Sorcerer's Lair: Zen dazzles with another dose of digital magic

[The Albin0 Rhin0]

Ms. 'Splosion Man was released after 3 AM PST.

This week's DLC (including Sorcerer's Lair) showed up ten minutes after the two arcade games, which dropped at 3 AM PST.

There is no set time.

Ms. Splosion Man was up at 2 A.M. How do i know? i stayed up for that one.

Sorcerer's Lair took forever to drop. Bleh i am cranky now for staying up too late.

[Tyrannical]

The game didn't seem to show up in pinball fx2, I had to manually download it.

[ShoryukenToTheChin]

Well, this is an easy high scoring table.

Second full game and over 200,000,000, which is more than double my highest on any previous table. Two extra balls, which is something I never get. Got all the achievements in this game too, not sure how but

Oh, and my kid is mad I didn't sign into his xbox when I downloaded it so that we could share it Not that I'd beg for a code, but I do buy all the tables

If it was downloaded to the same console it should still work with his Gamertag, as the drm stuff is tied to your tag and more importantly the console of which the download took place, serial number.

[Vincent]

Wow !!

I've played it 2 minutes and I can say this is an amazing table. Zen definitely went a step further into realism with those stunning Sound Effects. You can feel it as soon as you even launch your first ball : the plunger makes you feel like you're starting a real pinball game.

Like Mars, and unlike Marvel tables that were designed the same way for both PS and 360 platforms, at first glance you can tell that this version of SL has been updated to match PFX2 standards.

This may be the fifth PFX2 masterpiece after Rome, Pasha, Secrets of the Deep and Biolab. The 6th if you count Excalibur.

Here is what Zsolt Kigyossy told me :
"By now almost 30 people (our best people..) are working on pinball projects ; it still takes us 6-7 months to finish a table..."


Thank you Zen for your awesome work. We love you forever.

[celtic_illusion]

Blue,

Thanks for the review. Dare I say you do a better job than a lot of journalists? I bet you could get a freelance gig reviewing games in an instant.

I'm not just saying this because you are positive on the table!

Personally I'd take my option of songwriting and photography over sitting on my arse playing hours and hours of pinball getting my gamertag on top of a fictional leaderboard.

Everyone is talking about this blue tosser being on top of the leaderboards. And not in a positive way. The knob.

[lexandro]

Personally I'd take my option of songwriting and photography over sitting on my arse playing hours and hours of pinball getting my gamertag on top of a fictional leaderboard.

Everyone is talking about this blue tosser being on top of the leaderboards. And not in a positive way. The knob.

Jealousy and sour grapes by the sounds of it.

[Solitude]

Let's keep this on topic and stay away from insults and responses to them.

[Alipan]

Played for 20 minutes and got the 30g and 15g achievements.

Come on Zen give us some sort of challenge - if you are going to make the tables easier thats one thing but at least throw us experienced players a bone and give us a tricky 30g or something....

[blue]

Achievements are meaningless. If you want a challenge, try collecting all thirteen stones prior to initiating Midnight Madness:

1x Gates to the Void
1x Bones
1x Arachnid Attack
1x Behind the Walls
1x Crazy Ghosts
1x Creepy Cellar
1x Whisper Random Award
1x Elusion Mastery Expert
1x Freaky Forest
1x Tower Runner Combo
1x Gargoyle Multiball
1x Sorcerer Multiball
1x Rescue Whisper

Let's keep this on topic and stay away from insults and responses to them.

But Celtic just needs some love. :/

Let's all hold hands and do the Care Bear Stare!

[heathenSauce]

What he needs is a new forum account. That's the first time I've seen the banhammer swung on these forums. Hopefully he'll learn from this and when/if he returns he'll be more positive influence on the community.

Back on topic, great review, I'm looking forward to finally getting off work so I can give this a shot tonight. While I see a lot of people calling this table too easy, I think ZEN had a good idea on balancing things so the table is fun for all skill levels. Inexperienced players will at least be able to see all the modes the table has to offer, including the wizard mode, while more experienced players can have the challenge of collecting all the stones to set up a significantly larger wizard mode pay-out.

[Alipan]

I think achievements are meaningless if you get them basically just for turning up but Im proud of some of my FX2 achievements and the skill and perseverance it took to get them.

Ill be sure to try and get the 15 obsidian stones of course but why not make that the 30g and make things a bit more challenging for those of us who enjoy them?

I know I know, its because the casuals have to kept happy by feeding them easy cheevos and millions of points, expand the player base, make more tables yadda yadda

[blue]

Blue,

Thanks for the review. Dare I say you do a better job than a lot of journalists? I bet you could get a freelance gig reviewing games in an instant.

I'm not just saying this because you are positive on the table!

My pleasure.

Thanks for the kind words, but I'm a tad too critical at times and don't like to compromise just to keep publishers happy. It seems every gaming site starts off with good intentions but ends up riding the 7:10 mediocrity train after a couple years. Even Giant Bomb has started to do this in order to get more preview builds for Quick Looks. :/

[Gegliosch]

I don't know about the progress beyond 1 billion, but up to that point this table seems to score even easier than Ms. Splosion Man. Just beat midnight madness a couple of times for a bonus of up to 200+ million each time. At least it's faster and less grind heavy -> more fun.

[lexandro]

I don't know about the progress beyond 1 billion, but up to that point this table seems to score even easier than Ms. Splosion Man. Just beat midnight madness a couple of times for a bonus of up to 200+ million each time. At least it's faster and less grind heavy -> more fun.

Its due to the fact you dont have to actually finish a "mission" to progress on the table. Activating it is enough to earn a "pass mark". Im still getting to grips with the tables shots, so I havent developed any kind of strategy yet for how I play it. But I have managaed 200m+ in my first few games on it, so Im confident of getting at least a 500m on this table after some practice.

And thats why people like the "easier" tables. Not the massive scoring, just the ease of play. A few tables are specifically designed for the experienced pinballer (Ironman for instance) so Zen have to counterbalance it with more tables for the masses to play so they can gain the skill required to play those tables in the long run.

[Gegliosch]

Although I beat almost every wizard mode and some have been very rewarding after all the work I put in, I prefer playing easier tables and this one might be one of the best. However, it's a strange kind of easy - I like how the missions are a little more challenging than the Splosion Man ones, but making progress by simply entering them nullifies this immediately. It wouldn't be all that hard to complete every mission and besides the strange gear one, I beat every one of them at least 2 times on my second game. Even without free progress it would've been one of the easiest wizard modes to reach and complete. I just don't get it and I would've bet a fortune it's a bug, if this wasn't the same way in the ps3 version.