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Ramagamma posted:I know it's the same old argument but I fell in love with Pinball through the Pinball Arcade and I just cannot get my head around how much I'm being restricted through the platforms I'm using. Xbox I can partially understand what with all the bureaucracy and red tape of legal proceedings. Yeah it's loving dumb but dumb poo poo happens. Why the gently caress is this not out on PC yet though. It's on loving Mac's where gaming consists of World of Warcraft and the Sims. It probably only made it to Mac at all because it's pretty trivial to port from iOS to OS X. Especially when it's as shoddy a port as Pinball Arcade - they pretty much did the bare minimum to get it running on the desktop. The interface is awful and the engine isn't optimized at all. I'm really hoping the Windows version performs a little better.
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Sep 6, 2013 15:46
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:14 |
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Just stopped by Pinball Perfection (great place with an amazing web site) for their last weekend before they close for the winter and they'd just fixed up their Bride of Pinbot. I can get up the heartbeat ramp almost every time on TPA, but on their table, a dead-on shot would only make it halfway up the ramp most times (leading to a STDM). Were the flippers still weak, or is that usual for the real thing? Also just gave the PC version of TPA a try. Cranking up the AA settings on my lovely laptop made the game run in slow-motion, which was actually pretty cool (until the emulation got out of sync and made it unplayable). I'd buy more pro tables if they included a slow-mo mode for learning the tables.
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Nov 9, 2013 22:57
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Anybody know anything about creating tables for Visual/Future Pinball? I've got stupid ideas for pinball tables I'd like to make if I had any mechanical skills and it'd be cool to at least realize them virtually.
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Nov 12, 2013 05:26
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There've been a lot of questions in here about how tilt works on TPA. I was browsing through the pro menu options on TNG and found a tilt meter option, which makes things a little more clear. Basically, every nudge makes the meter climb a bit, and it immediately starts falling again, emptying in a second or two. One or two nudges likely won't reach the tilt limit on that meter. If you do hit the limit, you'll trigger either a warning or a tilt, depending on the settings of the table - for instance, TNG's TPA settings give you two warnings before Worf calls you a dishonorable player and tilts you. From my testing it didn't look like the warnings reset after any time period, only between balls. This was all on the iPhone version, not sure if versions with analog nudging might allow a warning/tilt on one hard nudge.
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Nov 15, 2013 08:00
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Finally made it to the one local TNG that's in good shape. Such good shape, in fact, that the high score on it is 59 billion loving points. I was happy to break a billion and reach Final Frontier once while I was there. Another new pay-by-the-hour place opened up here in Pittsburgh that apparently has a Whirlwind, so maybe I'll go check it out and see just how badass that fan really is.
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Nov 18, 2013 17:08
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Played a PS4 Pinball Arcade demo on a Gamestop demo station. It is... very pretty. Didn't notice any other differences, no surprise there. Demo's running Cirqus Voltaire.
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Nov 19, 2013 16:47
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What is the deal with the replay sound effect on Stern tables? Is it supposed to sound like you've blown the speakers, or have I been playing exclusively on broken machines?
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Nov 20, 2013 01:26
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The classic SMACK I like. What I don't understand is why Stern replaced it with a screech that makes everybody think I broke their machine somehow.
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Nov 20, 2013 03:56
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Any easy way to tell the software version on a Stern Star Trek? I think my local machine got upgraded recently, since I only started seeing the multiple Vengeance modes this past week.
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Nov 22, 2013 18:09
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It's just sitting in a movie theater lobby at the mall, probably contracted out to some local amusement company. The popcorn guy isn't going to know what software version is on the pinball machine. I guess I'll know for sure whether they're keeping it updated if Karl Urban starts yelling at me one day.
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Nov 22, 2013 20:32
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iOS update seems to have cleared my high scores and goals. Again.  Think I'm just going to turn off autoupdate and hold off until they release another table I might actually care about (if ever).
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Nov 24, 2013 04:46
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If you ever find yourself in Pittsburgh, there are two relatively new places that you must check out: Kickback Cafe is a coffeeshop that just opened in the gentrified part of town. They've got a dozen games, including a few cool repainted EMs. Worth visiting just to see the pinball paint job they gave it:  Much more impressive in person, and the recessed lighting looks great in the dark. The tables are even modeled on pop bumbers, though I didn't really notice that until it was pointed out to me. e: Found a writeup with some better pictures of the interior, along with the custom EMs. And a few weeks ago, Bradish St. Pinball Parlor opened, a pay-per-hour place with a great selection. The other pay-per-hour places around here tend to have horribly maintained machines, but the guy who runs this place is super passionate and keeps them in outstanding condition. I got a ball stuck once on White Water and he was profusely apologetic. There's a tournament going on here in a couple weeks, hoping to get my first IFPA ranking  Oh, and before anybody asks, Whirlwind was missing its fan. Forgot to ask him about that.
GameCube fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 19:16
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That laser starfield doesn't look any less cheesy in motion, sadly. Thanks to whoever recommended the This Old Pinball podcast. Just finished the three hour Pat Lawlor interview. Was refreshing to hear him admit that the complexity of games post-Addams Family helped drive away casual players; now I don't feel so bad about sucking so much as a child. I'm half an hour into the Python episode now and it's a riot. I've learned that Pat Lawlor stole the Rudy idea while Python was fishing in Canada, and that YOU MUST READ THE FOUNTAINHEAD.
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Nov 26, 2013 01:45
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Just got my rear end handed to me at my first tournament  First round of the bracket, I went up against the event organizer, on the Monster Bash he brought from home. No contest there. At least I won one game in the losers bracket before being knocked out.Now I'm trying to buy Theatre of Magic on TPA iOS, and it's saying that I can't buy table pack "other3" because I am not a Test User, and I need to create a new account in the Sandbox Environment. God I wish somebody other than Farsight had these licenses.
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Nov 30, 2013 06:30
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If you don't gently caress around in the operator menu or turn on ball control you'll still be able to post scores and earn goals. I can't imagine locking people out of scoreboards would be a big selling point for pro mode.
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Dec 2, 2013 19:25
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Personally, I'm having a hell of a time hitting Warp 9.9 in TNG and getting a Rudy Gulp in Funhouse.
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Dec 2, 2013 22:14
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In the case of the Atari blinds, it wasn't even a planned game, but a demo written by a guy at Activision solely to piss off Atari.
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Dec 3, 2013 17:07
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My "gently caress Farsight" rant for today: Made it to Final Frontier twice. Both times, the camera switched to ball launch mode and stayed there until all but the last ball had drained. Would have easily topped the high score list if not for that. gently caress Farsight.
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Dec 4, 2013 07:29
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I don't know, the only pinball machine I saw on my last trip to Europe was a Corvette. And I just heard about a German Mustang owner's club yesterday in a bit about the 50th anniversary. Of course they could always re-theme it like they did with NASCAR.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:01
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Parallax Scroll posted:Is it literally just the bottom half of the screen for flippers and the top half for nudging? On the iPhone, at least, it's more like bottom third for flippers & straight upward nudge, middle third for sideways and diagonal nudging. There's multiple touch schemes to chose from, and you can turn on an overlay that makes the zones visible while you're playing.
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Dec 17, 2013 22:47
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I'd be surprised if Stern were even open to the idea of licensing their newer tables anyway. Aren't they having a hard enough time selling the real thing already?
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Jan 8, 2014 17:40
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Guess I'm misjudging the market. I figured operators would be leery of buying a game that could be had for 5 bucks; the only other arcade games that seem to have survived the collapse of the industry are the kind that can't be replicated at home for cheap. I guess arcade operators can't account for many of their sales though, considering that arcades don't exist anymore.
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Jan 8, 2014 18:18
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Clouseau posted:Zen just posted a trailer for Super League Football, which their blog says is an homage to World Cup Soccer 94 (which is a pretty great game). A minute and a half of logos spinning in front of the table and some bad cgi soccer dude. A single screenshot would have been more informative, but from looking at their blog, it seems they couldn't be bothered. From the bit of the table I could make out, I'm not seeing much WCS inspiration, apart from there being a soccer goal. I guess that one ramp loop looks kinda similar? For comparison, here's WCS: 
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Jan 28, 2014 22:47
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Eegah posted:So the latest Zaccaria update dropped the other night with some new table. Better get it while you can -- a big revenue stream for ASK is their Silver Membership which promises all future tables for the app, something Farsight said Apple is now banning and forced them to remo How does Zaccaria compare to the other pinball apps? I'd like to have an alternative to :farsight: but I just can't get into Zen Pinball, the physics seem off and the controls aren't customizable enough.
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Jan 31, 2014 17:22
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Something about the new Star Trek underwhelms me. Mainly it's the modes, I think; TNG did a great job at making the modes actually feel like you were accomplishing something, rather than just hitting the lit shots while an unrelated DMD animation played. I've also only found the base model around here, and I know it's a stupid criticism, but the plastic returns just aren't as satisfying as a real habitrail. That said, I do prefer the cartoony animations over the film footage that they so often use. Playing video clips on the DMD feels just as lazy to me as the boring photoshopped stock-photo backglasses. Oh, and even after beating all six missions, I still haven't figured out how to start any Captain's Chair modes 
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Feb 5, 2014 18:12
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Clouseau posted:The modes get a lot more interesting once you do their 2nd and 3rd iterations. The first run for all six is pretty much different combinations of lit shots, but later modes are a bit deeper and have some more complexity to them. They still don't have the variation of ST:TNG, but there's plenty of interesting stuff there. Oooooh. I knew about the super stuff, I was somehow under the impression that there were supposed to be "mini wizard modes" of some sort. Is there a wizard mode? I'd just look this stuff up at IPDB but they don't seem to have any rules sheets posted yet.
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Feb 5, 2014 21:27
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Cannot connect to iTunes Store. You're tearing me apart, Farsight.
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Feb 15, 2014 02:15
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FYI, if you get the "cannot connect to iTunes store" error, I found that restarting the app didn't fix it, but restarting the phone did. vv
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Feb 16, 2014 00:20
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I really wish Pinball Arcade saved state for individual tables. Played BK2000 for like an hour straight last night so I wouldn't lose my RANSOM progress on my way to the wizard goal. (Totally worth it though.) Speaking of BK2000, I don't think I've seen a table easier to play one-handed. Even when you lose it from the upper playfield, you can easily catch it with the right flipper and shoot it right back up there. I just wish PA's physics could do live catches properly; it's hard to get the ball to settle quickly enough to get the extra ball before the timer runs out.
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Feb 17, 2014 03:47
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roffels posted:The Twin cities has a pretty large and interesting pinball culture. We're home to LTG of pinside fame, and a few world champs live around here. I've gotten to know a few ops and players. Ugh. People like this are why I stay away from tournaments now.
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Feb 19, 2014 17:10
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Is there any way to gift Pinball Arcade tables, either on Android or Steam? A friend of mine needs more BK2000 in his life.
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Feb 20, 2014 19:59
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More bad pinball news: Python has cancer  Fundraiser here if anybody feels like chipping in.
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Feb 25, 2014 01:41
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Personally I think you're getting the better end of the deal, but then the only T3 I've played wasn't maintained very well. Loooove World Cup Soccer.
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Mar 5, 2014 21:43
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Ernie Muppari posted:Is it just me, or is the Magna Save in the TPA version of BK2K kinda' weak? I just played on a relatively poorly-maintained BL2K IRL and found the magnasave could grab the ball as far away as the Last Chance light. You'll have to tell me how that compares to TPA because I play it on iOS and thus the ball drains before my thumb can find the drat touchscreen button.
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Mar 15, 2014 00:25
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Parallax Scroll posted:Note: It is possible to accumulate a billion points through regular gameplay without making the billion shot. I've done it on PA. I believe it. Right flipper to middle ramp, repeat just over 1,000 times!
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Mar 17, 2014 19:14
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Stopped by PAPA HQ yesterday since they were open for the tournament and I hadn't been to the place yet, despite living fifteen minutes away. Holy poo poo. If you ever get a chance to visit, take it. I can't think of a single game I was hoping to play that I couldn't find there.
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Mar 31, 2014 17:38
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And now I understand why. It'd be a maintenance nightmare keeping up with all those machines. They were doing surprisingly well yesterday, though. I was disappointed to see High Speed and Indiana Jones out of order, but when I came down that aisle a half hour later, they were up and running again. Saw the new Mustang there, too. My only impression is that it was $1.00/game, and I could get two BK2Ks for that price, so I passed.
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Mar 31, 2014 22:12
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Robnoxious posted:that's just BMI and ASCAP just further burying their all ready once strong foothold and making it firmly obsolete. It should surprise no one that very few people deal with them anymore. Jesus christ, it's those extortionists? How the hell do they get away with it? What differentiates any bar/arcade with a pinball machine from PAPA, as far as music royalties go?
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Apr 1, 2014 15:30
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I just don't get the logic they operate by. If they get a cut, what is the manufacturer supposedly paying for when they license the song in the first place? Are they arguing that bystanders overhearing the music constitutes a public performance that isn't covered by the original license? I mean, I already know the answer of course - nobody they go after can afford to fight them in court, so they can say whatever the hell they want. Its a shame nobody's been able to stand up to them yet.
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Apr 2, 2014 03:54
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 07:14 |
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If you're having trouble finishing all the illusions on ToM, don't forget you can just cradle the ball and time out the mode to complete each illusion. It's boring as hell and won't get you many points, but if you're just going for the achievement it's an option.
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Apr 4, 2014 13:50
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