Master List of Issues: Stern Pinball Arcade

[Pinballwiz45b]

Based on the one from Pinball Arcade, except for Stern tables (and then some newer games). Help is appreciated!

All versions in RED; Advanced lighting issues (consoles, PC) in TEAL; PC version in BLUE; mobile versions in ORANGE

Version 1.2.8 Bugs:

General:

• Challenge Mode - when selecting Last Action Hero, it displayed a bizarre screen of data/zeros, then awarded 100 points for the table, then crashed when next table was selected.
• Challenge Mode - random crashes when selecting next table.
• When two balls are next to each other on a flipper, a glitch in which one ball "phases" through the flipper occurs. Uncommon.
• Balls entering the drain area at the same time may not cause the game to read how many balls have entered the trough, causing balls to be missing and an end to the current game.
• The sound of the rolling ball across the newer Stern tables is still present, even if the ball is drained. Happens when pausing/unpausing a game?
• PC: Crash upon entering LAH twice in a row. Uncommon, though I did so after spanning between table entry for a time.
• PC: When trying to select menu items in the controller setting menu with mouse or controller, the selected item moves up/down 2 line items instead of one.
• iOS: You can only save one highscore when you reach a score that is in the default list. Afterwards it won't update anymore, even if it lets you input your initials.
• iOS: Nudging is wonky. It does work partly but it is very unpredictable and unusable in a game this way.

AC/DC:

• Lighting on the inserts up top needs to be adjusted to clearly tell which lights are turned on or off.
  [*]Left Ramp flasher is tied in with the Yellow flasher on the left side.
  [*]The yellow flasher on the left side is dim.
  [*]Thunderstruck blue lights need looked into; they're hard to read or tell if they're lit or not.
  [*]GI lights at Hell don't interact at all.
  [*]GI lights around the plastics on the main playfield don't interact at all or have very little effect. Needs MAJOR work.
  [*]Lights underneath the right ramp long plastic don't exist.
  [*]Flasher on the Rock and Roll Train head is dim.
  [*]Jukebox kicker flasher at the back doesn't exist.
  [*]Left Ramp Left Side Flasher doesn't exist.
  [*]Left Ramp Right Side Flasher doesn't exist.
  [*]Right Ramp Right Side Flasher doesn't exist.
  [*]Bell Arrow Flasher doesn't exist.
  [*]Flasher in the pop bumper area is too dim.
  [*]Right Ramp Flasher flashes the Red flasher near the cannon. The one that's supposed to flash instead doesn't exist.
  [*]Red flasher near the cannon is dim.
  [*]Lights at the sides of the Jukebox are dim.
  [*]White bulb at the upper right corner is tied in to the red lights at the Jukebox.
  [*]Red light in the plunger lane isn't supposed to be there.
• Emulation speed is slower when compared to the real thing. Noticeable at the Jukebox when the lights are supposed to be in the rhythm of the song.
  [*]Instant Info doesn't work when trapping a ball on the flipper for an extended amount of time. Some platforms.
  [*]Some wizard goals could be toggled at the start of a new game, after finishing a previous game with all Standard Goals complete.
  [*]Super skillshot by holding up the right flipper sometimes doesn't work.

Ghostbusters:

• Emulation speed is slower when compared to the real thing. Playing Don't Cross the Streams, thus, is abysmal.
  [*]Music and sounds are distorted. Improved upon on consoles, but other platforms have yet to see this.
  [*]Resetting a game leaves a rolling ball sound, if a ball was present.
  [*]Lights can go out when Tobin's Guide, Extra Ball, and a Left Scoop mode are collected at the same time.
  [*]Ball can interfere with or clip into the captive ball zone, sometimes interfering with balls locked in the rollover area.
  [*]Some light is tied in to the Terror Dog light beneath the ramp.
  [*]Stray GI lights around the middle and right-center playfield. Pay attention when in Video Mode or end of ball bonus.

Harley Davidson 3rd Edition:

• Apron texture is mirrored (compare the motorcycle gauges between TPA and the real one, for instance). Rule cards are fine as is.
• Higher-pitched music and sounds than the real thing. See here.
• Tilting yields the "Patch is lit" callout. Incorrect?

High Roller Casino:

• Tilting the game right after the ball drains causes confusion in the game and the ROM. Don't tilt.
• Draining a ball right after hitting the target to light the Slot machine raises the ramp too far up, and thus causes the Slot Machine to become impossible to shoot.

Last Action Hero:

• The Crane should be slowed down to about 60-80% of its original speed. The Crane Runaway almost never counting down is a good sign that it is moving too quickly.
• "MOVE THE CR---" (Explanation: After the crane arrives at its destination, the stopping sound interrupts the rest of the introductory sounds.)
• Helicopter sound does not stop upon the attempt/completion of the skill shot.
• Main music continues to play, even after a Dynamite Feature is collected and a mode is thus awarded with supposed different music.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein:

• Music keeps looping after the end of a game and into Attract Mode.
• Artwork of the playfield, below the right slingshot, reveals a small object (looks like a nut). Very disorienting; it's not supposed to be there.
• Creature of Frankenstein's quote, "Graveyard..." at the beginning of the Graveyard mode is replaced by "Jackpot Lit" by Frankenstein.
  [*]Bad ramp physics lead to balls jumping the ramp and onto the plastic above, leading to the habitrail and in the right inlane. This leads to successful ramp shots being impossible to make without direct shots (even then, the upper flipper can make that ball jump the ramp).

Mustang:

• Emulation speed is slower when compared to the real thing.
  [*]Some wizard goals could be toggled at the start of a new game, after finishing a previous game with all Standard Goals complete.
  [*]Holding a ball on the right flipper makes the ball not lie still.
  [*]Super skill shot sometimes has the ball hit the wall up top by the Ford roll over lanes and drops in the pop bumper area instead.
  [*]No GI interaction whatsoever.
• Android: Unable to select mode before launch as the right flipper is inactive at plunger view, so you have to start with drag race every game.

Phantom of the Opera:

• Right habitrail interferes with the metal piece around the spinner. In fact, the habitrail needs to be moved down; a bit of the first part is hidden under the plastic ramp. This is how it should be.
• Missing plastic beneath the upper right portion of the ramp. For these two issues above, compare here and here.
  [*]Resetting the table from the pause menu kills table audio.
  [*]Backglass lamps 1-4 are missing.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not!:

• No music plays at the Enter Initials interface. This happens when the Menu Music is turned off.
• Ball can get stuck somewhere in the upper playfield area (not sure where, however. Will look into the issue.).
• The Super Jackpot voiceover is played twice during the sequence. One has the actual callout, while the other is tied in with the Super Jackpot fanfare sound.
• Muffled or abnormal music/sounds. Are the sound files lower quality than normal?

Star Trek:

• No GI interaction whatsoever.
  [*]The laser light show on the playfield during Klingon Multiball should follow a more circular and clockwise pattern than just straight lines.
  [*]Pop bumper counter/score bug can sometimes occur, similar to that of Iron Man's pop bumper counter/score bug. Could be a ROM issue.
  [*]Emulation speed is slower when compared to the real thing. Note how the display isn't synced to the light show for Medals awarded, upon starting a wizard mode.
  [*]Instructions: Warp Ramp Extra Ball at 7, not 3.
  [*]Instructions: Vengeance Battle is the 3rd mode, not 2nd.
  [*]LE: Cabinet is without the set of lights on the left and right sides of the cabinet, according to XB1 screenshots (or so they appear).
  [*]Pulling the plunger back causes the ball to go too far down, leave the switch prematurely and lock the selected mission in.
  [*]PS4: Cannot see Status Report when a ball is held/flipper is up for a time.

Starship Troopers:

• The Bug counters on the playfield need to be brightened. They work like digital numeric displays, and simple GI lighting won't do it.
• One of the flashers on "Starship" ties in with the "Troopers" set of flashers.
• The main theme music is getting cut off early. This video shows that there is more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoDUY4AIED4
• After starting a new game, sometimes, the 3 seconds music sample intro is repeated infinitely and is not replaced by the main music theme.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Fixes, based on the PS4 version:

High Roller Casino:

• No high score music.

 

[KBJAXMAN]

Challenge Mode - when selecting Last Action Hero, it displayed a bizarre screen of data/zeros, then awarded 100 points for the table, then crashed when next table was selected
Challenge Mode - random crashes when selecting next table

 

[kaworu]

also Mustang Boss Premium has wrong car model on turntable

here how it should look like

 

[psykil]

Star Trek
- not sure if this is a bug or how the table works, but if you hit the left outlane moving fast enough it'll blow right through the kickback
- weird overflow bugs - I had "pops remaining: 4.2 billion" on the DMD at one point, also the two digit number to match at the end of game was in the billions
- during two ball multiball I got both balls in the launcher and it changed to plunger view and stayed there after I launched both back up. It didn't switch back to the table until multiball ended.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Star Trek
- weird overflow bugs - I had "pops remaining: 4.2 billion" on the DMD at one point, also the two digit number to match at the end of game was in the billions

The match number seems to be an issue. Not so sure about the pop bumpers, though; it happened on a real Iron Man before.

 

[psykil]

Well it was on the first plunge on a new game so...
Bowen mentions something similar in the PAPA tutorial video so sounds like a rom issue, not SPA specific.

 

[dtown8532]

ACDC is missing the flasher effect when the ball is in the pops. Also, the table lighting needs to be toned down some or the inserts need to be turned up. It's tough to see what is flashing on them.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Star Trek
- The laser light show on the playfield during Klingon Multiball is very dim and hard to notice. It also should follow a more circular and clockwise pattern than just straight lines.

I would say that a more accurate discription is that the game is rendering small points of shadow rather than red points of light. It's not that the light is dim, there is no light. Also, it's hard to tell but do the projected points wash over the whole table or just the playfield? The entire table should be freckled with rotating red dots.

Anyone else think that live catches are too easy on the new Stern tables? I'm regularly doing it by accident.

 

[Rayder]

Yes, I've had drains because I went to shoot a ball, but it did a catch instead. Then, because the ball is so dark, I couldn't tell the ball stayed at the flippers instead of shooting up the table, so I let go of the flipper and the ball drains. This is particularly annoying during multiballs.

And where the heck is our pro modes? The table ROMs are hard set and we can't change anything. What's up with that? Pay more, get less. Not to mention over half the tables in this new collection are dupes of TPA tables that DO have pro modes in TPA. And no brightness slider, so the tables just look too dark all the time.

The table selection seems a step backwards when you can only see one table at a time. Once SPA gets more tables, selecting one to play is going to be really annoying.

I know it sounds like nothing but complaining, but I'm just stating my observations. At this point, I think TPA is better than SPA, though I really like that Star Trek table.

 

[Gorgar]

Mustang (PS4)

-when entering a high score, after the third letter in the initial, the DMD shows a buggy screen that flips between your high score and an image of two people looking out of a windshield of a car. This happened both times that I earned a high score, so I am guessing this is 100% reproducible.
-Two wizard goals appear to be bugged. After completing all of the standard goals, I started another game. The second that I started the game you, two wizard goals ticked off (goal 2: Complete stunt driver in one take and goal 3: collect and upgrade scoring total). I didn't even launch the ball or anything.

Edit: The same thing happened with one of AC/DC's wizard goals. Maybe the game remembers if you completed a wizard goal before unlocking them?

 

[kaworu]

Edit: The same thing happened with one of AC/DC's wizard goals. Maybe the game remembers if you completed a wizard goal before unlocking them?

people reported same for TPA recetly.

 

[HotHamBoy]

AC/DC standalone DLC is still $19.99 on PSN.

 

[Gorgar]

I don't think anyone mentioned this, but when you unlock the wizard goals, it still says "Table Goals." When you select them, it still shows the wizard goals, but it also says "table goals" at top.

 

[Xanija]

AC/DC standalone DLC is still $19.99 on PSN.

It isn't any more, it's $9.99.

 

[Tmnt_Donatello]

ACDC (ps4):

I. I cannot seem to get any of the instant info to work by hold either one or both flippers for any length of time. This makes prioritizing which multiball to target next very difficult as you have to catch how far you are away only off the dmd during play.

I also agree the lighting makes seeing the table very difficult. It is extremely difficult to tell which of the fire lane rollovers are illuminated and which ones aren't. All the same cannot wait until metallica is released. So excited to have a chance to play these modern tables off location and learn the rules and practice scoring strategies.

 

[DA5ID]

Star Trek (PS4)

Operator setting:
Default setting for warp ramp extra ball should set at 4
Currently set at 7

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Star Trek (PS4)

Operator setting:
Default setting for warp ramp extra ball should set at 4
Currently set at 7

It's what they set up. Not a bug.

ACDC (ps4):

I. I cannot seem to get any of the instant info to work by hold either one or both flippers for any length of time. This makes prioritizing which multiball to target next very difficult as you have to catch how far you are away only off the dmd during play.

I also agree the lighting makes seeing the table very difficult. It is extremely difficult to tell which of the fire lane rollovers are illuminated and which ones aren't. All the same cannot wait until metallica is released. So excited to have a chance to play these modern tables off location and learn the rules and practice scoring strategies.

Adding to the list.

I don't think anyone mentioned this, but when you unlock the wizard goals, it still says "Table Goals." When you select them, it still shows the wizard goals, but it also says "table goals" at top.

Will add for a possible fix. They're still table goals, but a bit more clarification would be nice.

Mustang (PS4)

-when entering a high score, after the third letter in the initial, the DMD shows a buggy screen that flips between your high score and an image of two people looking out of a windshield of a car. This happened both times that I earned a high score, so I am guessing this is 100% reproducible.
-Two wizard goals appear to be bugged. After completing all of the standard goals, I started another game. The second that I started the game you, two wizard goals ticked off (goal 2: Complete stunt driver in one take and goal 3: collect and upgrade scoring total). I didn't even launch the ball or anything.

Edit: The same thing happened with one of AC/DC's wizard goals. Maybe the game remembers if you completed a wizard goal before unlocking them?

I'll add these to the list as well.

 

[jrolson]

Aint the flippers in AC/DC suppose to be yellow instead of white? In the flyer they are yellow...

 

[Nate]

ya i had acdc premium for awhile and on mine, which i believe was factory the flippers on the bottom playfield were white and the main flippers yellow, now that you mention it they did seem odd to me on ps4 they're probably backwards....whole game feels alittle off to me, like i should be playing on android or something, bad lighting and heavy aliasing and flippers feeling laggy = yuck (flipper lag not farsights fault, zen pinball is far worse on ps4) hope the steam and vr releases dont have these same issues, the tables that were already on TPA look alot better on the original tpa than they do on this one...i dont get it.