What four table packs would you recommend to someone new to TPA?

[Gorgias32]

I love EBD so much that it got me thinking about the tables that are the "most worth the money" - if someone said they have $20 to spend on TPA table packs, which ones do you think have the highest overall quality and fun factor and most replay value?

Here are the tables I always seem to come back to and never get old, I would recommend them to anyone as totally worth the cost:

- Eight Ball Deluxe
- Monster Bash/Gorgar (more for Monster Bash, which is just outstanding on Android, but I play Gorgar pretty frequently too)
- Bram Stoker's Dracula
- F-14 Tomcat

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

- F-14 is my personal favorite, so yes, absolutely yes;
- Fish Tales - doesn't bust your balls as much as Dracula but it's still up there in the "yeah, TPA can be hard sometimes" rankings;
- EBD, I have to agree, it's a perfect example of "less is more" and "just one more go";
- Addams Family, simply because it's the most famous and it's very well done.

Or I'd say wait for a sale, you can probably get 2 whole seasons for that $20, definitely at least 1.

 

[Zevious Zoquis]

here's my "bang for buck" choices...

Medieval Madness/Bride of Pinbot - two really great tables in one pack afaic...
Scared Stiff/Big Shot - I enjoy both alot...Big Shot is a real tough old-school pin.
Taxi/Harley - never play Harley, but Taxi is a must have imho.
White Water/Space Shuttle

 

[Gorgar]

I used to love F-14, but when I figured out how easy it was to go infinite on it, I stopped caring for it. (The only two tables I can go infinite on are TZ and F14)

My picks are:
- Medieval Madness/Bride of Pinbot. The later isnt very good for veteran players, but is fun for beginners trying to learn the ropes. The former is fun no matter what your skill level.

-Eight Ball Deluxe - simple addicting gameplay. Easy to learn, difficult to master. If it weren't for this I would instead recommend Big Shot/Scared Stiff, but I despise Scared Stiff, so I am glad I don't have to.

-Harley Davidson/Taxi - both fun tables (I personally love HD, even though I am in the minority. But it is easy to start multiballs, which could be a gateway drug for getting a beginner into pinball.

-Black Rose is a fun table. I had difficulty choosing this forth pack because there are so many good ones. I think Fish Tales would be too difficult for a beginner, with AFM/Genie, the former is too similar to Medieval Madness (but I think Genie is fun too), with Monster Bash/Gorgar, I have always thought that the former was similar to MM, I guess mostly because of the audio/humor. So I went with Black Rose, which I think is a really solid table.

 

[HotHamBoy]

Wait for 50% off sale and get Season 1...

The launch table pack, Theatre of Magic, Tales of The Arabian Nights, Black Hole and Ripley's Believe it or Not is actually an excellent place to start.

Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, and Star Trek TNG are all very exciting, very accessible tables for beginners, too.

But again, all of those are Season 1..

The problem is that a lot of the two-packs have one table I would recommend to a beginner and one that I wouldn't, yet two-packs are a better entry point for newcomers. If forced to stick with packs, though, I think the Cirqus Voltair/Funhouse pack is an excellent pair. White Water/Space Shuttle is two of my favorites that are both very accessible. Medieval Madness/Bride of Pinbot. Finally, the original launch pack.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

here's my "bang for buck" choices...
White Water/Space Shuttle

Totally forgot about this one! Definitely get this one. It was the first table pack I bought on my tablet. Both are great tables. Well worth $5 (or $8 if you choose to go Pro).

 

[canuck]

Download all the tables and try out demo mode. If you like a specific table and hit the scoring limit...buy it!

 

[yespage]

Just about anything Season One.

 

[dave950lam]

Hard to pick four, but since you asked...:

Addams Family (for obvious reasons, some of which are stated in earlier posts)
Black Knight 2000 - Epic soundtrack, fun fast table
Elvira & the Party Monsters/ No Good Gofers - Pop culture overload
Eldorado/ Fireball- Old-school EM goodness.

 

[big_kick]

Pack 11 Dr. Dude / Firepower
Pack 12 Cactus Canyon / Central Park
Pack 16 Filght 2000 / Goin' Nuts
Pack 47 Hurricane

 

[rehtroboi40]

Pack 11 Dr. Dude / Firepower
Pack 12 Cactus Canyon / Central Park
Pack 16 Filght 2000 / Goin' Nuts
Pack 47 Hurricane

I agree with pack 16 as a choice. It's great for old-school variety and a unique idea (GN timed) that's hardly been tried. Even if I don't care for GN.

I also recommend:
#pack 41 The Getaway-High Speed 2. Awesome speed, soundtrack, yet approachable.
#pack 10 AFM and Genie. AFM has a nicely designed flow, and Genie will test your skills to the hilt.
#pack 13 White Water and Space Shuttle. WH2O has great playfield designs and Space Shuttle has an almost hypnotic background theme and great gameplay.

 

[Kolchak357]

The pack with Centaur should be considered as well.

 

[Snorzel]

My picks would be:
#7 Big Shot / Scared Stiff
#13 Space Shuttle/ White Water
#14 Centaur / Pinbot
#46 El Dorado / Fireball

I play on PC so not sure how these are on mobile but I enjoy every one of these tables

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

So far a rough tally of the top 4 (actually it's 7 since there's a tie for 4th) is:
ebd 3
mm/bop 3
ww/ssh 3
f-14 2
taf 2
taxi/hd3 2
f2k/gn 2

 

[Snorzel]

^ hes got F14 tho I think he wants opinions on some new packs (had to edit my post almost said Monster Bash / Gorgar)

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

^ hes got F14 tho I think he wants opinions on some new packs (had to edit my post almost said Monster Bash / Gorgar)

I'm reading it more as a guide for someone new to TPA who has $20 to spend (outside of a sale period, of course; then we get into the argument of which season to recommend, do you go with the quantity-over-quality of S1 or S2, versus the better production standards of S3/4/5).

 

[Snorzel]

^ you are correct Im sorry
Your reading comprehension > mine

In that care F14, Fish Tales, Dracula, 8BD are all great I just weny 2 packs = bang for the buck

 

[SethAB]

Party Zone and Dracula are good newbie tables that don't get much love.

Sent from my LG-H345 using Tapatalk

 

[HotHamBoy]

Pack 11 Dr. Dude / Firepower
Pack 12 Cactus Canyon / Central Park
Pack 16 Filght 2000 / Goin' Nuts
Pack 47 Hurricane

This is a list I'm really scratching my head at. Cactus Canyon and Firepower are good newbie tables but everything else...

If I was trying to get into pinball and someone recommended Goin Nuts I might just quit playing altogether.

I think good newbie tables are games with very clear objectives, a clean playfield design, lenient rules and lots of safe shots. That's why White Water/Space Shuttle is such an easy recommendation. I'd say Big Shot/Scared Stiff is another good one, too.

Dr. Dude is a mess of a game to look at and pretty unforgiving. I also take issue with Dracula because it is a demanding game that can be really punishing. I find my own play on that table to be pretty inconsistent. I think F-14 is way too fast for a new player.

Taxi is a great choice but I don't think I'd pick that pack as one of the four because of Harley Davidson. My thinking with my choices was to try and give a new player as much value for their $20 as possible. Some of the pairings make that difficult. When someone is just getting into pinball the prices for TPA may seem expensive, so getting 8 strong tables seems important. That's why I don't recommend any single table packs, no matter how good, if someone isn't ready to appreciate the quality of that table.

 

[Zevious Zoquis]

Taxi is a great choice but I don't think I'd pick that pack as one of the four because of Harley Davidson. My thinking with my choices was to try and give a new player as much value for their $20 as possible. Some of the pairings make that difficult. When someone is just getting into pinball the prices for TPA may seem expensive, so getting 8 strong tables seems important. That's why I don't recommend any single table packs, no matter how good, if someone isn't ready to appreciate the quality of that table.

Yeah this was my thinking as well. For somebody wanting a bunch of tables to play I think getting the 2 packs is the way to go. There's value in having a large variety of tables to choose from as well as just the fundamental quality of each table. However, I think Taxi is a must have table personally so that one I'm willing to accept even though HD isn't very good...

I'd actually recommend AFM over Medieval Madness, but since it comes with Genie while MM comes with BOPB I went with MM...