Pinball Arcade "Coming Soon to PS4" Trailer on PSN

smbhax · Aug 28, 2013

In the "PS4 Preview" section of the PSN store there's a new 'Pinball Arcade "Coming Soon to PS4" Trailer.' The overlay for the video display in the section says "Available 11.15.13."

The video shows footage of Cirqus Voltaire, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Monster Bash, Theater of Magic, ST:TNG, and No Good Gofers, as well as logos and stuff from other tables.

Inserts on the tables all appear to have little spotlights shining down on them when they light up, which tends to create a blinding glow in sections of the table, and hotspots in the center of the inserts that make them somewhat illegible. Monster Bash has some extremely bright lighting going on in the upper right and lower right, not sure how accurate that is to the real table.

Those insert spotlights are distracting me a lot but aside from that stuff it looks okay, I think? Transparent plastic ramps have a more realistic, somewhat more opaque look.

I'd be really happy if they could get rid of the insert spotlights, though--they aren't doing the tables any favors.

Jeff Strong · Aug 28, 2013

Jeff Strong · Aug 28, 2013

Oh my....those insert lights look very bad.

smbhax · Aug 28, 2013

Yeah, they're really starting to bother me. Incredibly unrealistic and they're extra work for FarSight to add, so I can't fathom the decision to put them in there......unless there's an option to turn them off, which seems unlikely.

I mean, like the one on one of the hearts leading to the tunnel of love or whatever on the left side of Creature, and over the central monster face in the middle of Bash, are just so bright that not only do they create a hotspot rendering the insert itself unreadable (inserts light up so you *can* read them, FarSight! : o), they also create this bright flare on the playing surface that will be horribly distracting and maybe even slightly blinding when the ball goes through/near it.

I really really really hope then can take those out. They don't belong there at all. This is actually making me wonder if I should get a PS4 and this version of TPA. There've been a lot of bad lighting problems in the PS3 version, but this is really going over the top to where I think it's going to inhibit gameplay. And it just ruins the intended lighting design of these tables.

Jeff Strong · Aug 28, 2013

Well said. It also looks like they're going overboard with the bloom in general. It's disappointing.

smbhax · Aug 28, 2013

The Theater clip looks a bit bloomy, but I can't tell if that's just because it's such a low angle down by the slingshot lights and such. I do hope it doesn't have the fuzzy bloomish look of the PS3 version--that 1080p Cirqus shot they released earlier didn't seem to.

On a related note, I've started a poll asking what everyone's preference is on the insert spotlights: http://digitalpinballfans.com/showt...hts-added-to-table-inserts-in-the-PS4-version

Pinballwiz45b · Aug 28, 2013

I think it's better lighting in general (as in flashier light shows), but I concur that the inserts need to be readable. That being said, I wonder if they'll make the inserts transparent for the lights under them, if they do it?

netizen · Aug 28, 2013

Another thing I noticed in the screen pic that showed up in the video were the three hot spots in the CV DMD

Jeff Strong said:

PiN WiZ · Aug 28, 2013

I'm very disappointed with the video as I expected all the tables to look like the Star Trek : The Next Generation PS4 Demo with ROM controlled G.I. (which seems to be working now as seen on the Cirqus Voltaire table).

Sorry, but I'd rather have FarSight delay The Pinball Arcade's release on the PS4 so that they can properly light all the tables...this just does not do it for me.

smbhax · Aug 28, 2013

I guess they're trying to make it flashier to attract video gamers who don't know what pinball looks like. As with the abomination that is ball trails in Zen Pinball, I just hope there's an "Off" option! : oo

spoonman · Aug 28, 2013

They'll probably release as is.

With the PS4 release 3 months away I would imagine the release must have already gone in for submission or is very close to it.
Sony wouldn't mess around with delays on launch day stuff.

Maybe they will release it with some flaws and then patch it up later on seeing how that worked out so well with the PS3 version.

Anyway, the colors look nice, but I still can't tell if we are still getting the same quality table graphic scans as the PS3.
Many of those were showing up pretty blurry and with tons of artifacting (overly compressed). I really hope they make it high resolution enough to zoom in and not have it blurry and dreadful looking. We know the PS4 is far more capable than that.

ER777 · Aug 28, 2013

Definitely a disappointing video, even giving it a bit of a pass for being compressed to 720p.

netizen · Aug 28, 2013

I DL'd the 720p version from Youtoob and made some "Hi-Res" gifs of the individual table parts to see exactly what's being shown.

The bloom effect on the inserts isn't as bad on CV as what was shown on the preview screen grab, MB and STTNG, x2, look good. CFTBL and TOM look a bit worse, and NGG is by far the most questionable; there was only enough to get a jpg NGG.

I halved the resolution of the gifs to keep them a managable size, so they are 640x360, and the NGG jpg is at the full 1280x720.
Discuss?

note: the abbreviations are also clickable links to the gifs, on a desktop computer the abbreviation highlighting system makes it difficult to tell.

Fungi · Aug 28, 2013

Top notch work with the Gifs sir. I salute you. With that said, TOM looks bloody awful. Wuddupwidat?

Tabe · Aug 28, 2013

Yeah, hoo boy, TOM looks terrible.

Daniel Osborne · Aug 28, 2013

Wow, NGG looks absolutely terrible. The xbox 360 version on thewWilliams collection looks better imo! Those blue ramps look awful.
I'm not as disappointed as most, and I think in general it looks pretty decent, but the tables should really have glass on now. Plus, all tables have the same generic grey sides on the inside, is that really as they should be?
I'm still pumped for this, and my next console is still a ps4, but most of my mates have changed their minds and are going x1.
It's Pinball Arcade that's the main reason I'm staying with Sony and all the huge distrust I have of ms, so hopefully this will be polished a bit more.
Nice decent front end, ps4 leader boards and tournaments only, lot less bugs and all tables available singly, and I'll be happy!
Maybe the last one is a tall ask, but you never know!

smbhax · Aug 28, 2013

Daniel Osborne said:
Wow, NGG looks absolutely terrible. The xbox 360 version on thewWilliams collection looks better imo! Those blue ramps look awful.

Actually those blue plastics are pretty accurate:

They do look pretty awful on the real table. : P The bad part of this TPA's version of NGG so far is the extreme spotlighting of the table, it looks like it's pretty much solely lit by biggish spotlights scattered around.

Daniel Osborne said:
the tables should really have glass on now.

Heartily disagree! Although that's just my opinion (just makes the action harder to see), and it's been discussed before; of course, to satisfy everyone they could have it as an option like they did on PHoF I guess, but it would affect performance however slightly, so in the end I think not having it and thus being able to put slightly more detail into the tables is the right way to go.

Jeff Strong · Aug 28, 2013

In regards to NGG, they really need to make that clear upper plastic actually look clear.

smbhax · Aug 28, 2013

Ugh. Got to stop thinking about this, wait until launch, then check out some actual gameplay videos. Hopefully they'll have done some serious lighting revamping in the meantime, because right now these aren't the classic pinball tables, they're kaleidoscopic strobing nightmares.

Jan Duin · Aug 28, 2013

Reserving judgement (and hiding my disappointment) until we see more of the final product…

Pinball Arcade "Coming Soon to PS4" Trailer on PSN

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