Table of the Week Club...Week 37: GORGAR

[shutyertrap]

Get your classic early 80's pin action with this week's TotW, Gorgar. I had hoped FarSight would have proper emulation for this by the time it's number came up, but oh well. As usual, tips and tricks posted below are much appreciated.

 

[vikingerik]

Is emulating the old tables even on Farsight's radar anymore? The discussion hasn't come up around here in months. And it's hard to see any business value, it's not like the work would get any meaningful amount of sales. At least Gorgar's scripting is pretty solid, like Genie's. It's Black Knight and Firepower that are woefully broken reimplementations and badly need proper emulation.

Tips. The biggest question is whether the left hole eject can be railroaded to a catch to do it again. I don't think this has ever been true on the PC, but there's been a lot of spotty reports for a long time that it would still work on some platforms, particularly ones like X360 that never got any program updates. But if that railroad works, you can shoot that as long as you want for as many points as you want with virtually no risk (other than dying of boredom.)

My other tip is don't shoot GAR from the left flipper. There's too many dangerous rebound angles towards slingshots and outlanes. Shoot GAR from the right flipper and most of the railroads go up safely towards GOR. Every ball, your goal is to complete GOR-GAR enough times to light the extra ball and then collect it.

 

[ZREXMike]

This guy is a nudging pro, looks like. This looks like a good table if you like a good basic table without any gimmickry, toys, etc. This is one thing I like about TPA over Zen, Zen you mostly can hardly touch their tables without tilting.

 

[Slam23]

Is emulating the old tables even on Farsight's radar anymore? The discussion hasn't come up around here in months. And it's hard to see any business value, it's not like the work would get any meaningful amount of sales. At least Gorgar's scripting is pretty solid, like Genie's. It's Black Knight and Firepower that are woefully broken reimplementations and badly need proper emulation.

Tips. The biggest question is whether the left hole eject can be railroaded to a catch to do it again. I don't think this has ever been true on the PC, but there's been a lot of spotty reports for a long time that it would still work on some platforms, particularly ones like X360 that never got any program updates. But if that railroad works, you can shoot that as long as you want for as many points as you want with virtually no risk (other than dying of boredom.)

My other tip is don't shoot GAR from the left flipper. There's too many dangerous rebound angles towards slingshots and outlanes. Shoot GAR from the right flipper and most of the railroads go up safely towards GOR. Every ball, your goal is to complete GOR-GAR enough times to light the extra ball and then collect it.

This.
Eject hole is not safe at all in iOS, once in 4-5 balls it even goes down the left outlane without a timely nudge. Once in 3-4 balls it goes down to the tip of the left flipper which also can be a tight shot but doable. In the other cases it goes to the right flipper for a catch or deadpass back to the left. Everything is saveable though so it still may be a solid strategy and with the ejects mixing it up, it may even prevent death by boredom.... I play it like Viking said, although I'm not sure if his advice about shooting GAR predominantly from the right holds up for every scenario. I found different results depending on which targets are still up, but I'm still in the process to see what is safe and what not. Keep those balls away from the top of the slingshots in most cases.

To add something: get rollover "A" from the plunge because that one is the hardest to get in the game. On iOS it's pulling back to just the first few millimeters in the first black triangle, this will give a ricochet from above "C" back to "A". "B" is the one that's most often lit from a shot to the spinner, "C" can be shot directly from the right flipper although that's a hard shot and misses can be dangerous. "C" is also often lit when you graze a wall from the spinner tunnel. Otherwise nudge it to "C" when it's over "B".

Gorgar is definitely a table that grew on me after first not liking it at all. I won't fire it up as one of my favorites, but I like the tension of the gameplay and I really learned how to nudge on this table. It was very rewarding to get better on this table, after not cracking a million in my first 100 tries or so...

 

[Kratos3]

Love Gorgar. It's one I just keep going back to.

 

[vikingerik]

I play it like Viking said, although I'm not sure if his advice about shooting GAR predominantly from the right holds up for every scenario. I found different results depending on which targets are still up, but I'm still in the process to see what is safe and what not.

Agreed, yes which GAR targets are up affects what angles are safely railroadable. I used to know them all, like a year ago when I last played the table, but have forgotten and don't really care to go figure it out again.

 

[Slam23]

I know....I'm gettin back to where I remember what it would take to actually better my own highscore, let alone make some waves on the leaderboard. When I haven't played a table for a long time I forget the score scaling and what actually constitutes a good score. So I got close today to my 1.8M with 1.6 but for the most part have trouble cracking the million on ball 1 or 2 (with EB's interspersed offcourse).

 

[ZREXMike]

Got this table, it was paired with MB, seems like a cool table. Wicked SDTM coming off the bumpers, hungry outlanes.

 

[Slam23]

It's all about the slingshots baby! I may underestimate other tables in this regard, but Gorgar has some of the most frequent slingshot hits of any table I played recently. Just keep the ball off the top of them because those outlanes will eat you alive.

 

[Reagan Dow]

One of my favorite tables. Graphics are awesome, game loa is pretty straight forward and basically it's a load of fun!!! Gonna get to play in' now as a matter off fact. Thanks for the hunts guys.

 

[ZREXMike]

Completed the Wizard Goals, not too awful hard. I hate the behaviour of the inlanes sending the ball to the outlanes when it travels up the inlanes then hooks back down the outlanes, never seen a table that does this so frequently.

Things I noticed: Back down from the spinner is a SDTM if you don't nudge it good. Try to avoid the back down off the right side of the bumpers as this results in SDTM a good bit of the time, nudge so the ball goes to the left, much safer seems like. Out of Eject Hole let it bounce to the left flipper for a shot at the spinner, which not a hard shot. A straight shot with the right flipper from the EH is risky. GAR is best hit indirectly, straight shots to them sends the ball SDTM a lot.

Overall, this table is alotta work to make points, & ballspeed is very unpredictable with those side targets bipbapping the ball around, gets crazy sometimes. But it also has a nice flow. And I can see why pros like it, no ball saves & just a few different goals.

 

[Slam23]

Those 1-4 targets must have some kind of secret spring mechanism behind them, because I've never seen passive targets speed up the ball on contact...

 

[shutyertrap]

The Wizards aren't terrible this time...except for the fact my playing sucks and I can't get the 550K score wizard!

 

[ZREXMike]

Those 1-4 targets must have some kind of secret spring mechanism behind them, because I've never seen passive targets speed up the ball on contact...

I dunno man, maybe I'm wrong about those side targets, but I've noticed the ball rocket towards the drain when these are hit sometimes, could be the ball was hauling ass already b4 hitting them is all, LOL!

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Me like Gorgar.
Gorgar drain much.

 

[Johni3w6]

Not sure if this would be considered a bug even though it's been with the table since the start.
Sometimes on the second or third ball the voice of Gorgar stops working.

Does that happen to anyone else at all?

Don't mind playing this table, it's been with the collection since it first came out on disc for the PS2 in the Williams collection.

 

[Slam23]

Yep, he shuts up and other sound/music effects also cease and desist. Probably a script problem, but you will not hear me complain after 20-odd games....

 

[Johni3w6]

Yep, he shuts up and other sound/music effects also cease and desist. Probably a script problem, but you will not hear me complain after 20-odd games....

I agree, not complaining here.

 

[ZREXMike]

Not sure if this would be considered a bug even though it's been with the table since the start.
Sometimes on the second or third ball the voice of Gorgar stops working.

Does that happen to anyone else at all?

Don't mind playing this table, it's been with the collection since it first came out on disc for the PS2 in the Williams collection.

Yes, noticed that happening once since I got the table.

 

[Locksley]

Scroll down to the sixth cat pic - a gorgar!

http://ethanwiner.com/family.html

Ehtan Winer is a builder of acoustic stuff for us audiophiles