The Pinball Arcade

TheVision · **Posted:** Mon Oct 28, 2013 9:56

AtrocityExhibition wrote:

Whole lot coming to Steam on November 1st, the game plus all 18 table packs - according to the latest newsletter.

18 table packs? How many tables does that get you then?

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

TheVision wrote:

AtrocityExhibition wrote:

Whole lot coming to Steam on November 1st, the game plus all 18 table packs - according to the latest newsletter.

18 table packs? How many tables does that get you then?

Each pack is typically 2 tables (the 'core' pack has 4) - so if it does include the core plus up to pack 18 then its 40 37 (*) tables in total

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinball_Arcade

(*) 3 packs are single tables - Twilight Zone / Terminator 2 / Star Trek TNG which were all their kickstarter ones

TheVision · **Posted:** Mon Oct 28, 2013 10:10

That's a lot of tables and if they're never coming to the Xbox, I guess I'd settle for the PC.

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

TheVision wrote:

That's a lot of tables and if they're never coming to the Xbox, I guess I'd settle for the PC.

There are some very good tables mixed in there , and they have a trial of every table , if it does come to steam i may re-purchase favorite tables or see what their options are for bulk ones (on iOS they do a season 1 and a season 2 pass which are slightly cheaper than buying all tables separately)

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

MrC wrote:

Just out of curiosity, is there anyone here thinking of getting a PS4 early or early-ish and buying the Pinball Arcade? I've almost run out of reasons to justify a day one purchase, PA is one of the last ones.

Pinball without friends leaderboards is not nearly as much fun.

I'm going to go down the Steam route because:

1) I'll get it before I would on PS4
2) I then won't need to buy a PS4
3) There's not going to be a GTAV on PS4 which is the other reason I had for potentially buying one
4) I fancy my Steam collection's chances of surviving down the years better than I do a digital download on a console, especially given what's happening to XBLA and PSN stuff with the XBone and PS4. (It stops working on the new consoles.)

There are quite a few BEEXers on Steam (and a group!) and I'm assuming it'll have funky friends leaderboards and stuff.

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

Steam version is due out tomorrow - pricing info from Pinball Arcade Fans Forum

http://pinballarcadefans.com/content.ph ... r-1-2013!!!

Quote:

Three Table Core Add-On Pack : $8.99

Table Add-On Packs #1 -#18 : $4.99 (per Table Pack)

Pro Table Add-On Packs #1 - #18 (each individual Table Add-On Pack includes their corresponding Pro Upgrades) : $7.99 (per Pro Table Pack)

Season One Table Pack (includes the Three Table Core Add-On Pack plus Table Add-On Packs #1 - #10) : $29.99

Season One Pro Pack (includes the Three Table Core Add-On Pack, Table Add-On Packs #1 - #10 plus all available Pro Versions of the aforementioned Table Packs) : $39.99

Season Two Table Pack (includes Table Add-On Packs #11 - #20) : $39.99

Season Two Pro Pack (includes Table Add-On Packs #11 - #20 plus all available Pro Versions of the aforementioned Table Packs) : $49.99

Details of individual packs and stuff is on the list and i'll be interested to see what they do with the switch from $ to £

YOG · **Posted:** Fri Nov 01, 2013 1:52

I want to get the Steam versions, but my rubbish laptop almost certainly wouldn't run them. My only real alternative is to get both iOS packs, and I'd only be able to play them on my phone...

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

And as usual - something goes wrong -

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... b09405bb28

Quote:

It looks like the Steam launch is going to be delayed a few days. We thought everything was ready to go until we heard this morning that our in-app purchase prices weren't set up correctly in currencies other than US dollars. The issue has been fixed, but now we're awaiting clearance to release. We are very sorry for the inconvenience!

On a positive note, we’re down at the LA Convention Center this weekend in Elvira’s booth at Comikaze. We’ve brought the PS4 version down to LA along with our Scared Stiff™ and Elvira and the Party Monsters™ tables with us. Anyone attending the show can play for free. If you’re in the area, you should definitely stop by and say hi.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Yeah I logged into Steam when I got back from the pub last night, only to find no sign whatsoever of The Pinball Arcade.

Grrrrr.

On the plus side, we did actually find a real pinball in one of the pubs of Douglas, a classic 'The Getaway' table in 100% working order, even all the lamps and the supercharger were working, and all three flippers were set up properly and could make all their shots!

It was 3 credits for £2 which is arguably a bit steep but TBH I was happy to pay that for an opportunity to play a great table in great condition.

It took about a tenner off us and by the end we had four player games on the go and people were taking it in turns to have their game!

There's something about a real pinball table that's timelessly irresistible.

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zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

Looks like its live on Steam now : http://steamcommunity.com/app/238260

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Woohoo downloading now!

I'm just going to get the lot, BUY ALL THE TABLE PACKS!

Unfortunately Steam is having one if its rare but annoying fucking go-slows on downloads, grrrr.

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Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Well that got very expensive, very quickly, just dropped £29.99 on the Season One Tables Pro Pack and £39.99 on the Season Two Tables Pro Pack - but seriously, looking at the list of tables I've now got to choose from, I'm proper cracking out into a bit of a stiffy.

In fact if you add on my Kickstarter donations plus what I spent on the 360 version before it went supernova and self-destructed, I'm well over £100 into Pinball Arcade.

OH PINBALL HEAVEN HERE I COME.

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

FYI for everyone else i'd probably say not to get the pro tables - if you dont know all it does is allow you access to the operators menu on the machines - for most of them thats just the ability to mess with some of the settings (although the one i might be tempted to get would be Scared Stiff which has censored audio on the 'normal' version).

Also when you download you get *every* table in Demo mode so you can have a play around with them first to see if they are they type of table you'd enjoy (you can play until you hit the bottom of the 5 high scores) and you get full access to Tales of the Arabian Knights

They did also manage to squeeze the last iOS pack on there as well so you have Class of 1812 and Victory as well.

Total list of tables
Season 1 :

Quote:

Black Hole
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Theatre of Magic
The Machine: Bride of Pin*Bot
Medieval Madness
Cirqus Voltaire
FunHouse
Gorgar
Monster Bash
Black Knight
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Harley-Davidson
Taxi
Elvira and the Party Monsters
No Good Gofers
Scared Stiff
Big Shot
Twilight Zone
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Attack from Mars
Genie

Season 2 :

Quote:

Dr. Dude & His Excellent Ray
Firepower
Cactus Canyon
Central Park
Space Shuttle
White Water
Centaur
Pin*Bot
The Champion Pub
Whirlwind
Flight 2000
Goin' Nuts
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Tee'd Off
Haunted House
Victory
Class of 1812

Season 2 has at least one more table pack to be added (if you buy the bundle you'll get that automatically when it comes out) and then they will start on Season 3

** edit - seems i missed it but they have announced table pack 20 will be

Eight Ball Deluxe
El Dorado: City Of Gold

Eight ball Deluxe is a great table i remember playing a lot of.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Yeah getting the Pro versions was a bit of a 'luxury' purchase but I'm happy to support the developers so a bit of extra cash in their pockets is a good thing IMO.

Dropping £70 on it straight out of the gate was a sensible option for me since I'd only end up buying the whole lot sooner or later anyway, so may as well get the discounted version.

Having had a decent play around with it now I will say that the graphics are fucking horrible, what looked alright at 720p on my 360 looks absolutely dreadful at 2560x1440 on my PC on the same screen, what few graphics options there are I've maxed out, but nothing can overcome the obvious lack of definition on the underlying textures. (8xAA smooths out some of the worst indignities of it, but it's a sticking plaster over an open wound.)

I really was hoping that they'd taken super high-res scans and pics of everything ready to unleash on the next-gen consoles and PC, but what we clearly have here are horribly upscaled 360/PS3 artifacts.

However, the underlying pinball game remains fantastic, I've had a bash on four tables I have fond memories of and they all play just about right, with a decent slope, what appear to be default ROM rulesets (not too kind, not too harsh), good flipper setups, and a fine physics engine.

I can see me getting some serious playtime out of this bugger

As for an indication of the rubbishness of the graphics though, check out this screeny I took of the White Water table, that's not a lack of pixels, that's a blurry texture, all of that text should be 100% readable.

Attachment:

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zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

AtrocityExhibition wrote:

As for an indication of the rubbishness of the graphics though, check out this screeny I took of the White Water table, that's not a lack of pixels, that's a blurry texture, all of that text should be 100% readable.

I've seen a few posts about this on some other websites and you *can* get it better by turning off a lot of the options - seems to be related to the driver for one type of graphics (card cant remember if its Nvidia or not) - i'll see if i can find it , although i've also seen posts saying they are going to up the details and background images at some point as well

**edit**

Have a read of these posts on Neogaf : http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... ll&page=85

there are some really high res pics on there that dont have the blurry textures and its by messing around with some of the post processing and AA options

Here are some good example pics to show the difference

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Good call Mr zaphod

Post-processing is the culprit, AA seems fine (and without AA it is VERY jaggy, truth be told).

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Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Well not for the first time Mr zaphod I must doff my cap to you, who'd have thought that something as lovely sounding as post-processing could fuck things up so much.

If anyone else gets this game on the PC, seriously, turn that shit off.

None of the other settings mess around with it at all, it's just post-processing that seems to try to do some clever 'shimmery' stuff which ruins the look of the entire thing.

These are the settings I've settled on and the game looks mint, and runs beautifully (the fan on my graphics card doesn't even break a sweat out of idle).

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Trooper · **Joined:** 4th Mar, 2010 **Posts:** 22266

Free to download and one table free? I'll give it a go at that price

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

I'm absolutely loving this to pieces (WoW, what's that?.....), but I have to say there are (a) Rather a lot of Gottlieb tables and (b) Rather a lot of old EM shite tables in there.

I'm not saying Gottlieb never did anything good, but there were very much the B team of pinball production as far as I was concerned.

As for the old EM stuff, totally leaves me cold, I'll fire up every table at least once, but for some of them I think that's all it'll ever be.

Satsuma · **Joined:** 20th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14356

I don't like Pinball games.

Well see ya!

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

AtrocityExhibition wrote:

As for the old EM stuff, totally leaves me cold, I'll fire up every table at least once, but for some of them I think that's all it'll ever be.

The only early tables that really work for me are the ones I remember playing there are some *real* classics in there but if you missed out on the tables at the time they might not quite hit you - and they are generally *much* harder tables to play and master even with some of the random bounces removed that you'd get on a real table.

Some early stuff that I think still holds up (so basically the ones i played real tables of)

Black Knight - A solid multi height table with a difficult to activate multiball and some real speed coming from the loops and slides - its a 'basic' goals table but there are quite a few challenges and the speech was impressive at the time
Centaur - This is one of the two tables that my local arcade had in place for years , and I could still remember the noises and effects from it , its a very complicated table with a number of different challenges and theres a good degree of real skill involved in dropping the targets in the right order and being able to drive the trapped ball up to knock down the tunnel targets (its also another really fast table)

Actually thats something I think is missing from a lot of the later tables is the sensation of speed - some of the early tables were brutal for that.

Satsuma · **Joined:** 20th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14356

The little paddle things are too far apart. Pinball is stupid.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

zaphod79 wrote:

AtrocityExhibition wrote:

As for the old EM stuff, totally leaves me cold, I'll fire up every table at least once, but for some of them I think that's all it'll ever be.

The only early tables that really work for me are the ones I remember playing there are some *real* classics in there but if you missed out on the tables at the time they might not quite hit you - and they are generally *much* harder tables to play and master even with some of the random bounces removed that you'd get on a real table.

Some early stuff that I think still holds up (so basically the ones i played real tables of)

Black Knight - A solid multi height table with a difficult to activate multiball and some real speed coming from the loops and slides - its a 'basic' goals table but there are quite a few challenges and the speech was impressive at the time
Centaur - This is one of the two tables that my local arcade had in place for years , and I could still remember the noises and effects from it , its a very complicated table with a number of different challenges and theres a good degree of real skill involved in dropping the targets in the right order and being able to drive the trapped ball up to knock down the tunnel targets (its also another really fast table)

Actually thats something I think is missing from a lot of the later tables is the sensation of speed - some of the early tables were brutal for that.

Cheers zaphod I'll give those a decent crack of the whip when I get round to them

I got immersed in a ridiculously long game of Bride of Pinbot this evening, must have been about 90 minutes all told including toilet breaks and child interruptions and refreshing my glass of wine

Still only hit 5.36 billion though, which is a nice score but not an amazing one.....

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

20 hours total playtime up to now but I've hardly scratched the surface yet (in fact, I wouldn't say I've got a score on a single table that I'm completely happy with yet, although I have managed to play every table at least once) - £70 sounds like a massive outlay for a pinball game, but I can easily see my lifetime playtime on this title hitting hundreds of hours.

The thing that's surprised me most is getting some reasonable playtime out of some of the ancient EM tables, which I wasn't expecting at all.

By far and away my favourites are the 90s tables though. Twilight Zone and ST:TNG in particular are inspired, as is T2.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

zaphod79 wrote:

Eight Ball Deluxe
El Dorado: City Of Gold

This table pack is now live (my game updated itself in Steam within the last 90 minutes or so, since I've bought the Season Passes it just auto-updates and adds them into my table list).

The tables are actually Cue Ball Wizard and El Dorado: City of Gold.

Cue Ball Wizard is one of Gottlieb's better efforts, hailing from 1992, and one I do remember playing quite extensively for real in a pub in Bury back in the day. It's a fairly simple table design but quite a lot going on and a little bit of depth to the ruleset too, I suspect I'll get a decent amount of play out of this one.

The less said about El Dorado the better, I've never seen a real one, it's an early 80s effort before pinballs got proper sounds and music, it looks rubbish, it plays rubbish, typical fucking Gottlieb shite IMO. I've given it 15 minutes and I suspect that's all it'll ever get off me.

I do love Pinball Arcade but there's too much Gottlieb and Stern shit in there, MORE WILLIAMS AND BALLY PLEASE.

(And a total lack of Data East/Sega

Guess they couldn't get the licensing sorted out for any of their tables which is a shame as they did a few crackers. Stern used the same tech when they returned to the business though.)

This update also adds portrait mode to the PC version, which of course is the correct aspect to display a pinball in if your monitor supports the physical swivel!

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

AtrocityExhibition wrote:

(in fact, I wouldn't say I've got a score on a single table that I'm completely happy with yet, although I have managed to play every table at least once)

OK that's one score I'm now happy with

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zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

Season 3 tables will start with Fish Tales which is one of my favorites

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 006608ae58

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 9027_o.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 4572_o.jpg

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Fish Tales is a great table and definitely one to look forward to, although doubtless there'll be some horrible unplayable fucking Gottlieb monstrosity in there to even the pack out....

I loaded my Steam account with £100 to buy Seasons 1 and 2, and there's £30 left in there so hopefully that'll be enough to buy Season 3.

On a different pinball note, we were out on the works do last night and spent quite a lot of time in the pub that has The Getaway pinball in it, we got a few games in on it earlier on then sat down with the rest of our group. And then it was delightful to see it basically being played all night by various other people, so it seems a well maintained and properly working classic pinball can still be worthwhile commercial proposition even in this day and age.

(And it really is in splendid condition, EVERYTHING works properly on it, not a single bulb out, all the flippers are strong, the supercharger works and so on. It looks like they've retro-fitted LEDs for the GI bulbs and some others as well, which I guess last a lot longer, and are also very bright and make the whole thing look mega-cool in a dark pub games room.)

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Having spent far too long reading The Pinball Arcade's Facebook page, rumours abound that Fish Tales may be the first table pack of Season 3 all on its own, like, one table in the 'pack'.

I lost touch with the game when the 360 version stopped getting updated and by all accounts it's Season 2 that's seen the shower of shit Gottlieb and Premier pinballs be released.

It's suggested that they ran out of licenses for Williams/Bally tables to do so they just lobbed out any old crap they could get the license for.

In all fairness they are pretty good for not deleting negative comments, but there are lots of them.

Hoping Season 3 is better than Season 2!

Also a very interesting master bugs/issues list here: http://pinballarcadefans.com/forumdispl ... sues-Forum

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

PS4 version is due out on PSN tomorrow (US) Wednesday (EU)

https://www.facebook.com/pinballarcade/ ... 1136609283

Quote:

Great PS4 news for the first day of Christmas! The digital version will be available for download on PSN Dec. 17th in north America and 18th for SCEE regions. The retail PS4 version of pinball arcade is available online now at Amazon http://tinyurl.com/jvzqacx and will soon be on shelves at Gamestop, Toys 'R' Us and other retailers in North America!

MrC · **Posted:** Mon Dec 16, 2013 16:20

zaphod79 wrote:

PS4 version is due out on PSN tomorrow (US) Wednesday (EU)

https://www.facebook.com/pinballarcade/ ... 1136609283

Quote:

Great PS4 news for the first day of Christmas! The digital version will be available for download on PSN Dec. 17th in north America and 18th for SCEE regions. The retail PS4 version of pinball arcade is available online now at Amazon http://tinyurl.com/jvzqacx and will soon be on shelves at Gamestop, Toys 'R' Us and other retailers in North America!

Excellent, I'm in (PS4 arrived today, currently downloading the PS Plus freebies, Resogun and the other one). Would be great if anyone else buys this, but I'll happily play with myself for a while. I mean without the benefit of friends leaderboards.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

The only thing missing for me on the PC version is people to compete with on the leaderboards (none of my Steam chums have the game), but I'm not buying a PS4 just for Pinball Arcade.

Plus MrC just beat all my scores on the 360 anyway

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

Seems Season 3 will just be 10 tables and include

"Whodunnit™, Junk Yard™, and Black Knight 2K™"

Also the first table is now live on steam (Fish Tales)

http://steamcommunity.com/games/238260/ ... 1919891723

Quote:

Fish Tales is now LIVE on Steam!
16 December - BadgerDeluxe
Hey everybody! As a little bit of an early present from FarSight to you, Pinball Arcade on Steam has Fish Tales™ available for download NOW instead of Friday!

Hope you guys enjoy the table that's kicking off Season 3! (You might need to Log Out/Log In with Steam itself for the update to go through.)

Fish Tales™ (1992): is another great game by Mark Ritchie, Designer of other Williams classics such as Taxi™. Featuring a fishing theme, this table has many fun modes and features including a high scoring Multi-Ball mode and the challenge of catching Monster Fish! Unique features include a rotating Fishing Reel used to lock balls for Multi-Ball, a boat on the playfield with two ramps, a fishing rod shaped plunger control and an animated fish on the back box topper. The flippers on this table are 1/8 an inch shorter than the standard Williams flippers. Play Fish Tales to "Catch 'em all, hook line and sinker!" 13,640 units of this table were produced.

Scroll down for the changelog:

PC 1.21.2 Updates:
- New DLC: Fish Tales.
- New DLC: Fish Tales Pro Menus.
- New DLC: Fish Tales + Pro Menus Pack.
- New DLC: Season 3 Pack.
- New DLC: Season 3 Pro Pack.
- New DLC: Season 2 Ball Pack.
- Free Table of the Month: Whirlwind.
- "Leaderboards" removed from the main menu to make room for "Season Three".
- "What's New" text is displayed on the first run on a new major release.
- Config utility had a small makeover.
- Updated Config utility to include a texture filtering option.

Bug Fixes:
- Multimon fix (PBAConfig update).
- Dual Flipper when mapped to button fixed.
- Dual Flipper threshhold changed from 5% to 10% (toggle the option on and off to get the change).
- Windows Key & Accessibility Shortcuts are disabled.
- Added a 12% deadzone to triggers.
- Fixed HUD scale on portrait on Big Shot and Central Park.
- Fixed crash when entering Goin' Nuts' pro menu.
- Added "Manual" button to the Pro Help menu on landscape.
- Fixed Pro mode not saving settings.
- nVidia AA fixed
- Fixed issue with pinball wizard controller causing wierd menu issues.
- Fixed high score screen in portrait.
- Fixed Fun House cameras on portrait.
- Adjusted portrait HUD on: Centaur, Class of 1812, Dr. Dude, El Dorado, Elvira and the Party Monsters, Flight 2000, Haunted House, Pin*Bot, Space Shuttle, Victory, and Whirlwind.
- Fixed Harley not always working with multiplayer
- Game pauses if a controller connection is lost during gameplay.
- Removed the “Back” button from the High Scores screen at the end of a game.
- Fixed DMD scaling in landscape and portrait.

PC 1.21.3 Bug Fix:
- Fixed Table of the Month reaching the score limit.

Happy flipping!

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

£22.99 for the Season Three Pass, or £29.99 if you go for the Pro Edition.

Since I had £30 left in my Steam Account I bought the Pro Edition.

Only ten tables though, but I'll bite on the strength of what's been announced already.

Also, singing pinball Black Knight 2000!

MrC · **Posted:** Thu Dec 19, 2013 11:52

The PS4 version looks very nice, but incredibly they haven't implemented friends leaderboards as far as I can see. Also, you can't redefine the controls (no triggers for flippers in other words).

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

If you look at their Facebook page there are loads of people with issues on the PS4 version, and indeed all the versions, truth be told.

Makes me wonder if they've bitten off a bit more than they can chew with all the platforms they're trying to support.

In other news I'm not liking Fish Tales at all, I loved the real table and the Visual Pinball incarnation, so bugger knows why I don't like it in Pinball Arcade.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Here's something to take a look at, who even knew that so many companies were still making pinballs throughout the 90s and 00s?

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Anyone still keeping up to date with this game?

I bought the Season 3 pass and TBH I really wish I hadn't, because the quality of releases has been pretty fucking dire. Yes there have been some reasonable Williams/Bally tables in there but also some absolute shovelware from Gottlieb/Premier/Stern or whatever you want to call them - either way they're all the bargain basement end of the pinball world and the tables are rarely entertaining.

(Or we'll get High Speed which is an 80s Williams table, but massively inferior to its sequel The Getaway released a few years later, why can't we have The Getaway?)

On top of that the actual production values for some of the tables has often been poor too. Considering that Farsight brag about how they have access to the real machines and they strip them down and get all the best quality artwork they possibly can blah blah blah, the finished product often looks shonky in places, and indeed is often outshone by what people were doing for free with Visual Pinball and VPINMAME about ten years ago!

I'm assuming they'll be pushing onto Season 4 but unless the line-up is announced IN ADVANCE of the commencement of the season and it's appealing, it'll definitely be a table-by-table affair for me rather than buying the pass upfront.

I really do get the feeling they've been winging it a bit this season (I know they had licensing issues with Williams/Bally which is why all the Gottlieb shit starting appearing), and are simply chucking out the door whatever they can get licensed.

I appreciate that stuff like The Terminator and ST:TNG is a complex proposition licensing wise and goes beyond Williams/Bally (who are still around as WMS, they make slot machines these days), but there are endless Williams/Bally tables to draw on that don't have any big name licences attached to them.

A very disappointing season IMO, here's the next exciting release we have to look forward to.... The comments on their Facebook page sum it up for me too, and largely run along the lines of 'What the fuck is this shit? No one wants this shit....'

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zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

Hearthly wrote:

Anyone still keeping up to date with this game?

I still buy every release on iOS , and I have the Season 1 tables on PS4 , the last few table releases however have been very poor and I really have not put the same amount of time in that i have before.

BTW if anyone still has not bought any tables then the 'first pack' is on offer in the steam sale right now which is 3 tables on steam for 1p (you get Arabian Nights for free anyway and you can pay 1p in game to add Theatre of Magic / Ripleys and Black Hole) - the first season pack is also on special but £17 which is not really very much of a discount.

Hearthly wrote:

I'm assuming they'll be pushing onto Season 4 but unless the line-up is announced IN ADVANCE of the commencement of the season and it's appealing, it'll definitely be a table-by-table affair for me rather than buying the pass upfront.

I'm pretty sure they have been 'stopped' doing the season pass type stuff on iOS and then said they would not do it for others but I still look at it as abour £2 for a pinball table and if i went into an arcade / pub / service station and there was a pinball table there I would not think twice about dropping £2 in for a game so I'll probably still keep picking them up at least on one platform.

Hearthly wrote:

I appreciate that stuff like The Terminator and ST:TNG is a complex proposition licensing wise and goes beyond Williams/Bally (who are still around as WMS, they make slot machines these days), but there are endless Williams/Bally tables to draw on that don't have any big name licences attached to them.

I agree and the problem is that anything 'new' (or newer) starts getting into licensed stuff only - I wonder what the last unique new table that came out that was not part of a franchise ?

I played a number of tables while I was on holiday for the last week or so but every single one was a License (Addams Family was the only old table but the newer ones were Elvis / Shrek / LOTR / CSI / Batman )

RuySan · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3542

Had a bit of pinball craving and downloaded both this and Pinball FX2, and this is so so good (Pinball FX2, not so much). I'm only disappointed that i can only churn out for season passes in steam instead of single tables. What is the best season so far?

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Season 1 is awesome, Season 2 is good, Season 3 is a bit shonky.

Basically the more Gottlieb/Premier/Stern shit that's in there, the worse the season is.

They're really going to have to up their game for Season 4 in my books, otherwise no deal.

RuySan · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3542

So i suppose the ones from Williams are the good ones, right? At least the free table is one the best i've ever played.

I tried Pinball FX2 again and it's actually quite good, but it just pales in comparison to Pinball Arcade, specially when it comes to ball physics which are a bit weird. Still, i'll probably leave FX/Zen for tablet playing and Arcade for the pc.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

RuySan wrote:

So i suppose the ones from Williams are the good ones, right? At least the free table is one the best i've ever played.

I tried Pinball FX2 again and it's actually quite good, but it just pales in comparison to Pinball Arcade, specially when it comes to ball physics which are a bit weird. Still, i'll probably leave FX/Zen for tablet playing and Arcade for the pc.

Pinball FX2 is a great videogame but a really bad pinball game, so it depends what you're after

(Physics is wrong, flippers are wrong, tables could never exist in the real world, it's a very AMPED-UP videogame interpretation of pinball, and not a simulation/emulation of actual pinball.)

When it comes to Pinball Arcade the Williams/Bally stuff is generally the best, although the other manufacturers did come out with a reasonable selection of decent tables over the years. (Data East (later Sega) knocked out a few decent tables, but Gottlieb/Premier were pretty shite in the main.)

You won't go too far wrong with Season 1, and Season 2 has a few great tables as well - Season 3 I'm not sure is worth the full entry price if you can't choose individual tables.

Apparently there's another Kickstarter in the works for The Addams Family (the licensing on these 'film and star' tables runs to tens of thousands of dollars and is very complex to organise), which I'll definitely be backing (same as I did ST:TNG, TZ and T2), so that might spice up Season 3 yet.....

RuySan · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3542

Hearthly wrote:

RuySan wrote:

So i suppose the ones from Williams are the good ones, right? At least the free table is one the best i've ever played.

I tried Pinball FX2 again and it's actually quite good, but it just pales in comparison to Pinball Arcade, specially when it comes to ball physics which are a bit weird. Still, i'll probably leave FX/Zen for tablet playing and Arcade for the pc.

Pinball FX2 is a great videogame but a really bad pinball game, so it depends what you're after

(Physics is wrong, flippers are wrong, tables could never exist in the real world, it's a very AMPED-UP videogame interpretation of pinball, and not a simulation/emulation of actual pinball.)

When it comes to Pinball Arcade the Williams/Bally stuff is generally the best, although the other manufacturers did come out with a reasonable selection of decent tables over the years. (Data East (later Sega) knocked out a few decent tables, but Gottlieb/Premier were pretty shite in the main.)

You won't go too far wrong with Season 1, and Season 2 has a few great tables as well - Season 3 I'm not sure is worth the full entry price if you can't choose individual tables.

Apparently there's another Kickstarter in the works for The Addams Family (the licensing on these 'film and star' tables runs to tens of thousands of dollars and is very complex to organise), which I'll definitely be backing (same as I did ST:TNG, TZ and T2), so that might spice up Season 3 yet.....

Thanks for the tips. I haven't been into a pinball game since pinball fantasies on the Amiga, and rediscovering this beautiful game has been reinvigorating. It's a better than coffee!

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

New table added in the last couple of days and fortunately it's not a shit one, specifically it's the Williams table 'Diner' which hails from 1990.

Great table IMO, designed by a chap called Mark Ritchie and it definitely feels like one of his.

Recommended!

RuySan · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3542

I had to bite the bullet and bought the 1st season. I suppose i'll have lots of pinballing until there's a sale for me to buy the next seasons

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

RuySan wrote:

I had to bite the bullet and bought the 1st season. I suppose i'll have lots of pinballing until there's a sale for me to buy the next seasons

What are you playing it on ?

Most platforms let you download and try the various tables before you have to pay so you can get an idea of whats worth getting.

On the consoles you can also buy a disk version which you can get quite cheaply (and the PS3 version often goes on sale)

RuySan · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3542

On the pc. But after playing for a bit I'm sure this is excellent value.

Medieval madness might be the best table I've ever played.

zaphod79 · **Joined:** 16th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14487

RuySan wrote:

On the pc. But after playing for a bit I'm sure this is excellent value.

Season 1 has some excellent tables - there are occasionally steam offers on the season packs so worth a look but its not usually very much - and you should be able to trial every single table (you can play until you hit the bottom entry in the high score table which should give you a decent feel for the table).

Pricing is still a little messed up but i'm surprised you cant just buy some of them as table packs (2 tables for around £3) but it should work out better for you to get the season pass anyway.

I'm one of those people that bought every table at release so i ended up paying more for it (on iOS) but i've also then bought the disk version for the PS4 , a lot of the individual tables that were available on the Xbox360 (which i doubt they will ever sort out) and then I payed under £1 to unlock the first 4 tables on the PC version on their last sale.

The Wikipedia page has a list of all the tables from each season

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinball_Arcade

Season 2 is not great with T2 the standout table your missing (I have a soft spot for Centaur but its just because I used to play it in my local arcade 30 years ago)

Season 3 has many more 'good' tables of those released i'd suggest having a play around with :

Fish Tales
Black Knight 2000
Who Dunnit
High Roller Casino
& Diner

RuySan · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 3542

It's just too bad I haven't got friends on steam who play this game. I really don't know if my scores are good or not. It's useless trying to compare to everyone else's, when there's scores of billions.

What's your steam id heartily?

Be Excellent To Each Other

The Pinball Arcade
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Be Excellent To Each Other

The Pinball Arcade For just about every OS in Jan

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The Pinball Arcade
For just about every OS in Jan