personal experience. Playing pinball is fun, but some machines are more fun than others. People have their own preferences and criteria...some people like deep rules, others don't want to deal with complicated rules. Some people like wide open playfields and speed, others like lots of mechanical features and complex layouts. Some people hate (or are indifferent to) certain themes and others love them. One of the most important considerations, perhaps, is whether you play a machine on location or one in a home environment. Games in the home can get stale once you've seen and done everything, or you just get "fatigued" with repetition. On the other hand, home games are often rated higher because owners have more time to explore the game, learn the nuances and appreciate the design and rules, and the machine is well-maintained. Games on location that are too complex will leave a player confused, and a poorly maintained one will give the player the impression that the game is a piece of crap. So there are a variety of factors that go into evaluating a pinball, and all of them are subjective.

Although both sites have a top 100 list, I've chosen to focus on the top 50 games because I don't want to have to deal with rating 100 games for the purpose of this post, and games 51-100 won't tell you much. It also forces me to make some tough choices on what gets cut and what stays. Take the IPDB ratings with a grain of salt...they separate editions of the same machine instead of grouping them together as one entry. Also, no game has been added to the ratings since The Hobbit in 2016; while on Pinside, 12 of the top 50 were released after The Hobbit (with Houdini and Oktoberfest just outside the top 50). Here are the top 50 games on Pinside and IPDB, that have not been filtered:

One thing jumps out at me immediately when I examine these lists. IPDB slants heavily towards DMD era Bally Williams, especially at the top, while Pinside shows a much wider distribution that not only includes those games but also Stern, Jersey Jack, and even a couple of Spooky machines, a Capcom, and a Dutch Pinball. Not a single Data East, Sega, or Gottlieb game appears on the Pinside list. And since Pinside groups editions of the same game together, it allows for a wider diversity of machines...4 games appear on the IPDB list twice (4 games x 2 editions per game = 8 games), which is 4 spots that could go to other games. IPDB does include Stern, Jersey Jack, Gottlieb, Data East, Capcom, and pre-DMD games, but most fall in the middle to bottom range of the list.

My list is just as subjective as anyone else's. Much of it relies on location play since I only have 12 machines, and those machines that I own probably get a ratings boost because I have more opportunity to play them. However, you will see that just because I own a game doesn't mean it will be included in the list (like Popeye). Although I grew up playing pre-DMD games, and I did put a couple on this list, DMD-era (and later) pinball is (in my opinion) just so much better, from engineering and art, to rules and sound. It doesn't mean I don't like those pre-DMD games...I just enjoy newer machines more. Here, then, is my list, counting down from 50, with one sentence to describe why it appears where it does.

50. The Shadow: toys
49. Elvis: cool upper playfield and Elvis toy
48. Black Knight: cool upper playfield and magna save
47. Fish Tales: crossover ramps, fishing reel multiball lock, topper
46. Theatre of Magic: spinning trunk and tiger saw, art
45. Independence Day: lots of ramps
44. Batman (The Dark Knight): crane toy, theme
43. Terminator 2 Judgment Day: speed, theme
42. Bram Stoker's Dracula: mist multiball, stacking multiballs

41. Johnny Mnemonic: glove ball lock
40. Indiana Jones The Pinball Adventure: theme
39. Wizard of Oz: lots of toys, LCD screen, light show
38. Goldeneye: satellite ball lock
37. Fathom: art
36. The Beatles (Gold Edition): drop targets, flippers, art, music
35. Tales from the Crypt: theme
34. America's Most Haunted: great shots
33. Pirates of the Caribbean (Jersey Jack): rules, rocking ship, canon
32. Tales of the Arabian Nights: theme, art
31. Fun House: Rudy
30. Spider-Man: great shots, multiball
29. Metallica: toys
28. Oktoberfest: great shots, unique ramps, light show
27. Stargate: Horus and Anubis toys, multiball
26. The Addams Family: toys
25. CSI: skull multiball lock
24. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: song choice, monster throws balls at you

23. Star Wars: hyperspace loops, rules

22. Star Trek (Stern): flow and speed, rules
21. Creature from the Black Lagoon: theme, mods, light show
20. Ghostbusters: theme, toys, rules (after new code)
19. Munsters: theme, art, great shots, lower playfield
18. Congo: volcano, great shots
17. Medieval Madness: exploding castle, sound
16. AC/DC: music, toys
15. Batman '66: art, code
14. TRON Legacy: light show, sound
13. Star Trek The Next Generation: toys, multiball
12. Ripley's Believe It or Not!: toys, ramps
11. Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle: toys, sound, art, rules
10. Monster Bash (Remake): large DMD, light show, theme
9. Scared Stiff: sound, theme
8. Lord of the Rings: theme, rules
7. The Simpsons Pinball Party: rules
6. Deadpool: theme, sound, art
5. Iron Maiden Legacy of the Beast: great shots, art
4. White Water: ramps, topper, bigfoot, sound

3. Twilight Zone: toys
2. The Hobbit: theme immersion, LCD screen, controlled drop targets, sound, light show, rules
1. Attack from Mars (Remake): great shots, large DMD, topper, light show

And there you have it: my top 50 favorite games. There's a few I haven't played or played enough yet to evaluate. I'm sure my list differs from every other pinball player, which is perfectly fine. It would be boring if everyone liked the same things...