Table Pack #49 Speculation Thread

[rehtroboi40]

Jurassic Park has one of the best (and most difficult) multiballs ever. It also has a fantastic sound package. I'll agree that art-wise it's a bit lacking, outside of multiball the gameplay is a mashup of TAF and Whirlwind, and the toys keep breaking (especially T-Rex). But as Data Easts of that era goes, it's easily the standout table.

+ something too high to be represented by an actual number on the sound. JP and GnR had phenomenal sound packages. If you were lucky enough to go to a mall where you could hear the game from 2-3 stores away, you knew you were in for a treat. Data East had hit their stride with SW, LW, JP, GnR, and Tommy. I'll hazard a guess that Data East was the main beneficiary of the success of TAF and TZ. Even Gottlieb got a little sales bump after the release of those two tables.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Okay I'll admit I'd forgotten totally about Tommy, yeah, that's probably as good as any DE there ever was. JP just has a greater nostalgia factor attached, though.
I played a bit of Rocky & Bullwinkle but never had much of a chance to get into it. It was fine for what it was though. Same for TFTC - I've played it, but a long time ago and not very much.
Baywatch, I like. Almost the epitome of a "terrible theme, great table" pinball.
GnR the band I was a huge fan of. I never got on with GnR the pinball table. The only arcade I ever saw one in, while I was in that arcade a lot (too much...), GnR was always being played, so I gravitated towards Demolition Man and particularly Corvette, or one of the other dozen or so table they had.

 

[invitro]

Some more early Sega quick takes... Maverick was very simple but I really enjoyed it and always played a couple of games when I saw it. Batman Forever had severe mechanical problems, I played several of them but I never found a working one. I liked Apollo 13 pretty well except for the silly 13-ball; I think it had a new operator's menu that was very slick and functional and beat WMS.

A lot of people like Goldeneye, and I suppose it's OK, but I think Sega had started making games very similar to each other by then, and thus boring. So I really don't like Twister, Space Jam, and especially Lost World JP, which I think is the most boring table of the 1990's.

I enjoyed Star Wars Trilogy but didn't play it much. I never played X-Files, but I think it looks great after looking at pics & vids recently, and really hope Farsight pursues it after the current TV show ends (if it's still on).

I only played Viper Night Drivin' a few times but enjoyed it. I remember it not being as creative as SST, but more than the pack listed above. I really liked the colored pinballs and wish more tables used them .

I've never played Godzilla. I played South Park a few times but don't remember anything about it.

There are a huge pile of Data Easts I've never played, or only played a little and don't remember: Secret Service, Torpedo Alley, Time Machine, Playboy, Robocop, Monday Night Football, Back to the Future, Checkpoint, TMNT, Batman, Star Trek, and Hook. The whole run from Laser War (which I did play several times when it was brand-new) until Lethal Weapon 3... I saw a lot of them, but didn't play; I guess I was shunning them in favor of WMS and even Premier (I was really into Premier games -- Freddy, Shaq Attaq, Stargate, Big Hurt, even Strikes N' Spares -- for about a year around 1994/95, partly because several locations in my hometown got them within a week after they debuted).

I played Lethal Weapon 3 a whole lot, and it was replaced by Last Action Hero which I also played a whole lot, and they're kind of similar so my memories of them are merged . I learned Death Saves on these two. I thought they were both very fun, of course they're mode mania, and I was not a good player then so I don't know if the rules are any good, but I'm looking forward to LAH in TPA.

I played Star Wars a lot but wasn't good enough to know about the badness of the rules, and didn't play it when I was good, so I still don't . I also played a Tales From the Crypt a lot, but don't remember much about it other than it was also mode mania, and something about the playfield was subtly off-center or asymmetric. TFTC was very highly regarded at the time, as being a significant improvement over recent DE's. Of course I played JP tons, many of them as it was all over the place and continued to be so well into the 2000's, and I didn't think it was so hot in the 1990's but kinda fell in love with one around 2002, but then it disappeared. And I played WWF a bunch too, but it was too easy even for me. I did like its wide-bodiness, and its mini-playfield.

And Tommy... well Tommy was beloved, and I loved it. I think part of the reason was that I got the original/1969 album back then (1995) and was mainlining it. I think I was silly/wrong to say that Tommy blew JP away, that's too much, but it's probably the peak of the DE/Sega mode-based tables. It loses points for not actually having The Who performing or imaged anywhere in it (I think that is right?), which raises my hopes for it in TPA a little, but it still has the name The Who, and Tommy isn't yet a dead I.P., and of course The Who wrote the songs, so probably still way too pricey.

Well heck, a little Stern while I'm babbling... I played Austin Powers at a Pinburgh when it was new and really, really hated it, I don't remember why, but I'm pretty sure it was because I was angry & depressed over Stern putting WMS out of business. A HRC and a Sharkey's Shootout were new in a local arcade, and I played them several times... I know I liked HRC, but don't remember Sharkey's. I played the whiz out of Monopoly because one was next door to where I worked in 2002, and because it was a Lawlor. I remember it being OK, but awfully boring after awhile. I played a Stern Playboy at a truck stop in Virginia, I was very impressed by it and I could care less about Playboy as a theme, and hoped to play it more but that didn't happen.

From 2006-08, there was a RBIoN, Elvis, and Sopranos near me, and I played them some (I focused on a perfect Medieval Madness). I thought RBIoN was very very complex and worth figuring out (I didn't until TPA), Elvis was very interesting and a sign of Stern improving and making less-boring tables, and I really liked Sopranos, which I thought was loaded with fun shots, toys, art, and DMD stuff, and I still hope makes it into TPA or SPA some day (but after all the Sterns I haven't played).

Then there's a very wide gap, and the only post-2005 tables I've played (more than one or two times at an auction) happened in the last few months: Mustang, Avengers, Iron Man, and NASCAR. I was pleasantly surprised by these as I found them more fun than I expected (most 2006-2012 Sterns looked like crap to me from pictures). I was particularly impressed by Mustang, and by NASCAR, which happens to be the closest pinball machine to where I live, but unfortunately is fairly badly broken.

Well that was fun, some non-WMS pinball memories.

 

[Kolchak357]

Good stuff invitro ^. Always fun to read people's opinion / memories of pins.

I'm always shocked when I play a pin I haven't seen in decades and my opinion of it totally changes.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

DE's Tommy is based directly off of the Tommy stage show (which is where the versions of the songs in the table come from). Clearly The Who get writing credits for all the songs but the performing credits, artwork, etc. are all from a much cheaper source. Still, songs don't come cheap, and as we've learned from CftBL and Party Zone, they can be dropped. Dropping songs from Tommy is probably not an option since each mode is tied to a particular song.

 

[dtown8532]

LAH. That's cool. I'll take that over any Sega table.

 

[rehtroboi40]

Good stuff invitro ^. Always fun to read people's opinion / memories of pins.

I'm always shocked when I play a pin I haven't seen in decades and my opinion of it totally changes.

Invitro has listed a "who's who" of Data East machines. And having played many of them, hopefully some of their older ones will make it into either TPA or STPA.

 

[Sun Vulcan]

Steam achievements updated. Last Action Hero 100% confirmed!

 

[pm1109]

Steam achievements updated. Last Action Hero 100% confirmed!

Yay

 

[ryzombie619]

So I am guessing Arnold's voice is not in this game? LOL. I figured to feature a massive star like Schwarzenegger a kickstarter was a must, no? Never got a chance to play this table.

 

[invitro]

So I am guessing Arnold's voice is not in this game? LOL. I figured to feature a massive star like Schwarzenegger a kickstarter was a must, no? Never got a chance to play this table.

Well, Terminator is an enormous license by itself, as movies & TV shows with that name it could still generate tons of money. That isn't true for Last Action Hero.

And I remember reading somewhere that Arnold is a big pinball fan, and accepted a pinball machine as pay for his license for at least one (real) table.

 

[DA5ID]

Well, Terminator is an enormous license by itself, as movies & TV shows with that name it could still generate tons of money. That isn't true for Last Action Hero.

And I remember reading somewhere that Arnold is a big pinball fan, and accepted a pinball machine as pay for his license for at least one (real) table.

Well make sure he gets a copy of the table on TPA - pro version of course.
Big shout out to Arnold for being cool with the licensing.

 

[Extork]

Arnold playing TPA is just one of the weirdest images to me. Cmon, get to the choppa (R911)

 

[invitro]

Arnold playing TPA is just one of the weirdest images to me. Cmon, get to the choppa (R911)

Someone should send Arnie an invitation to join this forum.

I couldn't find a pic of Arnie playing pinball so this will have to do: