Topic: Pinball Discussion (Real Tables, Zen Pinball, Pinball Arcade, etc)

My favorite tables on Pinball Arcade are Teed Off and Bride of Pinbot. I like they way those tables play. Black Knight is another one I like but that table is just brutal lol.

Well I'm glad touchscreen nudging works for you. It's really awkward having to play while keeping a finger on the touchscreen to nudge for me.

Glad to see you're enjoying TPA, @RR529 even if it's just one pin so far. Yes, Black Rose is the only pirate-themed pin so far. Real pins play a whole lot different than video-gamey pins like most of Zen's library, so there's a market for both games, depending on what you're into. Some of Zen's rulesets are really complicated/long, whereas real pins generally don't, and if you happen to mess up during a mode on a real pin, it still counts as 'completed,' whereas in a Zen mode, it doesn't count at all unless you 'win' that mode. That makes those pins a lot tougher for me.

As it turns out, you get a free table with TPA (an Arabian Nights themed one), so I played that for a bit today. Got around 5,000,000 on my first try, but only a little over 1,000,000 on my second go.

I guess I'll do an end of day pinball report.

New High Scores:

• El Dorado (Zen 3DS) - 104 million.
• Portal Pinball (Zen Android) - 59 million.
• Tales of the Arabian Nights (TPA Android) - 13 million.

Also tried out the free trials for a couple more tables in TPA, which were Genie & Attack From Mars.

Didn't much care for Genie, as it didn't seem like there was much to interact with (maybe everything was just too spread apart, with it's large play area).

Attack From Mars on the other hand was an absolute blast. It gives out points like candy (you'll probably have a few dosen million before you even touch the ball), and it's so rewarding attacking the big UFO at the top of the table (in fact, the animations looked so familiar, I may have played this in real life a long time ago). Definitely will go on my list of potential future purchases.

Not a fan of EMs then? Older pins were a lot tougher and harder to get points on than modern pins, where they give you a million just for getting the ball out from the plunger area, and lots of those 'bells and whistles' in modern pins obviously weren't invented then. Sadly, there are more modern fans than EM fans that play TPA, so FS is less likely to release any new EMs because they don't make nearly as much money as the modern pins. I'm not a huge fan of EMs myself, but I think it'd better for TPA if it had lots of old AND new pins to preserve pinball history in a digital age for everyone to appreciate. Big Shot is my fave EM, and like all EMs, is hard as nails.

BTW, I think Medieval Madness is better than Attack From Mars. MM came after AFM and shares mostly the same layout, but I like the theme and the dialogue/modes better. Lots of people think AFM is better though. Check it out and see for yourself.

@Freelance, so what does EM mean? (I don't yet have all the jargon down).

Also, I'll be sure to try out Medieval Madness. I'm actually playing the free trials of every table, just to get an idea of what I like.

Oh, and it turns out I did play Attack From Mars in real life. I showed it to my bro, and he said they had it at the bowling alley years ago.

Yeah I agree with @Freelance the older pinball machines can be stingy with points. As I said earlier Black Knight is one of my favorite tables but it can be brutal, there is no ball save like some of the modern ones so if it drains out the side or down the middle right after you shoot it then you lose a ball, also you'd be lucky to get 1 million points in that game at least if you are a casual pinball player like me.

Now compare it to a game like Theater of Magic where points are just given out like nothing. Still I enjoy both types.

I will also add that I love the Gottlieb tables, they are simple but they don't seem cheap like the other tables. For me they just seem like good all around tables.

@RR529 Hm, I thought someone else would have answered your question while I was out. EM stands for Electro-Mechanical, which is what all pins were until the 1970s. They are machines that run only on relays, motors and switches. The easiest way to find out if a pin is an EM is to look at the scoreboard. If it's a mechanical reel that spins to show the score, it's an EM. I like EMs, but they're all brutally hard for me. EMs does appeal to some people though. Their layouts, compared to modern pins, are more skill-based. It's tougher to get certain shots and people like the challenge. They like that they have to earn their way to high scores, as opposed to having a million handed to them just by sending a ball up a ramp. Some people like the uncluttered layouts of EMs. Some do find SS layouts to be 'too noisy' or have 'too much stuff.' Gottlieb was the king of EMs. They're very well known for them, while lots of their SS pins are generally regarded as unmemorable to atrocious.

The later pins are called SS, or Solid State. They are pins that uses computers and circuit boards. Easiest way to tell is to look at the scoreboard. If it looks digitized, then it's a SS pin. Naturally, SS pins allowed for more complex rulesets, digital sound effects and speech, not to mention DMDs (Dot Matrix Display, a pixel display used to show the score, etc) with animations. Ramps is one of the later pin inventions, so you won't find any in EMs. If you've started out on SSs and then went to an EM, then you'd probably think it's 'boring' with not much to do, since all these bells and whistles you find in SS pins came out later in the pinball era. If you grew up with EMs, then it'd be a different story.

As you've probably noticed, pins were dwindling when the video arcade game boom came around, so pin manufacturers resorted to adding animations and 'video game modes' to entice people to play it. I am not fond of video game modes. A few can be fun, but most are pretty bad, especially the ones where you have to press L and R repeatedly (so fast you'd have to break your fingers to succeed) to escape something. Black Rose has one where you have to out swim a shark. Ugh.

@Freelance, thanks for the thorough explanation. As I was born in the 90's, the Solid State tables are the only ones I'm familiar with, so that's probably what I'm going to find more attractive.

Anyhow, it's time for my daily pinball update.

New High Scores:

• Mars (Zen Android) - 38 million.
• Tales of the Arabian Nights (TPA Android) - 51 million. I actually managed to complete the final mode, which was genuinely exciting.

Also tried out some more free versions:

• Twilight Zone (TPA Android) - Seems like a really cool table, but too intricate to get a good feel in the free trial.
• Theatre of Magic (TPA Android) - Pretty fun table. I think I prefer Attack From Mars & Black Rose, but it'll definitely be in consideration for a future purchase down the line.
• Taxi - Not bad, but not great either.

Time for my daily pinball update.

New High Scores:

• Blade (Zen Marvel 3DS) - 22 million.
• South Park: Super Sweet Pinball (Zen Android) - 27 million.

Also tried out a couple more free trials in TPA.

• Star Trek: the Next Generation - Pretty decent, though I don't think I'll ever be purchasing it. It's not bundled with any other tables, and though I'm fine with the price due to the licensing involved, I'm just not that big on Star Trek.
• Ripley's Believe it or Not - Another pretty decent one. It wouldn't a first choice for a purchase, but it's bundled with Theatre of Magic (which I did like) & Black Hole (haven't tried yet), so as part of the package I could dig it.

Here are some of my best scores. I don't have much because all my scores were wiped from a glitch/bug/whatever, and my scores since then are nowhere close to whatever scores I had previously. I only know these because I took pics of them.

Monster Bash = 819,825,060 (Vita)
Fish Tales = 461,271,270 (PC)
Black Rose = 256,457,450 (PC)

Naturally, my best score in ZP2 is on my favourite pin. None of the 5 ppl who has the pin in my Friends list has a score anywhere close to mine:

Super League Football = 785,023,760 (Vita)

None of the ppl in my Friends list get any new pins anymore, last I checked. They either don't care for pinball anymore and/or only played for the trophies.

Wow, that's an awesome Fish Tales score! My highest is 197,039,780. That game is brutal, but tons of fun!

EMs are definitely good fun every now and then, I have Central Park, and I really enjoy how much nudging comes into play, and once I rack up some points, the knocker starts going off over and over again! EMs seem to have an especially addictive element to them. I got addicted to Spirit of '76 (On Microsoft Pinball Arcade) for the longest time, just trying to spell ABCDE, and there was this really unique game called Egg Head at Pinfest last year where you had to try and make a three-in-a-row line of X's or O's, and again, was really addicting! I definitely agree that TPA could use a few more.

@Tasuki: Bride of Pinbot is pretty cool. I'm still debating whether to get season three. It's $30. The two main ones that I want are Dracula and High Speed. they are priced so that if you get two, for $20 more you get eight more. But I got season one for something like $14?

Nice to see some pinball discussion!

I'm a big fan, and own all the Zen Pinball titles released on 3DS as well as The Pinball Arcade 2 (first two seasons worth of tables) on PSTV so that I can get a big-screen fix. The Zen tables aren't bad - but I often prefer to play recreations of real tables. Lately I've played a lot of Taxi, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Scared Stiff, Genie, Attack from Mars, and Centaur. Tempted to get more seasons, but have plenty of tables left to explore already.

My NNID is "ejamer" in case anyone wants to compare scores for the Zen 3DS games.

I dunno why you don't have ZP2 for your PSTV, @ejamer. I have ZP on the 3DS but I haven't touched it in years now once I realized it's never going to get any new pins. I switched to the Vita and haven't looked back.

I hope hope hope Williams' Indy, Stern's LoTR and Bally's Radical! comes to TPA one day. Those are my top requested pins. Indy seems impossible to get though, and Radical! had so few tables made that it's a very low chance it will come since not many people knows this pin exists and don't request it (FS listens to requests). LoTR stands the best chance of coming though, due to their new partnership with Stern.

Yeah I love Bride of Pinbot, I was trying to play a real table of it when I was at PRGE but everytime I had a chance to play it there was always a huge line for it lol.

And yes I believe season 1 and 2 have had their prices lowered (at least on the PS4 they have). I usually buy the two packs of tables like for example Black Knight and Creature from the Black Lagoon rather then the whole season.

Time for my daily pinball update.

Purchases:

• V12 (Zen Android) - I really like the look & theme of this one (I'd say it's the most realistic of the Zen tables I've played, as well), but man is it the toughest to score on (Shaman may be tougher, but I haven't played it in a long time).

New High Scores:

• V12 (Zen Android) - 4.5 Million (not so sure how this happened either. I'm usually scraping just to get 1 Mil, but somehow got like 2 Mil out the gate once, even though I wasn't doing anything differently).

Also tried out some more free trials in TPA:

• No Good Gofers - This is plain old good fun. A purchase in the future.
• Scared Stiff - Good fun, though I'm not a big fan of the theme (just never been big into the monster/horror theme). Still, it'd be attractive as part of a bundle, as I'm sure I'd play it a lot around Halloween).
• Monster Bash - Same as above.

@Freelance, those are some insane scores, congrats! I kinda feel like hot stuff if I just get around 50 million, but am pretty humbled whenever I see the kinds of scores longtime pinball enthusiasts have achieved.

Also, in terms of tables I'd like to see added to TPA. Jurassic Park (no idea how good the table is, I'm just a big fan of the IP) & the Super Mario table (probably not likely. Even though Nintendo is going to be more generous with it's IP in the future, there's no way they'd want it available on PS or Xbox, though they may allow mobile, and I'm sure FarSight would want it available everywhere).

The only reason I haven't bought into that game is the time/money situation. I don't really have enough time to enjoy all the tables I've got through TPA, so don't see good value in spending money on more tables (yet). But grabbing Zen Pinball 2 for PSTV will probably happen eventually - either when I'm looking for new tables or if there is a compelling sale.

@RR529: Well keep in mind that The Pinball Arcade was supposedly coming to Wii U and 3DS but after several delays they were cancelled.

Basically I wouldn't hold my breath for the Super Mario Table.

Actually, they still have the Wii U logo on their website. They keep saying they want to bring the game to Wii U, but, I think at this point we all know it's not gonna happen. They still owe me a Wii U version of Twilight Zone, too! (I was one of the Kickstarter backers, and chose Wii U as one of my platforms)