Be Excellent To Each Other

I was 69th in it yesterday, and I still didn't go above you, I wasn't far off mind.

One prize is a trifle on the stingy side, methinks. You'd think they could at least stretch to giving codes to the top 10 or something. Oh well, the top score is already 1.3 billion-odd, so that's way out of my league.

That's exactly what I thought yesterday, but Secrets of the Deep finally clicked today, so now I definitely advocate prizes for the top 14 or so....

Also, don't forget to check the superscore table

*sigh* I am most unimpressed by this display of outright belligerence. I have a day off tomorrow in which I'm supposed to do lots of things around the house. I will, of course, instead spend most of the day trying to smack you back down into your rightful second place!
I'm naming you in the divorce papers, is all I'm saying.

By clicked, do you mean keep doing the mine mission over and over?

*splutter* Mine mission? What mine mission?

That was the only table I was top on my friends list for

You don't know about the mine mission??? What about the pyramid mission, surely you know about the pyramid mission??

Really enjoying the Excalibur table at the mo. Loads to do, and most of the ramps and targets are easy enough to hit after a while. Pity I might not be 'Live' again until January!

Ed: I use view 3 on all tables and have no trouble with trajectories, but I'm playing on a small SD telly and can't see the upper table clearly enough with the fuller views. Preference will probably change when I get my ass outta the Stone Age.

Shhh....don't mention the pyramid mission as well, you can't tell him everything. You're making these casual revelations to the Archduke of Pinball, the same Malc who has for many, many years been honing his skills in a secret, fully-equipped pinball arcade in the catacombs beneath his home, accessed through a hidden, never-to-be-discovered portal even his wife doesn't know about (distant voice in background: "Malc, honey, I was just retrieving a carrot that fell behind the fridge....there seems to be some kind of... door here...").

Finally beat Agent Starling's score on Excalibur (took 2 nights that! ) I passed Myps on the way too.

Nah, that's my porn dungeon. The secret pinball arcade is hidden under... well, wouldn't you like to know!

Oh now this is getting silly. I downloaded the last two tables I didn't have so now have umpteen million tables to try and get better at while seeing the world and his dog get kersquillion scores. Same applies to Pac Man CE:DX - my leaderboard skillz are now officially gone.

Anyway Excalibur seems quite good - plenty to get to grips with there. Beat Zardoz on my second go. Just for laughs like.

Cunt the fuck off you slag.

2 x 2 hour stints it took me to get that.

And then did you play Pinball FX2?

I tried.

So I finally managed to beat Malc74 and MrC on a table (Earth Defense) only to still be 121m off being at the top my friends leaderboard thanks to some bloke off UGVM (The evil Stefcha for UGVM refugees on here).

There's a shitload of value in this and Pacman CE:DX that far outweighs many a full price product.

I shall definitely be getting them Marvel tables - seen the video trailer here?.

Buying Pinball FX2 has saved me money buying Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, CODBLOPS and NFS:HP as I know there's no way I would get round to playing them.

Completely right, it's stopped me buying Fallout NV, Vanquish, Castlevania etc...

The main thing is they've given me far more enjoyment than a shitload of full price games I've bought previously.

I'll be buying those Marvel tables too, and anything else they make.

Uh-oh, I knew this was going to happen at some point...is this going to be just the beginning of a massive Trousers revival tour? I could swear you said you'd lost your leaderboard skills...I'll have a look in tomorrow to see how bad the damage is, then try to right the wrongness....

While I'm here, has anyone managed the Justice mode on the Rome table? It seems to only give you about 5 seconds to make one shot - is it worth persevering with? I was just wondering if this was the key to Malc's obscene Rome score...

On the other hand, when we all get round to getting Kinect games, we'll be confronted with the familiar site of you at the top of their leaderboards.

The key to my Rome score was getting my ball in the mouth of the statue using the top left flipper during multiball play.
Actually, that sounds rather rude. I should really stop confusing my porn dungeon with my secret pinball parlour.

Balls and statues' mouths? Is there no limit to creative deviance? (now where did I put my list of "things to try on really boring Sundays").

So that's the same shot as the skill shot when you start a new ball, then - I can only hit that about once every 20 goes, so I think I'll graciously accept defeat on that table for now and have a look at what Trousers has been up to on Earth Defense.

40 million on Secrets of the Deep last night.

You really shouldn't be able to hammer the same shot/mode time and time again to rack up a massive score, any decent ruleset will either make you do the rest of the modes before opening them all up again, and/or make the mode/shot in question unreasonably difficult and/or less rewarding the more you do it - thus requiring the player to play the table 'properly' rather than do a bit cheatily.

And once I've finished Fable 3, I'll be having further cracks at beating your Excalibur high score.

Stop being sensible and trying to spoil things!

Had another crack at Pasha this morning. I did manage to improve my best score to about 40 million, but I can't do any of the minigames and I can never make that Oasis shot.

Wear a parker jacket, round shades and keep you mike slightly above eye level.

Any particular secret to your score? I've just had one go that went on for an age and still only managed half of yours.

No secrets as such, but I won't let that stop me boring you into an early grave with a long, rambling reply...

What I didn't do btw, as implied by that cheeky scamp Runcle in an earlier post, was just repeat the mine multiball over and over. I'm not even sure that would work, although I suppose with a lot of luck and enough persistence that might net you around...ooh, 75 million, eh Runcle?

When I said the table clicked, what I meant was I had one of those rare goes where you seem to be hitting almost everything you aim at - I'll admit I put in a few hours in before that particular go, and the game itself took ages. But off the top of my head, as far as I can remember:

I usually concentrate on the main shipwreck mission on the upper table, on which the rule sheet is a bit vague. I think you might have to shoot the "downstairs" and "upstairs" (with the wrecking ball) targets three times over rather than two (you can also use the periscope to take a pop at the upstairs ones). Once it starts mentioning gold coins and treasure, you're nearly there. The first time I completely explored the ship it lit up an extra ball in the minigame hole on the upper table, the second time it didn't. Not sure why.

The minigames are also worth doing, as the hole is active every time you reach the upper table by shooting straight up the middle - they have at least 3 levels and double the reward each time (starting at half a million). The only one of the four minigames I rarely succeed with is the one involving the crane.

Completing the all the multiball modes was a big help. I can't remember which is which, but with one of them I think you have three ramps/shots lit - shooting the first two gives you a jackpot and switches the ramp off, while getting the third gives you a super jackpot, then all three are active again. Do that a few times (5?) and you complete the mode, which I think was worth 10 million the first time. Another one wanted ramp combos, once again with a 10 milllion reward if you hit the required amount. If you manage to complete a multiball mode again later, the reward goes up to 20 million, then 30, which is about as far as I got.........I think.....I say think, because being sure means looking up at the score display when it appears to be flashing up something interesting, at which point you often lose the ball(s).

Talking of multiball modes, if you send the sub up to dock several times (four or five?) you lock balls and eventually end up with a four or five-ball multiball.

I also noticed what starts the leaks - it's when you only go part of the way up the right ramp and the ball comes back down (turns out this was in the rule sheet all the time, more or less). Nothing much seems to happen if you don't plug the leaks, although I thought it might be awarding less points after a failure - that was probably just my imagination, though.

I don't usually look at the rule sheets at first, as half the fun on any table is working out what does what, when and why, but I will look when I can't work something out, and half the time am none the wiser afterwards.

All in all, this is the most fun I've had on XBLA in ages (Pacman DX is excellent as well) - no leaderboard score is safe, someone will always come along and smack you off your perch sooner or later..roll on December for the new tables...

Excuse the long post, but it is Sunday morning and there are no statues nearby.

Tsk, rank amateur. A professional would find something else to plop his balls into...

The combination of your avatar and the statue thing made me read that as rank bajin at first look

I wondered if it might be a case of just keeping in that mode as long as possible. Of the multiballs, I find it the easiest to get combos and jackpots and the ballsaver seems to be very generous too, so I imagine you could rack up a fair few points if you kept it going long enough.




Cheers for that - it helped. I didn't actually realise the wrecking ball was hitting the targets.. I thought you just got stuff from hitting the ball itself.. I guess it was happening too fast for me to notice. On my last go, I got two multiballs from the shipwreck so hopefully that tactic will help me future. I know what you mean about it not triggering sometimes though - I suspect it's something to do with the 'Watch out for the holes!' message (I think that's what it says) so maybe if you hit something you shouldn't, you miss the chance.



That one (Collecting Samples) is my favourite - if you get enough, I think it may be five, that triggers the extra ball light. Turtles on the Shore is my least favourite though; I have to sneak a look at which ramp it wants me to hit but I can rarely get the ball where I want it to hit the shot in time.



I think this must be where the bulk of the scoring needs to be done. I'm not bad at the Shark and Mine multiballs, but the Abyss one is frequently over in seconds for me.



I've noticed that too. I did wonder if it did something with the shipwreck if you failed, but I've not noticed anything. Of those leaks, that bottom-left one is always a struggle for me.

There are a couple of other bits I struggle with -
- The crane in the bottom left. Using it isn't a problem, but actually landing hitting the required slot while it's active is a bugger.
- The chute in the very bottom-left of the table. I think something in the bottom-right activates it but not sure what, but when I've managed to get the ball in there and it tells me to hit the seahorse, I'm not sure if I've got to do it on that shot or in the few seconds it gives you after that.

While I think of it, I did have another unfair advantage when I got that high score - my girlfriend/partner or whatever is the correct term this week was on the sofa telling me which ramps were lit...on a related note, we're getting hitched next month, so I'll go the traditional way and announce it on an obscure corner of an already geeky internet forum...

That would certainly be handy during multiball. Can I borrow her?

That is, of course, insane. On the other hand, if you're willing to pay 25 quid an hour I'll throw all my morals out the window and she's yours...(I haven't asked her yet, mind)

Do I get a refund if I don't beat your score?

One oddity I've noticed today was also on the same table - I hit the far left ramp but the ball travelled so slowly across the top bit that the game scrapped that ball and launched another, which was odd as it was still creeping along and would have come down the other side in due course. Although if it can do that in that situation, I don't know why it didn't do that on the Earth Defence table when I managed to get the ball completely stuck (no matter how about table-shaking I did.. even tilt had come up) and had to quit out.

Not having much luck tonight. On Pasha, I opened the gate to the Cave of Wonders on the left ramp. Unfortunately, the shot I hit up there didn't quite have enough power so started to come down just as the gate closed again, trapping the ball. I couldn't have timed that deliberately if I'd tried.

One of the nice quirks of the international time zones is that Malc is just going to bed when I'm waking up, so I can sneakily get a high score in while Canadia is sleeping

I got a ball stuck at the top of Earth Defense table last night. It was out my sight so couldn't tell what had happened and it took several tilts to dislodge meaning I lost the ball once it did roll down.

That happened to me too (I think I mentioned in this thread, but can't be arsed to check back) but I couldn't shift the ball at all so I had to quit back to the main menu.

There's a bug on one of the tables (either Extreme or Speed Machine, can't remember which, but I've had it in both the old and new versions) where the ball gets stuck in a hole on the upper table, and gets spat out then falls back into the hole in an endless loop. It's small points, but if anyone has a megascore on that table and is crap at everything else, be sceptical..

Had a good do on Biolab last night, managed to complete all the Brains, Wisdom etc bits and kicked off the reset the lab mode. Managed to get multiball for the first time and sussed the launch skill shot so I get it 90% of the time now.

Passed by a lot of you last night, not the freaks though.

30 million baby

I shall be avenged

Finally got a half-decent score on Buccaneer the other night, but it was only after many, many poor scores (sub-300k in a few cases). All too often when the ball comes rolls back down from that side skull ramp, the resulting bounces take it down the right-hand side and I've not figured a decent way of preventing it yet.

At least the missions on that table seem pretty straightforward - I completed one without even realising I'd started it.

Hi-score on old Speed Machine: 350,000,000
Hi-score on new Speed Machine: 13,000,000

I know it doesn't mean anything, but it's still depressing.

Ha...revenge unlocked! Eat my shiney silver balls Zardoz.