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Pinball Arcade and the Bally Williams License

Wiredworm

Wiredworm

Registered
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Apr 7, 2013
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Pretty crappy of Williams to do it the way they did especially after the amount of development that clearly went into the Pinball Arcade tables. I was always under the impression that FX3 is more for "pretend" tables rather than digital replications of real ones. Lines very blurred there. How long before people start coming here asking to buy a real-life Jaws* machine?







* I would TOTALLY buy a Jaws machine if it existed!!! haha
 
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This is good news IMO - Pinball FX has all been original tables so far, but they've consistently been more polished than the Farsight games in graphics, physics, interface and lack-of-bugs. I still bought all of Pinball Arcade, but Zen Studios are the one developer I would trust to do a better job with the Williams license. Here's an FAQ:

https://www.pinballfx.com/?page_id=7989

First up are Fish Tales™, Junk Yard™, Medieval Madness™ and The Getaway: High Speed II™ - pretty great starting picks.
 
"At this time we are not planning to bring the Williams tables to Zen Pinball on iOS and Google Play"

Taken from the FAQ. Well that's a bit pants.

On the positive side, despite only 4 tables at launch "Zen has licensed the entire Williams collection, which also includes the Bally collection" so lots of potential in the future.
 
Agreed. Farsight have always struggled technically and their software is a complete mess and the PC version takes a powerful PC to run smoothly due to I believe lack of optimization. Zen products are professional and although I don't much enjoy playing their original tables I'm very hopeful these will be a huge step up in quality.
 
node said:
This is good news IMO - Pinball FX has all been original tables so far, but they've consistently been more polished than the Farsight games in graphics, physics, interface and lack-of-bugs. I still bought all of Pinball Arcade, but Zen Studios are the one developer I would trust to do a better job with the Williams license. Here's an FAQ:

https://www.pinballfx.com/?page_id=7989

First up are Fish Tales™, Junk Yard™, Medieval Madness™ and The Getaway: High Speed II™ - pretty great starting picks.
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Will have to take your word for it on the quality of Pinball FX.

Kinda feel a bit sorry for FarSight though, bit **** for them to invested all of that time and energy into recreating all those tables only for the licence to get the rug pulled out from under them. *shrug*
 
Durzel said:
Will have to take your word for it on the quality of Pinball FX.

Kinda feel a bit sorry for FarSight though, bit **** for them to invested all of that time and energy into recreating all those tables only for the licence to get the rug pulled out from under them. *shrug*
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I agree, they did a flawed but sincere and persistent job. We’ll know quite quickly if Zen do a better job recreating real tables I guess.
 
This would have been so much simpler if Zen studios had bought Farsight (or vice-versa)

Now they have to recreate the tables that Farsight have already done. Rebuy the licencing rights for dozens more tables that Farsight already did.

But yeah, the upside is hopefully a product that works reliably
 
The Zen Pinball engine seems to be the better of the two in my opinion, but it's obviously easier to simulate pinball machines that don't exist in the real world.

I'll be very interested to see how it plays. I really do love Pinball FX3 and the previous outings so it could turn out to be a good thing. It's going to get expensive though. All those tables i'd have to buy over again. But I guess Williams don't care about that; they're just making even more money from the license by shifting it around.
 
637409f531cb92f8d99a0c87f534daed.png.jpg

OMG the ad under your post in TapaTalk couldn’t be more perfect @Wiredworm . ?

To be fair, Farsight got through most of the BW pins, had their shot (with arguably mixed results), and we had years to buy them if we wanted.

Now a proven competitor gets a shot. Presuming they notch the quality up another level I don’t mind coughing up again. In the mean time, while they catch up I’ve still got the decent Pinball Arcade versions to jump into.
 
I guess it's just a bit weird given todays digital distribution systems.

In the old days we'd have all bought the full boxed product with all the tables included and had it forever. Nowadays the nature of digital content means it's common to defer a purchase over a longer period of time and it's just a bit 'odd' when you find the content is no longer available.

The lack of mobile platforms is probably the biggest killer for me because I play most of my virtual pinball on the iPad.
 
Interesting. I too am keen to see how good a job Zen make of these.

I kinda like the farsight recreations, but I gather not everyone does. The software hasnt exactly been flawless mind you but still...

Hopefully we wont just get all the ones FS have done remade in the Zen engine and they will do some of those FS never did.
 
What is the availability and compatability of these on Vpins? Done well, this could be a game changer.
 
Heh, they've been around for a good while Neil. The XBox/Playstation/Nintendo/PC market is pretty big too ;)

Used to love their old Pinball FX on the Xbox. A lot of their first 'original' tables were just rethemes of BK2K or a mirror image of STTNG and so on. Some of the later tables were really inventive though, and would have made great physical machines
 
Clearly I'm in the minority but the only thing I found Pinball Arcade on iOS or android good for was reading the rulesets. How people manage to play fast paced games like pinball without hardware buttons is beyond me.
 
Wizcat said:
Heh, they've been around for a good while Neil. The XBox/Playstation/Nintendo/PC market is pretty big too ;)

Used to love their old Pinball FX on the Xbox. A lot of their first 'original' tables were just rethemes of BK2K or a mirror image of STTNG and so on. Some of the later tables were really inventive though, and would have made great physical machines
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yes I know but its a hugely crowded market and this is a niche title - they've had to shell out a decent amount of wonga for a license that a lot of people have already bought the games for (some times in multiple cases if on iOS and Xbox or PS4 for example); and the are going to have to acquire further rights for some of the games and then code it all...

we now know why Williams got ****ed off with farsight because they released titles on the switch that they knew Pinball FX would release on switch!

@aaronhicksuk with gamevice on IOS they are better, still not real pinball but on a long journey still decent fun, not for all pinball machines but some for sure - Stern Star Trek is very good in my view.

Neil.
 
node said:
Beta available already on Steam https://steamcommunity.com/games/442120/announcements/detail/1714071521905612650
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Anybody else tried it yet? Much as I appreciate all that Pinball Arcade did over the years, this already feels so much more polished. Sharper sounds, higher detail artwork, lovely semi-translucent plastics, beautiful lighting and reflections, ball physics are good. Will take time for the community to bug test how tight the rules are, but pretty positive overall so far.
 
I came in prepared to hate FX's attempt at it - I really do NOT like their physics in their virtual tables - but I have to concede that they're actually doing a bloody honest job at it.

It's all a bit ugly though, how this panned out. I can only hope and assume that talks of a buyout fell through totally.
 
I've only watched you tube vids but it looks great. Not sure about the physics though. Pinball FX has always felt a bit unnatural to me. Very heavy balls! Apparently they're changed it for these recreations though and it does look more realistic from the vids I've watched.

Pro Pinball Timeshock still has the best physics for me. I wish Zen would license that tech from them. Perhaps help them finish their remakes of Timeshock, Bug Race USA and Fantastic Journey while they're at it!
 
Zen studios have added their usual fantasy elements to the Bally Williams tables in pinball FX3, completely optional at the push of a button ( B using an Xbox controller ). For example MM gets an animated dragon and explosions when the castle blows up. Fish tales gets a fisherman standing on the playfield. They all get side art. Likely to turn off those that don't like virtual pinball but its all good fun and doesn't affect how each table plays ( although I believe the ball physics may be more like other Zen tables when switched to this mode so maybe it does ). Whatever the case its completely optional. Fishtales will be free and the pack price for the other 3 tables is $9.99 so whatever that works out as in £, seems good value for tables seemingly better than TPA's in every respect ( and I'm a long time TPA fan )

Edit....The physics don't change when swapping between the 2 different graphical modes, they change when you select between arcade and classic before launching the table. For example in the Arcade mode the flippers raise up a little higher making it easier to trap, in Classic they are lower in the actual position they should be.

med 1.jpgUntitled.jpgFishtales.jpggetaway.jpgjunkyard.jpg
 
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Tried this last night myself. Seemed to play OK I just hope they do - at least mostly a different set of tables than the existing ones on PA (I know PA isnt everyones cup of tea of course but still be nice to have different once IMHO)
 
Marvello said:
Has anyone tried this in a cabinet, does it have cabinet support?
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To answer my own question, yes it (Pinball FX3) does have cabinet support! Set mine up this week and wouldn't have any complaints if VPX tables looked and played like these. Still faffing with launching via Pinball X, force feedback and nudge don't work (unless you configure buttons) but quite impressed with it. The additional options are a nice touch and can all be switched off if you just want classic pinball. Leaderboards and challenges make things more interesting too.

20190403_193936_001.jpg
 
Didn't realise Williams FX3 was now on Android, plays really well. Had a quick go on Pinball Arcade for comparison which felt floaty and unresponsive so for me FX3 plays much better. Makes me realise why Medieval Madness is number 1 on Pinside, what a fantastic table it is.

Real pinball manufacturers could learn a lot from this going forward. Daily challenges, timed challenges, 1 ball challenges and leaderboards keep things interesting and stop gameplay from becoming stale.
 
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