Zen Pinball (PSN)

[half-fast]

Quote: Originally Posted by bcruise

Big ol' bump for this one as Zen has nearly every table/pack on some sort of discount ranging from 30 to 66% on Steam for Black Friday. Not sure if there's anything similar on PSN. Boy, the landscape has changed a lot since I was last in this scene. Williams left Farsight and went to Zen, Stern went to Farsight and they're pretty much defunct now, and Zen's come out with FX3 which does support the tables I've already bought....and Pinball FX (despite the name it was released after FX3) which doesn't. Never a fan of having to rebuy tables, but since everything's really cheap now I decided to update my library. I will say that with Pinball FX I'm getting the most authentic digital pinball I've played thanks to the "Pro" mode, which features a steeper playfield among other things. It makes tables play considerably faster and is a lot more like what I remember from the 90's arcades. Pinball Arcade seems molasses slow by comparision. That option is only for the Williams tables though - Zen originals have the normal playfield physics which are still decently fast. I want my El Dorado and V12 back on Pinball FX though... At least they still work on FX3.

Havent logged in in ages ... just logged in because I was subscribed to this thread. Thanks for the heads up.


Years ago, I had maybe 15 tables on xbox 360. I realized they had a Steam version of the game. I messaged the steam forum admin and they were kind enough to gift me a pack of maybe 7? tables. All random though, but you could wlays try that. I provded all the proof and they were great.

[Blzer]

This was my favorite pinball game. There was a specific camera that I loved that no other pinball game had (that would zoom out and in based on the ball's location), and having it on Vita was a godsend. I loved a bunch of the DLC as well. Would love for this game to return as an overall.

Or wait, was there a Zen Pinball 2? I now totally forget.

[bcruise]

Quote: Originally Posted by Blzer

This was my favorite pinball game. There was a specific camera that I loved that no other pinball game had (that would zoom out and in based on the ball's location), and having it on Vita was a godsend. I loved a bunch of the DLC as well. Would love for this game to return as an overall. Or wait, was there a Zen Pinball 2? I now totally forget.

Yeah, there was a Zen 2. I read up on the previous versions because I was a little confused too - The first "Pinball FX" and "Zen Pinball" were one and the same, with the platform (Microsoft vs. Non Microsoft) being the only difference. Same with Pinball FX2/Zen Pinball 2. Pinball FX3 is where the names unified, and then the most recent release is Pinball FX which is reusing the name of the original, but is a completely different engine (Unreal 4) and game.

Zen 2 is the one I played the most of, with the aforementioned El Dorado and V12 taking up most of my playtime. Sometime after Zen 2, they later acquired the Williams license and brought some of their tables over including Addams Family, Twilight Zone, and Star Trek: Next Generation, and have also made many Star Wars and Marvel-inspired original tables. They're definitely the leader in this genre at this point, in BOTH original and authentic tables.

[Blzer]

Quote: Originally Posted by bcruise

Yeah, there was a Zen 2. I read up on the previous versions because I was a little confused too - The first "Pinball FX" and "Zen Pinball" were one and the same, with the platform (Microsoft vs. Non Microsoft) being the only difference. Same with Pinball FX2/Zen Pinball 2. Pinball FX3 is where the names unified, and then the most recent release is Pinball FX which is reusing the name of the original, but is a completely different engine (Unreal 4) and game. Zen 2 is the one I played the most of, with the aforementioned El Dorado and V12 taking up most of my playtime. Sometime after Zen 2, they later acquired the Williams license and brought some of their tables over including Addams Family, Twilight Zone, and Star Trek: Next Generation, and have also made many Star Wars and Marvel-inspired original tables. They're definitely the leader in this genre at this point.

Okay maybe ZP2 was the only one I ever owned then, gotcha.

Yes, I got most all the Star Wars and Marvel ones. I completely owned the Spider-Man table, probably posted about it on here too (EDIT: looking back the really big score I had it was the Liverpool FC table).

ZP2 is responsible for me knowing about Moon Knight before the Disney+ show, actually.

I would absolutely go back to my Vita just for Zen Pinball 2 and Everybody's Golf, but my Vita no longer reads my sim card thing (that has all my data).

[bcruise]

Also I'll add that for the Williams tables, a simple button press removes the "extra" Zen animations around the tables (like the cop near the plunger on getaway, various ball effects during multiball, a FULLY animated Thing dancing around the table, etc). In other words you can play them exactly how they looked in the arcade.

It's "Toggle Visual Mode" in the control listings. G by default on the keyboard and B on an XBOX controller. You can also turn off the score popups from the gameplay menu during a pause.

The animations on Zen original tables (everything but Williams) can't be turned off because they're inherently built into the tables, whereas they're completely extras in the Williams ones.