I've tried all the (free) tables now and my mind is made up. I will NOT buy any more tables as of now. While I like the general idea of having a collection of classic tables on my iPad, the execution is way too bad to justify the asking price. In absolute terms the EUR 6,99 for the full set is not a lot, but I think you can get wayyy better alternatives for that kind of money. The textures on Ripley and Magic are even worse than in AN, the sound quality is not very good too. And the way the ball gets bigger the farther down it gets just looks weird and not at all realistic. Please, I WANT to like it and I WANT to buy all the current and future tables. But in my opinion there's a lot of work to be done until I am ready for that. Don't hate me ;-)
Well very glad its out, like the presentation of the tables, bought all of them, think its excellent BUT cant stand the Facebook rubbish, i dont want to bore my friends/family with my scores etc, wish there was another way to post your scores. Really hope they keep to their word and bring out a new table every month, that'll be brilliant. Very happy to download it, downloaded it dead on 00.00am here !
Game Impressions WOW! Pinball Arcade is really the best pinball sim ever! Pros: Better physics and more smooth than any other on IOS. Well and you don't even need to talk about the design-quality of each table, since they are all time classics. They really seem to know how to optimize code since the game loads within a few seconds. You can play a table within 10 seconds from a fresh game-start!! Cons: Resolution of the textures could be a bit higher for Ipad, but i guess they will do that for Ipad 3 - release in spring.
Part of the problem, I think, is that they're trying to go for a close-to-simultanious (within two months) release of this game on pretty much every viable platform out there right now. It's an ambitious schedule, and I think in a month's time the iPad experience will be better than what's shown right now. It's a no-win situation. You wait to optimize the game and people go ballistic because it hasn't been released yet.
I bought all the tables on my iPad, but there was no 'restore purchases' option on my iPhone, just the same option to purchase. I don't want to buy the same pack twice!
Same here, I'll definately be watching my itunes billing for a few days and getting onto apple if they've charged me for individual tables. I too am disapointed with this graphically, textures are poor on ipad2. Sometimes the ball looks too big. If anyone doesn't think its sub par graphically load up Zen pinball to remind yourself what this could have looked like.
Strange, only in Believe It Or Not, the ball isn't running smooth, seems to have a bad framerate there. Everywhere else, it's running perfectly fine. And my highscores don't appear in the list, that's really annoying. But still, I love all 4 tables. Extremely different and each of them is so much fun to play.
As unfortunate, as it is now, I have to agree with some of the more critical reviews here. 1) The textures are blurry as hell. This should NOT be the case on the latest generation of devices. Farsight needs to update their graphics engine. It's a real shame that the graphics are so bad as half of the charm of real pinball is the table itself as a beautiful piece of art. In Pinball Arcade they look just "meh..". There's no proper lighting either. 2) Facebook?? Wtf. That's so stupid it hurts. Get us GC now!! 3) Framerates are a bit hit and miss. Sometimes smooth sometimes painstakingly obvious missed frames and choppy play. There is also some input lag which is very bad for a pinball game! Pressing the flipper is not instant. This is NOT a limitation of the iPhone as there are several other games that have virtually no lag (a pinball example would be The Gladiator which is very responsive even on my iPhone 3GS). In general the presentation and art direction is pretty poor. I'm sorry to say but the guy responsible for the general graphics (icon, menu graphics, buttons etc) needs to get sacked or seriously motivated to create better work. This is just not enough for a proper iOS title in 2012. Sounds could have been much better as well.. and I don't mean the obviously low quality emulator sounds, those are original but rather the ball rolling sounds and bumpers etc. It's just bland and poorly mixed together. I'm going to be a bit careful and wait a few months before I purchase any more tables. Nor will I get it for other platforms until I know that they've polished it a bit.. was looking forward to this on the PC but now I'm not so sure. Cheers!
Haven't had any framerate issues on the ipad2. Yeah, theres some lower res textures, but I don't find it that bad overall and frankly I need the framerate to stay solid. I'd imagine its a lot trickier getting a digital version of a real table to run well than it is one of Zen's fantasy tables. I mean if something is causing problems on a Zen table they just move it around or change the design till it works. Can't really do that with a real table. I imagine there will be improvements/optimizations still though... But the tables are super fun to play (something I can't really say for any of the other pin games I've tried on IOS) and thats what really matters to me...
Added full resolution screenshots here at the beginning of this thread, all full table view with orbs: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2128253&postcount=5 Compare to ZEN Pinball here: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2019730&postcount=2
@Habakuk: thank you! this is what I meant (magnified by factor 2): come on guys, you can do better than that the more I play the more I think that this is a rushed port and needs a lot of polish before being enjoyable greetings MJFox
the point is that it's so blurry that the text isn't readable... doesn't matter if its magnified or not greetings MJFox
The key to dealing with outlanes is anticipation. The goal isn't always to try and nudge the ball to the inlane, but nudge just right so it leaves the area all together.
for those concerned about getting charged for the tables twice on different devices I downloaded the full unlock on my ipad and had a $12 credit still available in itunes. I then downloaded the individual tables again onto my iphone and the $12 credit is still there so there doesn't seem to be any double billing happening...
Making the graphics seem like a game breaker is ridiculous. I mean, even Last Gladiator is still one of the best tables in the store. And that one really looks like crap these days. But gameplay is king. And it's not anywhere near as bad looking as some might claim in here. Playing for hours now, beat all local high scores. These tables are hits, all of them, just amazingly fun to play.
but if I can't even tell if shooting a ramp gives me the jackpot, an extra ball or a double bonus because I can't read the text on the blinking light it's half the fun greetings MJFox
