Worst release so far?

[superballs]

That's what multiball is there for!

I tend to use multiball for attempting those high risk shots (see also MM castle, AFM saucer, MB Frankenstein or Drac). A good fast shot round the multiplier loop should head neatly into the left inlane. Maybe 1/10 bobbles around and into the outlane. Once the buttons are repositioned then you can always use the magnasave if you're worried about an outlane drain.

I'm with Shaneus on this. I find many modern games too disrupted by pauses and long animations (I'm looking at you CV!). It's probably why I find a lot of the alphanumeric games are the perfect balance of rule depth and non-stop action, and also why I like Steve Richie games so much.

The thing I love about HS2:TG (another Ritchie Design) is that the two major pauses for DMD tomfoolery are awesome. The jackpot animation and the multiball start are two of the most exciting things I've experienced in pinball ever.

 

[Tabe]

I agree that Black Knight is the worst of the tables so far. So many bugs, so many unsaveable drains, the graphics are bad, the sound is worse, and the game itself is just terrible. I've grown to appreciate Black Hole and Gorgar but Black Knight...ugh. I played it for about an hour the other night just trying to finish off the Standard Goals and I found myself saying "This game sucks, why am I playing this?" over and over. Once I finished that last goal, I was DONE. Unless I get a notion to try and knock out the Wizard Goals, I can't imagine myself playing it again.

Tabe

 

[Fuseball]

The arcade BK looks and sounds one hell of a lot better than the TPA version. The sound priority is all messed up so you get the drop target bank noise all the bloody time and there are also some other cool sounds completely missing. All the lighting effects are missing (strobing GI and multiball build-up sequence for example) and the PS3 version looks awful. A pinball doesn't get to be as big a hit as BK without being a good game, but the bug-ridden TPA version really does it a great disservice.

I'm still playing it, through the bugs, and mentally filling in all the missing sounds and features. As time goes on I get less and less convinced that it will ever get overhauled in TPA and restored to something approaching arcade quality, which would be sad.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

I'm still playing it, through the bugs, and mentally filling in all the missing sounds and features. As time goes on I get less and less convinced that it will ever get overhauled in TPA and restored to something approaching arcade quality, which would be sad.

Farsight seems to hope to eventually replace the scripted Black Knight with an emulated version. If they're really going to do that, I could see them devoting less effort to fixing bugs in the existing scripting.

But I don't know if they're actually putting any time into emulating Williams System 7. It'd presumably be simpler than much of the emulation they've already done, but it'd take some development effort, and they don't have any other games planned that use that platform.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

But I don't know if they're actually putting any time into emulating Williams System 7. It'd presumably be simpler than much of the emulation they've already done, but it'd take some development effort, and they don't have any other games planned that use that platform.

From what I understand, FarSight will be able to use the System 11 emulation framework as a base to start work on the older Williams Systems, as they are highly similar.

 

[Matt McIrvin]

That makes sense; presumably they could cover some other PHoF reruns at the same time. Space Shuttle and Sorcerer are system 9 (according to IPDB); Gorgar and Firepower are system 6.

 

[Jutter]

To me Pinball Arcade is where the concepts game and encyclopedia overlap (same as museum and arcade overlap at a place like PAPA Headquarters, or the PHoF in Vegas), and I like having Black Knight in my collection as a museum-piece. Admittedly I play it far less than other tables.

 

[Sumez]

Out of all the PHOF tables, Black Knight is clearly the one I dislike the most.
I eventually came to really like most of the old tables, Gorgar being a lot of fun despite how simple it is, and Firepower quickly growing on me as well. And of course, slightly newer tables like Pinbot and Space Shuttle are lots of fun, too.

But two tables I just can't ever cope with are Black Knight and Sorceror. I think neither of them are any fun to play at all, and whenever I lose a game, I don't really feel like giving it another try, I just want to go play another table!
Black Knight does have a lot of elements that look cool on paper. Easy locks, 3-ball multiball, upper playfield with extra flippers, and of course an awesome theme.

But the segration on the playfield into two makes each playfield terrible to play, the upper flippers get in the way for the lower ones during multiball, and in general all the "challenge" on the table are based on annoyance rather than a fun table. Oh, and the theme is limited to a paiting on the backglass, and a sword painted on the playfield, you forget about it immediately.
But I do commend Steve Ritchie for at least trying something "new" with the table. It was released in a decade where they were making up a lot of new elements on pinball tables that would move on to become standards throughout the 90's, so of course there would have to be both hits and misses. I just personally think this table was a miss, and there's probably a good reason the segration of the playfield into two sub-fields was rarely revisited since.

So yeah, the table is interesting for purely "historical" reasons.

 

[Sean]

I'm looking forward to this table getting sorted, but even so I still enjoy playing it on my iPad from time to time. It is pretty unforgiving like most older tables, but I appreciate the simplicity and speed of play found on the older solid state machines.

There are definitely some nice machines from the late 80s onward, but the presentation just isn't as nice as these older machines. I had a go at Lord of the Rings recently and whilst it's fun enough the look of the machine just felt cheap and plasticky - I'd probably like a virtual version of it more than the real thing!

 

[George Klepacz]

I've been out of touch with this game for a bit, has there been any indication that Farsight will be correcting the issues with this table? I'm more referring to the scripting inaccuracies like the multiball startup light shows, for example.

 

[Palmer Eldritch]

I've been out of touch with this game for a bit, has there been any indication that Farsight will be correcting the issues with this table? I'm more referring to the scripting inaccuracies like the multiball startup light shows, for example.

nope, they think everything is just peachy.

 

[Sumez]

Is the multiball startup light show really a big issue?

 

[Fuseball]

Is the multiball startup light show really a big issue?

Well, it's not the biggest issue, but the game does lose a lot of its drama and arguably what makes it special without the buildup to multiball. All the lights on the table go out, including the GI lamps under the plastics and behind the backglass, then the feature lights build up from the bottom of the sword to the top of the table before the GI strobes as each ball is released. It's actually pretty awesome in a darkened room.

Before the advent of flashers, a lot of those early-SS games by Williams and Bally made great use of strobing the GI via a relay to build tension. Centaur is another game that uses it to great effect and I hope FS can get some degree of dynamic lighting in place by the time they script that one.

 

[Sumez]

At least let them create an actual "night mode" before working on any lights that would look cool in such a setting.

 

[George Klepacz]

Fuseball had a list of inaccuracies posted here somewhere, I just listed the multiball startup as an example because I believe the presentation really adds to the table. And then there is always this:

 

[George Klepacz]

If this link works, start at 1:42 to see multiball. It's pretty sweet. I don't seem to know how to embed videos here.

 

[Palmer Eldritch]

have you noticed how farsight never comments on this table or on this thread? it's like they deny anything about it... what gives? this is one of my favorite tables IRL and it sucks for it to be treated like dirt

 

[Kmitchell]

For sound? Black Knight, hand down. But I'll mute it and happily plug away at it.
For general play? RBION. I just can't get into it. I like a deep/challenging ruleset, but something about it just doesn't work for me.

 

[Fuseball]

For sound? Black Knight, hand down. But I'll mute it and happily plug away at it.
For general play? RBION. I just can't get into it. I like a deep/challenging ruleset, but something about it just doesn't work for me.

Well, the sound priorities are one of the things that FS got wrong in TPA. The drop target bank droning should be muted by pretty much anything else that goes on instead of being to the foreground all the time.

Anyway, this is my favourite YouTube clip of BK - as it should be in a darkened room.

 

[phreaker47]

Well, the sound priorities are one of the things that FS got wrong in TPA. The drop target bank droning should be muted by pretty much anything else that goes on instead of being to the foreground all the time.

Anyway, this is my favourite YouTube clip of BK - as it should be in a darkened room.

That also confirms that the EOB bonus was as I remembered it, cycling through once per bonus multiplier. On TPA it just cycles once quickly and automatically calculates the multiplier. Really takes the coolness factor of it down a notch.