Stern Pinball Arcade

[Spork98765]

Probably because more people own Gear VRs than own Rifts. Not remotely as powerful, but. It's cheap, uses hardware people already own, no tether and works shockingly well for running from a smartphone.

Once Daydream hits I think we'll see even more VR focus on phones/mobile.

Daydream looks more "enticing" as far as mobile VR goes compared to the Gear VR IMO. With a larger number of, potentially, compatible devices there will hopefully be some better pricing and optimization as things go forward. I am not a fan of the Samsung devices for a user experience and was having a bit of a self-debate about purchasing one after being a vanilla droid user for so many years now.

 

[TheSlayerNL]

So, any info when the proper PC version comes?

 

[Kolchak357]

So, any info when the proper PC version comes?

No date yet.

 

[Stemage]

Didn't see any footage of Star Trek, so I took some. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpcThDEbUc0

Keep in mind that the framerate is not accurate. The Gear menus are smooth and for the most part, the Pinball Arcade menus are smooth as well. This is just because I'm beaming to my PC.

The issues with Trek are horrendous. The ball crawls across the table, and even other things like DMD animations and audio will hiccup and jitter. On top of that, you'll notice later in the video that you can't nudge and flip at the same time, so if you nudge while holding a flipper, the flipper drops for a second. If you try to nudge and flip when a ball is heading to drain, you just miss entirely since the flip does not register.

I'm playing on a Galaxy S7 which is one of the most powerful (if not the most) Samsung phone compatible with Gear VR. So this seems silly.

Oculus does not offer refunds, so hopefully this will get fixed in due time.

 

[Kolchak357]

That carpeting is crazy.

 

[invitro]

Oculus does not offer refunds, so hopefully this will get fixed in due time.

Can't you try the tables before you buy, as you can in TPA?

The carpet is AWESUM1 by the way. It looks like the surface of my brain.

 

[rehtroboi40]

I like the new animated Farsight Studios logo. Didn't care for their old one. Hopefully they keep using this one. Looks more professional.

Agreed, but that's the only thing that looks good with SPA so far. MSF, SST, and Ripleys look exactly the same as on TPA, and Ripley's was the only one of these I still like.

Star Trek looks terrible and bland. Maybe that's the point-you have to pay $5K-$9K for the best looking version. This is, after all, a more marketing-oriented gaming app. The more I see of SPA, the less I'm interested. Not even AC/DC can make me excited over this one.

 

[Spork98765]

Didn't see any footage of Star Trek, so I took some. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpcThDEbUc0

Keep in mind that the framerate is not accurate. The Gear menus are smooth and for the most part, the Pinball Arcade menus are smooth as well. This is just because I'm beaming to my PC.

The issues with Trek are horrendous. The ball crawls across the table, and even other things like DMD animations and audio will hiccup and jitter. On top of that, you'll notice later in the video that you can't nudge and flip at the same time, so if you nudge while holding a flipper, the flipper drops for a second. If you try to nudge and flip when a ball is heading to drain, you just miss entirely since the flip does not register.

I'm playing on a Galaxy S7 which is one of the most powerful (if not the most) Samsung phone compatible with Gear VR. So this seems silly.

Have you tried recording natively on your S7 to capture the framerate a bit more realistically?

Do the issues you're having with Star trek clear up when playing in Airplane mode, like the reported problems above, or is StarTrek just poorly done in comparison?

 

[Kolchak357]

Bring on Big Buck Hunter Pro!

 

[lio]

I really like the app on Gear VR - turned out better than I thought it would
I just wish they would add a few more different player heights (at least 5 instead of 3) and allow you to walk up closer or further away with the stick instead of just offering two positions to cycle through (or at least offer a third in-between position between the current two positions as to me one feels too close while the other one is already too far away) .
Also I feel the table looks larger than a real life table would, so maybe some FOV adjustment would be nice.

The sudden launch of the app in the Oculus store without any real announcement surprised me... almost thought it slipped out before it was meant to be launched.
A bit disappointing to see three tables return, that we already know from TPA without any real improvements (on Frankenstein the non-aligning playfield art with the slingshot pegs on the right slingshot still annoys me every time (even though the resolution in VR is almost too low to really notice it)

I don't know why but ever since I moved away from Android 4.x on the Galaxy S3 (first to 5.x on the S5 then to 6.x on the S7 edge) TPA never felt as smooth again as it did on 4.x on the S3 - sure, the resolution of the displays always increased but the GPU should easily have been able to handle that on each of the phone upgrades - it's not real stuttering either it's just that TPA seems to suffer from odd ball-skipping from time to time (possibly some sort of Android energy saving kicking in at unwanted times) - the same is present to a somewhat lesser extent in Stern Pinball Arcade on Gear VR (switching the phone to flight mode does not make a difference for me).

I'm really looking forward to updates on this app and somehow (against all hope) hope that we will not have to buy all the tables twice - having the tables in VR is really cool but you can't always play them in VR when you feel like playing a little mobile pinball on the go so it would be great if buying a table in the Oculus store would somehow also give you access to the 2D version later on once the Stern Pinball Arcade is available for regular Android.

 

[HotHamBoy]

I think it's absolutely outrageous that they are charging money for tables that are barely playable. I bought Starship Troopers and it runs like hot garbage.

 

[Ben Logan]

I bought the Pinball 101 video on TPA for iOS. None of the files would play. Not surprised. They did issue a refund though.

 

[Kaibun]

This Stern Pinball does have table goals right? This is very important.

 

[DA5ID]

Hope they continue their icade mobile support!

 

[HotHamBoy]

Hope they continue their icade mobile support!

You can get iCade working with just about anything on android but I'm not sure how the Oculus interface changes that.

 

[DA5ID]

You can get iCade working with just about anything on android but I'm not sure how the Oculus interface changes that.

Meant the future stern on iOS, hoping for the native icade support that is currently in TPA, zacc, and pro pinball.

 

[Metalzoic]

I think it's absolutely outrageous that they are charging money for tables that are barely playable. I bought Starship Troopers and it runs like hot garbage.

On what phone? Starship Troopers runs quite smooth for me (surprisingly). It actually ran smoother than my direct comparison to the non VR version.

Sent from my SM-G935V

 

[Metalzoic]

I really like the app on Gear VR - turned out better than I thought it would
I just wish they would add a few more different player heights (at least 5 instead of 3) and allow you to walk up closer or further away with the stick instead of just offering two positions to cycle through (or at least offer a third in-between position between the current two positions as to me one feels too close while the other one is already too far away) .
Also I feel the table looks larger than a real life table would, so maybe some FOV adjustment would be nice.

The sudden launch of the app in the Oculus store without any real announcement surprised me... almost thought it slipped out before it was meant to be launched.
A bit disappointing to see three tables return, that we already know from TPA without any real improvements (on Frankenstein the non-aligning playfield art with the slingshot pegs on the right slingshot still annoys me every time (even though the resolution in VR is almost too low to really notice it)

I don't know why but ever since I moved away from Android 4.x on the Galaxy S3 (first to 5.x on the S5 then to 6.x on the S7 edge) TPA never felt as smooth again as it did on 4.x on the S3 - sure, the resolution of the displays always increased but the GPU should easily have been able to handle that on each of the phone upgrades - it's not real stuttering either it's just that TPA seems to suffer from odd ball-skipping from time to time (possibly some sort of Android energy saving kicking in at unwanted times) - the same is present to a somewhat lesser extent in Stern Pinball Arcade on Gear VR (switching the phone to flight mode does not make a difference for me).

I'm really looking forward to updates on this app and somehow (against all hope) hope that we will not have to buy all the tables twice - having the tables in VR is really cool but you can't always play them in VR when you feel like playing a little mobile pinball on the go so it would be great if buying a table in the Oculus store would somehow also give you access to the 2D version later on once the Stern Pinball Arcade is available for regular Android.

There's a way to change views?

Sent from my SM-G935V

 

[HotHamBoy]

On what phone? Starship Troopers runs quite smooth for me (surprisingly). It actually ran smoother than my direct comparison to the non VR version.

Sent from my SM-G935V

Galaxy Note 5 with Airplane mode ON.

 

[Metalzoic]

Well that's a bummer. Runs really smooth here.

Sent from my SM-G935V