Two minutes on the above mentioned Big Daddy would be epic. But people love it.

F14 tomcat , then ironman those two are made for each other ....brutal games ...like my son likes to say : those games have no heart .....

F14 tomcat Freakin brutal man

Ohh I almost forgot AVENGERS is mean also ....

I love ultra mean games. For the record, almost any game can be set up ultra mean, and if they are, I think a lot of them play way better. For instance, WCS94 with 45 second ball times is awesome. WCS with 2 minute ball times is a snooze.

Just for modern-ish games, my choices are:

IM
VND (must have clean Glo-Balls and be set for steel balls)
BSD
F14
JD (if you don't set your game up right, this is a game you can have forever long ball times on. Mine, with multiple years of play and a lot of top 10 players using it in a tournament had a high score of about 250,000,000 - that's darn mean.)

and MAYBE...

Popeye (if you play it stock with lightning flips and at a high pitch, exactly half of the games you play will last about 1 minute total. My problem is that for every five 1 minute games, I get 1 10 minute game, and when you play Popeye for 10 minutes, it reminds you that it might be a joy to look at, but isn't that awesome to play for long.)

Whirlwind and Ripley's are mean nasty machines.

I hear you brother. Most Pinsiders won't relate though as they probably, unfortunately, have never played an EM in good operating condition.

I'll throw my Majorettes, Ice Show, and Flying Carpet into the ring. They're tough to beat the high score or win a replay on, but they'll keep you wanting to play one more game!

- Tim

Tommy was the meanest I owned. No one wanted to play it due to drains. A pity too because it was a great machine otherwise.

That's too bad. But that's why I keep throwing it out there every time I read things like brutal, tough, short ball times, etc.

And most of my modern games are some of the most brutal on the planet.

BSD

I agree 100% . BSD is goin on 5 year's in the GRG !! & my IM VE is about just as Mean ..

cell Picts 064.jpg

Here is another vote for BSD. It can be brutally fast, and low scoring.

TAF among my games. No ballsaver, and the fastest multidrains ever witnessed. Easy, seductive game otherwise. Probably why there are so many games on the routed ones.

Timed balls like Goin Nuts. Never seen one because I think they only made 10, but its in PBA and I hate it.

Any EM is cruel compared to what came after. These pups never drove without power steering.

But why are they so addictive?

Remember. We had bigger steering wheels. lol!

Flash Gordon can humble anyone.

Flash Gordon is the meanest, the prettiest, and the baddest mofo game around.

Sho' nuff.

I've heard all I need to hear...
Flash Gordon wins.
-mof

I can understand that, but for me it's such a rush and makes me want to keep playing! Wish you lived closer if you're selling.

Send that F-14 to me! Right here! To the house of pain.

Jurassic park the lost world... seems so simple, yet cannot EVER get more than 3 modes complete..

Gottlieb Rocky.. trying to get used to that duel flipper layout takes a LONG time.. I was the first and only to break 1Mil.. and this was for years.

F-14
No Fear

You know, I hear BSD a lot. It’s funny, as that is the one game where you cannot alter the drain lanes or change it to make it easier or harder, ironic, since I don't think it is all that hard, and you can usually work your way out of there.

The shadow can be brutal. Just when you really get things going, side drain or sdtm.

TS is a true drain whore. It may be the worst in the sys11+ eras. MB's last the shortest of anything I have ever owned.

Paragon <shudder>

Same games came up in both threads however.

poll: Which game is the hardest? Please take ball times, shots, scoring etc into consideration.

The Shadow : (29 votes)

Iron Man : (38 votes)

BSD : (46 votes)

RBION : (15 votes)

X-Men : (9 votes)

Fish Tales : (12 votes)

F-14 : (22 votes)

The Avengers : (12 votes)

EMs : (21 votes)

for me its Fathom ....... my experience is: lots of center ball drains & multiball is difficult to keep alive .... maybe its just me & I need more practice but , if anyone else experienced this (or Not) please chime in

Big Bang Bar number 153. It left a garage in Texas and didn't leave a forwarding address.

IM and Flash Gordon are up there for sure.

This is what cracks me up! EMs but no specific titles. lol. As you were.

Life

mikey-life-cereal.jpg

Negative.

With all due respect, that thread didn't take into account the two most brutal games of all time:

Black Hole
Flash Gordon

No game designed after 1981 can compete with a 1981 game in terms of "brutality". The designs have been made easier and easier leading to longer and longer ball times since 1981.

-mof

Fathom is brutal. It's more difficult than Embryon or Centaur. I don't own a Flash Gordon, so I'm not on that band wagon, but I very much respect those who are.

-mof

Fish tales for me. Love the game but the lightning flippers make it tougher.

AC/DC and Flash Gorden are cruel for the short balls.

But the cruelest of them all is Punchy The Clown for long ball times you wish would end.

F-14 in my house

The bottom line issue here, is that people's responses to polls are influenced by one main factor:

1) What games do you have access to? (Related factors are: How many of the title still exist to play? How many of the game were produced, How old is the title?)

Look -- I'm not on the EM bandwagon, since I don't play EMs -- I have access to them, and I simply am not interested in them. I just don't play EMs. I like flipper strength and fast playfields, and I've never EVER seen one from an EM.

This is no different than the bewilderment I feel while listening to people who are perhaps more used to DMDs and moderns who don't play early solid states.

Many people don't have access to a Flash Gordon or a Black Hole (or any "brutal" solid state for that matter.)

I presume some EM players are laughing at (ME thinking BH and Flash Gordon are brutal), just like I'm laughing at people who think *ANY* DMDs or Moderns are brutal. In my book, they don't rate. They are not designed for brutal. They are designed for long ball times.

So apparently, EMs are the most brutal, Solid States the second most brutal, and DMD/Moderns the least brutal. So you simply need 3 distinct polls for this one to make any sense.

-mof

If you start a thread like this in the all pinball category, the results will never make any real sense.

ACDC

Another vote for both Flash Gordon and Fireball Classic. I've had numerous parties at my house over the years with 15 to 20 different games ranging from early SS to modern Sterns and Fireball Classic audits always report the lowest average time per ball in play (sorry, can't audit this for my EM's, though).

Of the games I've played, Flash Gordon.

Out of the games I own, STTNG is definitely unforgiving.

Of all the games I have played, Black Hole is definitely the biggest jerk. "Hey here's your ball back... HAHA JK LOL"

my current power trio is Fish Tales, BSD & Iron Man. Not a whole lot of relaxing games of pinball. Always on the edge.

Beyond those three, Flash Gordon gets my vote.

Just for you I had Big Daddy in mind when I made the poll.

LW3

Gottlieb Spirit, the flippers are wide apart

Any game with a double flipper arrangement at the bottom

This is VERY true. You aren't going to have a group of people who have never played a certain game saying it's the toughest.

Having said that, the way games were designed changed drastically, and I don't know that I would say that I have ever felt that there were EMs that were designed "cruelly". I have an EM for instance called 3 Coins. If you look it up, it has a GIANT GAP between the flippers, and you're lucky to hit the ball three times before draining. Difficult? Absolutely. Cruel? No. It makes you strategize about what you are going to do with those shots a lot more, but I *know* the ball is going to drain really quickly, where if I'm playing IM I don't feel like I'm going to drain like crazy, and then I do. It seems more 'cruel' to me.

As for the solid states that a lot of people are bringing up, again, it just depends. Paragon I think is nasty, but again it never makes me feel like I am going to be able to keep the ball in play for a long time. I have never had the issues with Black Hole that a lot of people are saying in terms of keeping the ball in play.

The more recent games like IM or VND are more 'cruel' to me because if you have a shot off by a half inch on IM for instance, the magnets can grab the ball and throw it out for you without you being able to do anything. I don't expect to not be able to keep the ball in play, but I can't.

Finally, I do think it's wrong to say that modern games are designed to have long ball times. Some are, some aren't. It depends on the game - but I know that I can play for nearly ever on a few EMs, and I can play for nearly ever on a few SSs, so it just depends on what you're playing.