New Pinball Arcade from makers of Williams Collection

[TwinChargers]

Just for the record, the season pass is now available for those of you playing on the PS3.

 

As much as I would like to say screw you to Farsight and hold out, it was an immediate purchase for me. I just really enjoy pinball and outside of their season pass handling and wonky release schedule, they are best at recreating cool pinball tables.

[+HatNJ]

Huh? I haven't seen any way to buy Season 3 in PSN Store and all three seasons when I boot up Pinball Arcade are shadowed out

 

EDIT second time I loaded now has option to buy Season 3 table Pack or Tables

[Andromeda Stardust]

Just for the record, the season pass is now available for those of you playing on the PS3.

 

As much as I would like to say screw you to Farsight and hold out, it was an immediate purchase for me. I just really enjoy pinball and outside of their season pass handling and wonky release schedule, they are best at recreating cool pinball tables.

Good for you. I just bought Season 4 on my zouya!

[+save2600]

Just for the record, the season pass is now available for those of you playing on the PS3.

 

As much as I would like to say screw you to Farsight and hold out, it was an immediate purchase for me. I just really enjoy pinball and outside of their season pass handling and wonky release schedule, they are best at recreating cool pinball tables.

 

Thanks for the update! Just checked the other day and didn't see it. In fact, when I went to look at the PSN store last night, it wasn't there. Forced update didn't even reveal it. Had to load TPA game before I saw the Season 3 pass option.

 

Nice they woke up and offered a discounted package... but $30 for 10 tables? Nowhere near the same value as the first two seasons. Not especially impressed with the overall offering, weird selection of tables and perplexing some of the omissions. As always though, looking forward to and hoping they "get it right" the next season. ha! Somehow, I have a sneaky hunch that it's only going to go down hill from here. Knowing the idiocy of today, wouldn't be a damn bit surprised to see support dropped altogether sometime soon for the PS3. Hope that's not the case of course.

 

Curiously, my TPA iPhone app doesn't show *any* Season 3 tables at all. Shows my previous purchases (Seasons 1 & 2) and has a folder for Season 4, but no option to download or install anything from Season 3. iPad shows Season 3 tables, but no option for a Pass. No Season 4 folder or table yet either. Weird, weird stuff going on here!

 

BTW: I noticed on the Diner table, how dull the colors are. What's up with that? Dracula looks amazingly vibrant in contrast. Didn't have time to check out the other tables.

[Atariboy]

I don't think that you have to worry about PS3 support going away anytime soon.

[+Random Terrain]

I'm still sitting here with my Xbox 360 . . . waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting. . . . . . . . . . .

[Atariboy]

Don't worry, they're still saying "soon".

 

lol

[Andromeda Stardust]

Don't worry, they're still saying "soon".

 

lol

Yeah just like that shiny Wii-U logo they've had on their website for 2+ years now...

 

I would gladly ditch Ouya and transfer everything to my Wii-U even if I had to rebuy the whole package, if they made it an option.

[HammR25]

 

 

The Xbox One version has finally cleared certification! We are on to the retail testing phase which should be done by next week.

This long awaited release is finally coming and we are very excited that Pinball Arcade will finally be available before Christmas with Season One, Two AND Three!!!

 

They're saying the Xbone version should be available in about a week. Hopefully it's a week in real time and not a week in Farsight time. That would also mean they can move on down the line between the 360, Steam Direct X 11 patch and maybe someday they'll get out a Wii-U version.

[TwinChargers]

Personally, I think they are spreading themselves way too thin already. The fact that the release schedules are different for each platform is odd. It would be nice to see them get everything lined up so it is all the same experience for everyone.

[Austin]

If the XBONE version is going to be available in the next week, where's the 360 one? I'm beginning to think they are going to skip over it completely at this point, heh. I may as well buy the tables for the XBONE instead, assuming they actually continue to support it.

[Atariboy]

Hopefully it's not like the Wii U version where it's sent for certification, sent back, sent again, and then later on they say it was still a work in progress and had never been sent for certification.

 

lol

[Andromeda Stardust]

I just got the Newsletter. Party Zone is up for Ouya, Android, iOS. If you've got a Sony or MS console, you'll have to wait a while...

[TwinChargers]

I just got the Newsletter. Party Zone is up for Ouya, Android, iOS. If you've got a Sony or MS console, you'll have to wait a while...

 

Great

 

Have they ever given an excuse why they do that?

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Great

 

Have they ever given an excuse why they do that?

Because, MS, Sony, and yes, Nintendo too, have to go through an approval process everytime you submit a game. This includes every single freakking update. Sometimes it can take up to six weeks or more to approve a game. Google Play, iOS, Ouya, etc don't care. They'll post any broken game up for sale immediately!

 

TPA for Ouya isn't broken ftr. I've downloaded a few pathetic attempts at games although most are alright. But I normally don't buy anything that doesn't stick to their original free play ethos though, unless it's a reputable publisher or I've read a review.

Edited November 16, 2014 by stardust4ever

[HammR25]

Steam stays caught up with the phone versions because Valve also lets developers update however much they want and for free. The console owners require certification and make the developers pay for it and it's not cheap.

 

Oh and it looks like the Mac version is the same way. Basically only console owners get screwed.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Would you consider the Ouya a "console?"

 

I do, but it's definitely not status quo.

[HammR25]

Technically, yes it's a console but it's not what most people think of when consoles are talked about. The only reason Farsight supports it is because it has phone parts in it and runs Android so getting their game to work on it wasn't a whole lot of extra work.

[HammR25]

Looks like the Xbone version is out tomorrow (Friday). This means that theoretically the PS4 could see a patch with all of the season 2 and 3 tables right before Christmas. Of course that probably means February.

 

http://news.xbox.com/2014/11/games-five-new-id-xbox-games-coming-this-week

 

 

Edit: Apparently I posted too soon. A bug was found (I know, shocking) so it'll actually be posted sometime next week according to Farsight.

[Austin]

Pinball Arcade is apparently out on XBOX One now. About to give it a download now, will report back later.

[Atariboy]

If Wikipedia is to be believed, all Pinball Arcade tables are present already for the Xbone version except for the latest two releases that recently kicked off season 4 (Phantom of the Opera and The Party Zone).

 

Has anyone tried Ghostbusters? It's apparently their first original creation, albeit based on Haunted House. Not sure if that means it just has been reskinned or what.

 

It's convenient how they managed to pay for the licenses for that on their own.

Edited November 27, 2014 by Atariboy

[Rex Dart]

It means 100% that it's reskinned Haunted House with crappy looping bgm

[Austin]

Pinball Arcade is apparently out on XBOX One now. About to give it a download now, will report back later.

 

All right, I ended up downloading it and trying out Tales of the Arabian Nights before actually paying for anything (I wanted to make sure it played fine before dropping money on anything). Satisfied enough with it, I picked up Season 3. I'll probably eventually go back and get the other two seasons since they are better values (and it will be good to have everything on one device, finally).

 

Framerate wise the game runs perfectly. I guess this is to be expected, but with how inconsistent their content has been across platforms I wasn't holding my breath for this one. Fortunately there are no hiccups here to speak of (in terms of the framerate, I mean--the tables are still buggy just like with any other version of TPA).

 

Graphically I'm a little underwhelmed. The textures aren't all that sharp (kind of jarring after coming from Pinball FX 2 which looks fantastic on the ONE). I also wonder if the game is even running at 1080p (or if it is, I wonder if anti-aliasing is being used). Granted, it looks a little bit better than the 360 version, but not nearly as much of a step up as I expected. Also, the new lighting system--is it even fully implemented in this version? I've seen screenshots of tables where there are lots of dark blue lights and dim lighting, but everything is super bright in this version. In Attack From Mars in particular you can see the new incandescent (yellow/orange) style lighting, and it looks great, but on tables like Bram Stoker's Dracula where things are supposed to be dim, the game is almost too bright.

 

Here's a supposed photo from the PS4 version of TOTAN:

 

Here's the 360 version of the same table, which is basically what the ONE version looks like. I'm mostly speaking strictly from a lighting perspective here, however looking at the PS4 image I am noticing far sharper textures in that version compared the version on the XBOX ONE:

 

 

From a physics perspective the game plays like any other. Basically, not very realistic. Flippers still have an issue acting properly when the ball is on the lower third of it (towards the tip), which is most noticeable when trying to make orbit shots. Also, quick flicks to backhand the ball when it's towards the edge of the flipper and it's rolling back still doesn't work (the ball still flies forward, when in real life it goes backwards). I managed to drop catch more often than I expected to but it's still not something that you can do consistently, unlike Zen Pinball or a real machine. Live-catching is still a futile effort, and nudging doesn't really do much when the ball is near the outlanes, you use it mostly for unrealistic positioning of the ball when it's in the middle of the playfield, heh. I wasn't really expecting the physics to be any better than on last-gen platforms, but I guess you could say there was a little bit of hope in me that they would advance more than just the lighting.

 

As far as everything else (menus, GUI, sound, etc), it's basically the same as on other platforms, nothing special there. Coincidentally it sounds like they are using a low quality version of the title theme. It honestly sounds like it's coming out of my Android phone's speakers. Just a typical example of Far Sight not really paying too much attention to detail and polish, rushing things out the gate.

 

It means 100% that it's reskinned Haunted House with crappy looping bgm

 

Basically. There have been a few playfield modifications made, but you can tell it's based on Haunted House. The looping BGM isn't the only thing crappy about it, the whole thing kind of reeks of a lazy effort. To be fair though, FarSight never has been very good at making original content. I can at least give them that.

 

 

It's convenient how they managed to pay for the licenses for that on their own.

 

Right??

[Austin]

All right, it looks like I was wrong about the lighting in the XBOX One version. It seems there are table brightness options in the Table Menu screen. You can either do "Bright" (default), "Dark", or "Neutral". Overall I find Neutral looks the best but you are probably best playing on the "Bright" setting because it can be difficult to see what is happening on either of the other settings.

[ComputerSpaceFan]

So I'm sure someone discussed this already but I am too lazy to go back 37 pages.

 

I just got a PS4 and downloaded the demo for Pinball Arcade and there does not appear to be a cross-buy functionality, is that right? I bought a ton of tables on my PS3 and if I had a VITA those tables would be available to me, but if I want any of them on my PS4 I need to buy them again right? I'm not going to, I just wanted to confirm I wasn't going nuts with my theory.