Arcade Collecting > Pinball

STERN vs. WMS Industries... Let's have it out.

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smartbomb2084:
Alright, enough of this crap. Post your pros and cons about why you feel one manufacturer's games are better than the other.

Consider this an open invitation to vent for or against.

Jeff AMN:
Seawitch really is spectacular as far as classic SS games go.

I'm completely uninterested in manufacturers. Right now I have the following games:

- Bride of Pinbot
- Twilight Zone
- The Addams Family
- Lord of the Rings
- Attack From Mars
- Spider-Man
- Revenge From Mars
- World Cup Soccer '94
- OXO
- Simpsons Pinball Party
- The Simpsons (DE)
- Jurassic Park

Just in the past year alone another 15-20 machines have come and gone, from Gottlieb, to Data East and from Bally/Williams to Stern. I honestly have zero preference when it comes to manufacturers, but here's where I see the general plus/minus breakdown of each system.

Bally/Williams
+ Very easy to find parts for, tons of repros and NOS
+ Most like you remember games feeling in arcades, but that's mostly due to them dominating the space back then
+ Best collection of designers, artists, and programmers in the biz for many years
+ Great original themes

- Many things extremely over or under engineered. Simple elegance is missing from a lot of games.
- GI connectors...'nuff said.
- Boards for insert lights can be problematic with the twist lamp holders

Gottlieb
+ Almost military grade on some components and their construction
+ Their Wedgehead single players are easily the best EM games

- Some truly horrible themes, lots of knockoff fake licenses
- Their classic SS stuff is problematic without proper mods on them
- Parts market is cornered by a very backwards seller (worst parts website out there)

Stern
+ Best classic SS maker, in my opinion
+ Modern games have some very deep rulesets
+ Easy to work on, Portals system is great
+ Upgrading ROMs on the SAM system is great

- Sound package is decent, but a step back from DCS
- Many games suffer from Photoshop collage art
- Some bad licenses (WPT, BBH, etc.)
- Very prone to cutting corners on trivial things
- Awful backbox lock
- Audio knocker

Data East/Sega
+ Flippers are strong and have more range
+ Several great licenses
+ Many innovations came to pinball through them
+ Usually very easy for newcomers to understand

- Worst siderail system
- Weldments and subways seem flimsier
- Terrible backbox lock
- Lamps make a weird hum in attract mode

Capcom
+ Very strong flippers
+ Easy to work on, durable
+ Unique themes and art

- Not a lot of parts out there
- Not a lot of repair info online
- Replacement boards are non-existent for the most part

All the makers have their good and bad points. Stern is all we have now, and they're pretty hit and miss on releases, but so was everybody else in every era. For rule junkies, you can't beat some of Stern's offerings. For toys, Bally/Williams is king. For innovation, Data East was quite important. Gottlieb never really did that much in the DMD era, but there are some gems to be had; but their EMs are king.

Personally I don't care who makes a game. If it's fun, I'll play it and deal with the negatives as they creep up.

Xiaou2:
There is no reason to even argue.  Sterns dont hold a candle to a decent Williams.

 Sterns low-budget corner cutting designs are boring, generic, and useless.

 As mentioned, their software sucks.  Its nowhere near the Williams quality level,
most likely due to cost & corner cutting.

 The sound quality is crud, And annoying, due to random voiceovers that overlap
each other without modal reason.

 Flipper feel is crud.  There flipper mechanism hits in such a way that is not
dampened, and makes a metallic clank sound.  The vibrations reverberate
all through the game, and right into your hands/wrists.

   The Williams flippers are much more grounded, and sound & feel more like two
wood blocks smacking together.  The sound less noisy, is much more pleasing,
and theres much less vibrations transferred to the players hands/wrists.   Pressing a
flipper on a stern, is simular to removing the glass on a williams, and then hitting the
flipper... but even worse.

 The Playfields on Sterns are inferior.  Generic photoshop pics and low-resolution
inkjet printing.  Its well known that Inkjects are far inferior to Screen printing.

 The Stern fields themselves, are less durable.  They are soft, and dimple way too
easily.  The way the ball reacts on them will be different too.

  Artistry - Stern has none.  No real art on the Backglass, sideart, playfield, nor theme.
Lifeless. Boring. Generic.

 Poor Gameplay - Sterns are so rushed, they often have major gamplay flaws.. such
as merciless side dumps, awful useless toys like the cannonball chamber, poor
ball flow, things that slow the game down too much... such as the path of the dead,
and much more.

Jeff AMN:

--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on June 06, 2010, 05:16:23 am --- As mentioned, their software sucks.  Its nowhere near the Williams quality level,
most likely due to cost & corner cutting.

--- End quote ---

Give me ONE game that has better software than either Lord of the Rings or The Simpsons Pinball Party. They are the deepest games in all of pinball. The way the modes stack, the way bonus multipliers work, and the way to get to multiple wizard modes is unmatched.

Hate on the builds, the feel, whatever, but to blanket statement that the software sucks is terribly ignorant. Those aren't the only two games with deep rules, but just the two that are objectively unmatched.

Spider-Man has some fantastic rules too. The way for getting multipliers built up and then applied to shots of your choosing is pretty fantastic. I can't think of any games that do it quite like that.

RayB:
Jeff, is that before or after multiple software patches? I keep hearing about buggy or incomplete software in first editions releases from Stern.

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