Pinball (real and PC)

[Raggit]

It kind of seems like pinball tables are a thing of the past.Ã,  I hardly ever see them around.Ã,  It used to be every game room, and even the occasional pizza place had at least one.

I would love to see them return, as I've always been a huge fan of the game.

For now, I just have to settle for PC pinball games.Ã, 

What's the best pinball computer game you've played?Ã, 

I bought the Pinball Madness 3 collection pack off eBay last year, and I really enjoy the tables there.Ã,  I think the ProPinball by Cunning Developments is probably the best thing that ever happened to PC pinball.Ã, 

What are your recommendations?

[m0ds]

This won't help you at all, but I never used to understand pinball machines (the real ones). But the pinball on windows helped me learn a lot, and in Spain last year I managed to find a few pinball machines and was able to get extremely high scores! So I agree, there needs to be more. Then again, they might be out there - in arcades and stuff, but I haven't visited any for tooo long. They are fun, the only problem is, you don't win anything

[Buckethead]

I have a real pinball machine but it's a smaller one for kids. Pinball machines still seem to be every where if you ask me but I never see anyone play them. The pinball game I like the most is Devil Island pinball or something like that. But I'm not really into pinball that much so I haven't tried many.

[Tuomas]

That's true actually, how unfortunate. I used to love playing them every now and then. But I should think they're gone because people don't play them anymore. You see, there's no chance for a money return, unlike those slots they play.

I remember there was this Jurassic Park themed pinball on a gas station once. Our team stopped by on our way to a game, and I put 5 marks into it, then played quite a long time. After I lost all my balls, I gave it a good kick on the side, and it rewarded me with more balls. And it didn't even forget my score, so eventually I ended up making a 40x bigger highscore than the guy before Then I left and never saw it again. But anyway. Then my dad has this one at their band's trainingplace, but it's so old, it should be repaired, the rubberbands changed etc.

as for computer pinballs I must say Pinball Dreams is absolutetly the best one I've ever played, great tables, and it's the most realistic of them all.

ah yes, and the tracks were awesome, one'd never get bored plying that game and listening to the tracks.

[GarageGothic]

The Digital Illusions pinball games are awesome as Tuomas points out. Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies in particular. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I always had the feeling that the physics were slightly different - and better - in the Amiga version, so you might want to try it in an emulator.

[nulluser]

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[Damien]

What's the best pinball computer game you've played?

Pinball Illusions, hands down

Runner ups:
Psycho Pinball
Addiction Pinball
Eight Ball Deluxe

[CodeJunkie]

I've hardly even seen pinball machines around either, I think it was just once I saw one in a games room in a holiday resort.  If you're looking for computer pinball though, I too recommend Pinball Dreams and its family, just seeing those screenshots above brought back many fantastic memories.

[Raggit]

I remember a pinball game for like SNES or something, and it was set on pinball tables infested with aliens... Can anybody remember that game?

It wasn't Balls of Steel, was it?  (Duke Nukem, of course!)

[ManicMatt]

Yeah good games Tuomas!

My personal fave was Slamtilt though! Made by the same people.



Then on the Amiga, was Pinball Mania, from the same publisher. (Might have been Spidersoft that made it)

It was awful apparently. And it looked it.

[DGMacphee]

At the Timezone in the local shopping centre, they had a Simpsons pinball table. I loved that machine and played it constantly over the last two years. I had that thing all mapped out and had gaming strategies planned (like I knew which ramps were the high-scoring ones). I was getting good scores but a few months ago the fuckers at Timezone replaced it with a South Park machine. Bastards!

[CornFlake]

If you haven't already done so, you should go to http://www.vpforums.com, register and download Visual Pinball and Visual PinMame. There are literally hundreds of remakes of real pinball machines and some originals too. Keep in mind though, these computer recreations are made by ordinary folks, so many of the tables are excellent and some are not-so excellent.

[R4L]

There is a program that lets you make your own pinball machines, or play ones already made, but they're extremely realistic, and feature highly detailed 3d.

Its called Future Pinball: Click Here

(I don't meet system requirements, I don't have a Radeon or GeForce. )

[Raggit]

R4L,

THANK YOU for posting that link!  I have ALWAYS been looking for a pinball simulator builder thingy like this.   

[biothlebop]

Back in the day, I had Epic Pinball on my computer and a friend of mine had Pinball Dreams on his Amiga, so those are probably most close to my heart.

Also, windows 3d pinball was really awesome because once we found the .wav files that held the game sounds, we recorded curse-words over them on my uncle's computer. The plunger sound was exchanged to: "You are quite" and the rest of the sounds were from the basic 15-yo dictionary. At the time, it was quite hilarious to have the game swear at us with machine-gun speed while the ball bounced off bumpers and such.

[R4L]

Raggit=

I read alot of gaming magazines  ...

[Ghost]

One of the best real pinball tables I ever wasted money on was Elvira's Scared Stiff. It was a beatiful, beautiful contraption- ramps in the form of spines and ribcages, the ball trap was a box that would collapse to send up to seven balls into multiball, and the voice acting was great, too. It even had a "story" you could understnad and play- Elvira (c'mon, you know her) selecting stories from her book of scary tales, each giving you a mission. Some day the casino replaced that beautiful thing with a nifty SW-A New Hope machine. I never went there again.

On PC I prefer TimeShock from the ProPinball series- I'm quite surprised it hasn't been mentioned more often yet. Most accurate pinball sim I ever had the pleasure to play, great replay value, and the soundtrack's top. The Web's okay too... BRUSA and The Journey were, in my opinion, rather lukewarm stuff.

Ah, and when I was much, much younger, Epic Pinball was the word on the street. These days...