TPA on the PS4 - First Impressions

[kimkom]

Couldn't find one so you'll have to put up with this new one of me sucking pretty badly and then breaking my no-extra-balls rule ; )

Ah nice one, thanks bud.

I couldn't find one either, so thanks for doing this

 

[happytm03]

Oops meant TPA my tablet was auto correcting earlier...

 

[Kevlar]

Oops meant TPA my tablet was auto correcting earlier...

It's all good, just joshing with you.

 

[SilverBalls]

Gorgar looks nice

Some more night modes uploaded by the chap who uploaded the MM/CV vids:

TOM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQzqE0iTpdg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Black hole
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckEILMjPxRo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Harley Davidson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ar92H84Ipw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Monster Bash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y16hPtTreqw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

No Good Gophers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d415eByE7mo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[Tabe]

After weather delays in Minneapolis, my PS4 arrived yesterday and TPA was the first game I downloaded and installed. So here are my impressions after about 45 minutes of gameplay:

- first, nice touch that I didn't have to download the season 1 pack separately. I'd already paid for it. Added TPA to my download queue and when I came back a couple hours later from bible study, TPA was installed as were all of the tables. Very nice. And a nice contrast to Zen 2, which forced me to install all the packs I was importing one-at-a-time. Annoying.

- As others have mentioned, the sound quality is atrocious. The first thing you're hit with when you fire up TPA is the lame "Pinball Wizard" riff of course - only now it's an incredibly bad version of an already incredibly bad sample. The games themselves fare no better. It blows my mind that TPA got released with the sound in this state. I know, it's the "mobile" version of the sound. To me, that explanation makes no sense. The mobile versions of the sound files should have never been anywhere near the PS4 code base. And somebody SURELY had to have tried the final PS4 release code before sending it to Sony, right? It should be pretty embarrassing to Farsight that it went out in this state. And here we are, nearly 3 months after release, and no fix? Didn't Sony lift some of the restrictions on updating that are present on the PS3? Why has this not been addressed?

- first game I played was Attack From Mars. First thought is that that graphics aren't the improvement over the PS3 version that I'd hoped for. It looks nice but doesn't knock my socks off or anything. Appears to play a little faster. The loop STDM glitch is gone, which is awesome.

- tried all three lighting modes on AFM. Didn't like Dark, Bright is too bright, so Neutral it is.

- next up was Cirqus Voltaire. This is a table I gave up on on PS3 thanks to its messy graphics, glitchy gameplay and just general frustrations. The PS4 version is a LOT better. Graphically, this one is a big leap over the PS3 version. Not perfect, or as great as it should be, but good. Annoying that the name entry screen is buried on the little dot matrix at the back of the machine, making the letters a little tough to see and select.

- then Black Knight and Gorgar. Yep, these will still not get played by me. Just don't like them.

- finished with Funhouse. Definitely not a big graphics boost for this one. It looks alright but should look better. We're next gen now, guys, Rudy's head should have a much higher res texture mapped onto it. Feels like some little tweaks on this one, like making the skill shot possible (I actually hit one) and making the upper flipper a little easier to use. Unfortunately, I ran into a lot of the "sigh...that's Pinball Arcade for you" stuff - balls going through the tips of your flippers, ridiculous bounce angles off the flippers (had one ball bounce off the middle of my left flipper at a perfect 90 degree angle), and so on. Also lost two balls when the left flipper simply failed to flip, which was odd. And I got 3 Rudy Gulps before it actually triggered the standard goal for getting one.

- in general, other than the Funhouse stuff above, I found the flippers to be really responsive. At least as snappy as the PS3 version, probably more so.

- As others have mentioned, the Leaderboards are broken. I don't understand this one either. Is this some kind of Sony issue or is it Farsight?


So, overall, pretty good but not quite what I'd hoped for. The issues-that-shouldn't-be (sound) are disappointing. That said, I'm done buying PS3 packs.

 

[Tann]

Thanks for the feedback.

It appears that TPA on PS4 needs "some" work to become the best TPA experience. At the moment, it looks a little bit disappointing, given the device.

 

[brakel]

After weather delays in Minneapolis, my PS4 arrived yesterday and TPA was the first game I downloaded and installed. So here are my impressions after about 45 minutes of gameplay:

- first, nice touch that I didn't have to download the season 1 pack separately. I'd already paid for it. Added TPA to my download queue and when I came back a couple hours later from bible study, TPA was installed as were all of the tables. Very nice. And a nice contrast to Zen 2, which forced me to install all the packs I was importing one-at-a-time. Annoying.

- As others have mentioned, the sound quality is atrocious. The first thing you're hit with when you fire up TPA is the lame "Pinball Wizard" riff of course - only now it's an incredibly bad version of an already incredibly bad sample. The games themselves fare no better. It blows my mind that TPA got released with the sound in this state. I know, it's the "mobile" version of the sound. To me, that explanation makes no sense. The mobile versions of the sound files should have never been anywhere near the PS4 code base. And somebody SURELY had to have tried the final PS4 release code before sending it to Sony, right? It should be pretty embarrassing to Farsight that it went out in this state. And here we are, nearly 3 months after release, and no fix? Didn't Sony lift some of the restrictions on updating that are present on the PS3? Why has this not been addressed?

- first game I played was Attack From Mars. First thought is that that graphics aren't the improvement over the PS3 version that I'd hoped for. It looks nice but doesn't knock my socks off or anything. Appears to play a little faster. The loop STDM glitch is gone, which is awesome.

- tried all three lighting modes on AFM. Didn't like Dark, Bright is too bright, so Neutral it is.

- next up was Cirqus Voltaire. This is a table I gave up on on PS3 thanks to its messy graphics, glitchy gameplay and just general frustrations. The PS4 version is a LOT better. Graphically, this one is a big leap over the PS3 version. Not perfect, or as great as it should be, but good. Annoying that the name entry screen is buried on the little dot matrix at the back of the machine, making the letters a little tough to see and select.

- then Black Knight and Gorgar. Yep, these will still not get played by me. Just don't like them.

- finished with Funhouse. Definitely not a big graphics boost for this one. It looks alright but should look better. We're next gen now, guys, Rudy's head should have a much higher res texture mapped onto it. Feels like some little tweaks on this one, like making the skill shot possible (I actually hit one) and making the upper flipper a little easier to use. Unfortunately, I ran into a lot of the "sigh...that's Pinball Arcade for you" stuff - balls going through the tips of your flippers, ridiculous bounce angles off the flippers (had one ball bounce off the middle of my left flipper at a perfect 90 degree angle), and so on. Also lost two balls when the left flipper simply failed to flip, which was odd. And I got 3 Rudy Gulps before it actually triggered the standard goal for getting one.

- in general, other than the Funhouse stuff above, I found the flippers to be really responsive. At least as snappy as the PS3 version, probably more so.

- As others have mentioned, the Leaderboards are broken. I don't understand this one either. Is this some kind of Sony issue or is it Farsight?


So, overall, pretty good but not quite what I'd hoped for. The issues-that-shouldn't-be (sound) are disappointing. That said, I'm done buying PS3 packs.

Thanks for your take on this version. I was starting to feel like my thumbs up with reservations was in doubt since there have been more than a few people slamming the PS4 version lately. I agree that there are plenty of areas in need of improvement but it is quite a bit better than the PS3 version.

Sony made some kind of rumblings last spring about being more indie friendly but they never, to my knowledge, confirmed any specifics. I have a feeling nothing has changed.

 

[Oldskool1969]

Loving this emulation to bits, but is it just me or of late has the ball speed increased?
It seemed to have a better physics feel initially than other playforms but something has changed maybe.

 

[PiN WiZ]

Loving this emulation to bits, but is it just me or of late has the ball speed increased?
It seemed to have a better physics feel initially than other playforms but something has changed maybe.

Are you talking about a change in ball speed since TPA was first released on the PS4 or in comparison to TPA on other platforms?

 

[Oldskool1969]

since first release on ps4.

 

[brakel]

since first release on ps4.

There have been no updates to the PS4 version. So, no, the ball hasn't sped up.

 

[smbhax]

And here we are, nearly 3 months after release, and no fix?

Just a quibble, but don't forget that the game's release was delayed until December 17th. : D

Didn't Sony lift some of the restrictions on updating that are present on the PS3?

Doesn't seem like it. I think the only difference as far as TPA goes is that FarSight are determined from the get-go to do "megapatch"-style updates on it, so there shouldn't be any DLC table problems that they feel they can't release fixes for.

Annoying that the name entry screen is buried on the little dot matrix at the back of the machine, making the letters a little tough to see and select.

You can still pop the DMD UI display up with the Triangle button. It just defaults to being toggled off on CV in this version.

- As others have mentioned, the Leaderboards are broken. I don't understand this one either. Is this some kind of Sony issue or is it Farsight?

Broken how? They seem to be okay for me. FarSight did--rather bizarrely--leave out Friend leaderboards, but they have said they intend to get those in at some point.

 

[Patty]

Quote:
"FarSight did--rather bizarrely--leave out Friend leaderboards, but they have said they intend to get those in at some point. "

This is a riddle to me. Such quite a long time and not fixed (added friends-leaderboard) yet. Come on FarSight, do it! That needs just a little patch.

 

[brakel]

Quote:
"FarSight did--rather bizarrely--leave out Friend leaderboards, but they have said they intend to get those in at some point. "

This is a riddle to me. Such quite a long time and not fixed (added friends-leaderboard) yet. Come on FarSight, do it! That needs just a little patch.

FarSight said that they already put in a patch just after release so the first patch should hit soon. Once you add the Sony holiday factor in it is still a couple of weeks until the usual Sony six week approval process. When it comes to Sony patience is key.

 

[TimRex]

FarSight said that they already put in a patch just after release so the first patch should hit soon. Once you add the Sony holiday factor in it is still a couple of weeks until the usual Sony six week approval process. When it comes to Sony patience is key.

I really don't understand Sony's reluctance to publish patches in a more timely manner. It's not like there are a lot of games available so early in the consoles life, so there can't be much competition for resources when it comes to approving the patches themselves - and I suspect there isn't so much in this first patch that would require the full sweep of tests.

That said, it's frustrating to see patch after patch being released for various AAA titles - and not all of them particularly necessary at that.

Does FarSight need to be a little "louder" where Sony's approval process is concerned?

 

[Patty]

In Battlefield 4 an uncountable Series of patches has already been released. Why do we get this delay for TPA?

 

[Dumahim]

EA has the $$ to have as many patches as they want.

 

[Tabe]

Just a quibble, but don't forget that the game's release was delayed until December 17th. : D

Argh, forgot about that. Ok, so 2 months, not 3

You can still pop the DMD UI display up with the Triangle button. It just defaults to being toggled off on CV in this version.

Didn't know that and will make sure I do that.

Broken how? They seem to be okay for me. FarSight did--rather bizarrely--leave out Friend leaderboards, but they have said they intend to get those in at some point.

My scores didn't show up on the leaderboards at all and, of course, no friends leaderboard.

 

[smbhax]

My scores didn't show up on the leaderboards at all

That's interesting, I don't think we've had anyone else mention having that problem. I don't see why that would happen, assuming you're logged into PSN with the same login you had before.

 

[TimRex]

That's interesting, I don't think we've had anyone else mention having that problem. I don't see why that would happen, assuming you're logged into PSN with the same login you had before.

I recall experiencing this on occasion, but I found that the leaderboard entries were simply delayed (or possibly, out of date leaderboards had been cached). The next time I checked the leaderboards my scores were present as they should have been.