Table of the Week Club...week 6: NO GOOD GOFERS!

[Heretic]

not my story to tell but poor [MENTION=486]Bonzo[/MENTION] glitched on a 600mil game last night...ouch, i think i know how to get jeffery on a rage now...

 

[Gus]

I am wondering what it is about me and Golf pins. I have nothing against golf in general (In fact I enjoy it, both in real life and in digital simulations) but NGG and Teed off is far from fun for me. NGG is my least favorite of all the Pat Lawler tables and Tee'd off is even worse. I must have a rodent problem

Same here. I love golf and pinball both, but NGG is the only Lawlor table I don't like. I haven't played it for a year so hopefully I'll change my mind. I'll set my goal to get 1k HOF points I guess, anyone know how much is required for that?

 

[vikingerik]

It is weird how both golf tables are so polarizing. The pinballing is fine quality in each. They both have an interesting layout, great flow, and unique shots found on no other table. Both games have scoring that comes across as unbalanced but still works well once you understand how it fits together and what to go for. I can get being turned off by the theme if you don't like golf or the (supposed to be) annoying gophers, but if you're getting stuck on that then you're missing out on two pretty good games.

I'll try this argument that maybe we haven't put into words precisely. What's wrong with both tables is that the non-multiball features don't really click on either. They're not viscerally appealing and feel more like chores getting in the way of the fun stuff. There's no sense of delight like traveling through mansion rooms or door panels or rocking monsters, it's just golf hole 1, golf hole 2, golf hole N, oh yay another golf hole. The tables both have awesome highs in the hole-in-one and double-your-score shots, but they put too much junk in front of those highs, unlike say AFM keeping the saucer front and center all the time. This argument make sense to anyone else? I'm always fine with pushing through grindy stuff when necessary - and golf itself sure is about grinding - but I can see where players would turn back to other tables with more revelry instead.

In shorter words: AFM is fun because smacking the saucer is the central goal and always appealing. NGG might not be because smacking the gophers is a chore to get them out of the way of the real goals.

 

[Kratos3]

No highs, no lows...must be a Bose!

But the in store demo sounds so crisp!

 

[Bonzo]

That tournament of the month was fun I thought. I should have a go at the table of the week I thought. That was yesterday close to midnight my time. So after a few months during which I played next to no TPA (damn you, steam sales - one should never buy several brilliant 4X games within a couple of weeks) I decided to play some NGG. Here's what happened next:

Plunging the first ball I thought OK, usually one game shouldn't last more than half an hour max. I really like the theme of NGG and I also do like Lawlor's layouts, although I'm more of a flow player and can't bring myself to strictly play stop and go. So I usually don't do all too well on his designs. My then current personal best was a measly 58 million and change. But that number was about to get crushed, big time.

Within no time I had reached the 5th hole and easily fetched the first EB. And it only got better from there. It seemed like i couldn't miss a shot - apart from hole-in-ones, obviously, I'm no superhuman. I was in the perfect mood, able to hold my concentration much better than usually. I kinda lived through my 'Klay Thompson scoring 37 in a single quarter' moment. Only that it lasted for more than two hours.

I had entered 'the zone' with not the slightest indication I'd ever leave it again. Sure, there was the occasional bumper to right outlane drain or similar next to unstoppable ball enders, but never before I had been able to get myself at least one more EB or special. I lost track of time. When I looked at the clock after a rare drain SDTM, it was 20 minutes past 2 a.m. I felt like going on, staying in 'the zone', but, well, sleep, alarm clock, work, ungh!

So with another Ball 1 in the plunger, on the back end of the 3rd course somewhere past hole 50, after shooting at least a dozen hole-in-ones, scoring my first ever super jackpot on NGG, sitting above 600 million points, I paused the game and alt-tabbed out to see if Heretic was in chat so I could enjoy some serious bragging. He wasn't, so I clicked the TPA icon in my taskbar to leave the game running in the background over night. It didn't. Instead it instantly crashed and sent me back to my desktop.

After a few seconds of disbelief the feeling of devastation kicked in. Thankfully just in that moment I saw Heretic entering the chatroom. He actually managed to cheer me up a little. Thank you so much for that, H!

That was my first ever "game ending bug" in TPA. And basically it was my fault. Why did I alt-tab? But I'm over it. Almost. Now I really do feel with everyone who had a top score taken from him due to some magically vanished ball or a score roll over that didn't register or some such. What happened to me sucks. A lot. But I "only" invested two and a half hours of my life, nowhere close to the insane amount of time some others wasted on a lost high score.

I guess I'll only play Big Shot for a while. Short games...

 

[jaredmorgs]

Not really, NGG was a year before CC, and also predated Monster Bash which is rock solid as far as anyone knows. CC is really the only one that was left unfinished. Unless you also count Champion Pub's bug with Ultimate Challenge knockouts.

I've seen the lock problem on TPA NGG too, but I actually don't think it's a ROM bug, I think it's TPA's physics getting stuck and failing to trigger the lock switches. Like happens on Black Knight's fantastically buggy lock lane.

Ahh, snap. Thanks for confirming that.

I could have sworn I heard commentary from a number of podcasts that said NGG had unfinished code. Perhaps they meant shallow rules?

That BK lock lane is full of fail. Even the way the balls just magically "appear" on the playfield after the farting saucer ejects them is dubious.

 

[Johni3w6]

Just got 45+ mil, not one of my favorite tables, but enjoyable at times. Does the sand trap ever work?

 

[vikingerik]

The sand trap works fine, what do you think is wrong with it?

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Just did all the wizard goals on my tablet, top score 56M. Those locks are very awkward though. Three, four clean shots and nothing registered. I don't think I'll be back now.

NGG is a table I really want to like, but I just can't.

 

[Johni3w6]

The sand trap works fine, what do you think is wrong with it?

Seems every time the ball lands there, I hit the flipper but always seem to miss out on the points.
Then again I could be doing something wrong.

 

[Johni3w6]

Just did all the wizard goals on my tablet, top score 56M. Those locks are very awkward though. Three, four clean shots and nothing registered. I don't think I'll be back now.

NGG is a table I really want to like, but I just can't.

I noticed yesterday while playing it, would hit the ball in the hole for Bud to lock and the ball would seem to act like it went into the hole on the green.

 

[vikingerik]

Seems every time the ball lands there, I hit the flipper but always seem to miss out on the points.
Then again I could be doing something wrong.

You have to time it so the last K in KICK is lit when the ball launches to hit it. If you miss that, then yes it's your own fault.

 

[Gus]

I gave it a shot and I'm still not getting into it. It was a really long game that I had to pause overnight. I must be doing something wrong but it took me hours to get to 4B. I was so sick of it I was cheering when the balls drained, but not for long as draining seems to include another extraball 90% of the time. And on every other shot all over the table as well. There are some pretty cool shots and features, but the call-outs are annoying, and the bumper area is just a slow frustrating area where the ball seems to end up a lot. Oh well, I got my 1k HOF. I really hope we're playing this table without extraballs if it's going to be included in the next tournament.

 

[Johni3w6]

You have to time it so the last K in KICK is lit when the ball launches to hit it. If you miss that, then yes it's your own fault.

It's been my own fault for sometime now, didn't realize I had to hit the K, thought I had to flip when the bulls eye was in the middle.
Thanks for the tip.

 

[shutyertrap]

What kind of scores is everyone averaging on this thing? I feel like I'm on the low end, often coming in around 50-60 million. It really does feel like the only strategy there is to this table is to get multiball and then keep it for as long as possible. I managed to get every single wizard goal completed without trying for a single one, they all just 'happened'. My gut tells me I enjoy this table, but my head is understanding why I don't play it more often. It's just kind of mindless.

 

[Fungi]

I'm in the same boat. This is one of those tables I just flail about, not knowing, nor caring about, the rules. I just hit gophers and ramps until it's over.

 

[shutyertrap]

Hmmm, so it's kind of like a dumb popcorn flick. You have a decent time while in it and then completely stop caring the moment it is over!

 

[Fungi]

Hmmm, so it's kind of like a dumb popcorn flick. You have a decent time while in it and then completely stop caring the moment it is over!

Yeah. Like a Transformer movie.

 

[jaredmorgs]

What kind of scores is everyone averaging on this thing? I feel like I'm on the low end, often coming in around 50-60 million. It really does feel like the only strategy there is to this table is to get multiball and then keep it for as long as possible. I managed to get every single wizard goal completed without trying for a single one, they all just 'happened'. My gut tells me I enjoy this table, but my head is understanding why I don't play it more often. It's just kind of mindless.

I got 103m during this week. Nothing staggering. I was thoroughly bored towards the end though.

 

[shutyertrap]

I'm just playing now for the sake of seeing what I can do with only 3 balls, plunging the extras.