28 replies to this topic

[rob046]

I'll be honest, I get excited about a lot of pc or console pinball games, but I've never been as amped for one to get here like I am for this one. I even tossed in my old WPC pc game from '01 tonight and played it for old times sake. Btw, amazingly it still plays great on windows 7, 64 bit (as do the pro pinball's).

With the new WPC was released for PC since the PC can pull off the most outstanding graphics, but having this for the PS3 and 360 with console pinball in HD is good enough for me! At least I'll be playing it on my 42" HDTV, the big screen.
This is actually the 1st pinball game featuring real tables to be released for next gen consoles. Well it was released for the wii, but wii doesn't do HD and it is basically the same game as was released for the PS2/xbox.

And this won't be a re-release. There is definitely a graphics/artwork overhaul done on the game, & the physics have been improved (as has the rumble feature which is supposed to be pretty spot on).
But more exciting to anything, we got 3 new amazing tables, on top of the 10 that existed between the games for the previous consoles.

And the new 3 aren't a slouch! One of them is MM! In fact, MM is the table that the devs have put the most work into and are really bragging about it. On top of MM, another new table will be TOTAN!
As for the 3rd table, there is some confusion as whether it is NGG or Monster Bash. I'd take either one. In fact, in the game description I read on walmart's site, they initially list Monster Bash as the 3rd new table, but then in the bullets below, they say NGG. Apparently, they made all 4 of those tables, but rumor has it that MB has licensing issues, so it won't end up on the game.
That sucks, cuz MB just by itself I would buy!
However, I could say the same for TOTAN and MM, even NGG, which will be on the game.

I kinda wish that since they were re-doing this thing for next gen, that we would see more than just a few new tables. HOWEVER, if they are only gonna add 3, they picked 3 damn good ones and as I mentioned, they made 4 new ones (too bad for MB). So in this case, if these new tables are as good as people say they will be, then quality is just as good as quantity in my book.

I hope people support this game. I know its not VP or FP, but consoles are super popular, and I welcome all the new next gen pinball we've been seeing lately for the consoles.
Pinball popularity on gaming consoles can definitely spark interest in a younger generation and get them into pinball, some for the 1st time. And I'll be enjoying it myself.

Also hoping that we will see some tables that will be available as DLC with this game. I suppose it mind depend on the games popularity, so hopefully all that works out. Hey, if its the least bit profitable, I'm sure we'll see add-on's, and the rumored "Bally Collection"!

[Gravy]

Yep... also waiting on this one patiently. Some of the earlier screenshots were a little ho-hum but you could see them evolving the imagery as the months went on so I think it should be a nice release.

[Mr. Pacman]

Τhey won't going to make it good IMO...They don't know pinball. They won't ever be like Cunning Developments...also, everytime i read "more tables" from a product like this, i imagine the phrase "less details and accuracy in physics" next to it...so, its something like "more fun for the masses" and "less fun for the enthusiasts"...

Edited by Mr. Pacman, 27 August 2009 - 01:36 PM.

[smakx]

Pinball Hall of Fame - The Williams Collection
xbox360/ps3

I am jazzed about this title as well. From the videos I have seen, it looks like these guys are serious about pinball simulation:

Game Trailer on youtube:



Here are some vids of several tables running on the ps3, courtesy of ign:

http://media.ps3.ign...129/vids_1.html

I will be buying this right away. I am hoping that this title sells well so that they will make a vol. 2.

[pskepsilon]

Also hoping that we will see some tables that will be available as DLC with this game. I suppose it mind depend on the games popularity, so hopefully all that works out. Hey, if its the least bit profitable, I'm sure we'll see add-on's, and the rumored "Bally Collection"!

If there were assurances that the game would be aggressively supported with DLC, meaning something along the lines of the music games out there, I'd probably be more interested. But frankly, I have a hard time getting too excited about this because of the lack of licensed tables and a general dearth of them compared to VP. Plus, I already have my PC hooked up to my big-screen LCD TV, and further, I'm using an X-Arcade tankstick with the side pinball buttons to provide a more authentic feel to the controls. Even though the graphics and physics might be a bit better on the PS3, for instance, but I'd be playing it on the same screen with inferior controls. Plus I'd have to get used to the differences and I already have very high quality VP versions of all of these tables.

I'll probably buy it anyway just to support the concept, but I doubt I'll play it very much after the initial novelty wears off.

[rob046]

Mr. Pacman, I know Pro Pinball (though over a decade ago) set the bar so high that we have doubts anybody can reach that level again. But at the same time, Cunning devs is long gone and we need to support whatever is out there that advertises pinball. For example, I have issues with Stern and how they do things, but I'll still pump quarters into their pins when I see them, and I'll have a little fun but more importantly let's OP's know that somebody cares.

Also, & this is a BIG ONE! Williams Pinball, as opposed to PP, are real life classics now playable again to the masses! As much as I loved PP, they weren't doing recreations. And as much as I like VP, I never would have got into it if VP was originals only, it was the playing of old classics that drew me to install VP for the 1st time (then later I appreciated many originals). These tables being real classics rather than originals, that is gonna sell copies. If Crave was just doing another pinball sim of original tables, then I would be kinda blah about it, cuz you are right, I don't think anybody will live up to the Cunning guys tables.
BUT, as far as recreations go, this game is THE KING.

I bet a lot of game devs would like to do recreations rather than come up with originals. However, licensing costs money. And licensing is why this game doesn't have all the tables it could (we know MB is an example). Since this game isn't exactly gonna be COD4, these guys probably don't have the resources to buy a ton more licenses.
Let's look at quality of the licenses though. Yeah, they left out some greats (& maybe had licensing issues trying to get the likes of AF, TZ & such), but what they have in the game now, all great games, it reminds you of just what great work Williams had done over the years. Plus they didn't want to go too heavy on one decade (i.e. 90's), as this game is about "classics" that span the 70's, 80's, & 90's.

Lastly as far as # of tables, let's also remember that this game will be selling new for just $29.99 US, that is half the price of your usual new next gen game! In fact, makes me wonder, this game might in its entirety might be available via the 360 or PS3 online stores. So take that into consideration as well in regards to the grand scheme of things. What you are getting for just $30 is pretty damn nice, even if its not the best sim ever made.

Also, I think its important to note that these guys, as smakx pointed out, have indeed spent a lot of time with this one. It isn't just slapped together. I was very impressed, I also saw a gameplay video, and it does seem like they did they best they could with it. And they do have limitations, being a cross platform game. Limitations with graphics, maybe even physics, that didn't exist back in the PP days on the PC. And when they did make PP ports to psx/ps2, for anyone who played them on PC, the ports sucked in comparison.
All I'm saying is that it seems like Crave did their absolute best with this, so what you get is probably gonna be as good as a pinball game is gonna get on a PS3/360.

Finally, I'd like to address the many comments that we have and will see here and on other forums. Which is the "I have hundreds of tables for VP and FP that I can play for free, so why should I buy this".
I get that, but we need to support other pinball outlets. Also, I love the VP/FP hobby as much as the next guy, but it can get boring running VP/FP all the time. Just being honest. I've burned out on it before, why I haven't been around much the last couple years, as my attention has turned to my real pins now when I have some time.
I popped in the WPC game from '01 last night. And I know the purists aren't too high on this game with its accuracy or physics, but I still like this game, would play it just as a change up from VP, something different.

Same in this case. Sometimes its just nice to relax on a recliner or couch and play on a console, nice change of pace to have pinball classics on my next gen systems. Yet we still have VP for the hudreds of other tables that we'll never see on a console, so no matter how popular this game/frachise gets, it can never replace what VP/FP does for us.
And a real nice thing this game does have over VP, these pins are made in HD, are 3D, and are made for the big ol' widescreen HDTV's, so that is definitely nice. As for physics, no sim is ever gonna have perfect physics, but I think we'll be seeing ball physics that are as good as you can get on these consoles. Or at least I hope so.

Anyhow, just wanted to get the word out there, I'm sure a lot of people did already know about this. But like I said, we want this game to sell well, we want it to be popular.
Taking nothing away from VP/FP, this is a commercial venture that doesn't come around too often, that can suck in the younger generation or the average non-pinball fan, and get them into pinball. It helps keep pinball relevant. So whether we, with high standards, think the game doesn't have perfect physics, or think a bumper is the wrong shade of blue (or whatever)... I guess all that matters is that the people who will never notice that kind of thing just think its a fun game and gets a few people interested in this hobby that does need some new blood, can't hurt.
That said, even with my high standards, I still think this game just might meet those high standards, or come close enough.

[Gravy]

What really gets me is the complete and utter lack of any information regarding the PS3 and 360 versions of this title on the crave site. The only reason we know anything about the next gen versions is via third party sites.

We are like a week away from release and they havent even been arsed updating the site to say "coming soon for next gen".

Did the web guy fall into a 100 year sleep or something and nobody noticed?

Weirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd if you ask me.

Edit: The developer Farsight Studios also has nix/nada/zip/f-all/zero info on the title.

Edited by Gravy, 28 August 2009 - 04:25 AM.

[Gravy]

Is it just me or does the ball in those videos sometimes appear to be overly large with some tables, if you compare say the TOTAN table to Pinbot, Pinbot looks normal and TOTAN seems to have an excessively large ball. Pinbot isnt a widebody is it??

Did the size of the ball increase in the 90's tables compared to 80's?

Its also a shame they didnt manage to get realtime reflections on the ball in the Next Gen versions.

[Mr. Pacman]

Rob046, where did you see the gameplay of these forthcoming WPC tables? I saw some examples in youtube but they didn't get me excited (they had wrong flipper designs, blurry balls, lack of details)...also i think that they they were the previous collections.

I support good physics, because its the most basic element in a pinball simulation. I have tried many "fun" tables with gorgeous graphics from other companies, but the physics was always a let down. I loved to see the screenshots, but when i started to play, i had the feeling of doing nothing close to a real pinball. As for your comment: "..no sim is ever gonna have perfect physics.." , its practically untrue. Pro Pinball had so much detail in the ball's movement that -even if it wasn't responding exactly like a real pinball- it gave you the feeling that you have real objects in front of you..with specific weight, friction, structure etc..and all these were perceived only from the ball's movement.

In a few words, if i already had a PS3 (or another high end console), i might had bought this collection especially with such a low price, but, the collection itself, doesn't make me buy a PS3 console if you know what i mean... If Cunning Developments were doing a new Pro Pinball series for these consoles, i could buy the console for this reason!!

Supporting a company isn't a bad thing, but the truth is to be told..there is no serious pinball simulation for a console out there yet.

[kristian]

Hi Rob, cool to see you around...!!

So lemme get this straight... the new Williams Pinball classics isn't coming for PC, right?

The only one for PC was the ancient one... from the early 2000's or late 1990's? I have Xbox 360 but it's collecting dust there... besides emulation, I mainly play just driving and sports games... and they're all better for PC (with community made mods)...!!

[Mr. Pacman]

Hi Rob, cool to see you around...!!

So lemme get this straight... the new Williams Pinball classics isn't coming for PC, right?

The only one for PC was the ancient one... from the early 2000's or late 1990's? I have Xbox 360 but it's collecting dust there... besides emulation, I mainly play just driving and sports games... and they're all better for PC (with community made mods)...!!

Only a few people care about serious simulators. This is the reason gaming console market doesn't have good simulators yet IMO. They need more time and resources compared to the average console game..

[jhoff80]

Gamefly says pushed back to 9/30/09, though nobody else is saying that yet.

http://www.gamefly.c...lection/134915/

[templarjh]

Dang I hope it's not pushed back (even though I don't have any applicable system). I'm still waiting for this one just to see how it will do.

I have it on the Wii, and I can tell you it is absolutely outstanding. Guys you really have to take my word for it, AT LEAST AS FAR AS TAXI, they nailed it on the physics. I played Taxi in my dorm back in the day, and this Wii version is so good it even has it where a plunger shot usually lands in the "C" rollover up top, just like the real one I played. There are other details I could point out too. Even the first time I played it I just couldn't believe what a job they did.

I might have to get a 360 for this (well this and Street Fighter 4).

[Shooby Doo]

I consider myself a pinball enthusiast and really like the Williams Collection for the PS2. For those who haven't played it, you can't judge it from youtube videos - it makes the physics look stiff and choppy, whereas the ball bounces and rolling (and rolling sounds) and collides and nudging and plunging (with the analog stick) are actually done very well. I play a lot of VP and while it's the best at what it does, honestly, I prefer playing the PS2 versions of every one of those tables. I think they have a more realistic feel - the 3D aspect helps. I also really like the way the controller vibrates when you nudge or the ball bounces between bumpers, etc. I can't wait to play the new TOTAN and MM.

In contrast, the Gottlieb Collection is awful in nearly every area that the Williams is good. Wouldn't recommend it at all.

[rob046]

kristian! Nice to see you made it over to the these forums, took me a while but I managed (damn nice forums tho). I'm still trying to stay involved with pinball in general, tho there doesn't seem to be as much time in the days as their used to be for me to play and build, but I'm working on it! No, as of now, nothing for the PC. Not surprising though. These days usually games get tossed to the real money makers (PS3/360/Wii), and only then if they can suceed there, we might see a PC port of it some months down the line. And I hope that is the case.

I would guess that as of now they just don't have the funds to hit up every console on the market, and the pc, like you see with the big titles these days. But we still have the old WPC fot the PC!
It is actually '01, although it seemed older cuz by the time XP SP2 came around, I already couldn't run it anymore. Then I could with vista, and now I can again with Windows 7, 64 bit (surprisingly).
I still like that old bastard of a game, not sure why. Maybe cuz I have some nostalgia for it, as I bough and played that game (and M$ Pinball, and the PP games) before I even heard of VP.

Their version of TOTAN is about to be kicked to the curb by this new version of the table coming out. Though on PC, it will remain the best and only commercial game featuring real pins (other than MS Pinball Arcade, which has decent graphics for its time, but that one has a nasty ball stuttering problem), so I'm still keeping this game around.

If you think about it, these games can do HD resolutions (1280x1024), and they always had nice graphics, so in that regard they aren't visually too far behind what this new console game is putting out. And while accuracy to the real thing is something people have complained about, I haven't played any of those 4 pins much in real life, so ignorance is bliss for me! I still enjoy playing the old WPC!
And the new console game doesn't have any of the 3 other tables. Black Rose, CFTBL, & Lost World are still PC exclusive...unless we see some DLC with the new game (fingers crossed).

Found a handful of the latest videos and a bunch of images, should start a new post though.

[lupine]

I'm just wondering what the Trophies/Achievements will be.

[rob046]

All of the following videos and images were uploaded to IGN just last week...
Images....
http://media.xbox360...127/imgs_1.html
Videos....
http://media.xbox360...127/vids_1.html

I must note here, and Shooby made note of it above...
Streaming video, especially for a pinball game, can play some tricks on the eyes. These games in their original environment are either running at 30fps or 60fps.
I can pretty much guarantee that these videos are running well under 30fps and have been shrunken and transcoded. They actually considering the videos HD, but they aren't really. They might be a few pixels larger than 480p, and thus only technically HD videos.
But anyhow, the stuff I mentioned, especially when you are looking for smooth good looking ball physics and an accurate representation of how the game is gonna act, can definitely cause these videos to not run like they will when its on your TV.

Basically, as far as physics or anything else that might not look quite right (like ball size), just don't judge that yet. Use the videos as just a rough guide as what you are gonna get visually and what gameplay will roughly look like, which is damn impressive, IMO. Awesome nudging effect, btw. Also, for all we know these videos/images could be from beta stages of the game. Clearly these guys aren't dumping any $$ into advertising, so this wouldn't shock me. In fact, I'd put much more stock in to the testing that gamespot just did at Crave's studios.
It isn't too easy to impress those guys, and they aren't afraid to point out flaws of a game, even before its release.

You can go to gamespot and read thier hands on take on the game, but Crave had a real MM sitting next to their version of MM. They actually told those guys to play the real thing first, then try their sim. That is a move that could have really cost them if their MM version wasn't up to snuff, but it all turned out well, the gamespot guys say that the ball physics were very much accurate.

@ Mr.Pacman, we need to remember something about Pro Pinball. For one thing, they had free reign making those games, the sky was the limit. They weren't working with any kind of restrictions. Hell, they even were able to support resolutions unheard of at that time, or that PC's just weren't powerful enough to run, but unlike with consoles, the user has the option to adjust settings to make it play best on their particular PC.
Whereas when you are working on a game that is multiplatform between multiple consoles (and no PC), then you have a lot of restriction. Your game needs to play just as well on a PS2 or Wii as it does on the uber powerful PS3.

This has always been my complaint against multi-platform games. That the power of the PC or PS3 can't always be unleashed. On the PC, for example, I notice a lot of new games only doing standard HDTV resolutions, not monitor resolutions. For example, I set a cross platform game on my PC to run at 1920x1200 (a 16:10 rez), but when the game starts, it actually is only running 1920x1080, with some black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

Don't want to get too off topic, but the point is that back in the day of the PP games, this wasn't as much of an issue. Or the PC version of the game would get the most attention, and the ports would then come from that. These days it seems the other way around. The PC gets the last dibs, so to speak. In fact, PP The Web happens to be a great example of this. The PC version was absolutely amazing, but when it got ported to PSX, it needed to be dumed down to no end. Graphics were night and day between what the PC had and the PSX had. For a PSX game, The Web was good, but absolutely no comparison to the PC version.
This again goes back to the PC version having the sky as its limit, and the console ports having lots of limitations.

Thus, I will say that PC pinball games often have no excuse for poor physics. There are good physics beyond Pro Pinball though. The Littlewing games come to mind, try the latest LW pins, and the physics have a few quirks, but overall are very realistic.

Lastly, and this is an important one. Back when the PP pins were made, it was a different time, where games were mostly 2D. In the case of PP, the tables may have been modeled in 3D, but they aren't actual 3D games. These days, with todays technology, you unfortunately can't get away with putting out 2D games.
3D is the name of the game. Even with pinball games, they went 3D long ago, where you could change camera view in game, have the scrolling and rotating camera that shows off the 3D, the side views, ect.
So if you look at the Pro Pinball games, they were able to do what they did with physics because the tables were 2D, basically, as in they were stationary, didn't move.

This let the devs do things with the ball that just can't be done in true 3D games. Of course the devs did an amazing job regardless, but these things helped them out.
Devs today don't have this luxury, and making a 3D physics engine that is as good as or better than the PP engine has got to be tough, if not impossible. So if the physics for this new williams game are even close to being as good as the PP games, then they did a pretty damn good job.
I know, I wondered as well for the longest time why pinball physics never advanced after the PP pins, but I read a lot of great discussions by a lot of people smarter than me in regards to this subject.

I recall at least a couple great threads at the old forums that would have much better explained what I'm talking about. Some of the guys really went into detail on how the PP physics engine worked, of which I may have only touched on the basics, and there was also some good explanations for why this is so hard to recreate with todays games, todays technology.
Actually, I might be wrong, but I think the PP games had something like predetermined patterns for the ball to go, believe it or not. I recall hearing something about that. If true, this is another example of someting you can't get away with with 3D physics.

Lastly, pinball physics will never be perfect, as you predict. It just can't happen. Call this the "wild ball" theory. Just like you can't make a robot 100% human, there are just too many variables to ever be able to 100% recreate the physics of pinball, and be able to account for those unpredicatable things that can happen.
Maybe in time, lots of time, we can get it 99.9%, but never toally perfect.

[newsdude]

GameStop's site is showing them shipping on 9/16. I have the Williams one for the Wii already (and the Gottlieb for the PS2)... but I think I'm going to have to jump on this as I don't play the Wii much anymore, and with the greatly improved graphics and extra tables, it'll be worth it to me, and I figure it can't hurt to add one more sale, in hopes that they'll keep this up. I loved VP back in the day, but as I work in video and edit on Macs, my only Windows PC is nearly dead and won't run VP, so this is the only way to get emulated games for me now...

[rob046]

yeah it looks like the 16th is the set date now. I don't think the release was pushed back, I just don't think that the publisher did a good job of giving an actual release date, or advertising in general, it is non-existent.
In fact, I've probably done more promotion for this game by myself than the guys who get paid to do it! I've been here, gamespot, and other places trying to reel people into this game, also slipping in a shoutout for VP/FP in there.

Oh well, I've waited a few years for console recreations in HD, I can wait a couple more weeks.

I wanted to note one more thing about this game. As much as I liked the PS2, non-HD version of this game, my one issue with that was that while the graphics were nice, they were simply standard rez like any other PS2 game.
This isn't much of an issue if you like the scrolling camera that zooms in on the ball especially at the top end of the tables, but for me, who has been used to the full table view of VP and FP, without scrolling (or very minimal scrolling in FP), then you might find like I did that full table view mode was just too low rez. You couldn't make out any PF text and things were a jaggedy mess.

So what I'm looking forward to the most with this game, with it being HD, is being able to play in a full table view mode (or minimal scrolling) and still having things crisp and clear. It really will be more like the resolution of a VP or FP table at high resolution.
Can't wait!

[Gravy]

If I recall correctly the most recent video for the game on youtube from 3 weeks ago shows an 8th Sept release, so it could come at anytime I guess.

Edit: Amazon is saying 22nd Sept.

Edited by Gravy, 02 September 2009 - 09:53 PM.