FarSight launches new Pinball title

[HardcorePinballGamer4Life]

My thoughts:

Pros:

Looks at least par with the Williams Xbox 360 and PS3 releases; a little outdated (detail-wise), but decent enough

Physics are as good, if not better, than the Xbox 360 and PS3 Williams Collection

Leaderboards much better than the initial disc releases

While a couple tables have appeared on previous collections (Black Hole and Tales of the Arabian Nights), both are improved under this DLC release

With exception to the plunger camera, I like the other cameras okay

Cons:

The plunger camera needs work; I'm fine with the other camera settings, but the plunger is a little too zoomed-in and I wish there were more options for this segment

The lighting and graphical overhauls that were shown in their Facebook page isn't present; they should have waited to unveil those

The user interface will become a chore once there are more than 10 tables in this game

I like the plunger on the other tables; however, Tales of the Arabian Nights feels a little on the sensitive side

Speaking of Tales of the Arabian Nights, I think the skill shot view before the plunger camera should be eliminated; the Dot-Matrix-Display and instructions explain it well enough

No head-to-head online; FarSight Studios confirmed a few months ago they will eventually include it


So yeah, disappointed about the reaction, but still a great game (if a bit rushed). I do think most of my issues will get patched, though (as with most any video game these days).

It would be great for FarSight Studios (and video pinball) to hire more staff members (i.e. indie game developers); a 6-man studio is too small for a big project like this (they intend to bring 50+ tables). I don't want this game to become another Game Room; an ambitious idea that should have been a home-run but collapsed due to rushed design, overpriced games, a very inconstant library, and released under a small development company. I think Pinball Arcade falls into the most former and latter. Their releases are a little rushed, but aren't overpriced nor have bad table selection. They just need better development planning; hiring more staff would get the job done quicker, thus Pinball Arcade would be more polished.

[Pinmon]

Ok, like I pretty much knew I was going to, I bought this day-one and didn't regret it one bit.

Graphically it's a huge improvement over PHoF: Ball reflection, artwork scan that are actually high res, interactive/moving table objects that actually animates normally...it's a complete overhaul. I have to say it's still not as good as Pinball FX 2 imo but it's close.


The physics too have improve compared to PHoF, how much close they are compared to real life pinball? Unfortunately I couldn't say because it's been sadly many years since I've played real pinball (all the arcades that used to have them are long gone). The physics are quite different then PFX2. PFX2 tend to have really "heavy" physics with really fast decelerations. Check out some of the games at papa.org for example http://papa.org/blog/2012/03/papa-14...s-group-2-f14/ you'll see the physics in Pinball Arcade are closer to real pinball than PFX2.


And perhaps one of the most important aspect of all...the game length...my God. It's like night and day, I placed in top 50 in one of my first attempt on Theatre of Magic; game lasted ten minutes...a far cry from the 12+ hours plus games on many of Zen's tables. It's mostly due to two important factor: much bigger flipper gap and much stronger slingshots. Again, I recommend checking some of the videos at papa.org: While they say some adjustments have been made to make the tables harder these are some of the best pinball players around and their games last a few minutes.

Again, I understand Zen is trying to make something different than pure simulation and I'm fine with that and I understand not everyone is a pro either but even for very casual player I'm not sure it makes good business sense to make the tables easier...Think about it: casual players last about the same amount of time either way whether the table is made easier or harder, and more advanced player just gets bored because the game last forever and it takes many many hours if you want to place on the leaderboard so...

I still love Zen and PFX2, but I wish Zen is going to implement some sort of way to significantly reduce game time in the future (for PFX3 maybe).


edit: Damn I hope they patch that bug DutchTommy. At least it didn't take a huge amount of time and if you were able to score this much once pretty sure you could do it again. But yeah, let's hope they patch this. Though the MS "patch tax" (I think it's something like 40,000 bucks?) never fills me with confidence when it comes to 3rd parties publishers patching their games because MS kind of discourage devs with their business model...

[PSKay]

12+ hour games? How many players have actually ever done that? My longest game is a little under 6 hours (which is actually significantly more than my typical long games of 1-2 hours) and I've managed to make the top 100 on several FX2 tables.

I don't think a 10 minute game is going to be competitive for very long on The Pinball Arcade either. The game just came out and leader boards don't reflect how difficult it's actually going to be to maintain a top spot at the moment. But I do agree with your sentiment. Zen does need to scale back on how long their games last.

[Pinmon]

12+ hour games? How many players have actually ever done that? My longest game is a little under 6 hours (which is actually significantly more than my typical long games of 1-2 hours) and I've managed to make the top 100 on several FX2 tables.

It's not too hard to achieve 6-12+ hours games on Paranormal, Ghost Rider, X-Men, Miss 'Splosion, Spider Man and a few others too. Not saying everyone will have games that long but it's not that hard. I gave up on these tables because I simply lost interest in them, for me it's just not fun when games last that long.

By contrast even top players (i.e: much better pinball players than me) cannot last this long in real pinball.

I don't think a 10 minute game is going to be competitive for very long on The Pinball Arcade either. The game just came out and leader boards don't reflect how difficult it's actually going to be to maintain a top spot at the moment. But I do agree with your sentiment. Zen does need to scale back on how long their games last.

Well, check out:

http://pinball.org/videos/gameplay-videos/theatre-of-magic/

Real life pro player on Theatre of Magic. The game lasted less than 10 minutes.

These videos are also pretty good to show how the ball behaves in real life.




Also I forgot to add: One negative point that has been mentioned and that I agree with is the ball's reflection. While light reflection is present it's not nearly as good as Zen's unfortunately. Whenever the ball is farther away it does seem like it's sliding more than actually rolling, at least visually (not in terms of ball physics.)

edit: Or maybe I'm so used to PFX2 and Zen accentuate the reflection effect for better visuals (which I'm cool with).

[The Albin0 Rhin0]

Looks like theater of Magic is glitched when reached 10 billion points, it will reset your score to zero. DutchTommy was playing and this happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR_cb4wTiZU

If this is the case for every game, i am done with the table until it is fixed, this is unacceptable in ANY pinball game.

[Pinmon]

Another review point I neglected to talk about: the audio.

Here, Zen has a natural advantage: The original Pinball machines sound samples (I'm referring to the ROM sound samples not the mechanical sounds fx) was pretty poor to begin with, so there's not much they can do.

Zen could have high-quality samples (spoken lines and such. Again, I'm not talking about mechanical sound effects) from the start.

So that's one area where non real life tables are better.

[BarbieBobomb]

today i played the pinball arcade.. i must say for 800 points getting a whole game including 4 tables is cheap.. in that way it is an winner!! dont you guys think? anyway what im not so pleased of is the fact i had an real good game.. i actually beat the little jesus out of ToM.. however at the end of the game something bad happens to me click the link for what i ment by that. (sorry for a little swearing at the end people, it was brutal when you see it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR_cb4wTiZU

I watched your video... that is rough! I would have been pretty upset too.

[jeffy777]

This actually sounds pretty normal to me. In a real pinball machine, the ball is usually light and bouncy thanks that all of the elastics on the table. It looks like Farsight took this into account, when making this game's physics engine.

In your games, the ball is much more heavier and the elastics are less realistic IMO.

It's not a big issue to me, it's just something you need to adapt to.

Yeah, Farsight is on the right track with the physics. Compared to Zen, the ball will feel lighter and bouncier, but that's on purpose because that's the way real pinball machines feel compared to Zen too.

[lasvegaspinballhalloffame]

TPA needs so much added to it. And Black Hole is so horrible, my friends and I were cracking jokes about it all day long. I'm number 10 in the world on TOM!!!!

[Scotty Canuck]

I will be buying next week, (when my credit card has money on it :P) it is worth the 800 space bucks JUST for Theatre of Magic. Graphics are much improved over Williams Pinball (Arabian Nights looks great), and the physics have been improved over the previous product (although trapping the ball is very tricky).

Looking forward to Taxi, Funhouse & Whirlwind being remade. Hopefully Data East will come on board, and Rocky & Bullwinkle will be made *WRONG HAT*.

Have they announced how often new tables will be available?

[PSKay]

Well, check out:

http://pinball.org/videos/gameplay-videos/theatre-of-magic/

Real life pro player on Theatre of Magic. The game lasted less than 10 minutes.

These videos are also pretty good to show how the ball behaves in real life.

Obviously, that guy is very good but unless the scoring is different on Pinball Arcade or I missed something, he only scored around a billion in that game. I put up almost 2 billion in my first game of Theatre of Magic on PA which ranks me not even in the top 100. So a 10 minute game certainly doesn't seem good enough to net you anywhere near a top spot on the leader boards. It's clearly not going to be 12+ hours but it's not like all or even most of FX2 tables require that much time either.

[lasvegaspinballhalloffame]

Scotty, yes it's worth the price for TOM, along with Ripley's a no brain buy for the true pinball fan.

[Verjigorm]

Scotty, yes it's worth the price for TOM, along with Ripley's a no brain buy for the true pinball fan.

I agree. ToM is so much fun. I'm really having a blast with it. I just finished a game, where I was able to complete the Grand Finale and almost scored 5 billion points.
Seeing what the table has to offer is really amazing. The only downside is the mean glitch, which DutchTommy encountered. I don't think I would be capable to score 10B, so it won't affect me terribly, but for the really good players this is a let-down I guess.

[lasvegaspinballhalloffame]

Nice job Verj, I noticed you moved up on the leaderboards. And if nothing else, this is a nice historical document for pinball. Or at least will end up being that way.

[Dalek Nation]

TPA needs so much added to it. And Black Hole is so horrible, my friends and I were cracking jokes about it all day long. I'm number 10 in the world on TOM!!!!

Vegas, I have to disagree, wiht you and about a zillion others... I love Black Hole. Once you know what you're doing, I personally really dig the dark atmosphere, and this is the type of pinball I remember, early 80's pinball ftw, imo. I'd like to hear some of those jokes though....
My other fave is Arabian Nights, I'd played the hell out of this one in real life, and can honestly say that it is NOT an identicle replica, but still a real blast. In real life I can barely hit 8M, but on TPA I can getg in the tens of millions easily. One major difference from real life, I don't recall the genie being so easy to hit, certainly not having the ball glance of the left captive ball and then hit the genie.

Also, to those of you not liking TPA because of outlanes/SDTMs, the "nudge" on this game is a beast !! With PBFX you can get the flipper over a little more and bump pass easier, but in TPA you actually change the balls course, so you can get it out of those outlane bound shots or even vear the ball to hit the flipper square instead of on the tip.

ONE COMPLAINT: The only gripe I have is like PBHOF you can't look over the table. Zen players, that handy ability we have to hold X and see the table is not pressent. Odd omision considering this is supposed to be something of a nostalgia/museum piece; I'd like a full 360 view to see the sides of the box as well as actually being able to look at the playing field in detail.