PS3 DLC Impressions

[Metalzoic]

That's right, I remember that. Still, check out the brightness. I am not finding ANY of the tables "too dark".

I wish the game had a brightness/gamma setting buil;t in.

My plasma is already perfectly calibrated for black and color levels so just altering the TV brightness would goof it up.
I'd need to make a separate AV pre-set just for TPA and then remember to switch it on when I play and off before I use the TV for anything else...

Still, I'll give it a shot!

 

[Shaneus]

Damnit, after hearing about that lighting I just want the new tables for the 360! But I promised myself that I was going to wait for PC before I gave FarSight any more money (actually bought the 360 one, but that was it) but it looks so damned tempting... if they get it right for the Xbox version.

Not sure what to do. I don't want to reward the behaviour that results in staggered releases (and no PC one at all as of yet) but from the impressions here, it sounds like it's worth the wait. Unless you guys who have it are experiencing something like this
(possibly slightly NSFW, but I don't think there's any swearing)

Actually, it's scary how well that analogy fits in with this situation!

 

[Jim O'Brien]

Funhouse is the best version I've ever played hands down (Visual Pinball or Williams Collection) and it has been so long since I played the real one that it is good to hear all of Rudy's comments again it brought back a lot of good memories. Thank you Farsight for using the original roms.

 

[Captain Rumwood]

See that giant heart in the center that says "1 Billion When Lit"? It's that shot that does it. Consult the table instructions for how to light it.

I've tried to make that shot but haven't succeeded yet.

Bride I don't feel/see it, maybe a small increase in incline. Fun House in the demo feels like it is indeed on a quite steeper incline. Not that it bothers me at all, I like the variance.

Rather that than the floatier physics of CV that still feels a bit too light around the flippers. I hope they tighten those a bit more with DLC 3.

I thought that the floatier physics of the ball was part of the game, like Bram Stoker's Dracula, when the ball (I think its the mist ball) crosses the field from one side to the other in a very slow speed (magnets).

Just to let you know the 2 balls in the plunger issue has been fixed and will be in a future update. Unfortunatly it got fixed after the submission to Sony.

Usually it happens on the first ball, if it does, if you quit and restart it should go away.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Sinistar]

I have decreased the saturation on mY BOP My God video, I will look at the others and see if If can adjust the brightness , my equipment is a camera tripod leaning against my bed frame , a Nikon Cool Pix with 14 mGP , and my TV is shot at a angle so to reduce glare . Im using the static object mode, which is used for shooting flowers and single objects , Its also set to capture less light (I forgot the techie term) . The Quality does not match what I see in the game , execept in the video for Tales of the Arabian Nights, which was was pretty good showing off the details on my HD monitor . Glad you guys appreciate the effort to exibit the PS3 version.

 

[Dumahim]

I tried to film a game, but turns out my old camera isn't that good for video. Sub-HD quality, 4:3 aspect ratio and when I played it back, it was quite grainy too. Didn't help I never deleted anything off the card since I bought it and it stopped recording after 6 minutes. As luck would have it, I was filming a pretty good game and was still on the 2nd ball by the time it stopped. Wound up setting a high score too.

I've tried to make that shot but haven't succeeded yet.

I don't know if there's multiple ways of doing it, but I got the machine built and then went through the change to human form and locked both balls again. Each game I did that, it seems to always land on a billion points the first time. So pretty much all you have to do is keep launching the ball up the shuttle ramp and keep both balls in play when they're both out, or else she'll revert to the previous form or start over completely.

 

[Captain Rumwood]

I tried to film a game, but turns out my old camera isn't that good for video. Sub-HD quality, 4:3 aspect ratio and when I played it back, it was quite grainy too. Didn't help I never deleted anything off the card since I bought it and it stopped recording after 6 minutes. As luck would have it, I was filming a pretty good game and was still on the 2nd ball by the time it stopped. Wound up setting a high score too.

I don't know if there's multiple ways of doing it, but I got the machine built and then went through the change to human form and locked both balls again. Each game I did that, it seems to always land on a billion points the first time. So pretty much all you have to do is keep launching the ball up the shuttle ramp and keep both balls in play when they're both out, or else she'll revert to the previous form or start over completely.

Thanks for the tip!!!

 

[Tabe]

More Funhouse stuff:

- the skill shot and Funhouse Frenzy on the steps plunger are both far too hard. I did finally get the skill shot after a couple hundred tries by starting 4-player games and just cycling through until I got one. Had to nudge the machine to get the ball to stop but I did manage. Haven't been able to do the same on steps plunger. In real life, I hit both of these shots faaaaaar more often than on TPA.

- I had one shot that went nowhere near the trapdoor that either opened it or scored the bonus, I forget which. Did the same thing with the Midnight Million shot into Rudy's mouth

- Though I've seen this on other games, I had one occasion where I started a new game and it got stuck in attract mode.


Three general complaints, one of which I've voiced before:

- Can we please, please, PLEASE get rid of the "Now Saving" after every single game? There is usually nothing to be saving and, even if there is, how about waiting until we exit the table? I realize it's not THAT much of a delay but it's annoying and unnecessary.

- How about retaining the number of players and not resetting it to 1 after every completed game?


Tabe

 

[Dumahim]

I agree about those Funhouse shots.
Skill shot didn't bother me much since I was playing for fun anyway, so I knew I'd get it eventually. Frenzy shot though, the biggest problem I had was I have no idea how that ramp works. I don't remember ever playing the table in real life and the angles available don't help. Transparent objects and no way to move the camera around to examine the table don't help.

 

[Fungi]

You want a first impression? I'll give ya a first impression. Microsoft DOESN'T have control over Sony's releases!!! I'm callin' this myth... BUSTED!

 

[Matt McIrvin]

- the skill shot and Funhouse Frenzy on the steps plunger are both far too hard. I did finally get the skill shot after a couple hundred tries by starting 4-player games and just cycling through until I got one. Had to nudge the machine to get the ball to stop but I did manage. Haven't been able to do the same on steps plunger. In real life, I hit both of these shots faaaaaar more often than on TPA.

I don't know about the real table, but in TPA they are indeed viciously hard. The odd thing is that I can get the ball into Rudy's Hideout pretty easily coming in from the other direction, but it took me a very long time to get the skill shot: there's a microscopic plunger-force window between looping around to the left and falling back. I haven't gotten Frenzy yet.

 

[brakel]

You want a first impression? I'll give ya a first impression. Microsoft DOESN'T have control over Sony's releases!!! I'm callin' this myth... BUSTED!

I think there was some negotiation. I think FS got Microsoft to let the PS3 have DLC 1 & 2 earlier in exchange for the Xbox to get DLC #3 before Sony. I'm sure FS just said that they financially couldn't sit on DLC 1 & 2 any longer but would throw them a couple weeks exclusive on #3 in exchange.

 

[Ark Malmeida]

I think there was some negotiation. I think FS got Microsoft to let the PS3 have DLC 1 & 2 earlier in exchange for the Xbox to get DLC #3 before Sony. I'm sure FS just said that they financially couldn't sit on DLC 1 & 2 any longer but would throw them a couple weeks exclusive on #3 in exchange.

I seriously doubt that Microsoft is basing the release on what's going on with Sony's release dates. If they were and cared they certainly could have sped up the approval process instead of making some convoluted deal with Farsight on the release dates. I just don't see the conspiracy theory here.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

This theory just gets more and more complex in response to contrary information.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

This theory just gets more and more complex in response to contrary information.

That's a common feature of all conspiracy theories!

 

[brakel]

I seriously doubt that Microsoft is basing the release on what's going on with Sony's release dates. If they were and cared they certainly could have sped up the approval process instead of making some convoluted deal with Farsight on the release dates. I just don't see the conspiracy theory here.

I was able to sum it up in a sentance so that doesn't seem convoluted. Conspiracy would mean that there's some kind of cover up but this is just the way microsoft does business. They are negotiating dlc exclusive windows every day. How else to explain that the 360 is getting an exclusive window for dlc #3? And finally I don't really care. It was just an observation. Microsoft can do whatever they want. I'm not one to cry over the game that I can't play this week; I'll just play the games that I can.

 

[Ark Malmeida]

What makes you think they negotiated an exclusivity window for DLC#3? The way I see the model going now, at least with the 360, is that it seems as if the main Pinball Arcade client has to be updated to add new tables, but the table packs are authorized separately. When the main client update that had the changes for table packs #1 and #2 was rejected for the 360, they re-submitted the client with the updates for all three DLC packs and the three packs separately (which is what they said in their newsletter). That's why the 3 DLC packs for the 360 will come out at the same time and pack #3 will (probably) get out before the PS3's does. The reason for that seems to be that the updates needed for packs 1 and 2 for the PS3 DIDN'T get rejected, so they submitted the client with the update for pack #3 later. Seems fairly straightforward to me.

In the end the only system I really care about is the 360 since that's what I play on. Would I like to have all of the DLC at the same time as the other platforms? Sure, but I highly doubt that any one system is holding up the release date of any other system (except for the PS3 and Vita European releases which was done for promotional purposes). Just makes no sense to me.

 

[brakel]

Whatever, I'm not sure why I'm discussing it because its not something I really care about.

 

[Void]

High quality videos of DLC tables:

Medieval Madness
Cirqus Voltaire
Bride of Pinbot + longer gameplay
Funhouse

Looks greate, but waiting for Xbox and PC versions is now even harder.

 

[smbhax]

There are four standard table camera modes, but only two multiball camera modes. I use normal table camera three, but there is no multiball camera three now--there *was* in the previous version, I think--so when multiball starts, the camera changes. I don't want to have to play multiball in a different--and less preferable, as far as I'm concerned--camera mode. :|

Also, while playing multiball, the camera sometimes seems to switch back to the standard camera (changing viewing angle) briefly--so the camera will sometimes be pinging back and forth throughout a single multiball session.

(Heck I'm not even sure why anyone would want a different camera angle for multiball, but maybe that's just me--I don't hunch over a pinball table more when multiball kicks in, either. )

Also, at least with one table, the multiball camera modes are numbered differently: in Cirqus Voltaire, multiball camera 2 is the lower angle camera (whereas in other tables, say Ripley's, multiball camera 2 is the higher angle camera).

~~~~~~

Minor graphical bug: In Cirqus Voltaire, a black rectangle sometimes appears over part of the far end of the neon tube--just to the right of the table-embedded dot matrix screen. I think it is appearing when the big yellow lights along the sides of the table flash.