Pinball Arcade - the ultimate pinball simulator! - Page 3

One of life's mysteries I suppose. I used the same timing to hit the ball into the Bazaar with the left flipper as well as the central ramp with the right. I get just about the same results with each whether I play on the HDTV or the lag free monitor.

The one obvious difference between the two to me is that the ball travels faster on PA compared to the WC version because the table is tilted more. As a result, it is easier to hold the flipper to catch the ball on the older game.

With that said, flipper action does have a different feel on Arabian Nights compared to Black Hole, but machines feel different in real life too.

Fantastic! I almost saved her twice last night (one skeleton left to kill, grrrrr) in my tests but didn't get that high a score. I agree that selecting a free jewel (or two) in the Bazaar is the way to go... unless you DON'T go for the jewels and quickly try and beat the seven challenges manually for that score?

More than any other modern table I've played from this video pinball developer, I feel Arabian Nights gives you an easier chance to complete the story. I hear Ripley's is pretty lenient though so I want to really dive into it next.

The uber-popular Twilight Zone table will be added... but only if the Kickstarter fundraising goal of $55,000 is reached in 30 days:

Triangle turns the dot matrix display on and off. Square locks/unlocks the dynamic camera while Circle cycles between the camera angle settings.

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Wow, its only been five days and the Twilight Zone kickstarter fund raiser has already reached 60% of its goal to publish the table this Fall.

^^^ No, it isn't available in digital form anywhere. Maybe it will be added sometime down the line. That's also one of my favorite machines - back in the day it was so easy to hit those two ramps over and over and over...

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It looks like the kickstarter campaign will be a success for Twilight Zone. They are halfway through the allowed time frame and have raised 86% of the funds. TZ is my all-time favorite TV show, so I chipped in $10. The machine is rated near the top all time in gamer ratings, so I look forward to playing it for the first time.

Because they are near the goal, they hope to double their contributions by the deadline so that they can license Star Trek: The Next Generation. That table is also ranked highly so maybe it'll get enough backers.

Thanks for the update. I'm looking forward to toppling my Medieval Madness high score.

Directly from the developer's Facebook page....

We finally got an update! Four new tables are on the store today in packs of two (they work for PS3 and Vita with no additional purchase):

Medieval Madness
Bride of Pinbot

Funhouse
Cirqus Voltaire

To get it to work, I had to delete the old Pinball Arcade game and re-download everything. Some of you who haven't bought DLC may want to do this before you buy a table or the DLC might not initially show up.

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I jumped right into Medieval Madness, my favorite table from the Williams Collection. In the my first game I cleared all of the standard goals and got close to 110 million while destroying four of the six castles. My best in the old collection was 173 million, but I usually play for castle destruction instead of going for high scores with all the other objectives that rack up the points.

There are quite a few changes to this version compared to the Williams Collection version. The brightness has been toned WAY down in the new one, and as it turns out, the new lowered brightness has been applied to the launch tables too in Pinball Arcade. I guess they think that the flashing lights on icons stand out better this way (I wish they let us adjust it in the option menu).

Also, the new MM table has a sharper incline now, so the ball travels at least 20% faster than before. This really screwed up my old method of controlling the ball with the flippers, but I already have a new system that is working decently. The auto zoom in feature is really toned down now. In the old game, the active camera setting would get close to a lot of the action at the top of a table, i.e. when the castle is crumbling on the play field. The new "active" camera" is a lot less aggressive at doing this. In fact, it doesn't zoom in on crumbling castles at all, and when it does focus on action up top it quickly zooms back to normal. I think this was done because it is harder to properly the inlane and outlane letters of the table to spell "FIRE" with the flippers if the camera is zoomed up to the top until the last second like the old MM.

Sorry that it is confusing. Most of my comparisons above were with the MM table released last night on Pinball Arcade with the MM table from the Williams Collection (camera angles, the steeper table, lining up shots, etc.). For those comments, I was referring mostly to play mechanic changes of the table itself.

But Pinball Arcade's engine was patched and there are changes to the core game for all tables too. I played Theater of Magic before and after the patch and noted that the lighting of the game engine has been enhanced by turning down the overall brightness of the game so that the lights stand out more.

Physics also feel a bit smoother; but that's hard to put a finger on other than to say the ball reaction when it makes contact with weird angles is a bit more realistic. Of course it is still video pinball so it can't be labeled "perfect" when compared to real life, but this is the most fun I've had with a pinball engine.

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I almost destroyed the final castle in Medieval Madness last night, but I lost my focus since I needed some sleep. It takes a TON of hits to break down the last drawbridge and portcullis. I feel my new ball control tactics are working well so I think I will get it done this week. After that, I'll put time into one of the other new tables before coming back to MM for high score attempts.
Edited by joeblow - 6/27/12 at 8:59am