Pinball Arcade Videos: Your opinions so far?

[Rudy]

I couldn't figure out where to put this, but now there's two videos to download from TPA I'm curious what people think of them.

The History of Pinball
An excellent documentary detailing a wide span of time, featuring interviews with some pretty big names detailing the progressions throughout the industry. Sure most of the documentary is redundant if you have plenty of knowledge of how pinball started, but for those like me who wanted to learn more about the EM era this was a godsend. The only negatives I could find were the hamfisted 'interview' piece with Frank Thomas, but that was mostly down to Thomas' persona just being a huge contrast to everything that went before. It's so sad to see that shortly after the documentary was released that everything fell apart for pinball

Pinball 101:
I found that the techniques that could be taught were pretty useful and the specific game tips were great (I didn't even know about AFM Dirty Pool) but there was so much filler for no reason whatsoever. If it was a video talking about the secrets and hidden areas of certain games then it could have been a goldmine of information, but instead there was the horrific animation of Billy, a needless 5 minute mock opera piece, and toy car camera pieces that were great but went on too long and didn't really show us anything about the games that we couldn't see by looking at the table playfield itself.

I just wonder what else could be added to the videos section. Tilt: The Future of Pinball? Special When Lit?

 

[Fungi]

Yeah, that Frank Thomas piece was a waste of time. If they do put out "Tilt" and "Special", I think they'll be out of material.

 

[Mick Morry]

I have tried to watch The History Of Pinball numerous times on my Ipod, and have not been able to see the entire video. I get about 10 minutes in and then either my internet or my Ipod stalls it out and I have to wait like 4 minutes for it to load about 1 minute of the video. I wish I could view them on my PC in Steam's version of TPA. Please bring those videos to TPA in Steam and many more. I am out in the country and am on Satellite internet. I know...ouch. I can actually online game with the connection, and have a great ping, but these videos just stall right out. Maybe I should try them on my new Ipad? I notice it downloads updates and games very, very fast. I will have to try that. I have avoided buying Pinball 101 only for that reason. I see it is available on PC while surfing the web a month ago. I heard about that video a couple of months back and went looking for it. What I have seen of THOP video is very good and I suggest it to the pinballers reading this. I hope you have better luck and better internet speed than I seem to have though. LOL FRUSTRATING!!!

 

[Mark W**a]

I couldn't figure out where to put this, but now there's two videos to download from TPA I'm curious what people think of them.

The History of Pinball
An excellent documentary detailing a wide span of time, featuring interviews with some pretty big names detailing the progressions throughout the industry. Sure most of the documentary is redundant if you have plenty of knowledge of how pinball started, but for those like me who wanted to learn more about the EM era this was a godsend. The only negatives I could find were the hamfisted 'interview' piece with Frank Thomas, but that was mostly down to Thomas' persona just being a huge contrast to everything that went before. It's so sad to see that shortly after the documentary was released that everything fell apart for pinball

Pinball 101:
I found that the techniques that could be taught were pretty useful and the specific game tips were great (I didn't even know about AFM Dirty Pool) but there was so much filler for no reason whatsoever. If it was a video talking about the secrets and hidden areas of certain games then it could have been a goldmine of information, but instead there was the horrific animation of Billy, a needless 5 minute mock opera piece, and toy car camera pieces that were great but went on too long and didn't really show us anything about the games that we couldn't see by looking at the table playfield itself.

I just wonder what else could be added to the videos section. Tilt: The Future of Pinball? Special When Lit?

The History of Pinball was great. Very well made, very well put together. I learned so much, especially about early pinball.

I'd like to see a sequel that focuses more on modern games, adds in the past 10 years of Stern, and has much more focus on lead designers and their perspectives on the business.

I totally agree with your assessment of Pinball 101. Compeltely, 100%. Lol at that awful "Billy" animation sequences. Some of the worst, ugliest flash poop I've ever seen.

Edit that out completely, trim the opera song, pinball etiquette, and ball cam sections, and it'd be a great, 45 minute video. As it stands its a really disjointed mess of a video, but with some really great strategy sections, tips, moves, etc. but awful added filler that thankfully can be skipped.

Yeah, that Frank Thomas piece was a waste of time. If they do put out "Tilt" and "Special", I think they'll be out of material.

Probably true. But that's 4 good videos total and it's good extra revenue for them. Plus if they let say Bowen put something together, even just some good quality PAPA/Pinburgh tournament stuff, or Farsight themselves does a documentary, a more in depth "making of" or even their own history of pinball type video, or maybe something by Classic Game Room... that's still pretty good. 4-7 videos is all they really ever need to put out.

I have tried to watch The History Of Pinball numerous times on my Ipod, and have not been able to see the entire video. I get about 10 minutes in and then either my internet or my Ipod stalls it out and I have to wait like 4 minutes for it to load about 1 minute of the video. I wish I could view them on my PC in Steam's version of TPA. Please bring those videos to TPA in Steam and many more. I am out in the country and am on Satellite internet. I know...ouch. I can actually online game with the connection, and have a great ping, but these videos just stall right out. Maybe I should try them on my new Ipad? I notice it downloads updates and games very, very fast. I will have to try that. I have avoided buying Pinball 101 only for that reason. I see it is available on PC while surfing the web a month ago. I heard about that video a couple of months back and went looking for it. What I have seen of THOP video is very good and I suggest it to the pinballers reading this. I hope you have better luck and better internet speed than I seem to have though. LOL FRUSTRATING!!!

My experience is the complete opposite. History of Pinball plays perfectly, whereas Pinball 101 pauses every 3-5 seconds. No matter how long I let the video load, the result is the same. Probably took me a good 2 hours to get through it lol.

 

[Mick Morry]

I'm on around 4 hours now and still just half way. ROFL. HELP!!!!! I am dying to watch it undisturbed.

 

[Mick Morry]

So far so good playing it on my new Ipad 5. I am in 20 minutes now with no stutters or stopping. I think I will get all the way through with my Ipad. Obviously the slower download rate on Ipod's was the issue. Ipad's download much faster and more efficiently. I will definitely buy the other video now.

 

[Worf]

You CAN actually buy Pinball 101 in DVD form, if that will help you.

The official site. The DVD buying links there are broken. But if you contact him, you can find it on CD Baby, Amazon.com, and pinball retailers.

I'll have to dig out the CD Baby link if anyone's interesting. Amazon was more expensive as were the pinball speciality retailers. Of course, it's also an app on iPhone...

 

[sotie]

So far so good playing it on my new Ipad 5.

Where did you get an iPad 5? I want one!

 

[fenderbendr]

There's also a pinball 101 app for $4 on the App Store with the entire video including chapters.

 

[DeeEff]

...my new Ipad 5.

Uh huh. What's the Model Number on the back of your iPad 5?

 

[digitalbytes]

Disappointed by pinball 101. Viewing this on iOS and as others have mentioned I cannot get through about 3-5 seconds of video play without the video stopping. I like the idea of supporting PA but something needs to be done about the playback.

 

[sotie]

Uh huh. What's the Model Number on the back of your iPad 5?

He's just a bit confused. In his 'My devices' he listed iPad 5 128GB. So he has an iPad 4.

The iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2 should be announced in early October.

 

[Worf]

I saw Pinball 101 (on DVD).

It's a nice video, but a couple of comments...
1) Does the TPA version include indexing? Because there's good tips interspersed with a lot of other fluff that makes it annoying if you can't skip around.
2) The skills could be longer - I mean, they spend around what, 10 seconds on each one? Followed by 5 minutes of more fluff. For a 101, they could assume a lower level of skill and show some slow down shots.
3) It really needs integration with TPA. I mean, half the tables they show it on are in TPA already.
4) I don't know about the console versions, but a slot of the flipper passes require "blipping" the flipper. On mobile, that doesn't seem to work - you can't just lift your finger off the screen then put it back down to "blip" the flipper to do those fine movements that get the ball to the other flipper. Ditto the other way, where you just tap on the flipper button to move it a tiny bit.

I think that video was a mistake now - it's going to cause us to demand even more realistic flipper action now!

 

[norbert26]

i only watched a little bit of the first one history of pinball. i never finished watching it in its entirety. the other one i did not purchase and glad i passed as people are reporting issues with it.

 

[Carl Spiby]

4) I don't know about the console versions, but a slot of the flipper passes require "blipping" the flipper. On mobile, that doesn't seem to work - you can't just lift your finger off the screen then put it back down to "blip" the flipper to do those fine movements that get the ball to the other flipper. Ditto the other way, where you just tap on the flipper button to move it a tiny bit.

I think that video was a mistake now - it's going to cause us to demand even more realistic flipper action now!

A lot of flipper tricks in TPA aren't possible because the physics rate isn't high enough.