So...has TPA changed your opinion of any tables (for better or worse)?

We've all had a chance to put a lot of time into the various tables in TPA now that it's been out awhile. My question: Has playing the TPA versions of any table changed your opinion of that table in general? Hate something you previously liked? Like something you previously hated?

In my case, I have changed my opinion of The Bride of Pin*Bot. Now, granted that my exposure to "Bride" was very limited previously but I hated it. Now that I've had a chance to play it via the DLC, I'm liking it a lot. Definitely in the upper range of my favorites.

On the flip side, I don't think there's any that I hate now that I liked before. Of the 8 PS3 tables so far, only Black Hole is on my "dislike" list - and I already hated it before.

So, what say you, TPA fans? Any changes of heart brought about The Pinball Arcade?

Tabe

Interesting topic. I love medieval Madness but I feel that the TPA version falls short for me. The ball is way too bouncy/floaty IMO. It really doesn't represent what was so good about the table. And the flippers are annoying. Not because the dimensions are not exact (Was noted that FS would fix this) but how limp they are. It's also tough to keep the ball in control. Not that that shouldn't be the case like real pinball. It's just a disappointment to me.

Funhouse and Bride surprised me. They are my favorites of the munch, To me it fees more like how all the tables that FS should be like. great control and ball physics. CV and MM is not the case.

I still love the core pack too. Although TOTAN is still annoying with how floaty and bouncy the ball is.

Tabe said:

We've all had a chance to put a lot of time into the various tables in TPA now that it's been out awhile. My question: Has playing the TPA versions of any table changed your opinion of that table in general? Hate something you previously liked? Like something you previously hated?

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TPA has, as with others in this thread, caused me to warm to The Machine: Bride of Pin*Bot and Funhouse. These two may be the only ones of these simulated tables I've played in real life, but I never played them enough to get familiar with them. Funhouse just struck me as viciously hard in PHoF: Williams, but I like it more in TPA (on Android).

The other one is, surprisingly, Black Hole. I'd played it briefly in PHoF: Gottlieb at a friend's house and found it unpleasant, but in TPA I'm coming to understand how it works and starting to get kind of addicted.

I really like TotAN and Theatre of Magic, too, but I never had any experience with them prior to TPA.

Ripley's for sure. I played one in Myrtle Beach about a year ago and didn't really get it, but now I've got it down.

Kind of an unpopular opinion here, but I've learned that I DO NOT like John Popadiuk games from my experience in TPA. I just can't get into them at all, especially CV.

Rudy Yagov said:

Ripley's for sure. I played one in Myrtle Beach about a year ago and didn't really get it, but now I've got it down.

Kind of an unpopular opinion here, but I've learned that I DO NOT like John Popadiuk games from my experience in TPA. I just can't get into them at all, especially CV.

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Not a fan of the big "hit me here!" toys huh?

TPA (and PHOF) has taught me that I missed out on a lot of great pinball because, up until very recently, I refused to play any "dinosaur" (non-DMD) machines. Thus, I missed out on Funhouse, Diner, Haunted House, and countless others.

It definitely has made me appreciate TotAN a lot more. I think that game can be frustrating in any format, physical or virtual. Difference is you can give it more chances in the digital realm and figure out ways to compensate for the frustrating aspects of it so you can begin to enjoy it and have a good game. Now it is a table that I absolutely love.
Medieval Madness was always my favorite game in the arcades from the first game I played on it. I don't think the version does it justice on TPA but I still enjoy the digital version of it.

Ripleys is the big surprise for me. Didn't like it in the arcade, hated it in Virtual Pinball, but became crazy addicted to it with TPA.

Medieval Madness I loved the few times I played in the arcade, mainly for the entertainment value. Didn't like it in PBHoF, and wasn't crazy about it in TPA...until I learned all the rules. Now I'm super crazy addicted to it. However, I watched a vid of a guy playing it at PAPA, and it doesn't play like that. He was catching and controlling the ball in ways that no matter how hard I try, TPA won't let me (yeah, bouncy off the flippers). But I'm loving the depth of rules.

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Matt McIrvin said:

Funhouse just struck me as viciously hard in PHoF: Williams, but I like it more in TPA (on Android).

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I've played more Funhouse than any pinball game other than Strat-o-Flite (parents bought that one when I was a kid) but I am nowhere near a master on it. I found the version in PHOF, particularly the PS2 version, to be far too EASY. The one in TPA is much more accurate. It's still far easier than a machine in real life because it's more predictable but it's at least more accurate than before.

Tabe

With me it is the other way around. Pinball arcade confirmed me the old machines dont do it for me anymore.

Cant play the black holes and gorgars anymore, i get bored the second i plunge.

But some do like them, so its good they do all timeframes, even i really hope they gonne do modern tables.

I wouldn't say it changed my opinion of them, but maybe appreciate more. I mean, I still hate CV, but since I didn't have to dump bags of quarters into it, I was able to play it for extended periods of time to get deeper into the table and learn it a bit better. Also helps that I was able to quit the game and restart if I missed the first skill shot You really do take a different approach when you're paying for each game.

I think it has made me appreciate most of the tables more. I just never had a combination of enough quarters and time to become an expert at any real table. But with TPA I've been able to spend some time really learning the tables. I wish that I hadn't taken for granted that pinball tables would always be around when I had the chance to play them more.

Rudy Yagov said:

Kind of an unpopular opinion here, but I've learned that I DO NOT like John Popadiuk games from my experience in TPA. I just can't get into them at all, especially CV.

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Hm, I guess you're not the only one. ToM and ToTAN are a bit too... streamlined to me. I don't mind the "hit the toy!" stuff at all, but it doesn't have enough "friction" to me. I guess I just prefer the more edgy tables, with nooks and crannies, the Lawlor style in particular. Especially RBION and Gofers are really tacky, but that's a big thing I like about them.

I adore the art and sound design on ToM, ToTAN and CV a lot, though, but they somehow don't engage me that much - which is the complete 180 of what I thought when I first tried TPA: I was stunned by ToM and ToTAN but absolutely disgusted by RBION, which is now amongst my favourites. (Though I can really see myself get into CV more when it comes to 360.)

And I definitely started to enjoy older tables more. I instantly liked Whirlwind, Taxi took me a while to get into, and I somehow really learned to love Black Knight, Sorcerer, Firepower and Gorgar. I also hated PinBot at first, but now I'm really enjoying it, the very open design which I found so dull at first is a great to experience ball physics, nudging and aiming. I also love the orange flashers, which is why I got that avatar It also still looks very nice on PHOF 360.

...oh, and something I have to add:
I love pinball machines that really have this arcade feeling about them, which is probably why I love the alphanumeric tables with the rusty sounding, kinda Sega Genesis-sounding FM synthesis sound design a lot. DCS tables can have really brilliant music and voice samples and whatnot, but I mostly prefer the, well, "retro" sound.

Dutch Pinball ball said:

Cant play the black holes and gorgars anymore, i get bored the second i plunge.

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I'd already gotten addicted to Gorgar in PHoF; TPA just confirmed that. (Though I didn't like it quite as much as Taxi, Pin*Bot or Firepower, my favorites of that lot. Which is odd given that those three sort of bracket the whole pre-DMD SS field in complexity.)

I have lost some respect for BoP after truly realizing how one-dimensional the game is if you are concerned with getting high-scores. The 1-billion and 50-million point shots render the rest of the table completely useless since all other shots are an insignificant fraction of those scores. If you want to get a high-score on BoP all you have to do is keep cycling the same ramp shot over and over for hours and just hope that you get lucky enough for the big wheel to land on one of the two scores I mentioned above.

Crush3d_Turtle said:

I have lost some respect for BoP after truly realizing how one-dimensional the game is if you are concerned with getting high-scores. The 1-billion and 50-million point shots render the rest of the table completely useless since all other shots are an insignificant fraction of those scores. If you want to get a high-score on BoP all you have to do is keep cycling the same ramp shot over and over for hours and just hope that you get lucky enough for the big wheel to land on one of the two scores I mentioned above.

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I agree, at times it gets very repetitive. at the same time it has it's charm, 'cus regardless of this it's not that easy to get very high scores. it can be very meditative in a way; repeat a simple task again and again - easy to do, hard to master...

The instructions are an item that really contribute to the overall understanding of a game. Something like bride of Pinbot seems to have all this exciting stuff to do but you soon realize after learning to play it, is very shallow in achieving high scores. Other games like rbion are extremely complex and have so many things going on it can be difficult to understand how to achieve everything without the instructions. That is one aspect of tpa that can really shape the depth perception of games. I still enjoy them all but it definitely makes me look at them a bit different.

Tpa made me appreciate rbion a lot more, its a very very good table to strive highscores for with all the different stacking modes and slotmachine-states. At first it was too complex and unclear on what to do, but once you understand all the different modes on their own you can strive for a lot of ways to combine them and score high (like a x2 playfield bonus just before you finish all continents and the subsequent superjackpot). The table could do with a bit less amount of extra balls/specials though.

The complete opposite is true of BOP in fact, which is the table I started disliking most after the initial wow-factor wore off and I made the double billion point shot in 1 game. At first I thought it was great, but boredom set in fast.

All other tables were or are still on par with my expectations, although Im a tad surprised Totan is my absolute favourite table to play for a quick session still and I dont grow bored of it.