Tables for the rest of the year?

lettuce · Jul 29, 2012

Below are the tables that have been announced so far.....

Attack from Mars
Big Shot
Dr. Dude
Firepower
No Good Gofers
Pin•Bot
Space Shuttle
Taxi
The Twilight Zone
Victory
Whirlwind

That's 10 tables for the remainder of the 5 months left this year with one table left over, are FS likely to mix this up and add different unannounced tables that might come out this year or do you think that is the list they will be working from for the remainder of 2012?

Sean · Jul 29, 2012

That's a pretty nice line-up that should please both old and new school fans. There's only two tables there I haven't played so I'd definitely buy all of them.

Pin Wiz has said in the past there may be surprises, so it's certainly possible. I didn't expect Circus Voltaire or Creature from the Black Lagoon myself.

Bowflex · Jul 29, 2012

I am guessing at least one Elvira table and 1 Stern table before the end of the year.

bavelb · Jul 29, 2012

There's 4 new tables and 6 updates there, so I expect 1 more new table at least this year. I don't think they will package 2 updated phof tables together.

Kolchak357 · Jul 29, 2012

Bowflex said:
I am guessing at least one Elvira table and 1 Stern table before the end of the year.

I'm hoping that 1 Stern is LOTR. I've been playing it locally and really like it. Plus it would save me a lot of quarters.

Richard B · Jul 29, 2012

There's 11 tables there.
7 good ones and 4 turds.
8 are PHOF re-releases, 3 are brand new.
It seems their strategy is to mix a brand new table with a WPHOF. However, they might switch that to Williams / Gottlieb HOF pairings.

Richard B · Jul 29, 2012

Bowflex said:
I am guessing at least one Elvira table and 1 Stern table before the end of the year.

That would be awesome, especially if the Elvira was Scared Stiff. Even better if they release SS with Party Monsters. Still, no official word from FS, so is this simply wishful thinking?

Bowflex · Jul 29, 2012

Very wishful thinking but they have mentioned things about an announcement on the Elvira license that never materialized.

Richard B · Jul 29, 2012

Bowflex said:
Very wishful thinking but they have mentioned things about an announcement on the Elvira license that never materialized.

Never materialized, or hasn't materialized yet? They tend not to make announcements until the release is imminent.

Jim O'Brien · Jul 29, 2012

Richard B said:
There's 11 tables there.
7 good ones and 4 turds.
8 are PHOF re-releases, 3 are brand new.
It seems their strategy is to mix a brand new table with a WPHOF. However, they might switch that to Williams / Gottlieb HOF pairings.

What one's do you think are the turds ?

Fuseball · Jul 29, 2012

Jim O'Brien said:
What one's do you think are the turds ?

I'm guessing whichever are the 4 oldest.

Personally, I don't see it anything like as black and white. I don't like No Good Gophers much, but I wouldn't call it "turd" or even rubbish.

Richard B · Jul 29, 2012

Jim O'Brien said:
What one's do you think are the turds ?

Spaced Shuttle, Fire Power, Big Shot, and Victory. Turd is, of course, relative. They were great machines in their time (except Victory, which was painfully average even in 1987), but are turds when compared to the releases from the last 20 years.

Sean · Jul 29, 2012

Kolchak357 said:
I'm hoping that 1 Stern is LOTR. I've been playing it locally and really like it. Plus it would save me a lot of quarters.

I recently found out that was at the HMV in town and played it today. It is an interesting table and I think it would be better in the Pinball Arcade because the machine I played had really weak flipper action which made it difficult to hit some of the ramps. Lot of voice sampling in there and actor images on the backglass - I'd be curious how much the license would cost.

Aurel · Jul 29, 2012

Spaced Shuttle table is still very pleasant.
Unfortunatly Pinball machines have become rare the last 10 years in France so I don't know if they are really great pinballs made after the year 2000 but the most modern ones I have seen are semi video games with very small mechanical table and you play most of the game on a screen: not the best ones for sure...

Richard B · Jul 29, 2012

Aurel said:
Spaced Shuttle table is still very pleasant.
Unfortunatly Pinball machines have become rare the last 10 years in France so I don't know if they are really great pinballs made after the year 2000 but the most modern ones I have seen are semi video games with very small mechanical table and you play most of the game on a screen: not the best ones for sure...

Those are either the short-lived Pinball 2000 (of which only two were made - Revenge from Mars and Star Wars Ep I), or those awful hybrids from the early '80s. Whichever they were, they don't represent pinball today. From 1999-present pinball is pretty much the same as in the 90's. The only innovation is better rom technology, which allows for deeper rule sets and more / better quality sound. Wizard of Oz introduced a full color LCD monitor instead of the DMD. There are also other innovations, such as a monitor that can be placed in the playfield, and tracks the ball as it rolls over it, that have not yet been implemented, but surely will be if WOZ is successful.

Dutch Pinball ball · Jul 29, 2012

Startrek probably next year.

I cant wait on new announcements for new tables. I hope they go modern route, stern.

Richard B · Jul 29, 2012

My money is on Pin Wiz. His track record is amazing so far. He's been wrong about the dates/order, but correct on the pairings. Here's his predictions on the remaining tables, though not necessarily the order they will be released:
Harley Davidson (3rd Edition)/Taxi
Attack from Mars/Space Shuttle
Dr. Dude/Pin•Bot
TZ is scheduled to come out this year, but we don't know if it will be released in a pack, or by itself (rumors are for the latter).

Fuseball · Jul 29, 2012

Richard B said:
From 1999-present pinball is pretty much the same as in the 90's. The only innovation is better rom technology, which allows for deeper rule sets and more / better quality sound.

I personally think that pinball development peaked with the WPC 95 games like AFM, MM, CV and MB. I find the Stern games rather hit and miss. LotR and Spiderman are great and I've come round to liking Ripley's, but the rest I've played leave me rather cold. I would say that the best of the Sterns rule sets are on a par with mid-90s Williams. Not so much deeper as less easy to understand. As someone else on here pointed out - how do you know what to aim for when everything is flashing?

Richard B · Jul 29, 2012

Band themed tables have benefited the most from the chip innovations. First there was Kiss, which beeped out the opening bars of one song. Then came GNR, which played the opening verses of three songs, synthesizing the rest. Elvis had six recordings, though they were heavily looped, generally after the first verse. Now we have AC/DC which features the original recordings of 12 songs in their entirety.

Fuseball · Jul 29, 2012

I'll give you that one.

I've never much liked music on pinballs or video games, possibly because I'm a musician and computer-generated music always sounds a bit cheap to me (with the exception of BoP, where the electronic nature of it suits the theme perfectly). Mid-90s DCS sound improved that a lot, and those games sounded a lot less tinny.

I know our opinion of early-SS games differs dramatically, but the sound boards that Williams put into those games could sound thunderous when turned up. As an electronic musician I'm fascinated by those games and I play them as much for getting the wildest noises out of them as the highest scores.

Not seen (or heard) AC/DC yet. I'm kinda torn because I love Steve Ritchie games but don't like the band at all. Seems weird that we're celebrating a pinball's ability to play 12 songs in their entirety when mp3 playback technology has been with us for so long now...

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