Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection

[rockman_x_2002]

I got this game last night based on the recommendations here. To be honest... this game is simply amazing! The physics are absolutely perfect, right down to the "I can never get the ball all the way up the Shuttle-ramp" difficulty I remember as a kid!

 

Actually, I never had too much trouble getting the ball up the ramp on Space Shuttle, on this version or even the time I played the real machine (years ago).

 

It's easier to do using the right flipper than it is the left, though, for some reason. Catch the ball with the right flipper, release, and let the ball roll about 3/4 the way down the flipper. If you hit it just right, she'll go smooth up the ramp for you nearly every time (provided that the drop target is down, of course).

 

Speaking of which, read 'em & weep boys!

 

 

Yes, that's right. Over 2 million on Jive Time. I managed to roll the counter. Not once, but twice.

 

That's some pretty nice shooting, there. Jive Time seems to drain on me a lot because I end up flipping the ball somewhere stupid and it bounces through the outlane before I can nudge it back over in time. So that's a pretty good show of skill, there, for that table.

[jbanes]

That's some pretty nice shooting, there. Jive Time seems to drain on me a lot because I end up flipping the ball somewhere stupid and it bounces through the outlane before I can nudge it back over in time. So that's a pretty good show of skill, there, for that table.

Yeah, I wish. The ball managed to get stuck between two targets in the upper-right corner of the board. It just kept bouncing back and forth, almost a vibration. I could have let it go on, but eventually I got tired and bumped the board until it was free.

 

As I said, the physics are AMAZING, but there will always be those virtual-world glitches.

 

I actually do like the board, but the distance between the flippers is infuriating. It's not so much the outlanes that give me grief (though they can be a pain in their own right), but the fact that the ball is regularly able to stroll right past my flippers with nothing I can do about it. I understand that you're supposed to activate the lamp-post, but how about a bit of a *chance* guys? Hmm... guess I'll be needing a Delorean to fix this one...

[n8littlefield]

I actually liked Jive Time. I was surprised because I usually find that when I pick up compilations like this one that the older tables just don't hold my interest and I play them once as a novelty and that's the end of it. I was hooked on Jive Time last night, played it at least an hour on its own.

 

This really is a fantastic compilation - I can't wait to play more tonight!

[jbanes]

An amusing feature that someone pointed out online:

 

1. Go to the Options screen

2. Select "Audio Options"

3. Try adjusting volume to max

 

If you did it right, you should be able to crank this baby to 11!

[Crazy Climber]

I got around 15 mil on Funhouse today. Not super impressive or anything but better then I have ever done on this game or the real machine. I miss playing Funhouse back at the arcades

[FireTiger]

I got this game last night based on the recommendations here. To be honest... this game is simply amazing! The physics are absolutely perfect, right down to the "I can never get the ball all the way up the Shuttle-ramp" difficulty I remember as a kid! The controls are also amazing, with the exact amount of delay and force as the real machine provides. You can even bump the table by bumping the controllers!

 

If I had any complaint, it would be that the bump is just a bit *too* sensitive. When I get into a game, I tend to move the controllers a bit as I press the buttons. Which results in a slight bump on the machine. Nothing major, but it's there none the less. You kind of need to train yourself to watch your movements if you don't want those accidental bumps.

 

Also, I think I may have an idea of what the "ball fell off the table" thing is about. As I recall, some of these machines had cutouts in the playing board behind various bumpers and targets. Technically, your ball shouldn't be able to get inside those areas. Yet I have seen it done on real pinball machines. Given that the physics still can't be as perfect as the real thing (though it's as bloody close as I've ever seen!), I imagine those areas are slightly more dangerous on the virtual reproductions than they are on the real machine.

 

Speaking of which, read 'em & weep boys!

 

 

Yes, that's right. Over 2 million on Jive Time. I managed to roll the counter. Not once, but twice.

 

 

I'm going to get a pin soon, a real one, there isn't a table I've played yet over the last 2 weeks that I HAVEN'T gotten the ball stuck on.

 

Wheel of Fortune (Stern)

NASCAR / Dale Jr (Stern)

Theater of Magic (Bally/Williams)

The Adams Family (Bally)

Twilight Zone (Bally)

Pirates of the Caribbean (Stern)

 

to name names...

[Crazy Climber]

I'm going to get a pin soon, a real one, there isn't a table I've played yet over the last 2 weeks that I HAVEN'T gotten the ball stuck on.

 

Wheel of Fortune (Stern)

NASCAR / Dale Jr (Stern)

Theater of Magic (Bally/Williams)

The Adams Family (Bally)

Twilight Zone (Bally)

Pirates of the Caribbean (Stern)

 

to name names...

Those are some spendy choices, congrats if you are able to get any of them, especially that Theater of Magic...I love that game! If you have the cash you might want to check out Indiana Jones, it is one of my dream pins but I have a hard enough time convincing my Wife to let me spend 1k on a pinball game let alone 4k

[Malc74]

Well, I'm loving the game, but I just encountered an absolute show-stopper of a bug. Basically I was playing Taxi and had activated the 2-ball multiball feature. Through some amazing fluke I managed to fire both balls into the Drac hole one after the other. The first ball won me an extra ball and the second, well, I wish I'd taken a picture of it now, but it caused the camera to go completely crazy. It seemed to zoom in and down the side of the table, giving me an oblique view of a couple of flat, stretched out shapes.

 

And it stayed there.

 

The game seemed to be playing away fine. I could hear all the voice samples and everything, no problem. So I tried "calling the attendant" and resetting the ball. Nope. I tried changing the camera angles. No luck. So I quit and restarted - it gave me the same weird viewpoint. Gah! So I quit to the main menu and then went back to the Taxi table. Uh uh - still the same view. Okay, let's try Gorgar instead. Um, nope - the same weird view.

 

So in the end I had to quit back to the Wii menu and boot the game all over again.

 

Farsight sure as hell create interesting bugs, that's for sure!

Edited April 12, 2008 by Malc74

[rockman_x_2002]

Well, I'm loving the game, but I just encountered an absolute show-stopper of a bug. Basically I was playing Taxi and had activated the 2-ball multiball feature. Through some amazing fluke I managed to fire both balls into the Drac hole one after the other. The first ball won me an extra ball and the second, well, I wish I'd taken a picture of it now, but it caused the camera to go completely crazy. It seemed to zoom in and down the side of the table, giving me an oblique view of a couple of flat, stretched out shapes.

 

And it stayed there.

 

The game seemed to be playing away fine. I could hear all the voice samples and everything, no problem. So I tried "calling the attendant" and resetting the ball. Nope. I tried changing the camera angles. No luck. So I quit and restarted - it gave me the same weird viewpoint. Gah! So I quit to the main menu and then went back to the Taxi table. Uh uh - still the same view. Okay, let's try Gorgar instead. Um, nope - the same weird view.

 

So in the end I had to quit back to the Wii menu and boot the game all over again.

 

Farsight sure as hell create interesting bugs, that's for sure!

 

Yep. I stumbled on this bug too about a couple of days after I got the game. Just chalked it up as a fluke but since it's replicated, well... guess not.

 

At any rate, it appears that when you shoot those two balls into that trap, the game doesn't really know what to do with both of the balls. One ball, yes, but not two (or more). This causes the game to throw a fit, and cause the camera to move to some invalid location and stay there. Hence, you get garbled graphics in a white triangle on a black screen. It's a particularly nasty bug, but appears to only happen in this one instance.

 

Moral of this story: avoid shooting more than one ball into the Drac Hole at one time on Taxi.

 

I just wonder, though... what would happen on a real machine if you did that?

[moycon]

I just wonder, though... what would happen on a real machine if you did that?

 

Wonder no more.

 

<--- Black hole

[FireTiger]

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=124146

 

Should I get the Theater of Magic? *please click the link and vote there*

[rockman_x_2002]

I just wonder, though... what would happen on a real machine if you did that?

 

Wonder no more.

 

<--- Black hole

 

Ah. Well if that's the case, the video game is a 100% accurate simulation and is therefore more perfect than the real thing.

[mumbai]

Just an FYI for those who haven't picked up the game yet, Amazon just discounted Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection by 33% today, so it's selling for $19.99 over there.

[wccw mark]

i picked this game up from target for $19.99 last weekend,and its a blast.best pinball collection ever!!i bought it mainly because of whrilwind(use to play that at my local arcade back in the day,the play palace)but now im also hooked on pinbot and black knight.

[GrandviewCoin]

19.99?

 

Sigh, just got mine from Best Buy for 29.99

 

ah well.

[+HatNJ]

Still worth it

[Atariboy]

I've been loving the PS2 version, best $12 or so I've ever spent I think.

 

I'll have to get the Wii version someday so I can try out Jive Time and the other extra table.

[tremoloman2006]

OK, you guys are evil! I keep telling people "I don't need a modern game system. What am I mising?"

 

Well thanks to all of you... I can't use that as an excuse now. I've been seduced and must have this. Wii, here I come!

[DaBargainHunta]

After waiting forever, I finally found the Wii version of Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection in Canada (at Blockbuster, for any Canucks who might be looking to pick this up). At the time I bought it, it wasn't even available online anywhere in Canada (it has since been added to Futureshop.ca and probably BestBuy.ca), so you can imagine how I felt when I saw it sitting on a store shelf. It was like I had spotted the holy grail.

 

I was prepared to drop $35 on it, figuring that the U.S. MSRP seems to be $30 and Canadian prices are always a bit higher. But nope! It was only $19.99! It took FOREVER for the game to come to Canada, but it seems to have come with a PRICE DROP! Nice!

 

The only downside: My manual is IN FRENCH ONLY! Grrrrr! (Thankfully, the GAME is in English.) This, BTW, is not an isolated incident. It's a Canada-wide problem, and yes, it does suck. (It also happened only a few months ago with Agetec's Fire Pro Wrestling Returns for the PS2. It seems to be an issue with smaller companies who don't have the money to include both English and French manuals, so they opt just for the French because of Canada's ridiculous bilingual laws.)

 

I fired off an e-mail to Crave (the company behind the game) requesting a replacement manual in English. They never got back to me, but the PDF manual can be downloaded HERE.

 

Luckily, the manual seems to be a four-page pile of junk anyway. The game itself does an AWESOME job of explaining every table, every mode, everything you could ask for.

 

The Wii controls work beautifully. The game is played with a combination of the Wiimote and Nunchuk. The trigger buttons on both controllers are used to handle the flippers, and you can waggle the Nunchuk to tilt the table to the left and the Wiimote to tilt it to the right. Control-wise, it's a fluid, seamless experience.

 

One thing I really love is the "menu" for the tables. It basically simulates walking through an old arcade or parlour. I believe something like this was in the original Gottlieb version too, and while it's a small thing to have, it makes for a very nice touch.

 

I started with Taxi and Funhouse, and from those alone, I could already tell that Pinball Hall of Fame was going to be PHENOMENAL - and it is. It may very well be the BEST pinball game I've EVER played (and I've played more than my fair share). At the very least, it'll end up being ONE of the best.

 

From there, I tried Space Shuttle. I have a confession to make: I've never been very good at pinball - but man oh man, I was ROCKING THE HOUSE with Space Shuttle. I got all of the original goals (still have to do the wizard goals), unlocked the table for free play, etc. Only thing I didn't do was get a top 5 score, despite breaking a million points.

 

I've found my table!

 

After my successful space expedition, I returned to Earth and tried Pin-Bot and Whirlwind. I'm not very good at them yet, but the Pin-Bot table is a site to behold with its rich, beautiful, flashy colors. It's absolutely gorgeous. Most of the tables are. This game really is a feast for the eyes (at least on the Wii, but I assume all of the version are equally as pretty).

 

After that, I tried most of the other tables. Some are better than others, naturally - but none are bad.

 

So far, I'm very pleased with my purchase. If you like pinball at all, this is a must. It's a $20 game that's easily worth $50.

[Atariboy]

I'm not sure buying a Wii for just this game is a great idea, but if theres other Wii titles your interested and the Virtual Console, I'd say go for it.

 

You can get 90% of the content of this game with the PS2 version, for half the price of the Wii title, on a console that's $150 bucks less. You'd miss out on the two weakest tables on the Wii version, one of which most won't play more than a few times (Jive Time, though I like seeing these old electromechanical pinballs so I won't go so far to say it sucks and isn't any fun, its just less interesting than the rest of the content).

 

If you mainly want pinball, I say go for the PS2 and also pick up Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection. Its a great game, though inferior in table selection and physics to the William's Collection. But it's still a lot of fun with several great tables, and I've found I'm playing it more than ever now that the William's Collection has addicted me.

 

Anyways, just thought I'd toss that out there in case you didn't know this had a PS2 release, or that there was a previous game in the series (Though you could always get the GameCube version of the Gottlieb collection if you go the Wii route, though you'd then need a GameCube controller and memory card).

Edited May 15, 2008 by Atariboy

[rockman_x_2002]

You can get 90% of the content of this game with the PS2 version, for half the price of the Wii title, on a console that's $150 bucks less. You'd miss out on the two weakest tables on the Wii version, one of which most won't play more than a few times (Jive Time, though I like seeing these old electromechanical pinballs so I won't go so far to say it sucks and isn't any fun, its just less interesting than the rest of the content).

 

Actually, on this point I beg to differ, but a lot of the appeal of the Wii version (to me) is in the controls. I own Gottlieb for both the PS2 and PSP and, while that collection is certainly a very capable and fine pinball simulation, the Wii version improves upon that by leaps and bounds specifically because of the controls. Playing the PS2 or PSP versions of these games feels like a very good video pinball simulation. And while that's certainly good, the Wii version excells in that, while it's still video game pinball, it doesn't feel like video pinball. It actually does feel like the real thing. That, to me, makes the Wii version far superior, hands-down.

 

However, I do agree that if this is the only game on the Wii that someone has a passing interest in, you might be best off investing in another version. Then again, a year and a half after launch, there's actually quite a bit of variety to be had on the Wii, so there's bound to be other titles that should capture just about anyone's interest.

[DaBargainHunta]

Is buying a Wii for Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection really such a foolish idea? A lot of people buy a system for that one "killer app" game and then eventually discover other games they like as well. Just because that "killer app" for him isn't Super Mario Galaxy or Wii Fit doesn't make his desire to have a Wii any less valid.

 

PHOF: TWC is a damn good game and well worth buying a system for IMO. Others will obviously disagree, but at the end of the day, each individual can spend their money in whichever way makes them happiest. It's up to the person to decide if PHOF: TWC is worth an almost $300 investment (Wii + the game).

 

Of course, PHOF: TWC is also available on the PS2 (minus two tables) and PSP, so that changes things a bit. Still, the Wii version is clearly the best.

 

I don't get the hatred for Jive Time and Sorcerer (the two tables missing from the PS2 version). I think that's just something PS2 owners say to make themselves feel better about getting an unnecessarily gimped version of the game.

 

As far as I'm concerned, there was no reason why those two tables couldn't have been included in the PS2 port. Their absence is absolutely mind-boggling to me because the PS2 is easily powerful enough to house them both.

 

Jive Time and Sorcerer are both quite charming IMO and I have a lot of fun with them. There really isn't a bad table in the entire set.

Edited May 16, 2008 by DaBargainHunta

[Atariboy]

I didn't mean to imply that they were bad, just that they're weaker than the rest of the pinballs in the collection. And I stand by that, even though its just my opinion.

[DaBargainHunta]

I didn't mean to imply that they were bad, just that they're weaker than the rest of the pinballs in the collection. And I stand by that, even though its just my opinion.

No worries. I wasn't referring to you specifically. That seems to be the general sentiment on the net, on every board I've been to.

[moycon]

Played some more of this game today. All the boards with me pappy.

It's a great pinball game. I wouldn't rush out and buy a Wii to play it though. The game would be equally at home and playable on any of the systems. Using the left and right triggers on the 360 or Sony controller would be just as satisfying and to be honest I don't like the fact that you can move your hands and you shake the machine. Assign the tilt to an easily accessed button that way you know it will only tilt when you want. Minor gripe though, the game is very well done. I just don't think the Wii controller enhances the experience in the least.