Pluses:

     Rudy: making tough shots is fun (right ramp, captive ball), decent quotes
for a DE

     8Ball: Some very good dot animation.

     Drac: great sound as the Cryptkeeper continously harasses you. Fun
multiball and modes. Best DE game in my opinion.

     Buzz: By FAR my favorite DE game. Lots of depth in rules, smooth flowing ramps. Artwork matches the comics exactly. Right ramp modes are fun and funny. A challenging super jackpot shot

Minuses:

     Rudy: strong flippers are required as well as properly working tombstone

     8Ball: A few software bugs.

     Drac: When you complete the modes and play the final mode, you can not
play the modes again on early production ROMs.

     Buzz: Captive ball target doesnt always register

Pluses:

     Rudy: nice feature with magnet catching ball and dropping it below the
playfield

     8Ball: Good playfield flow with creative use of magnets. Cool ball lock
sequence. Stick to Harem multiball for big points. I like the stellar
bonus potential. 

     Drac: Magic Spikes are an innovative feature.

     Buzz: Lamp is cool, but unbalanced in scoring

Minuses:

     Rudy: left orbit feed to jets doesn't always hit a jet.  Unbalanced
scoring when having high bonus x deep into a game.  Can collect 20+M
for collect bonus for 'wish' award

     8Ball: Often has dead jets. A made shot to jet area is often like
throwing a hot dog down a hallway (Dont ask me, I just type what he wrote!)

     Drac: rehashed rules -- complete objectives and go for wizard mode, I
guess the designer felt that if it worked in his
World Cup Soccer game, the same formula could be applied in TOTAN (and TOM).

     Buzz: Typical Popaduik "wizard mode" aimlessly bat the ball around till you win

	1st Williams pin with 16 digit alhanumeric displays! Spin-out skill shot is cool as long as the shooter spring isn't weak or the rubber tip broken off! Nice flow with good shot selection. Gorby/JP shot is a cool long shot. "Carry Passengers" target is a tough but essential target to hit. Express Lane MB sequence can turn into an "Express Drain" if you flail trying to make it before the timer runs out (which is good!). Sounds are very good.	Many Taxi's had a problem where the ball would jump over the left in-lane rail and drain when returning from a left ramp shot. Jackpot not worth the effort a second time due to it camping back to only 500K and building very slowly. Shooting for the million point Airport Ride ramp sequence is much easier and points are higher. It would have been nice if factory settings had the JP return back to a Million after collected and build at a faster rate, otherwise scoring is balanced.
	Humorous characters and sound bytes plus a very fun theme. Nice tight shots for Joyride and to collect the Jackpot (and Gorby)	None (unless you are in a tournament and the player before you just collected a 4M point jackpot) Damn taxi never stops for me!
	Great game for its time. Cool skill shot and nice flowing ramp shots. Airport value builds as long as you keep it going. Gorby is a satisfying shot. Music during expressway hurry up builds excitement. "Yo! Taxi!"	Lola is butt-ugly! Million shot takes precidence over jackpot.
	Taxi is a good game, in an era where pinball was just starting to grow in popularity again. A solid playfield from Mark Ritchie, from the skill shot off of the plunger ala Pinbot, to the flow on the loops. Kudo's for having Pinbot as one of the passenger's you could pick up. Positives include: Pretty decent sounds, including the mock Russian accent of Gorby and the background humm of the Taxi. "Hey Comrade!" Increasing jackpot shot, hope for a lot of bad players before you. plunger skill shot, I once found a game on location that I could consistently hit the 500K on, it made getting the 3 million replay very easy. Marilyn..... (well at least on the first run games)	Increasing jackpot shot (well at least in tournament settings). Hard to find a nice one, since they were played so much on location.

Game: TMNT Designer: MFG: DE AKA: T.errible M.ind N.umbing T.rash: Zeros in a half shell

Dumb invention equivalent:

Pluses:

     Rudy:

     8Ball:

     Drac: No sequel pins such as TMNT2 have been made (yet)

     Buzz: At least the proto was playable

Minuses:

     Rudy: one of the most bland playfield designs I've seen

     8Ball: Obnoxious license and ugly art.
Shallow rule set.

     Drac: The game seems like it was thrown together in a day with a gimmicky
sewer ball release and generic rules.

     Buzz: Waste of wood, hardware, metal, glass, paint, speakers, plastic, electronics...

Game: Terminator 2 Designer: Steve Ritchie MFG: Williams

luses:

     Rudy: Payback time is a worthwhile frenzy mode.  Shooting gun for SJ
during MB is tough task unless you trap at least one of the balls

     8Ball: Excellent flow on this pin. Smooth quick ramps and right orbit
keep the ball flying. Best jet bumper action of all time.
Very solid playing pin. Unlimited million plus right orbit shot very
tempting and challenging. Gun on PF is a cool feature.
Not a bad first effort video mode.
Arnold belts out some good speech and sound is excellent.
One of the only Diamond plate playfields i've seen worn down to the
white primer due to so much play. Gun handle built like a tank.

     Drac: Game synchs perfectly with the movie, with a dark, high-tech feel.
1st Williams/Bally to feature Video Mode (and a pretty fun one)

     Buzz: Awesome sounds and quotes from Arnold "forget last action hero" S. Good Richie flow.

1st game to feature swear roms

Minuses:

     Rudy: Standard settings light EB at each 8X (first one at 6X) making the
left orbit a rape shot.

     8Ball: Super jackpot 50mil way out of balance with other scoring,
especially end of ball bonus which maxes at under 10mil!

     Drac: A non-pinball skill (the gun) is required for Big Points.

     Buzz: Way unbalanced super jackpot scoring

	Shoot Here and Here! Nice art package with some cool toys. Ramps and orbits are smooth and the playfield has good flow. T3 borrows some of the best features from T2 while offering some interesting additions. Very Challenging Video Mode is a nice touch. Aaaaanold's speech teamed with a decent SPI sound package is a welcome addition. Metal ramps, YES! Cool feature where you need to fire at a moving target on the RPG while in MB. Center ramp is an awesome smooth shot. Bonus potential is well balanced with other scoring unlike T2 where maxed outhole bonus is 1/5th of a single Super Jackpot. (Get the Stupid Excellent!) While T3's gun grip is not as durable "looking" and "costly" as the T2 gun grip, T3's Lexan gun shells are covering a metal weldment structure for durability. Thankfully the designer of the Batman Forever gun grip wasn't re-hired back to design the T3 's! Unlike NBA Breaks-Fast, the backbox RPG ball guides are made of durable Lexan & Delrin so you shouldn't see plastic pieces Fast-breaking and flying off at will. Both the inner and outer translites are protected from the ball wear.	Shoot Anything! (Not a good quote to follow since there are many death shots awaiting flailers). Rules need more depth (hopefully in a future rom revision?). In comparison...T2 isn't exactly "Simpsons Pinball Party Deep" but it's still a very good pin that has held up well over time. Center lane drop target can be a "Center Drain Target" due to the high number of SDTM drains when it's hit with the right flipper (this could be caused by the piece of mylar on the playfield where the ball lands out of the TX cannon). On the early T3's the ball could catch the edge of the mylar and go SDTM. By carefully removing this mylar piece SDTM drains should be reduced. It's a tighter shot but try to use the left flipper for taking out the drop target, this tends to reduce those annoying SDTM drains. If you cannot get a clean shot to the top target in the RPG backbox feature the top shipping post above the cannon is probably still in place. Ask the operator to remove it and the game will make more MONEY (The word MONEY always get's their attention :) If the operator says "screw you" this pretty much means he is too lazy or does not know how to remove the post so your only option is to shoot early and bounce the ball off the bottom edge of the plastic rail into the top target. A nice touch would be a time-release alert on the display offering a free t-shirt for the first operator to actually "clean" the inside of the RPG window area. Thankfully the backbox area is well lit & appears to be well sealed from the elements so you should be able to see the ball and targets on even the most reglected games .
	A decent effort overall: smooth flow on ramps, RPG backglass gun, different bonus awards for completing RPG targets in order, or in less than 5 shots for 1st RPG mode. Combining 3 top rollovers and 4 return/outlane rollovers into a single group which needs to be completed (7 rollovers if you will) to advance the command center level after the 1st completion of Assault. Some cool sound bytes.	Borrows too heavily from T2 (just like the movie did),ruleset is not too deep so that it relies mostly on smooth flow for its appeal. An accurate shot at the kickback targets often leads to a right outlane drain making you think that George Gomez designed the game when in fact Steve Richie did. Skill shot makes you feel like your playing STTNG.
	Point: 1) RGP mode is a blast and original. 2) Easily the best flowing design ever for a STERN. 3) It has a video mode! 4) It features Multiball 5) An awesome Assault mini wizard mode! 6) features custom Arnold speech! 7) It has a combo 8) Game is designed to appeal to new/novice players Nice art package with cool red inserts. Nice bass during RED and light show to boot. Awesome display graphics. Most all shots are backhandable.	Counterpoint: 1) RGP stops getting harder after level 3. It then becomes more of a burden to an experienced player than a fun mode. 2) The playfield SHOULD have great flow but yet the orbits are constantly diverting the ball into the VUK (For countless and endless long unabortable animations) or Jets (Which are absolutely worthless and just kill the speed of the game) 3) It has a video mode that makes Gilby Rides seem like an interactive DMD orgasm. 4) Easily the worst multiball in DMD history! Shoot the center over and over and over not to mention its a death shot! (Hmm, maybe thats a good thing) 5) Which picks up where multiball leaves off with endless shots to the center lock lane(To its credit a nice RGP jackpot is included) 6) Custom speech which not only sounds like he's half asleep but has little or nothing to do with the movie. 7) ONE FREAKIN COMBO WITH THE FLOW POTENTIAL THIS GAME HAS???!!! 8) I was hooked on this game for about 2 days. Then I realized I had done and seen EVERYTHING. There is no incentive to keep coming back time and time again once you beat it (Like RGP champ, combo champ, assault champ) I would not own this game unless I had a couple deeper games at home as well. Jackpots never increase. In fact nothing except quickdraw increases. Assault weapon payoff increases but stops at 15M. What in gods name is Blitz?(besides annoying) Trademark random register standup targets rear their ugly head again especially in RGP mode. RED mode is cool but if you already have all 5 weapons then its a waste of time. I really wanted to like this game but instead of making a simple ruleset (Like AFM) STERN made a shallow one.
	Trademark Steve Ritchie playfield returns. Much better than his last effort at WMS, but not a very deep game rule wise. Complete the 5 modes and start the wizard mode. Play multiball, play multiball, ad nauseum.... Positives include: 1) Smooth flowing Ritchie loops. 2) RPG toy in backbox. 3) Return of the old back box, no florescent tube!. 4) inline drop target and multiball start shot.	1) Not very deep rule wise. 2) Center ramp shot almost impossible to hit. 3) Terrible feeds from pops, and multiball lane.
	Stern's best effort so far....sounds much better than previous games Cool lighting effects also...especially in RED mode..pretty nice Nice stackability on the modes and mutiball. If you like 'flow' you will like this game.......gotta love the steal ramps too(from a player AND especially operator stand point!!) RPG is actually pretty cool...I was worried about this feature when I first heard about it...luckily my worry was unfounded....RPG is quite fun. Overall: I like this game...nice flow, great sound, lighting and solid rules. It obviously not deep like SPP....but games like SPP only come around in a blue moon in these times! Keep up the good work STERN!	Minuses: Multiball is downright boring by itself....so one has to make it more interesting by starting 1 or more other modes....then mb is more fun! Bg is really bad.....RPG is cool but the artwork is shabby at best. Even though RPG is fun, I see that area getting real dirty and beat up real fast. The white ball after 1 day of play (at a show) got quite dirty...this will only leave marks on the translite....may look like a Fastbreak bg real quick!
	Nice looking glossy playfield with plenty of red lights. DMD animations look good with references to the original T2 with payback time and video mode. Decent flowing ramps which work for multiple combo shots. RPG in backbox replaces original playfield cannon. This is a decent side game and completion is required for achieving Final Battle. Adjusting the top and inlane rollovers with the flippers gets more important as the game gets going.	All of these repeatable ramp shots, so little satisfaction. You just don't get paid off for making ramp combos except for getting Payback Time. And that only really helps when you start it with a multiball going. "Shoot here and here" means nothing. I expected some sort of secondary skill shot when the ball got to the flippers, but nope. Novices will quickly realize there are some ramps down there anyway. Sound and vocals are not satisfying and lack any enthusiasm. Sound effects are uninspiring. Wish SSR better luck in the future. We've been spoiled by his past titles

Game: Theatre of Magic   Designer: John P. MFG: Bally

Pluses:

     Rudy: : trunk, trap door, and inlane/outlane magnets are nice toys. Smooth
center ramp

     8Ball: Great PF art and light show is in the same league as MM & CFTBL.
Great sounds and dot matrix animation. Nice use of Popadiuk magnets.

     Drac: Trap door shot, Tiger-Saw multiball are fun

     Buzz: Vanish effect is cool. Coolest MB start of all time

Doc: Ahh, the possibilities that this game could have had, if only one of WMS better
software people had worked on it. But since this didn't happen, there are
details missing. From the hastly done wizard mode, to the faulty magnet save on
the outlanes that doesn't return the ball if it drains in error. A real shame.
But it must have been the trend at WMS at the time because other things missing
from the game are the original theme, the moving tiger saw and the up post.
Fortunately, some after market individuals have remedied some of the missing toy
issues.

Positives include:

1) Great toy with the trunk.
2) Creative use of magnets on the trunk and ramps.
3) Nice flow on the ramps and right loop shot.
4) Captive ball (you can never go wrong with one of those).
5) 100 million quick jackpot shot.

Jimbo: One of the nicest games to sit and stare at...really beautiful!
Great toys, magnets, trunk, mirror, trap door etc. Nice lighting and sound.
Actually a pretty good pf layout...even has some flow to it. Great cab art also!!
Cool dots too

Minuses:

     Rudy: initial curve on right ramp tends to cut ball momentum for making
the shot successful. Grand Finale is more like scoring free points than a
true wizard mode.

     8Ball: Grand Finale needs to be a little more "Grand" or was it
supposed to be "Bland Finale"?

     Drac: Shoot left orbit over and over again for big scores. Yet
another mode-based game where modes can be timed out to get to the final
mode for the bigger points (but why bother, just keep shooting the
left-orbit for bonus, multipliers and to spell Theatre).

     Buzz: Spelling t-h-e-a-t-e-r over and over is b-o-r-i-n-g. Typical popaduik "wizard" mode

Doc: 1) Terrible wizard mode (why even bother once you have gotten it once).
2) Non-robust and unbalanced software

Jimbo: Well.....tweek some software....and wallaahh! a great game. Rules do lack in some areas but not all...the
100 mil jackpot is cool. Final mode lacks the most...could of been a lot more.
Overall a very attractive piece....novices love it, players don't. I've had 3, but 0
now.....I'm sure I'll have one again some day!

Game: Tommy  Designer: deaf dumb and blind for sure MFG:

Pluses:

     Rudy: can see Gigi in the DMD during multiball.  Mirror is nice, if working. Blinders during second set of multiball jackpots are cool

     8Ball: Challenging skill shot with decent sound. Playing MB with the
blinder activated is a unique experience

     Drac: Fun multiball with nice jackpot advances and a solid upper right
> ramp shot from the upper-left flipper. Most shots are pretty tight,
> including the mode start. Tommy mode is very entertaining, especially
> after tutiluge from John Shields.

     Buzz: Good game, but the proto was way better

Minuses:

     Rudy: video mode sucks.  Jets are typically dead

     8Ball: spinners spin as if they were lubed with rubber cement.

     Drac: Spinners are designed poorly so that even a clean shot at them
> will rarely result in a good spin (not that they're worth much in most
> modes anyway). On many examples the upper-left flipper is not flush with
> the rail so that a bouncy feed is the result making it much harder to hit
> the upper-right side-ramp even if the upper-left flipper is strong.

     Buzz: Guy on backglass looks nothing like John Shields. No way to save ball from the side drains

Pluses:

     Rudy: excellent mini playfield.  Powerball affects rules and gameplay.  Fun
wizard mode.

     8Ball: : Very cool game and always challenging. A kitchen sink of toys &
features all work well within the games design. Excellent dots, rules
and sound. Very fun getting the double JP by shooting the powerball in
the piano during MB.
I always thought it would be cool to be able to double the JP in
powerball mania by playing *pool* on the mini PF and knocking the
powerball thru the top hole with a steel ball. LITZ is definitely top 5
among wizard modes. I hated to sell mine but the new wife didnt like it.

     Drac: incredible rules, excellent sound, and uses all of the space
of the wide-body very efficiently. Powerball.

     Buzz: To many to list. Its just an all round killer game.

Minuses:

     Rudy: balls in jets often drain

     8Ball: A made shot to the EB lane will sometimes come back SDTM. The
yellow standup target to the left of the slot machine gets bent back
resulting in metal to metal hammering on the scoop.
(Both minor and fixable, unlike my marriage)

     Drac: :The software sometimes incorrectly detects the Powerball and
thinks it's a regular ball, however newest home ROMs may deal with
this more effectively. Feed from metal ramp to upper left flipper is
problematic on many examples resulting in the ball hopping off the
habitrail which feeds the upper left flipper

     Buzz: Spiral mode needs more time to complete. Buy-in sucks.

Pluses:

     Rudy: orbit multiball is tolerable

     8Ball: Love hearing "Oh no you've missed your triple jackpot!" Rape cow
multiball for big points

     Drac: Cow multiball is a decent mode since orbit shots are fun to hit and
scoring during the multiball is progressive.
During regular multiball, the feature where all the balls are held in place
on the rotating magnet and then thrown off is
cool the first 3 or 4 games.

     Buzz: Not a bad SEGA game, cool ramps

Minuses:

     Rudy: SRSS, when 'everybody underground now' quote gets played you
are really better off hiding somewhere than hearing this 100 more times.

     8Ball: Incredibly worthless spinning magnet works correctly on at
least 5% of all Twisters on location

     Drac: Upper magnets tend to cut out during Cow multiball leading
to unintentional double jackpots since ball shot up one orbit bypasses
magnet and goes down the other orbit for another jackpot (the ball is
supposed to be trapped by the magnet and then fall down the rollovers). The
designers seemed like they considered having at least 3 different multiballs
mandatory and so they just made sure they crammed in 3 kinds.

     Buzz: Same old SEGA generic rule set which they have used on numerous games