Hypothetical: Farsight announces Season 5 is the last. What needs to make the cut?

[Crawley]

3 Licensed:
- Simpsons Pinball Party (Kickstarter)
- The Shadow
- Congo

(*Tales from the Crypt would be an ok swap with either The Shadow or Congo)

4 Unlicensed:
- Fireball
- Pinball Magic
- Fire!
- Big Bang Bar

Yeah this isn't enough for the ones I want. Ones that didn't make the list I would love would be things like Solar Fire, Laser War, Swords of Fury, Banzai Run, Breakshot, Medusa, Transporter: The Rescue, Mystery Castle, and a bunch of others I'd love to see.

 

[Slam23]

If I'd never played IJ, I'd put it in my list after Shadow. But I've played IJ tons and tons and that's the only reason it's not in for me.

WCS is a mega extreme license. I actually think it might be one of the very biggest licenses in pinball, after the Disney & Marvel ones. It's a shame because it's an all-time classic. Thankfully I've played it so much that I'm personally ok without it.

I get that, and I also played a lot of IJ in my college days and in VP, I want to see it in TPA probably also a because of my completionist nature. I actually own an IJ since a month so I even don't need TPA to play it....
I didn't know about WCS being such a big license, but if Blatter and Platini were involved I could have guessed...

 

[Slam23]

Damn. You guys didn't read my comment.
They won't stop, ever, we won't allow it ^^

I read it, and I'm all in.

 

[HotHamBoy]

WCS is an awesome classic and it is a shame about the license. It's funny that most people want Big Bang Bar despite having never played it. What if it sucks? Maybe a more time-proven (and much easier to obtain) game deserves that spot.

Indiana Jones 93 really does seem like a must, though. I just don't know how anything owned by Disney is going to pan out. I know I'm biased but I really think TPA needs Judge Dredd. It has amazing music and art, a really cool playfield, some neat modes, and it's a future-cop theme and a comic book theme, two genres not represented in TPA. Aside from that, I'm all for the early 90s crapfest movie tie-in games, though!

 

[Slam23]

Good point about BBB but I guess enough people played it to have it rank 48 at Pinside's top 100. Ths puts it above WCS, T2, Champion Pub, Taxi, Black Rose, Junkyard, BOP to just name a few. I never played it, and I'm really curious about it.

 

[Nightwing]

My three licensed:

The Shadow
Indiana Jones
Star Wars DE

My four unlicensed:

Banzai Run
Fireball
Eight Ball Deluxe
Either Fathom or Paragon

 

[HotHamBoy]

Don't get me wrong, I would love to try BBB as well, through TPA or whatever. But it seems like a luxury inclusion.

Surprised by the lack of love for Blackwater 100. Such a neat design. Interesting that no one has mentioned No Fear in this thread.

 

[Spork98765]

1. Spectrum
2. Eight Ball Deluxe
3. Banzai Run
4. Fathom
5. Catacomb
6. Paragon
7. Seawitch

I could live with this so long as FS actually added ROM emulation for the scripted tables that aren't EM's. Otherwise we may end up with some of the above mentioned being scripted as well.

 

[Antonio Gaeta]

1 mousin around
2 bad cats
3 Jokerz
4 judge dreed
5 the shadow
6 Street Fighter 2
7 indiana jones (Williams)

 

[invitro]

WCS is an awesome classic and it is a shame about the license. It's funny that most people want Big Bang Bar despite having never played it. What if it sucks? Maybe a more time-proven (and much easier to obtain) game deserves that spot.

Indiana Jones 93 really does seem like a must, though. I just don't know how anything owned by Disney is going to pan out. I know I'm biased but I really think TPA needs Judge Dredd. It has amazing music and art, a really cool playfield, some neat modes, and it's a future-cop theme and a comic book theme, two genres not represented in TPA. Aside from that, I'm all for the early 90s crapfest movie tie-in games, though!

I feel like I should add that the WCS license difficulty is just my opinion. I hope I'm wrong and that it's coming.

I played BBB at a show but don't remember it. I do remember many people saying something like "it's not all it's cracked up to be," and that I thought Airborne, which was right beside it, was quite a bit better. I've never played Kingpin though. I listed those Capcoms because I've barely played them, they're DMD's and likely to be a little complex, and I did play Pinball Magic quite a bit and I thought it was outstanding. (I played Breakshot a ton, and thought it was pretty good but a little overrated.)

I'm right with you on Judge Dredd. It's awesome. I played it a ton, though. The same goes for Corvette.

I enjoyed Johnny Mnemonic as a movie .

 

[HotHamBoy]

I loooove Breakshot. Fell in love with it at the Emporium in Chicago. It's a really neat homage to classic EMs and early SS. I thought Pinball Magic was cool but I wasn't very good at it. Corvette is a cool table but the one I played just made me so angry. If we get another car-themed table I think Indy 500 and NASCAR are better choices.

If TPA was only going to make tables through the end of Season 5 I think we can all gree that emulating the Capcom system is out of the picture. How does that change your list?

 

[TNT]

I might've put LotR and TSPP and other Sterns in mine, except that they're Stern and so undoubtably would appear in SPA instead of TPA now.

I am not sure this is true. Some devices can't run SAM/Spike and thus Stern wanted a new platform.

So why couldn't Whitestar tables like TSPP make it into TPA?

 

[HotHamBoy]

I am not sure this is true. Some devices can't run SAM/Spike and thus Stern wanted a new platform.

So why couldn't Whitestar tables like TSPP make it into TPA?

Because that would be confusing. Why wouldn't Stern want all of their tables exclusive to their app? We don't even know if legacy tables are even in the picture. It could be just the more recent games and/or future releases. Most people agree that the real purpose of the SPA is to promote and/or playtest physical tables and spread brand-awareness. My biggest fear, though, is that the app will use a F2P model where you are given a daily amount of credits and have to buy more. This would allow them to put the app and tables in as many hands as possible while also still serving the promotion/playtest function AND still incentivising the purchase of the actual table. All the discussion regarding pricing models seem to agree that there's no way they'll charge the current $5/table ala TPA. I think $5 is already pushing it for mobile, which is TPA's biggest market. All of that, to me, makes me think that it's going to follow a F2P model.

 

[TNT]

Good points.

I still don't see it as a mobile-only platform. Seems like they would be losing too many potential sales. But it's all speculation until Stern releases more detail.

 

[mjw31257]

Licensed:

Doctor Who (tough to get, but should be in any archival pinball collection)
The Shadow (just a fun table)
The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard (same comment as Doctor Who)

Unlicensed (or should be easy to acquire):

Fireball (this classic should have been in long ago)
Stargate (a gulity pleasure, great SciFi show)
Indianapolis 500 (2016 is the 100th running, should be a natural tie in to the event)
Apollo 13 (just for the massive multiball mode)

Didn't make the cut but still want:
No Fear
Indiana Jones
Judge Dredd
Pinball Magic
Corvette
Eight Ball Deluxe
Demolition Man

 

[invitro]

I loooove Breakshot. Fell in love with it at the Emporium in Chicago. It's a really neat homage to classic EMs and early SS. I thought Pinball Magic was cool but I wasn't very good at it. Corvette is a cool table but the one I played just made me so angry. If we get another car-themed table I think Indy 500 and NASCAR are better choices.

If TPA was only going to make tables through the end of Season 5 I think we can all gree that emulating the Capcom system is out of the picture. How does that change your list?

I thought Breakshot was too simple and way too easy. I do think it's a fine table for non-experts and feel sure that it will make TPA if any Capcoms do.

I have a weird special attachment to Corvette. In 1994, I was a little upset about how long it took new WMS tables to make it to the area where I lived. Then when I went home to my little hometown for Christmas break from college, there was a new arcade in the mall, and it had a brand-new Road Show and a brand-new Corvette side by side. It became a magical place, and I've had strong feelings about those two tables. Alas, when RS came to TPA, some of those feelings started slipping away as when I thought of RS I now thought of TPA first, before thinking of playing the actual machine. So I'm wondering if I should avoid Corvette and other machines with special memories to me (Shadow is another, also WCS) if they come to TPA. It's a strange dilemma.

Yes, I will agree that ending with Season 5 would mean no Capcom, and there is probably no chance of it anyway since Farsight programmers would surely be using that time to work on their Stern SAM/Spike emulations. So, hmm, if I take those out and also take out the tables that I might avoid...

Licensed:
- Judge Dredd
- Demolition Man
- Indy 500

Unlicensed:
- Fireball
- Space Station
- Firepower II
- Swords of Fury

 

[invitro]

Apollo 13 (just for the massive multiball mode)

A13 is not totally awful but 13-ball became boring about 5 seconds after I got it the 1st time.

 

[karl]

The Rest of Season 5:

The Shadow
Congo
Dr Who
Fathom
Paragon
Flash Gordon
Eight Ball De Luxe

And since I believe there will be 6 seasons of TPA, here is the last Season.

Indiana Jones
WCS 94
Judge Dredd
Banzai Run
Mystic
Frontier
Swords of Fury
Mousin' around
Barracora
Cyclopes

 

[xray23]

Sorcerer
Flash
Baracora
Fathom
Paragon
Sorcerer
Flash

 

[Slam23]

I thought Breakshot was too simple and way too easy. I do think it's a fine table for non-experts and feel sure that it will make TPA if any Capcoms do.

I have a weird special attachment to Corvette. In 1994, I was a little upset about how long it took new WMS tables to make it to the area where I lived. Then when I went home to my little hometown for Christmas break from college, there was a new arcade in the mall, and it had a brand-new Road Show and a brand-new Corvette side by side. It became a magical place, and I've had strong feelings about those two tables. Alas, when RS came to TPA, some of those feelings started slipping away as when I thought of RS I now thought of TPA first, before thinking of playing the actual machine. So I'm wondering if I should avoid Corvette and other machines with special memories to me (Shadow is another, also WCS) if they come to TPA. It's a strange dilemma.

I get this, I have the same with reading LOTR after seeing the films. I love both by the way, but I could't hold on to my own imagery after seeing the movies. Same with re-reading childhood books that seemed magical at the time, and now have lost something reading them through adult eyes. In pinball I have this a bit with Indiana Jones because I played that table a bit too much in VP, although I'm still happy I have one now. This is similar enough to the good times I had with that table back in my college days!