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What would be your First Few Pins

  • Thread starter Thread starter brainstorm100
  • Start date Start date
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brainstorm100

So, Im looking to buy my first few Pins :confused:, knowing what you know now, which first few Pins would you go back and choose if you could have them again and were looking to buy as a beginner

Might help me make my mind up as I struggle to get to play on any at the minute.
 
Lw3, my first dmd and great fun and I still have it.
road show, fishtales,, lots lots more though
 
Don't over think it. All pins have some good features (even X Files). Budget will be a bigger issue in deciding what to go for. £1200 or so would open up a range of games. £800 less so


Buy it, play it for 6 months and then sell it on and get another if you're bored of it even the best game out there gets stale after a while (I can go for months without turning some machines on).

Use other peoples top 10s as a guide rather than buying into the idea. of certain games being "fantastic" or ""****"

What era are you looking at? New? 90s DMDs or 80s games? Maybe old school EMs might be your bag.
 
Addams Family. Pure class. Reliable. Plenty about. Abundant spares. Superb flow, rules, scoring, sound and features. The game that changed pinball. Pinball was in real decline in the late 80s, this game came out, broke sales records, and gave fresh hope.
 
Second @johnwhitfield's question regarding what are you into? I've been into pinball for nearly 3 years now but looking back I had no idea what I liked when I got bitten by the bug and I hadn't really come across many during my youth (I was a child of the 70s so grew up with the arcade and home computer boom). It was all triggered when I discovered one of my son's friends' father had some pins which turned out to be TAF, TZ, CV, SS, ST:TNG to name but a few! I was set on my current course by finding a project 1979 Bally Paragon that I could afford. It was a sold-as-seen, non-worker, but it triggered a passion for the "Classic Era" solid-state pins of the late 70s and early 80s. I think these are some of most beautiful pins ever made and their mostly single-level, single-ball simplicity hides a purity of pinball pleasure that requires just as much skill as the current super-fast modern multi-level games. There are a few "Golden Age" pins I love (CV, T2) and several "Modern Era" pins that float my boat (WOZ, TRON) but I'm drawn back to the beautiful hand-drawn art and naff sci-fi themes with gorgeous babes every time ;)
 
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Some good advice there John

Mostly like pins from the 90's onwards, toying with the idea of Johnny Mnemonic, Terminator 2, Demolition Man and Bride of Pinbot at the moment, cant fit a wide body pin in my house though unless I put it in the dining room.

Good story that Nedreud, you sound like you have a real passion for pins.
 
Get a Johnny Mnemonic so I can come over and play it!

Wide bodies don't take up more room really, they have the same width backbox and playfield length as standard games.

All games will get a little stale initially, especially if you overplay them. TZ took the longest to go off the boil, but that's only because Spiderman came along and I need to give it a clean too (chore!).

Budget is key. I have a TZ and Shadow coming back to Selby soon. You can buy them and do me a favour!
 
If I had the money, a good working Addams Family is the best starter machine IMO closely followed by Gilligan's Island, it just so happens I have one for sale if anyone is interested, Gilligan's that is :rofl:
 
If I could get them all back (and have somewhere to put them), I would have:

Junk Yard
Revenge from Mars
Star Trek: TNG
Twilight Zone
Hook
 
As others have said REALLY does depend on your budget before much can be suggested. Are you looking to spend £500, £5000? Or something in between? Or more or less! From what you have said though the games you have talked about rarely get close £2000 and generally go for less (All but JM you can probably find for around 1k or above, DM a bit more. JM would probably be the most expensive there).

JM is a good pin though from what you have suggested, I like mine and it is easy to look after and has the option of the sweet colour DMD. Only thing that ever really goes wrong is the hand, and you would be extremely lucky to find one that hasn't suffered from cab fade. T2 is my grail pin and is a lot of fun, Demo man can't really comment on and Bride of Pinbot is an awesome theme but suffers from being slightly repetitive with that left ramp shot.

Ultimately it is up to you, personally for my first pin I went with a theme that spoke to me which was Judge Dredd because I love the comics and I really enjoyed the game as well. Cheap DMD which for some reason doesn't get a huge amount of love but has a boatload of cool stuff to do and fantastic soundtrack. Its also based off the comics and not the terrible Stallone film of the same era the game was released so bonus there.
 
Thanks for that Archyta5, some good advice there.

I don't have a budget as such, however I think I would prefer a couple of medium priced pins for variety instead of one expensive pin.

Think i'm narrowing it down to:

JM
Iron Man
Bride of Pinbot
Demolition Man

Judge Dredd looks good also

My head is now officially spinning :eek:
 
FT and WH20.

FT is a cracking game, really miss mine. Miss my WH20 as well.
 
How many is a few? 3-4? Or 5-6?

If I was starting out I'd go with DMD games by getting 1 or 2 Data East pins (Star Wars, Hook, Last Action Hero, WWF) and 1 or 2 Bally/Williams pins (Terminator 2, The Getaway, Revenge From Mars, Fish Tales) and perhaps a modern Stern if budget allows (Avengers, Star Trek, Tron, AC/DC). If it doesn't allow then a quality 80's pin (Centaur, Paragon, Fathom, Elektra).
 
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