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Stern Pinball Arcade

If I remember rightly there was a lag issue on PS3 making it more or less unplayable, something to do with the TV settings/screen refresh? I just play on my tablet. I haven't got a PS4 or Xbox One so not sure how they look/play on those.
 
PS4 version is ok I used it to learn AC/DC and Star Trek rules but it’s far from Pinball IMO.
 
No updated games on Gear VR version :( - 16 paid machines and Frankie can be played for free. Screenshot from my game below :thumbs:com.farsight.sterntest-20170921-110711.jpg

I like video pinball with features you can't have on the real thing - what Zen have done with TWD and Guardians of the Galaxy looks amazing.


 
I find it funny reading the complaints about farsight. If you don't like what they are doing, don't give them your money. Easy. I think football players are paid a scandalous amount of money, but then I can say that as I don't go to football matches, don't subscribe to sky sports or buy news papers. Same thing.
 
Stern Arcade crashes on my PC for some reason. Works okay on my phone though it's a little clunky compared to Pinball Arcade
 
The original Pinball Arcade I love to utter bits. It is solidly to blame for my presence here, as it was a clear reminder that there was so much more to the pinball games than I remembered (and that the Pro Pinball series was a much more realistic and authentic attempt at creating plausible games than I realised.) I own all tables on the bloody thing! Haven't quite managed to go for all the Stern ones yet as they are more costly...

They are awesome for figuring out timings of lights and shots, finding scoring paths and just generally learning the ruleset of a table, and while not 100% accurate - and never will be - they get many key realities of the original tables very spot on - as in, you're obviously not going to be able to transplant exact shot angles and learn each game just by muscle memory hop off then roll over the score on a real machine, but it will teach you intuitively what shots are risky and how difficult is shot is to make. Despite my heavy play on Pinball Arcade and much shorter playtime on real machines (so far!) I don't think it's taught any bad habits that hurt real play - if anything, I do infinitely better on my first games on real machines I've played before on Pinball Arcade compared to games I've never played myself.

The only game that I do grossly better on Pinball Arcade compared to the real thing, was Twilight Zone, where on TPA I could normally hit LITZ on demand, and in person I have yet to achieve it or even break 250mil ever... but saying that, they recently re-tuned TZ, and now I'm just as **** on it on TPA as I am in real life, so I can't even use that as an example anymore!

Short version - yes, these games are absolutely fine and worth your time... they're not as good as the real thing, but they were good enough to get my interest in the real thing furiously ignited.
 
I appreciate Zen Studios are more video game than pinball simulation but they're defo the masters of licensing - ET, Jaws and BTTF coming soon.

blog.zenstudios.com_wp_content_uploads_2017_08_Universal_Classics_Pinball_Key_Art_800x493.jpg

 
Ghostbusters now available on Android Pinball Arcade and Stern Pinball Arcade. Anyone tried this on Pinball Arcade? (not the Stern one). Mine plays really slow and stutters (Samsung Galaxy Tab S2). All other tables play fine.
 
Marvello said:
Ghostbusters now available on Android Pinball Arcade and Stern Pinball Arcade. Anyone tried this on Pinball Arcade? (not the Stern one). Mine plays really slow and stutters (Samsung Galaxy Tab S2). All other tables play fine.
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I started to download it but it had warnings about it needing 1.5gb of space on device and a new version of Android ect, so I thought better of it. Shame really.
 
Got the PC version - buggy piece of sh*t - very few options to change visual settings and when I could get it to work, the game constantly crashed. Gave up on it.
 
Marvello said:
Ghostbusters now available on Android Pinball Arcade and Stern Pinball Arcade. Anyone tried this on Pinball Arcade? (not the Stern one). Mine plays really slow and stutters (Samsung Galaxy Tab S2). All other tables play fine.
Click to expand...
Cmor111 said:
I started to download it but it had warnings about it needing 1.5gb of space on device and a new version of Android ect, so I thought better of it. Shame really.
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This is the first table they've added that has to emulate the SPIKE platform. I'm amazed they got it to work as reasonably well as they did - not because SPIKE is especially powerful in computing terms, but the distributed nature of it and the underlying CAN bus protocol means that it's a different beast from all the tables prior, and it has resulted in a very CPU-hungry table. To get it running perfectly it is chewing up a good half of my CPU, which is part of an eSports rig I built - an i7-6700k overclocked to 4GHz.

Sam C said:
Got the PC version - buggy piece of sh*t - very few options to change visual settings and when I could get it to work, the game constantly crashed. Gave up on it.
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Stern Pinball Arcade - not very good but I'm not having it crash with the current version.
TPA - still buggy as hell, but doesn't really crash, it's my go-to for pinball on a PC. And now it has Ghostbusters, so even better.
 
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Marvello said:
Even though it is slow and sluggish I managed to get a highscore, so it looks like the trial version might not be score limited (on Android).
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Until it's patched, it's indeed free to play. Blunder of the week for Farsight lol.
 
i got the game on my iPhone and it plays well (for virtual pinball) but the inserts don't seem to light up for the shots during a mode and the DMD is barely readable (have this issue with Star Trek also).
 
I've heard that it's really badly fecked up for mobile and DX9 mode on PC. I play it on DX11 mode and the only issue I have is that Slimer is on crack compared to reality (even the DMD is absolutely fine in DX11 mode.)

Feels like the test team isn't doing enough to test on OpenGL/DX9 modes...
 
Neil McRae said:
Also have sound noise like there is interference!
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I've heard the sound is pretty highly overdriven but I didn't notice beyond the normal for Pinball Arcade, which has a couple of tables that are close to overdrive in their sound anyway (Dracula being the one I remember the most.) I also play with my music and SFX settings below normal in the game's settings so maybe that's helped - or perhaps its another DX11 improvement that they haven't ported to DX9 and OpenGL in their infinite wisdom. I'll check again later.
 
Can play on my Samsung S8 without any problems, on my Tablet had to turn the resolution down as it was extremely slow, works fine now.
Nice to see a new game added to the list rather than some of the old Gottiliebs
 
I'll always defend Gottliebs!

I do wish they'd hurry up and just run kickstarters if license costs are an issue, for some tables I've been long waiting to see like Johnny Mnemonic, Apollo 13 and Tron. I imagine Ghostbusters landed first despite being an absolute sod to emulate because Stern probably still has the license for it (and enough room in the license to be able to make a digital version.)
 
Just a heads up - which I am sure everyone is aware of PA on PS4 is £10 on Amazon at the moment - for 20 tables and a new person like me, that's a steal :)
 
Just bough Ghostbusters on the PS4 as couldn't wait for the disc to arrive from Amazon... just spent 6 hours playing that game and WOW! Incredible. I only came off because the wife wanted the TV back...
 
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