Be Excellent To Each Other

Haha!

A partisan crowd, I see.

Oh well, MrC's score won't beat itself.

TO THE 360ATRON!

I will have to self-censor my language as AE Jnr is still bouncing around, she accused me of being 'very cross and grumpy' yesterday, and that was with me stifling the urge to launch a stream of obscenities at the game.

Fucking shit as fuck, can't get zoned tonight at all.

Annoyance.

This is one of those tables that make you feel like a pinball god , when you finish the optical sensors then shoot both balls round the heart loop and straight back up for Metamorphosis , and then do the same again for the big wheel - i managed that loop set 3 times and the game then turns round and gives me 1 million and 5 million (the two lowest point scores on the wheel) , about a 45 minute game but only had the billionaire club lit twice so score was about 2.2 billion

BTW first table i've seen on here where it will happily stack extra balls , no obvious limit (i must easily have had 4 or 5 stacked at one point in that game)

Indeed, this is a real 'zone' table to my mind, you either get in the groove or you don't.

Once in the groove you're quite right zaphod, it makes you feel like the Pinball Wizard himself, almost like you can't miss a single shot, it just flows and flows and flows - loop ramp loop ramp with the two balls, spinning the big wheel time and time again.

And then it just turns completely on its head and shots that felt like second nature the ball before, you fucking fluff them and the drains (which are evil on this table) simply attract your balls to them like they've got fucking magnets under the outlanes.

The ruleset is almost embarrassingly simple by Williams/Bally standards, but it's still a damn fine table.

Exactly this, although it's equally capable of deflating your ego pretty quickly. I've managed to do the heart-heart-shuttle-shuttle sequence, get the billionaire's club on the big wheel (in other words, all the hard work is done, so now just two nice, almost unmissable clear shots at the heart ramp for the billion) then miss it both times. From Pinball God to Pinball Knob in five short seconds.

I'm also not sure the big wheel is as random as it makes out once you've racked up a few billions - I've had a run like that as well (5m, 5m, 50m, 50m).

That sounds very familiar- before I got the 8bn I had a game where I was on something like 6.3bn on ball 2, with 3 extras in reserve, thinking "ha! gotcha!". Up until then, even when you missed the shuttle ramp the ball seemed to obligingly land safely in the small wheel. Then all of a sudden for no apparent reason I keep hitting the target between those two ramps and in next to no time all five balls are gone. (btw, at that point I was exactly one rank behind you on the world leaderboard - haven't had that happen before).

Another frustrating session on BOP.

That left ramp is probably one of the easiest shots in pinball, but when you fucking NEED it, all of a sudden it feels like trying to aim a golf ball at the moon.

(See also, the middle heart shot.)

I am going to beat you MrC, it's not a question of if, it's a question of when.

(He said, confidently.)

Buying the DLC tables later tonight. Can't wait! I see everyone's getting stuck into BOP, but how do the other three tables hold up? Hoping they're all of similar quality...

They are - I think BOP is the best of the tables there (although for all the released DLC i think i prefer Monster Bash which might be out as early as next week).

Of the other released tables

Medievel Madness is pretty much just a small update on the already released version , again its an okay table and you have a goal (take down the various castles) but there are quite a few places where it seems to play itself (especially with the bumpers at the top after the ball launch)

Cirqus Voltaire is an interesting table but i'd never played it in real life so really need to spend the time learning what to do on it - there are multiple ways to get a multiball but apart from the ringmaster it doesnt seem to have any big thing going for it

Funhouse is probably my least favourite but I never really got on with the real table either - it does suffer i think from having slightly too restricted a target list so at times you can spend ages flying the ball around the table with just about every shot saying "no" to you because it wants you only to hit the one lit target (which i find frustrating)

Sadly, as an 85th birthday present my eyebrows and ear hair joined together and attempted to take over my brain. Thankfully, after twatting myself with a passing cat for several weeks I think I've got the bastards on the run. Now all I need is... ooh! Are those Werther's? Can I have one nursey? I promise I won't shit myself this time!
*shlurping noises*

Welcome back to the fold Malc - addiction to photography can be a terrible thing, but you’ve already taken the first step on the road to recovery by posting on a pinball thread. Now, go into the spare room and remove all that camera gear from the shelves…yes, that is a lovely lens, very powerful, just leave it alone for now….. somewhere at the back you should find a small, dusty card. Microsoft points, yes that’s the one….NO! Stop trying to insert it into your DSLR, that’s not what it’s for. Now head for the living room and switch on the Xbox and….Malc! Put that bloody camera down! Good, nearly there now so just…..oh, excuse me for a moment, there’s someone here who….….sorry, what did you say officer? How dare you! No, this isn’t a dressing gown and yes I did pay for this jar of pickled eggs. I’ll have you know I’m very good friends with the chief constable…his wife makes a lovely apple crumble…you do know she wears a wig…..and old Mrs Cartwright from the butchers says that…..oh dear, I feel a bit peculiar, I think I might have done a wee and……NURSE!

Cheers, Zaphod! Love BOP, so far, but it's such a tease! That billion shot seems like a really easy one to set up, but I've only managed it once so far. I'm constantly starting multiballs and dropping them straight away.

It's 10bn now, btw...

Jesus! I'm gonna have to read the table rules on this billion malarky...

Top on Medieval Madness. *yawns, checks fingernails*

Edit: BAAAAASTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!

To join the billionaires club you need to complete the machine - usually one shot to enable the lock and then hit the lock (the loop on the left with the shuttle)

The 1st lock is speech (single ball to the mouth)
The 2nd lock is optics (two balls one to each eye , after locking the first ball you get a 2nd ball to shoot with)
At this point you have multiball with both balls , you need to shoot them back up that ramp to get "Metamorphosis"
Then your still on multiball and need to shoot them both up again to activate the 'big wheel' , the big wheel then gives you a random award (list below) and you stay on Multiball , each time you hit both balls up the ramp you get the big wheel again.

If you lose a ball in multiball you go back to the start , if you lose a ball after optics when you have one captured it releases the captured ball and you continue playing with that one (if you lose a ball when your doing optics you've lost a ball and you move onto the next one).

For the 'big wheel' feature it randomly* gives you an award of either
1 Million points
5 Million points
10 Million points
50 Million points
Special (extra ball - on the arcade this would be an extra credit)
Extra ball
Billionaires club

When Billionaires club is lit you get a limited time (30 seconds?) to shoot one ball round the right hand ramp which will score 1 billion points

*possibly not all that random

Ah, cheers! I've got the big wheel activated before, so that seems do-able!

And Circus Voltaire!

(Funhouse, too, but only because nobody's playing it. )

Funhouse really is the worst of the bunch.

Not DLC table related, but Harem Multiball. Someone please help me get the fucker. I know you have to spell HAREM or get the Harem sneak-in, but those are only possible when the Harem light is lit on the left ramp. My problem is, it's very rarely lit! Is there a way to ensure that it's lit or am I just going to have to have a really good long game and get it that way?

I actually got lucky and activated it by locking the balls the normal way (you can sometimes get a 'secret ball lock' without actually sending it round the back, too - I guess these are bugs). You might find some tips here, though:

http://gamingjournals.com/2012/04/18/th ... multiball/

That doesn't even help! It was an interesting article about the table generally but he just talks about how difficult the Harem Multiball was to get!

edit:



I'll be trying this later, then!

Yeah, soz, it was just a general gaming blog I read ages ago - thought it might have a few pointers, though.

I just kept flinging the ball around the loop - ignoring everything else and *just* doing the loop again and again until on one game i got it (if i had a few letters I would sometimes trigger other things to get the score high enough for the extra ball but on the game i got it i didnt even score the 7 million or whatever the requirement was)

One other suggestion on TA

http://www.trueachievements.com/a163466 ... owguides=1

MrC, I yield to you on BOP.

Just had a fucking 100 minute abomination on this table, was in full control the entire time, until I'd completed the metamorphosis and just needed to keep the looping the big wheel, at which point it was a litany of fucking disasters.

Had over 2bn on my first ball, with maxed out extra balls in the bank (it stops awarding them at 3 or 4 in reserve, but once you lose a ball you can fill the 'extra ball bank' back up, which I did a few times), had the skill shot multiplier up at 39x on my first ball with all the extras.

Finished with less than 3bn.

Had a horrible run on the big wheel, just wouldn't give the 1bn shot at all it felt like.

I give up man, you win, and I doff my cap.

I'm actually having more fun with Medieval Madness than BOP. BOP's great, but it's all about setting up that one shot, and failure often means starting over (from the voice module stage), which gets annoying after a while. There's tons of stuff to be getting on with if you mess something up on MM, though.

Well now I've given up on BOP I can try the other tables

I just hate fucking giving up, but there was a real risk I was going to destroy my entire fucking PC corner so I decided I'd let this one pass.

I know what you mean - I was lucky to get that score just before BOP fatigue set in. I swear I was developing a twitch every time I heard “I’m turning back”. Surprisingly addictive for such a simple table, though.

I think the worst run I had on the big wheel was something like eleven in a row without a 1bn shot.
You can always come back to it later and duff me up on the other tables in the meantime.

MM is good fun even when you don’t know what you’re doing, as there’s so much going on. I think the main multiball is a bit too easy to get. Have you noticed how fast the ball comes down the inlanes sometimes?

I am bumming this hard on my galaxy tab 10.1. Very nice indeed. My favourite is Ripleys Believe it or Not.

I believe you.

I've downloaded the new tables and joined the billionaires club.

I do like this game.

Fucking Black Hole. Desperately trying to complete the regular goals to no avail.

DLC#3 out now on XBLA (Gorgar + Monster Bash, 400 MSP the pair as usual). They're not on the dashboard yet, btw, you have to buy them within the game itself.

ORLY? Shit! I have no money.

Great -Monster Bash is a great table with lots to do (Hint you can hold down both flipper buttons to cancel out of most of the animations if they start to get too much) , Gorgar is a bit boring compared to the other tables (one of the first talking tables and uses a lot of classic Williams sound effects just seems quite dated now)

** Edit ** - download link if you want to add it to your queue

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Produ ... 5b7f6344bc

More tables? Already? I've only just bought the others.

I can see this becoming a real money sink for me. Good job it's ace.

I really enjoyed that Bride of Pinbot table last night.

The tables *should* have been coming out one pack a month for the last few months - its just the Microsoft certification process got in the way , the tables have been pretty regular on IOS and Android (they are one set ahead which is Black Knight and Creature from the Black Lagoon)

Managed to buy it. Just realised the cheevos are bugged for me. On all six of the DLC tables now. It pops up I've unlocked them, and they're "unlocked" in the cheevo list but I'm not getting credit for them in my gamerscore...

Same for me - its because they were not actually 'live' on XBL when you first achieved them - apparently the fix is to re-download your profile

(I'm thinking of moving my profile to a memory stick - firing up the game to re-achieve them then moving my 'real' profile back to avoid any other problems)

Yeah just downloaded my profile and got the first four again (had to earn them though). Not sure whether to start on Gorgar if it'll break again!

Yeah it did it again. Don't play the new tables yet if you care about cheevos. What a fuck on. Amateurs.

Also, the Gorgar ball isn't shiny. What's that about? It's like a rubbish matte grey colour.

I got an achievement for one of the new tables (Bride of pinbot is it?) and it seems to have registered on mine.

Is that not what's happening with you?

The old new ones are fine now. The new new ones are not. I unlocked the old new ones back when they were new and broken. Just had to do them again now that they're old and fixed. New new still broken. New. Old. Broken. Amateurs. Clowns. Barrel full of tits. Sucking own thumb.

If you bought them straight away the Achievements were not actually on Xbox.com so when you played and triggered the achievement the message that got sent to the server saying "Achievement unlocked" did nothing.

When they added them to Xbox.com the local game thinks its already sent them off so never sends it again.

The old tables I *think* were added about Thursday so if you got the achievement after Thursday then you'll be fine if you got it before then it wont show up unless you recover your tag - and it seems the new ones are broken as well.

Still at least they are crappy 'get a score on the high score table' which should basically be one game (or in many cases 1 ball) - imagine struggling through getting Harem Multiball on TOTAN and having it not count like that !

So would it be advisable to wait a few days before I buy the new tables? (DLC pack 3 that is)

If you want to make sure the achievements work correctly without faffing about then yes

If you want to play a great pinball table then no - just buy them and play them !

Well I've only just bought the first two DLC so I might give them a few days play before I go for number 3.

Getting stuck into Medieval Madness now, it's great to have some proper humour going on again after the somewhat 'dry and dramatic' nature of BOP.

Got some serious chasing to do on the scores though.