17 July, 2019

FarSight vs Zen

I would have never believed that I was going to write a post where FarSight would have the upper hand in a comparison to Zen. Well, here it is.

Some background is necessary though. Three weeks ago I underwent surgery in order to repair a shoulder tendon (the supraspinatus, if you are interested in details). As a consequence my left arm was immobilised, with a very clever belt (it still is and will be for ten more days) and I could not play pinball. I was somewhat frustrated but then I remembered Safe Cracker. In this game you only lose the ball after the area shut-down when you are in sudden death. So I started playing SC with just the right flipper. It's not as funny as when you play with both flippers but it's better than nothing.



Now, Safe Cracker exists both in the Pinball Arcade and the Zen Pinball collections. I tried both, with, initially, a preference for Zen. However, as I kept playing I found that the FarSight version had definite advantages, in particular for someone who was losing the ball all too easily. For instance in the Pinball Arcade simulator the launch of the ball is always the same so that it always lights the same lane. One can thus rack up 5 minutes time extensions much more easily. 



Also I like the angle of the PA pinball (in position 3). It gives you more of a bird's eye view and less of a perspective one. I prefer it by far. So this time FarSight is one-upping Zen (and, I know, this is totally subjective).