mmmagnetic
New member
- May 29, 2012
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(This topic mostly applies to the iOS and Android ports, but the concept of low vs high angles is universal, so I posted it in the general section. Move if necessary 
)
I play TPA on my iPad. Up until now I´ve been playing in portrait almost exclusively - I mean, it just makes sense, right? Pinball tables are vertical, so playing them vertical is just logical.
That is, until I tried playing MM in landscape today. Usually I play top-down, no scrolling, but this time I tried the first camera setting a shot. And I almost DOUBLED my old personal best (from 51mil to 94.5mil - hey, I didn´t say I was perfect). Probably just blind luck, but anyways...
Here´s what I noticed:
- I thought it would be much harder to judge my aiming, but somehow I feel I did even a bit better than usual. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the flippers are much bigger in this "crouching in front of the machine" mode than the usual "levitating over the playfield" birds-eye view. I usually try to kinda memorize where the ball is on the flipper to move where I want it to go, which obviously is easier the bigger the flippers and the balls are on the screen.
- The game felt somewhat slower. On MM the ball moves with a terrifying speed most of the time, but in this view it seemed to move in a more relaxed pace towards me.
- Since the playfield is visually "crunched" - more width, less height than in portrait - I didn´t need to move my eyes up and down as much: Something happening in the upper half didn´t distract me as much from the lower half (I tend to hold my iPad pretty close to my face to soak in all the details). It also is kinda cool to look into the pinball instead of looking at it from the birdseye view - makes it feel more alive and threedimensional, and much bigger!
I´m still experimenting and find it really nice to have both options (with all the finer steps in between due to the many camera angles).
What do you prefer? Do you like to switch, or do you have a "dedicated" camera angle? I used to think that having a "main" view would make the game much more predictable, however you move around in front of an actual pinball too, so maybe switching it up once in a while adds to the learning process. Do you think that certain angles are objectively better than others?
(And on a sidenote, using the iPad in landscape is much more comfortable - the weight distributes better between the two hands, and I have the smartcover folded in the lower end, which acts as a nice sort of soft grip.)
)I play TPA on my iPad. Up until now I´ve been playing in portrait almost exclusively - I mean, it just makes sense, right? Pinball tables are vertical, so playing them vertical is just logical.
That is, until I tried playing MM in landscape today. Usually I play top-down, no scrolling, but this time I tried the first camera setting a shot. And I almost DOUBLED my old personal best (from 51mil to 94.5mil - hey, I didn´t say I was perfect
). Probably just blind luck, but anyways...Here´s what I noticed:
- I thought it would be much harder to judge my aiming, but somehow I feel I did even a bit better than usual. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the flippers are much bigger in this "crouching in front of the machine" mode than the usual "levitating over the playfield" birds-eye view. I usually try to kinda memorize where the ball is on the flipper to move where I want it to go, which obviously is easier the bigger the flippers and the balls are on the screen.
- The game felt somewhat slower. On MM the ball moves with a terrifying speed most of the time, but in this view it seemed to move in a more relaxed pace towards me.
- Since the playfield is visually "crunched" - more width, less height than in portrait - I didn´t need to move my eyes up and down as much: Something happening in the upper half didn´t distract me as much from the lower half (I tend to hold my iPad pretty close to my face to soak in all the details). It also is kinda cool to look into the pinball instead of looking at it from the birdseye view - makes it feel more alive and threedimensional, and much bigger!
I´m still experimenting and find it really nice to have both options (with all the finer steps in between due to the many camera angles).
What do you prefer? Do you like to switch, or do you have a "dedicated" camera angle? I used to think that having a "main" view would make the game much more predictable, however you move around in front of an actual pinball too, so maybe switching it up once in a while adds to the learning process. Do you think that certain angles are objectively better than others?
(And on a sidenote, using the iPad in landscape is much more comfortable - the weight distributes better between the two hands, and I have the smartcover folded in the lower end, which acts as a nice sort of soft grip.)
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