While we wait for Williams/Bally pinballs

Zen Studios released one more Star Wars themed table collection.  Is this infatuation with Star Wars real? Am I missing something?. Anyhow three new Zen pinball tables are here and as always they look great. They are Solo

Carlissian Chronicles

and Battle of Mimban

I have tried all three tables and, as always, I do appreciate the Zen pinballs' physics. The ball does not drain too easily and moreover, although silver coloured, it remains visible at all times. Fortunately there are no excessive animations disrupting the game. Did I like the three tables? Well not really. Solo is not bad but all in all the gameplay is not exciting. I did not like Carlissian at all. On second thought if I had to choose one table that would be Mimban: I did like the graphics of a devastated battlefield. It's the game I did spent the most time on. 

As always, if you are a Star Wars fan, go for them. If you aren't, just wait for the first Williams batch by Zen.

And now for some really good news

I heard about this from my friend Marco. He is one of the faithful followrs of my blog and he chimed in with the good news. The Williams-Bally collection is coming to Zen Pinball. In fact, there is an announcement on the Zen Studios page.

So, now we know why FarSight lost the contract with Williams-Bally. A collaboration of the latter with Zen Studios was in the works.

I have, for years, been criticizing FarSight, essentially on points which had more to do with presentation and esthetics. But these are the points where Zen Studios excel. So we can expect tables of very high quality based on the classics.

On the other hand this change means that we'll have to buy the tables once more. But, hey, when one loves pinball this is but a small sacrifice.

Thank God, we can forget about Stern Arcade

The date of the deluge came and went. And my pinballs are still safely stored in my machines. I just hope all of you did the same and can continue enjoying all the great pinball tables FarSight produced over the years. 

The (very) bad news was of course the disappearance of the  Williams/Bally pinballs form the FarSight store. But there was at least one good news. FarSight apparently does not care anymore about the Stern Arcade. When the latter was introduced I did not have a device running iOS 10 and I could not test it. But a few months back I bought a new iPad running iOS 11 and I did give Stern Arcade a try. It was awful. I have on several occasions complained about the interface of Pinball Arcade but when one compares it to that of Stern Arcade PA look like a multiple prize winner. Fortunately it seems that FarSight decided to include the Stern pinballs in the mainstream Arcade. Otherwise they would have had two different apps with a handful of pinballs each (which would have been a not very clever move).

In a future post I will give my impressions about the new, Stern, additions to Pinball Arcade: StarTrek, ACDC and Mustang. But for the time being I will continue enjoying the old classics carefullly preserving them in all my machines.