I think it bothers people that Farsight portray themselves up to be the keepers of the digital records of classic pinball machines, but then they release buggy and not true-to-life simulations of those games. I know it bugs me.
It's 2012 almost 2013 now I just wished Pinball Arcade were up to snuff with the graphics. Their excuse is always the same though. "We accurately emulate the ROM". Which is something a graphing calculator can do. Download PinMAME and some ROM and see what your CPU is doing, if you can perceive it. Looking at the videos for Rob-o-bot, even smaller companies can do a better looking game. But what bugs me most is the gouging. They limited the Elvira Scared Stiff sound set and it requires the PRO version to get the de-crippled version for example. Far from cool. What happened to EPIC Pinball, doesn't EPIC now have this newfangled doohickey engine for gangkill orgy games?
Last Gladiators Pinball has spot on physics and they're a total blast to play, they're on the pricier side as they cost 5 bucks each but they're worth it. Theres a lite version to try. LittleWing's tables are excellent too but they are individual tables not sets. Age of Pinballs is an excellent and cheap compilation but it lags behind the other ones I mentioned in physics and overall fun factor. All of this is my opinion obviously so its really more of a suggestion than cold hard facts.
Well I was in the top 20 on game center a while ago.. of course the latest update reset all my pinball hall of fame scores.. they are all zero again. Not sure what happens to the game center scores though, nor do I care. I don't play for high score.. I play for fun. Look, you obviously like twisting things around to make up for some kind of inferiority complex or something. The fact of the matter is this: The farsight tables simply do not play like their real life counterparts. Some are reminiscent of the real deal and some are so far off that it's not even funny (Bride of Pin Bot.. I'm looking at you). If you're not going to create a simulation then at least don't call it that! And for goodness sake, the least they could do is fix them damn bugs!!
It's definitely a cash grab. They'd take support and fixing of bugs way more seriously if it wasn't one. I was not exaggerating at all when I said some tables you can easily play 30-60 minutes. For instance in Bride of Pinbot I have to have extremely bad luck to actually drain a ball. That game takes forever and I've done the 1 billion dollar shot 4 times in one game. I've NEVER managed it in real life. Not even once!! The thing is, I'm not even a moderately good pinball player.. yet if I could play in real life as long as do in PBA then I'd be considered the local pinball wizard. Funhouse is another one I can seemingly play endlessly without draining.. have to be extremely unlucky or do some seriously bad shots to keep draining the ball. In real life that table is friggin hard.. well at least the one we had at our local theme park a few years ago. Having said that, some of the tables seem to be draining somewhat like the real ones. Black Knight is quite tricky, as is Taxi.. except I can loop the pinballs too easily there.. but at least the ball drains without mercy after most bad shots. I don't know what's the issue but PBA just doesn't play like the originals, like not even close. Most of the well done Visual Pinball tables play a lot better so perhaps it is really all down to physics and how the ball behaves?
* For the 9th day of a Pinball Arcade Christmas, it's time to announce the next table pack! This pack will include Genie, the Gottlieb classic wide body table from 1979 and the Bally great... Attack from Mars from 1995! * nice table pack! now just add some bug fixes, a portrait gui and a top-down/cabinet mode for OSX/PC and everything else is forgotten... for a while
Nice! AFM is my favorite table on VP. Never played Genie but I'll probably buy the pack to check it out.
Very interesting behind-the-scenes article over here: http://pinballarcadefans.com/showthread.php/2992-An-Afternoon-At-FarSight-Studios
I just finished reading the entire thing. Extremely great information. I think everyone that is engaged in the discussion here needs to read that entire thing. It will answer a LOT of your questions and shed light on many of the complaints. Here is a really short summary: FarSight is aware of EVERYTHING being discussed here, and they take it all of it seriously. However, there are various reasons, technical, legal, and other why some of the top complaints have not yet been addressed. Here is a short snippet to whet your appetite regarding table difficulty: And there is a lot more stuff in that article directly related to difficulty, bug fixes, graphical anomalies, table release schedules, profits, future plans, etc.
Just make the flipper fingers a bit shorter and the tables are not so easy. Thats what I did in Visual Pinball.No need to reprogram the whole game.
or a steeper table angle btw. rudi, you can add STTNG to your list of pretty "realistic" tables... plays fine for me, with lots of draining anyway good article and with a PC/cabinet version upcoming (together with the "picky" emulation/preservation crowd), things look much brighter now... planed tables for 2013: Attack From Mars Cactus Canyon Dr. Dude Firepower Genie Pin*Bot Space Shuttle Victory 8 Ball Deluxe Centaur Fireball Champion Pub (*unconfirmed officially*) + some kickstarters like T2
The thing is, they don't have the flexibility someone does when they create a table via Visual Pinball. They've been given a physical table model and official "factory default settings" to use when the table is licensed. They aren't allowed to shorten the flippers or adjust the standard table angle any more than they could "fix" the scoring in Bride of Pinbot to not revolve around obtaining one random reward. Even having the wrong default high scores in the PS3 version of Table Pack 5 is something they probably got fined over. The root cause of the majority of the bugs is the same as always - they're trying to make too many versions across too many consoles / operating systems with too small a staff to keep them all up-to-date.
Did anyone read that interview with Pinball Arcade ? It sounds a nightmare having to get anything changed, to 'just shorten the flippers' it sounds that they have to get permission from the actual owners of the official machine, that has to go through numerous processes/people to get signed off, sounds difficult to 'just shortern the flipper' ! I'm even more thankful to Farsight for their app and all their tables. Look forward to the new tables soon
I'm playing it. FarSight guys are genius. Of course real life things cannot be perfectly emulated/simulated in digital world, so... let's enjoy the game without being too much "picky".
