MOSQUITO FIGHTER wrote:I bet you would like some of the zen pinball tables. They have some of the deepest rulesets I've encountered in pinball. But I think the physics are seriously lacking on zen pinball. The zen tables for some reason just aren't as much fun to me. I don't care much for the art style on most of their stuff either.
The Zen pinball tables are interesting. For digital-only games, they are great, although some tables are hit or miss, depending. The physics are pretty good and you can control the ball pretty well. You can live-catch and drop-catch as well, which is nice. The ball moves a bit fast and the physics on the tip of the flippers are weird and unrealistic, but you get used to it.
I do think their newer tables are a lot better than their older ones. I appreciate how they changed some of their sounds too. On the newer tables the flippers sound a little more like real flippers, versus on their earlier tables where they sounded really clunky, muted and unrealistic.
My only complaint is that I've noticed that most tables play very similarly from a ruleset perspective, with activated modes always being worth the most points. It would be nice if they would make some tables where flow and combos was the main goal in mind and scored the most points, versus tables where starting modes (I know their tables usually have combos, but they aren't worth many points in the grand scheme of things).
My favorite tables are based on the Marvel line. I also like Paranormal, Mars and Rome a lot too. I picked up the Portal table over the weekend and that's pretty interesting too.
BrianC wrote:Most of the time for my pinball fix, I go to Flippers near the outer banks when visting my dad in NC, or to Crab Towne USA in Glen Burnie, MD, the latter of which is much closer. Flippers is especially cool since it has some rare machines like Big Bang Bar and a combination of newer and older machines. It has newer Sterns like Metallica and Star Trek, classics like Addams Family (modded with color DMD), and even some older machines like Centaur and Wizard. Too bad the pinball museum in Baltimore closed.
How close is Crab Towne to you? A buddy of mine runs a league there and they get a pretty good turnout (about 25 players I believe). It's fun playing competitively with people. If it's close, check it out. Otherwise the place is still fun to visit. I need to make another trip up there and spend a day playing all the games. It's about 90 minutes away for me though so I don't head up there often unless there is a tournament or something.
If College Park is close to you, there is a bar called Town Hall Liquors. They have about eight or nine machines, with the current lineup including a Shadow, World Poker Tour, AC\DC Premium, Strikes & Spares, and a few others (I think the op has rotated out some of the other games like WoZ, AFM, TZ, and TAF, but I'm not sure).
BPzeBanshee wrote:I envy all you guys that actually have pinball arcades still - There's even less real pinball machines here than there is arcade cabinets though so simulation is the only way for me to play these titles now. Last time I actually played a proper pinball was Fish Tales about 12-15 years ago, and it was about as drain-prone as it is in TPA now if not more so.
I'm not sure where you are located, but you might be surprised to find a place with some pins that you never knew about locally. They are out there, you just have to look for them. Of course, if you have the space, you could always buy one for yourself as well.