Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first few games make the contrast wonderfully obvious. Scared Stiff gives you ramps, targets, kickers, a central crate, and a collection of Six Tales of Terror to work through. There is always another named objective pulling your attention, so even a messy early ball feels like it may have nudged something forward. That sense of accumulation is the table’s biggest strength.

Finishing the Tales and then pushing the Stiff-O-Meter to its Scared Stiff level gives the table a satisfying long-term shape. Terror from the Crate multiball is the obvious milestone, but the real pleasure is learning which shots advance which tale and keeping a run alive long enough to make those objectives matter. It can be demanding, though: chasing specific ramps or targets turns a lighthearted horror table into a precision test quickly.

Big Shot strips all of that away. Its goal is plainly laid out: clear the fourteen side drop targets, score the eight ball through the central hole or top rollover, then earn the lit special targets. That simplicity is not a weakness. Missing a target you know you should have hit hurts, and making a clean sequence of them feels earned. If you enjoy pinball as shot-making rather than mode-juggling, this is the table likely to keep bringing you back.

Graphics

Scared Stiff has the more immediately memorable table art: Elvira’s likeness, the crate at the top of the playfield, the bony beast perched over a ramp, the two Boogie Men at the kickers, and a spider on the backglass all give you something fun to look at between shots. Big Shot takes the opposite route, using its pool theme and numbered-ball targets to make the important targets easy to pick out.

Story

Neither table tells a traditional story, but Scared Stiff turns its theme into a playful progression. Each of the Six Tales of Terror has a title—such as Terror from the Crate, Return of the Deadheads, and The Monster’s Lab—and completing them makes your climb toward the final Scared Stiff goal feel more like a miniature horror anthology than a list of chores.

Elvira’s presence matters because it connects the table to Elvira and the Party Monsters while giving this one its own set of ghoulish toys and goals. The result is knowingly silly rather than frightening, which suits pinball: you are not asked to take the monsters seriously, only to keep the ball alive long enough to see what they lead to.

Big Shot has a much smaller narrative hook, but the pool layout gives its rules a clean logic. Clearing numbered balls and hunting the eight ball is instantly understandable. It is the sort of theme that gets out of the way and lets the score chase become the drama.

Overall Experience

This pack earns its place by pairing a feature-rich favorite with an old-school discipline table. Scared Stiff is the easy recommendation if you want a pinball machine with a lot of character and several objectives to untangle. It has enough structure that you can spend a session learning one tale, then return later with a better plan.

Big Shot is less flashy, but it may be the table that exposes your habits. You cannot hide behind a pile of side activities when the job is to hit drop targets accurately. Give it a few games before judging it; once the targets become a challenge rather than scenery, its spare ruleset starts to feel sharp instead of slight.

For more of the broader digital-pinball lineage, see Pinball Arcade. As a two-table purchase, this is especially worthwhile if you like switching between elaborate objective play and direct, unforgiving target shooting rather than settling into just one style.

Retro Replay Score

7.8/10