Full Throttle pinball

[Tochni]

I hope this machine will also be digital emulated at some point.

http://heighwaypinball.com/fullthrottle/

 

[Metalzoic]

They just released pics of the LE. Pretty damn awesome looking.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/heighway-pinball-official-pinside-thread/page/14

 

[Slam23]

I played on at the Dutch Pinball Open and came away amazed at the incredible flow. It is tuned to perfection.

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Played it at Pintastic and it came to my local pinball arcade fairly recently. Can't wait to head up there and play it a bit more!

 

[Jeff Strong]

Graphically, it also has a healthy dose of 80’s cheese, which makes for a very cool combination of good gameplay and nostalgic art.

 

[karl]

I can testify to this being a really fun machine.

The rules are excellent on Full Throttle.

PS! The shiny chrome armor in the pictures above is not on the LE. It is a rather costly add-on option. But it looks pretty bad ass.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

From what I understand, all Heighway's tables are designed fully modular, right? So if you wanted to convert Full Throttle to Alien, it's be relatively straightforward?

 

[karl]

Correct. And much cheaper than buying a brand new machine. (I believe I gave them ca 60% of the full throttle complete package for the Alien add-on playfield)

I went for the the glossy black LE cabinet on my Full Throttle, since that will be the most neutral for later playfields (even though the red one suits Full Throttle really good)

I also did Black Armour, because I was not so fond of their normal silver one. But I am seriously considering upgrading to Chrome, when that one will be ready for sale.

You have so many options when you choose a Heighway game. PS! For me, the big 27" screen in the backbox was a must. It looks so damn nice in person.

 

[karl]

Here is a nice little clip showing how easy and fast their modular system is:

 

[Rudy hates me]

Would the (LCD?) screen cause problems in terms of this being added to TPA? I have absolutely no idea myself, so can anybody a little more clued up on these things give their take on it? The table does look awesome.

 

[invitro]

Would the (LCD?) screen cause problems in terms of this being added to TPA? I have absolutely no idea myself, so can anybody a little more clued up on these things give their take on it? The table does look awesome.

That is only the tip of the iceberg. I would bet that no emulator even exists for Heighway machines, so Farsight would have to make one, and it likely wouldn't run on most platforms because it would be enormous. Then consider that Farsight has yet to emulate Capcom's ROM's, which are orders of magnitude simpler and an emulator might exist already for those, or Stern's SAM or Spike. Then consider that this would get you only one table, while the others would get you at least six or seven (Capcom).

But maybe in ten years?

 

[Slam23]

Interesting question. I'm not a technical guy, but this is what I think. First off Farsight needs a license deal with Heighway. I doubt they will do such a thing with a company that just entered the market and only has 2 working pins on it's resume. Also Farsight will need to emulate their engine. That will not be easy because I suspect that will cost a lot of processing power, being that this is a very new system. And emulating a full HD interactive backglass will pose it's own processing problems. So I won't keep your hopes out for this, however nice this pin is.

Edit: Ah, Invitro beat me to it. But I see that he thinks along the same line. I do wonder though how this will work out with the Stern app? I have a suspicion that Stern has kept it's engine relatively simple, seeing as that they still use old-style DMD.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

I do wonder though how this will work out with the Stern app? I have a suspicion that Stern has kept it's engine relatively simple, seeing as that they still use old-style DMD.

From what I understand, Stern SPIKE will work with an LCD screen as well. I heard somewhere, I think, that Ghostbusters will have an LCD instead of a DMD.

 

[karl]

Well, Heighway do digital versions of their games before they have the playfields populated to keep the workflow going and to get a sense of how everything will fit for both rules and mechanisms.

I believe they do this in Future Pinball. So it would probably not be as hard as you might think.

Granted, it surely needs a little bit more power than 90' dmd games, but if the new spike system that Stern is using is possible for mobile devices, I bet that the Heighway system is not that much harder. The tricky (or not?) part is probably the playfield screen

 

[Metalzoic]

Video of the new glowing ramps for FT. Gives me a bit of an idea of what to expect on the Alien LE.