Star Wars Pinball VR

[Narc0lep5y]

Is Quest only for Oculus? You can't buy it on the Rift store but can on Quest or Steam, and the early Steam reviews are mixed, with some saying FX2 VR played and looked better and has no controller support beyond Xbox controller. That's not a deal breaker to me but limited graphics settings is troubling considering this is supposed to be the NEW engine. Anyone try it out yet?

 

[Hinph]

The Oculus Quest 2 version is... ass. Don’t bother unless they make some substantial improvements to the table clarity and framerate. It indeed looks and plays much, much worse than Pinball FX2.

 

[Sloopy_DE]

I tested both versions: The Quest version I tested on the Quest1 and it's the same as Hinph said, it's kind of low res and stuttery. Then I testet the Steam version over SteamVR/Oculus Link cable on my Quest, so the Quest is only used as a display device and not as the device the game is actually running on. This version is a little bit better, still a little bit low res, but better than the native Quest version. Framerate in the virtual game room with all the collectables is also a bit stuttery, but in the actual tables framerate is clearly better this way.

 

[zmcvay]

Disappointing to hear people are having issues. I rechecked today to make sure it wasn't an enthusiasm issue on my part. For note, I'm using a fresh out of the box Oculus Quest 2 (256 GB model) that I just picked up on sale last week. Playing in headset mode, not using the link cable, using the Star Wars Pinball VR app purchased from the Oculus Quest store directly.

I still won't have time to deep dive until this weekend at the earliest, but I booted up for a couple of games this morning, Empire Strikes Back (which I'm very familiar with) and the new Mandalorian table.

Empire looked great for the most part. There is a downgrade in sharpness from playing on the PC directly, but that's par for the course with most VR apps and no different to my eyes than other pinball VR I've used. I can't screenshot it, but the only visual issues I see are, for example, the SKY letters on the back lanes look a bit wavy and flicker a bit, but are still legible. I can read the dot matrix board with no issues. If I bend over to look closer, textures at the table back all look fine.

Mandalorian had more going on in the back of the table, so the back table blurriness was a bit more pronounced. I could still from a standing position read the "THRUST" target at the back of the table just fine for example even if it wasn't as sharp as things farther up. The Mandalorian insignia targets again look like something with bad anti-aliasing on a PC game and have some flicker, but I can tell what they are just fine. Leaning forward a bit to focus on the back table makes those issues go away. That's about as much as I can describe for the level of graphics blurriness I can see with my setup, and it doesn't seem any different from apps like Farsight's Stern VR app or FX2 VR.

What surprised me, and what I had to recheck was the above comments about framerates. And all I can say is that for those 2 games, I didn't see a single hiccup or stutter to the framerate, which would have been much more of a deal breaker. That in particular was what I was more worried about running on the Quest 2 Hardware. Physics on the Empire table in particular seemed an improvement over playing on Steam.

Just my 2 cents, if I encounter issues that deviate heavily from what I posted I'll update my impressions. Otherwise I'm not sure why it's working better for me than the impressions above. It's possible this was just heavily optimized for the Quest 2 hardware.

 

[Hinph]

So the framerate issue seems like a glitch to me. The tables start off nice and smooth until the camera transitions to a bonus mode or mini game and then when it goes back to the main table it is never the same again... stuttery, awful, gameplay and immersion ruining. At least that gives me hope that it can be fixed.

The resolution is still super disappointing all around though. Check out Pinball FX2 VR to see what I mean. Those tables look super crisp, and that is an old game running on inferior hardware with no Quest 2 enhancements. Why does the game released yesterday look so much worse than the one released two years ago, which itself was ported from an Oculus Go game released four years ago? Because they changed engines? Okay, then changing engines was a bad call that resulted in a worse game. I’m not happy with this release.

 

[trash80]

Unfortunately, it's not their call anymore. They have been bought out by Embracer and Embracer now calls the shots on what game engine they use. Zen's inhouse game engine is no longer being supported and they are forced to use the Unreal Engine.

This is completely false. Zen has been using Unreal Engine for all of their non-pinball projects for years. The switch to Unreal Engine for Star Wars VR and Pinball FX was made well before the Embracer Group entered the picture. I'm not sure why you would post what you have when this information is public knowledge.

 

[shogun00]

This is completely false. Zen has been using Unreal Engine for all of their non-pinball projects for years. The switch to Unreal Engine for Star Wars VR and Pinball FX was made well before the Embracer Group entered the picture.

Thanks for the correction. I retracted my post.

 

[shutyertrap]

I got the game up and running yesterday...

Headset - Rift
Game version - Steam
Controls - PinSim

So no, if you have a Rift you can't even buy the game on the Oculus store, that is for Quest 1 and 2 only.

I tried using my PinSim right off the bat and other than hitting A to start the game, it didn't work, mainly because I couldn't navigate the room! So then I set up the Touch controllers, and yeah those worked but I hate flipping with triggers. I disconnected those and plugged in a 360 controller. That worked just fine, but dammit I really wanted to use my PinSim. So I contacted Jeremy Williams, and he said it works right out the gate with the Quest so long as you have a USB adapter for the headset (USB to USB-C I think?), but I'm on a Rift. He said I needed to DISABLE Steam input by right clicking the game in Steam -> Game Properties -> Controller. And then he sorta blew my mind by telling me he has built in combo settings for the PinSim that make buttons have alternate functions, including the joystick. So by pressing the joystick up at the same same time as the BACK button, suddenly my joystick acted as the left analog stick instead of the d-pad! That let me navigate the room and approach the table, at which point I do joystick down + BACK and it's back to d-pad function (needed for the accelerometer and analog plunger to work). YES!!

Now truth be told, it wasn't that easy. Plugging and unplugging controllers confused my PC, locking me out of both at one point prior to getting any of it to work, so I had to restart the PC with my PinSim plugged in to get that recognized as the primary. But it worked great afterwards. Also, since I don't have a right analog on the PinSim, you walk around the room as if you have no ability to turn your body. No biggie, but odd. The true issue is that when playing a table, Zen only gives you two options for what re-centers your position and it's to either use the L3 or R3 function, neither of which I have on the PinSim. So instead I have to enter 'immersion' mode, alter my body and head position slightly, and then go back into regular view to have the adjustment work. In FX2 VR it was a simple press of the X button. Really wish Zen would let us map our own button rather than have presets. Gonna be making that suggestion to them.

As for the visual clarity of the game, well as I said, I'm on a Rift. To me it looks just as good as FX2 VR. In other words, I'm using a standard def TV to compare a DVD to a BluRay, neither of which the TV's resolution can tell the difference between. Jared is on the Quest 2 and was using his cable attached to the PC, said he could tell a difference between using that and going wireless. His main complaint was with aliasing.

Mando does indeed use Williams physics, but there's no visual 'give' to the flipper when a ball bounces off it like we see in Vol 4-6. I haven't played but a quick game on Collectibles to confirm if that too uses Williams, but for Jedi I can confirm it's the old physics. One thing I noticed with Jedi was how the cabinet got much wider to handle all of the playfield. My hands resting on my PinSim were in much narrower than the virtual cab compared to other tables.

 

[Narc0lep5y]

Good stuff. Thanks for all the comments. I'm sure I'll buckle eventually. Never really cared for the Zen SW originals and was hoping VR and Unreal Engine would change things, but it doesn't sound like there's enough of a change. I finally got my mini cab up and running after almost 3 years of construction on it and playing in this format just makes every game better, even the zen originals that I once hated, so maybe I'll find some joy in the Star Wars tables here and that will drive me to SWVR. In the meantime, I've discovered VPX thanks to the Baller Installer and while it's a lot of work, so far the reward has been worth it.

 

[zmcvay]

Finally got around to playing the free extra Han Solo table today, and this is easily the worst of the bunch. The aliasing issues don't really distract me on the other tables, but they're a mess here. The Grill design on the back lanes are flickering with Moire patterns that are really annoying. The crane game was already janky in 2D and it was even harder here with the table viewed at a distance and no zoom-in when activated. I made several attempts and couldn't land one ball on the grid.

It's just as well as this is one of my least favorite Zen Star Wars tables. Stacked Magna-Saves that are strong enough to grab the ball from a middle drain means games drag on and on. The music is irritating enough that I ended up turning it off after a couple minutes. I really wish they'd have included the Solo movie table instead of this one. Or if they were going to include a character table, Vader, Boba Fett or Calrissian Chronicles would all have been better picks.

I'm still enjoying the Star Wars VR game as a whole, but I don't think I'll be loading this table up again.