Thanks for the input - really appreciate it! I was wondering how it compared to the Williams tables which are some of my favorites.
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The Pinball (digital and physical) ERA |OT| Full Tilt
- Thread starter Shaneus
- Start date
same for me, Williams tables are like the holy grail of pinball to me, especially the 90s ones. the newer Stern tables are also cool but to me Williams was like SNK in the 90s, you just knew they will release another killer soon which will top the previous one, pretty much in the same vein as SNK with fighting games. the 90s were an awesome time and i think that is also a reason that i have such fond memories and hold them in such high regard :-)
Bally/Williams is the GOAT maker of real tables, though of course there are greats from Stern and Gottlieb et al. Video pinball is a different thing than simulated real tables and they really can't be compared.
Man, I'm dying for Williams tables in VR.
Man, I'm dying for Williams tables in VR.
looks really great.
pinball really had a second coming around 2014-2015, cool to see that the same people from back in the days are doing new machines.
i think real pinball will always have its lovers, it is like vinyl, it never goes away, it is just smaller than it was and it will get exponentially more expensive as time goes on but the people that are still collecting/buying machines are very serious about it and they are also introducing younger people to it. there is something magical about a great pinball machine and that is the thing that keeps the spirit alive.
Oh, man, the barcade that's a short walk from my house just added Twilight Zone. Christmas came early!
Okay, so I got an iPad for the first time and downloaded Williams Pinball on it. Better, IMHO, than playing on the Switch (possibly because I don't have to share with the kids, lol). However, the purchase options are needlessly confusing. Instead of just buying tables, you have to buy Zen coins to buy tables? And it seems like they are about $10 each when bought separately. Medieval Madness is unlocked (dunno if that's default our something I did, it was the first table I played).
So--- what's the best way to get tables?
Is there any optimum way to get them?
And related, are any of the Bally tables available somewhere on IPad? I'd love to have Eight Ball Deluxe and some other old tables as well.
So--- what's the best way to get tables?
Is there any optimum way to get them?
And related, are any of the Bally tables available somewhere on IPad? I'd love to have Eight Ball Deluxe and some other old tables as well.
I cant answer your Williams questions but I believe Bally tables are represented on the Pinball arcade app.
If you have an Ipad and like pinball, you have to check out Pro Pinball Timeshock Remastered. Its the best digital pinball game Ive ever played.
Its been remastered and is stunning on the ipad with adjustable light/dark settings that give it a real life look. I'm not the biggest Pinball Arcade fan because of how easy some of those tables play, but Timeshock is still "real pinball" tough to me. That realistic difficulty is also why I enjoy the Pinball FX Williams tables on my PS4.
Yeah it's ridiculous. I'd spring for all the table packs on mobile if I could, but I'm not touching that confusing monetisation model with a bargepole.
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Holy shit, I just fired up Judgment on PS4, why didn't anyone tell me that it has pinball in it?!?
What's surprising though is that the pinball machine is a full port of this:
Complete with Unity logo that appears whenever you play it in-game lol
What's surprising though is that the pinball machine is a full port of this:
Complete with Unity logo that appears whenever you play it in-game lol
Figure it is worth crossposting here. Mini Attack from Mars is incredibly tempting. He estimates $450 - $650 but says that is not confirmed.
i am super into Junkyard on Pinball FX3 at the moment. great table, had the "midnight madness" last night, i was like "huh, what is going on?"
play it around midnight real life clock :-)
other than that, Zen should get their shit together, some tables are too fast and just ridiculous. Attack from Mars on Arcade classic is bullshit. much more harder than the real table...they should rework the physics...you are draining the ball too fast compared to the original
they should give people the option to adjust the angle of the table...and the intensity of the slingshots is ridiculous
but yeah, Junkyard is my thing...great table, has a trippy vibe to it that i really like.. and the music is fucking great
play it around midnight real life clock :-)
other than that, Zen should get their shit together, some tables are too fast and just ridiculous. Attack from Mars on Arcade classic is bullshit. much more harder than the real table...they should rework the physics...you are draining the ball too fast compared to the original
they should give people the option to adjust the angle of the table...and the intensity of the slingshots is ridiculous
but yeah, Junkyard is my thing...great table, has a trippy vibe to it that i really like.. and the music is fucking great
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Attack from Mars is rough. I don't even go for the centre city attack part unless I have multi-ball up. The multi just to the left of the centre is pretty easy to constantly and then pound on the ufos!
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I just stumbled upon this, figure it's okay to share given the video's been up for 3 years and hasn't been pulled: Tilt! The Battle to Save Pinball
Goes for an hour, and is a crazy look at just how bleak the pinball industry was looking when it was released (around 10 or so years ago). Can't help but feel sorry for people like Ritchie and Lawlor, who are both now on a kind of second (or third) comeback.
Goes for an hour, and is a crazy look at just how bleak the pinball industry was looking when it was released (around 10 or so years ago). Can't help but feel sorry for people like Ritchie and Lawlor, who are both now on a kind of second (or third) comeback.
yeah, it is indeed rough...
so is Black Rose! okay, the real table is also draining balls like nothing..but this digital version on classic arcade is like a cruel mistress kicking your balls in.
i enjoy punishing tables like White Water immensely but Zen should really update the older tables to the more recent arcade physics. Attack from Mars and Black Rose are completely bonkers.
cool tip, gonna give it a watch this weekend
watched the documentary...yeah, fairly depressing stuff all around. can´t understand that they´ve closed shop tbh, they left the field to Stern...
anyways, i am fairly high on White Water, this just hits the 90s aesthetic...the design, the theme, the accurate shots and this awesome music that just keeps getting better as you advance rafts...looks simple but it is hard to master. "that´s the whirlpooooool" hilarious and corny shoutouts that just get a smile in my face
i don´t think pinball can get any better. seriously thinking about buying a real table in the near future...if i will buy a table again it will be White Water
is this a real machine or a virtual one?
anyways, i am fairly high on White Water, this just hits the 90s aesthetic...the design, the theme, the accurate shots and this awesome music that just keeps getting better as you advance rafts...looks simple but it is hard to master. "that´s the whirlpooooool" hilarious and corny shoutouts that just get a smile in my face
i don´t think pinball can get any better. seriously thinking about buying a real table in the near future...if i will buy a table again it will be White Water
Figure it is worth crossposting here. Mini Attack from Mars is incredibly tempting. He estimates $450 - $650 but says that is not confirmed.
is this a real machine or a virtual one?
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Looks like the video was marked private. I think around 3:00 in is where it starts here but have a shitty mobile connection and can't scrub. Updated with timestamp.
Basic rundown was:
Basic rundown was:
- Zen Pinball (10 tables)
- High score tables so probably wifi
- $450-$650 estimate
- Late 2020
- Haptic feedback on buttons
- Table nudging
- 3/4 scale
- Good speakers
- All impressions I could find said screen was very responsive (screen lag has been commonly reported in their cabs so this was a big positive to me personally)
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I've been putting a lot of time into Pinball FX3 recently (Williams/Bally tables) in arcade mode (use to be a huge fan of PBA years ago) and I have been wondering if it was just me on this or not. I could not comprehend why the ball gains so much momentum and the bounce on it just does not make sense. Like I've manytimes had the ball hit a flipper (not even active/up) and bounce back up more then half the table. It's actually messing me up a lot now because I use to feel PBA physics were more accurate but now I find them too floaty after getting use to FX3 being way too fast. =(
Have Zen made any comment about the state of physics in arcade mode?
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I'd legit consider buying one if it could be hacked. I guess it depends what hardware it's running on, but even then I'd probably just gut it and put something capable of running the most recent Visual Pinball in there.
Edit: OMG those mini/old-school tabletop arcade games. I suspect they'd be LCD but would be rad if they used the old plasma (or whatever) screens:
Sorry about the off-topic.
I similarly have a bunch of questions before I'd seriously consider plunking down cash.
It seems likely to have wifi if it links to high score listings, does that mean more tables will be available to download? Are the Star Wars tables their own island or is that all mixed up in the 10 at launch? If they are separate I hope I'd be able to get the board from one and put it in the other. They sell the board individually for some of their cabs for a reasonable price on their site so I'd be fine with this as a work around to get a bunch of tables in one box or for future releases.
The biggest bummer that has me most considering holding off for a later revision is no plunger mechanism. I know they can just pick tables where this isn't a big deal but that has been the one major thing putting me off building my own virtual table. I've looked up some solutions and didn't really jive with my skill set. A good mechanism would make it so much more useful for hacking and putting other stuff on it.
A lot about these tables is still unclear and may change. That said, I strongly doubt that there will be more tables for download. You would most probably have to mod it to get different tables on there, the licensing is usually much too restrictive in such cases.
Since this is going to have to be a beefier hardware, hacking the included board might actually be easier this time than on the arcade cabinets (especially if they use a x86 solution and not some ARM Linux/Android thing, but we'll have to wait and see on that one).
It sounds like the Star Wars Model will only contain 10 or so Star Wars Tables and the Attack from Mars Model will only contain 10 or so Williams Tables.
I'm pretty sure mod instructions and kits for these tables will be plentiful, including mechanical plunger mods.
Agreed the downloadable tables thing is outlandish. Mainly I'm not interested in having multiple cabs if I decided to pick one up so will be keeping an eye out for any reason I might prefer to sit the first round out.
That was my initial plan anyway when rumors started as I have no problem waiting and see how things go but then they had to go and launch with Attack from Mars which is on the short list of like one of maybe three table art skins I'd deeply regret missing out on.
The idea for downloadable tables comes from a bullet point on the side of the Arcade 1up Pinball box. Though Arcade1Up have come out and said that isn't confirmed or probably happening. The system is powered by PinballFx3, so really other then dealing with a Billing system there is no reason why they couldn't offer downloading other tables found in Pinball FX3.
This is really the achilles heel to it all. The benefit of platforms is not needing to deal with all that nonsense.
To look at it from the other angle I think 10 tables is a totally reasonable number. Considering in a traditional mutli-game arcade cab setup you may have 2 or 4. So long as there is a path to put in new tables that doesn't involve needing to buy another $650 box a year or two down the line just to gut out the PCB and put it in one main machine I'll be happy.
The mod side of things I'm not too concerned about. I am sure like day two after release there will be a video with someone who hacked in a Switch dock in the back box.
uh, so...
i think there are many things just a bit wrong with those arcade physics. that might get a bit long winded now but i´ve spent A LOT of time with many of those tables in the last weeks and the thing is, every pack has different physics: basically volume 1+2 are fast and furious and feel like playing on an overwaxed playfield. vol. 3 toned it down a bit but the flippers feel strange. in volume 4 they upped the speed again and introduced new flipper physics.
from the universal monster pack on they changed it again to slower paced and more consistent which also includes volume 5 where they adjusted this a little. the concensus is, they want to patch in one kind of physics to all packs sometime soon.
and now is where the story starts, i really love these renditions of the Williams tables as far as digital pinball goes but somehow it is a bit of a mess. there are different sets of physics. Party Zone is hyperspeed compared to Creature for example. there is censorship on some tables which is baffling, there are many missing songs on creature from the black lagoon. there are bugs like in White Water arcade classic arcade you can just press x and it will do a skillshot to the upper flipper everytime. there is still no option to change the background or adjust the room lighting.
there is barely any communication from Zen and i feel they just don´t have enough manpower to handle all this. then, they are in some kind of limbo, there are the casual fans that demand new original tables but now there are also the Williams fans wanting more tables and features. then they release their RPG stuff like Operencia...i feel like they have either too much to do or not enough people.
i think it is a bit of a mess right now. FX3 needs some kind of big update with bugfixes, lighting overhauls/different backgrounds, unified physics on the classic tables and so on. i was legit shocked when playing creature from the black lagoon, there is like one song playing, the machine has much more variety in original. i already think the licensed Williams tables will never happen when they release Creature without full soundtrack.
while i appreciate and really enjoy FX3, there is much more to do and the communication from Zen is near non existent. they ask how people like the physics in the Steam forum where people answer that have no clue or only digital pinball experience...they should invite hardcore real pinball heads for betas and ask them and not the general user....
so...i am really wondering how this will pan out in the future. especially the pace at which those tables get released is superslow...with more people they could pump out a three pack every month, at this pace it will take years till the core Williams tables arrive in FX3.
but after all, i feel like these physics are MUCH better than the rest of the digital pinball games. pinball is relentless and often very unpredictable and that captures FX3 for sure. PBA is not realistic in any way and too floaty. Tales of the Arabian Nights on classic arcade in FX3 is very close to the original pinball feel. i think they are really close to nailing it since volume 5 now, it feels just awesome to play. it is the best digital pinball you can get.
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I need to sell all my machines and a kidney or two to get this, the theme integration and callouts (in relation to the theme) are second to fucking none. Oh, and the DMD animation is fucking on point too. Plus you have Danesi music and remixes of the theme as well, it all just seems to fit perfectly.
Honestly, this is the first new game I've wanted to buy in... possibly since I got into pinball around 10ish years ago.
PS. I think that guy playing who isn't Danesi or Chuck is David van Es, token Australian who did the DMD animations.
found that one, don´t know what to think about it. i like that the guy plays Dodonpachi on it too in the video though :-)
i think it misses a backbox and a plunger
i think it misses a backbox and a plunger
So... took a break from FX and started a retropie project, all classic arcade. And weirdly it got me remembering a pinball game for Sega my old roommate and I used to play.
I dont remember the exact console (genesis or saturn mebbe) but it was a battle pinball game with bosses and a medusa head.
If anyone recognizes that brief descrip, that'd be great, but more importantly, any games like it? We played a lot of Sonic Spinball, definitely counts. But I loved opening up different parts of this medusa table and battling with pinball physics.
Thanks!
I dont remember the exact console (genesis or saturn mebbe) but it was a battle pinball game with bosses and a medusa head.
If anyone recognizes that brief descrip, that'd be great, but more importantly, any games like it? We played a lot of Sonic Spinball, definitely counts. But I loved opening up different parts of this medusa table and battling with pinball physics.
Thanks!
Bosses? Medusa head? Sounds like it could be Dragon's Revenge or Devil's Crush/Dragon's Fury, both of which were on the Genesis.
IIRC, most, but not all of the Saturn video pinball games leaned more towards realistic-styled tables, such as the import-only Digital Pinball: Necronomicon.
Here are some YouTube videos showcasing both SEGA Genesis and Saturn pinball games.
Oh man, I haven't thought about Hyper 3D Pinball in eons! That was my jam back on the Saturn.
I was surprised by the reviewer in your clip, though. He commends the gameplay but criticizes the music. To this day I think that H3D-P has some of the best pinball tracks I've enjoyed (digital or real tables). As it turns out, famed video game composer Tommy Tallrico made the songs for it.
Out of them all, The Monster's track is my favorite:
He stated that his favorite was Digital Pinball: Necronomicon, which does have music from/inspired by Dream Theater, so perhaps he favors that kind of soundtrack more.
Why the hell won't Zen make Pinball FX 3 tournaments cross play? Should be relatively simple to do compared to what other Devs have done introducing cross play since the barriers came down.
Anyone active on their forums or know them on twitter? Can someone enquire?
Also. I miss our tournaments.
Anyone active on their forums or know them on twitter? Can someone enquire?
Also. I miss our tournaments.
Still only available between PC and Switch. It sucks.
I also miss the tournaments, but I can't take part in organizing anymore. My new job is way more professional and they actually monitor my internet usage. Too much dicking around and I'll hear about it.
Any ideas when Zen will announce their next round of tables, Williams or otherwise?
I have the exact same feeling. I think it's a combination of many ramp paths ending in direct drains down the side, and the hole between the flippers being *slightly* larger than average. It makes it feel like there's no "safe" shot.
I have the exact same feeling. I think it's a combination of many ramp paths ending in direct drains down the side, and the hole between the flippers being *slightly* larger than average. It makes it feel like there's no "safe" shot.
I am interested in a virtual cab, but I'm also aware that what I'd want to make it worthwhile (4K support, easy access to my current Steam library, smooth performance at highest settings) is out of my price range. =/
Yeah, I'll have to try that method. The fact that the main objective of the table more often than not leads to ball outs can be frustrating. I really want to like the table, but I get discouraged almost every time I play it.
I own both Last Gladiators and Necronomicon. They are about as good as it has every gotten for original tables and quality ball physics in video game pinball. Both are fantastic and worth owning.
Hit up my local spot to discover they have a Black Knight Sword of Rage. Wasn't crowded either so got to spend a good amount of time with it. I suck at it but it's a cool table.
Got to play a good chunk of Attack from Mars. My best was a 1.6B, which I know is nothing incredible but I'm happy with it for a handful of scrub plays. I think my PB is 2B+ but I am terrible at actually remembering or tracking any of this stuff.
Got to play a good chunk of Attack from Mars. My best was a 1.6B, which I know is nothing incredible but I'm happy with it for a handful of scrub plays. I think my PB is 2B+ but I am terrible at actually remembering or tracking any of this stuff.
There is a pretty cool app called Pindigo that I use to keep track of all my high scores. It allows you to compare against others at both the location and world wide, and shows your improvement on specific tables.
Cool, Thanks. Downloaded. I am generally incredibly bad at keeping to tracking this stuff but maybe I'll turn a corner.
Anyone who plays Pinball FX 3 on PC or Switch want to add me? I need some scoreboard competition!
Switch: SW-5498-0313-5026
PC/Steam: Dyslexic Alucard
I also play Pinball Arcade on Steam, but I load it up less and less these days. I just prefer the physics and performance of FX3.
Switch: SW-5498-0313-5026
PC/Steam: Dyslexic Alucard
I also play Pinball Arcade on Steam, but I load it up less and less these days. I just prefer the physics and performance of FX3.
Hey guys, started recently playing Pinball FX 3, and I wanted to ask you PROS a question!
How do you control the ball? I've noticed that I can never hit the objectives for the various tables when they're lit.
The only "trick" I learned from the tutorial is how to swap the ball from a palette to the other using the tilt option up.
How do you control the ball? I've noticed that I can never hit the objectives for the various tables when they're lit.
The only "trick" I learned from the tutorial is how to swap the ball from a palette to the other using the tilt option up.
Practice practice practice. There are a lot of little tricks you can learn but in the beginning I think it's just about spending time getting better naturally.