TPA's Competition - A Breakdown of Current and Classic Favorites

[JoshuaKadmon]

FarSight aims to make The Pinball Arcade the greatest pinball video game of all time. With 16 tables released and the distinct advantage of its painstakingly accurate historical recreations, some of us already believe that it's achieved that goal. But how does it measure up to the competition when we look at the top-rated current and classic pinball titles?

CURRENT:
Age of Pinballs 80's-90's [ASK Homework]
Crystal Caliburn II [LittleWing]
Future Pinball [Christopher Leathley]
Pinball FX [Zen Studios]
Pinball FX2 [Zen Studios]
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection [FarSight]
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection [FarSight]
Pinball HD Collection [OOO Gameprom]
Pro Pinball [Silverball Studios]
Retro Pinball [Fuse Powered]
SlamIt Pinball: Big Score [Technetium]
The Pinball Arcade [FarSight]
Visual Pinball [Randy Davis]
Zen Pinball [Zen Studios]
Zen Pinball 2 [Zen Studios]

CLASSICS:
3D Ultra Pinball [Sierra]
Addiction Pinball [Team17]
Alien Crush [Compile]
Crüe Ball [Electronic Arts]
David's Midnight Magic [David Snider]
Devil's Crush [Compile]
Digital Pinball: Necronomicon [KaZe]
Metroid Prime Pinball [Nintendo]
Microsoft Pinball Arcade [Microsoft Saffire]
Pinball Dreams [Digital Illusions CE]
Pinball Fantasies [Digital Illusions CE]
Pinball Heroes [Sony]
Pinball of the Dead [Sega]
Pinball Construction Set [BudgeCo]
Pokémon Pinball [Nintendo]
Sonic Pinball Party [Sega]

Have I missed any noteworthy releases, past or present? Which ones do you think present the greatest challenge for FarSight?

 

[laughing_lunatic]

My favorite alternative is Zen Pinball 2, which is vastly different to Zen Pinball. It's not one of the options.

And you realize that this poll (you DO like your polls, eh ?) will likely result in a flame war, right ?

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Other (Pro Pinball ROCKS!!!). TPA is still amazing, though.

 

[JoshuaKadmon]

Oops. I should've put both of those as options in the poll.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Pro Pinball.

 

[Fungi]

Easy. Pro Pinball.

 

[Chris Dunman]

Crüe Ball! I'd forgotten all about that! Still got it in my cupboard as it goes. Does Flipnic count? Not that I wanted to vote for it, just didn't see it on the list

 

[Bonzo]

Yup. Pro Pinball. I do like to play VP for some recreations like Groni's AFM, but as soon as they'll be out for TPA (on PC) VP won't stand a chance.

And I haven't played Silverball's Ancient Beckons (or something like that) but some posts here tell me that it's at least as good as Metroid Prime Pinball, so I think it deserves a mention, too.

 

[pacreis]

Classic: Psycho Pinball

 

[Sinistar]

other: Japanese Super Famicom game cartridge : Jaki Crush (sequel to Devil Crush only with Onis )

 

[Matt McIrvin]

Pro Pinball, what I've played of it (not much), was indeed great.

Flipnic was weirdly disappointing; it starts out as a lush and sprawling fantasy-pinball game (with some irritating features, like the UFOs with unskippable cutscenes), but as you play on, the game actually gets more primitive in graphics and gameplay until it's not so much pinball as a sort of open-playfield Pong. It seems to have been a deliberate choice, but it's a baffling one.

I spent a lot of time playing Atari 2600 Video Pinball, which was not very much like pinball but provided some entertainment anyway. Later on, there was a "Midnight Magic" cartridge for the 2600, which was not very much like David's Midnight Magic but actually was recognizably like pinball; the main thing it lacked was a nudge. (I never encountered this last until many years later in emulation.)

But prior to Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, my favorite pinball sim ever was Royal Flush, which introduced me to the joys of simulated real tables (Royal Flush was a great 1970s Gottlieb EM; they did a solid-state remake a few years later, but the sim was doing the EM version). I think Broderbund released the PC version. The Mac port became orphanware and was released for free by the developer, which was how I encountered it. It was for Classic Mac OS and didn't make the transition to OS X, so that was it for me until PHoF came out. If TPA ever gets into Gottlieb electromechanicals, I would dearly love for them to do Royal Flush.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

...anyway, my current favorite TPA alternative is just Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (on the Wii). I haven't played it a lot lately, but it does still have some tables I like that TPA doesn't have.

And the Wiimote/nunchuk control scheme means that it's easier to play co-op with my 6-year-old daughter (she takes the plunger and one flipper; we do the same thing on real machines). Though lately she's seemed more eager to fire up TPA and just play on her own.

 

[bavelb]

Pinball FX2: my arcadey fix for when I want a different flavour of pinballl. Pro pinball is good as well but plays too similar to TPA to be a different experience.

 

[ridcully]

Also missing is the classical Epic Pinball. Which is on sale for iOS as Retro Pinball.

 

[JoshuaKadmon]

TPA is still undoubtedly my favorite, but surprisingly, I spend most of my "alternative time" on Age of Pinballs. I'm starting to see the virtues of Zen 2, but I was never much of a fan of the original. Pro Pinball is excellent, of course, but I've just about had my fill of those four tables. Pinball HD Collection is okay, as iPad pinballs go, but the unrealistic layouts are a big turnoff to me. We've all done our time on Visual Pinball and Future Pinball, but there aren't enough recreations available on Future. I still kick up Microsoft Pinball Arcade every once in a while, mainly for Haunted House, and Retro/Epic Pinball was cool back in the day but shows its age. Metroid Prime Pinball is fun but limited in scope. All-in-all, TPA's biggest competition seems to be Pro and Zen, but Pro's future success seems completely reliant on an unrealistic Kickstarter. Even though that Kickstarter doesn't have a chance at this point, do you still think we could get the originals on Steam? I wasn't entirely clear on that point...

 

[Carl Spiby]

No Pinball Fantasies? Tut.

 

[JoshuaKadmon]

No Pinball Fantasies? Tut.

Hey, I put it in the "Classics" section, didn't I?

 

[Carl Spiby]

Ah yes I missed that, fond memories of playing that on my Amiga, there was a special AGA32 version for the A1200 if I recall too!

 

[JoshuaKadmon]

I know I've said it before, but I don't usually like pinball video games that much. I love TPA's historically accurate recreations, and I don't mind when the game feels like it offers something unique AS a video game, like Sonic Spinball or Devil's Crush. But most fall into the trap of identity disorder, where the designs could never happen in real life but somehow they're still too restricted by the pinball theme. Zen is the biggest example of this, since the original's tables seemed like they were designed to fit into a realistic cabinet but included some silly animated components and had horrible ball physics. Thankfully, Zen 2 has taken it a step further to make things feel like a proper video game, with its loose pinball layout as more of a celebration of theme than a design restriction. Am I making sense to anyone?

What does anyone else think about Age of Pinballs? I've certainly got my grievances about the game, but I actually enjoy playing it (which I didn't expect when I first downloaded it to my iPad). It doesn't seem to be the most popular pinball game, but it's hard to deny the value. And the 3D visuals are impressively crisp. ASK has certainly stepped up their quality since Dream Pinball 3D.

 

[neilpinbot]

Classic: Psycho Pinball

This