I've got the PS3 version of Williams. My favorite tables would probably be Taxi, Funhouse, Medieval Madness, and maybe Firepower for nostalgic reasons...
Man, I made the mistake of visiting the Zen Studios forum. Theres a thread about PA there and some of the comments wrt Zen's pinball vs Farsight's are just ridiculous. Afaic the PS3 version of WPHOF looks very nearly as good as Zen pinball's PS3 version. The recreations of the tables in the Williams collection are freakin BEAUTIFUL! Some of the comments about Farsight's "bad graphics" make me shake my head. I have to assume the people making those sorts of statements have only ever seen the Wii or psp versions or something... Then of course theres the supposed superiority of the ball physics in Zen. Um, not so much imho. I think both have problems but for my money Farsight's engine feels more like real pinball. Part of that comes down to table design. I find Zen's tables overly cluttered, busy and cramped while Farsight's tables - being versions of classic real tables - play in a much more authentic-feeling way to me. Of course any comparison between the two engines has to consider the fact that Zen's is a more modern build while the williams collection came out years ago and was never updated after the PS3 release. But frankly, I can't understand how anyone who claims to love pinball wouldn't be just over-the-moon excited by the prospects of having a new huge collection of classic tables in digital form from a dev with a proven track record of producing quality recreations. To be honest, I'd be really excited if all farsight was going to do was release an update for the Williams collection that fixed some bugs and gave us good leaderboards and a couple more tables and then publish that for ios.
I see the division pretty straight forward where both franchises rule their own roosts. Farsight is now the undisputed king of REAL tables whereas Zen make pretty great Fantasy tables. I mean you'll never see cool animated figurines or pop-up displays of he points you just scored in a Farsight table as it would be pretty unrealistic, but I think those are neat touches in the Zen tables.
Yeah I'd completely agree with that ftmp. I guess for myself I'm not all that enthused about the more "video-gamey" special effects of the zen tables. I think from a fundamental gameplay perspective I personally find the Williams collection tables more fun to play. I just find the Zen tables seem to end up with me ping-ponging the ball around forever and not really feeling like I'm excercising much control over anything. I also find that a few of the tables seem to fall into almost an endless loop sort of play where the exact same shot happens again and again. Don't get me wrong, ZP is very fun. It just has a few things that kinda irk me and keep me from enjoying it quite as much as the williams collection...I don't have the Marvel tables though, just the original Zen tables and several of the dlc ones. Theres also a huge nostalgia aspect for me though that is satisfied by the Williams collection (and the PA collection hopefully). I like the idea of having a big collection of good recreations of tables I used to play when I was a kid.
The appropriate analogy to me is a digital book versus a physical book. A digital book can add sounds or animations that would be physically impossible in a normal book, but both are still books. The PA folks are meticulously bringing physical tables to digital and trying to recreate as authentic an experience as possible whereas in the case of Zen, they embrace the digital medium to create experiences that feel true to pinball while being physically impossible. While I will agree with ZZ that some of Zen's tables can be cluttered for my tastes (as can real pins) there are others that are wonderfully open, like Mars.
Thanks, don't know how I missed that.....That was the last real pinball machine anywhere around here to play...Looking forward to playing it again !
Sure have, it was in a Roadhouse Grill here in the late 90's and early 2000's.....It was fantastic.....If it is half the fun the real table was it will be great !
Yeah, they're both good at what they do, and I enjoy both styles of tables.....but if I had to choose one over the other, I'd definitely take Farsight's real tables.
I think I'm with you here. I think it means a LOT more if you've actually seen some of these tables in real life and can then marvel, "Wow, they REALLY captured this one I remember playing back in the late 80's!" whereas these completely original tables from Zen have no nostalgic boost.
I asked about their plans for the iOS apps on their FB page, and they're doing a Universal app. Great news, as that means any IAP tables we buy can be played on the iPad and iPhone. Woohoo.
All the first four tables revealed & demoed..but still the release date they keep it secretly. Hope to hear a good news soon!
I'd rather them not announce a release date than have them announce something and keep changing it because the game isn't ready.
Off topic, but I just found my CDs for The Web, Timeshock, Big Race USA, and Fantastic Journey. Wouldn't it be great to have the Pro Pinball series on iOS as well?
That would rule. I've only have Timeshock, but man, the graphics still look pretty good even though it was made in 1997, and the physics are hard to beat, plus the table layout is very smooth. I'll have to see if I can get my hands on the other tables.
