Newsletter #13 riddle for April release

[Sean DonCarlos]

Actually, make that 6 categories: I left out the Pinball 2000 tables.

 

[shutyertrap]

I think we're better off just forgetting Pinball 2000!

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Pinball 2000 IS possible on consoles and PC versions. It would have to be an exclusive to these (I don't think mobile would react happily about this). Still, it would be cool if RFM came along.

My guesses: White Water and Space Shuttle. (If they do Space Shuttle, I wonder if they'll include the special multiball sound?)

 

[ravager]

I want one of those old school "vacuum tube" tables to be recreated. : )

*All about the analogue*

 

[Richard B]

I think we're better off just forgetting Pinball 2000!

Not true. Roger Sharpe set the record straight on this: it actually had a bright future, and Wizard Blocks, the next intended release, and Playboy, (which was also in development) utilized the technology in innovative ways. It was not a flop - "it was a success, just not a big enough success for a publicly traded company."

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Not true. Roger Sharpe set the record straight on this: it actually had a bright future, and Wizard Blocks, the next intended release, utilized the technology in innovative ways. It was also not a flop - "it was a success, just not a big enough success for a publically traded company."

There's a bar graph in that new Pinball Magazine that illustrates this...apparently RFM outsold all but 8 or 9 of the tables released in the previous 5 years. I was rather surprised; I had thought the Pinball 2000 tables were sales duds and got canned for that reason. Apparently not.

 

[atlantis1982]

I honestly thought the Pinball 2000 series was just a god awful idea. Give me a FMV (Wizard of Oz, The Hobbit...) any day than SW Episode 1 and Revenge from Mars.

 

[shutyertrap]

Not true. Roger Sharpe set the record straight on this: it actually had a bright future, and Wizard Blocks, the next intended release, utilized the technology in innovative ways. It was also not a flop - "it was a success, just not a big enough success for a publically traded company."

Well all I know is I hated playing both the Star Wars table and the Revenge from Mars table. I didn't like not being able to see the upper half of the table, I hated the feel of just target shooting. I'm not concerned with what might have been, I only know what was. And what was, I didn't like one bit!

 

[Jeff Strong]

I'll agree with ya on Star Wars, but Revenge is awesome! It's fairly high on all the Top 100 lists I've seen.

 

[Clawhammer]

RFM isn't too bad, SWE1 is abysmal. Both sold fairly well, but Williams was more concerned with the slot machine division of their company that sold much, much better.

 

[Kolchak357]

I agree that Revenge is much more fun than SWE1, but I would still rather play AFM than RFM. I didn't really enjoy the whole pinball 2000 format as much as I thought I would.

As for the April speculation, I really hope we are right about White Water. I played it the other night and it is such a fun pin. Great art package, good DMD animations, and those freakin' awesome ramps.

 

[thetrout]

Ep 1 was rubbish but Revenge is tons of fun, and hilarious to boot. My arcade here (up until a few months ago) had both of them sitting right next to each other, so I got to put a lot of time into both. Admittedly, neither table is particularly complicated though.

 

[silverjaguar7]

Space Shuttle and Fireball it is.

 

[warh0g]

I am hoping for White Water! It is a great table

 

[Kevlar]

I hope white water too.

 

[Mark W**a]

Space Shuttle and Fireball it is.

Lol nah my money's on Popeye and Kiss Pinball

 

[Clawhammer]

Lol nah my money's on Popeye and Kiss Pinball

Table Pack 43 maybe?

 

[smooverr]

Actually, some of us do. Tables are grouped in 5 main categories for me: electromechanical, early solid-state, alphanumeric solid-state, DMD solid-state, and Wizard of Oz.

Lol love this. WOZ deserves its own category!

 

[Matt McIrvin]

I have seen differentiation between early solid states, later solid states and DMDs for purposes of tournaments, which could be the source of the confusion. May I ask what the dividing line between early & later solid states is considered to be? I'm guessing that it isn't just the transition to alphanumeric displays, because otherwise, it would be a simple digital/alphanumeric divide and they would just call it that.

I don't know how they do it in tournaments, but it really feels to me as if Firepower was a watershed. Before Firepower, solid-state pinballs played a lot like late electromechanical games, but with electronic noises and fancier layouts; designers made them fanciest just by making them big (Genie is a good example of this, or the Atari widebodies). After Firepower, nearly all SS tables had multiball modes and some kind of more complex goal progression.

And then High Speed or something around that time was another dividing point, and Addams Family yet another, ushering in the brief Nineties golden age.

If you're really into hairsplitting, you can identify multiple generations in the electromechanical era too. There are the pre-flipper games, of course, but there's also the moment around 1960 or so when most games went to a layout with two inward-facing flippers at the bottom, and then the movement in the 1970s toward bigger flippers, more complicated gameplay and less drain-happy layouts, preparing the way for solid state.

 

[Gorgar]

I want to change my guess to Space Shuttle and Earthshaker. I think I became too fixated on Whitewater, knowing that they have one at the studio. But just because we figured out what the blurred tables in those pictures were doesn't imply that all of their tables were photographed. I think the more obvious answer to the riddle is Earth and Space. Both tables even have that in the title.