The new pinball by Zen Studios is a collection of three tables based on the movie "Alien" saga. Being a fan of the original movie and an admirer of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley I decided to give these pinballs a try despite the fact that I cannot stand the other movie-based Zen collection, Star Wars. Well, Alien vs. Pinball is, to my taste, definitely better than Star Wars. On the other I am not sure I will ever become addicted to this pinball (like I do for the Pat Lawlor's creations).
The collection comprises three tables. Aliens is a direct reference to the movie with the same name.
A nice table, with few animations which manage to remain unobtrusive. And for once I let the sound on and did not regret it. (I like to play without sound the only exception being FunHouse, where I wouldn't, for the life of me, miss Rudy and his remarks).
The second table, Alien Isolation
is based on an Alien-based game that was released some time ago. Here the animations are a little bit more intrusive. This is the table that I liked the least.
The third table, Alien vs. Predator,
is the one I found most interesting. I have yet to reach the predator-vision mission,
but I find the concept fascinating. Plus this table is more attractive overall and the ball does not drain that easily.
The Alien vs. Pinball collection has the same graphic perfection of all Zen pinballs (well, except the late-lamented Rollercoaster and Inferno) and, for once, the designers were not as heavy handed as usually when it came to animations. If you are a fan of the Alien tetralogy (or hexalogy, I admit that I'm losing count) you can invest safely in this pinball. The same is true if you are a fan of Zen pinballs. (As a general rule, I'm not).
In my previous post on Last Action Hero I was saying that I had to try this table on the iMac's screen. I just did and, indeed, the gameplay is much nicer. One can see the details of the upper part of the playfield and this improves the whole experience.
However while playing on the iMac I found out that FarSight had screwed the game once more. First, have a look at the table menu.
Admittedly they have already announced that a new Pinball Arcade User Interface will be released (for Steam?) in a near future. But does this mean that there will be updates for all platforms? And even if this were true is there any valid reason for destroying the present GUI?
But, wait, there's more. I noticed something fishy at the end of a game of Big Shot and I played a few more without bothering about the game in order to get to the end. And there it was.
Look at the two scores: they differ by 10000. How could they do it? It would take some deliberate bug to do this (unless it is a new feature, in which case they should have included it in the Pro version and make people pay for this).
But the worst of all is the new table angles introduced. In the number 1 and number 3 orientations you have to launch the ball when the table is tilted at an angle
or viewed from the side
which make a skillshot next to impossible. Only the number 2 orientation provides a top-down view that allows one to accurately aim at a skillshot. As far as I am concerned I always prefer the top-down view. But there may be people who prefer the number 1 orientation with its 3-D feeling, and they will have a very hard time scoring skillshots.
At times one wonders whether the people at FarSight do actually play with their own pinballs.
Oh, and one positive feature. Fair is fair: there is one. The ball shadow I have recently written about seems to be absent from the Mac version of the pinballs. Apparently it is an iDevice only feature. (But of course there are instances playing Big Shot with the standard ball when you have the impression that the ball is transparent because of those pesky reflections).
FarSight produced another simulation of a movie-based pinball, a movie that garnered a best actor nomination at the Saturn Awards for Schwarzie, accompanied by two worst actor nominations at the Razzie and Stinkers Awards. Be that as it may, the pinball, Last Action Hero
is a nice one , with several interesting features, the Super Crane, magnets under the playfield similar to the one in Addams Family and a gun-shaped button launcher.
I did like this game and in particular the fact that you can very easily obtain a multiball. While the lower part of the table is uncluttered, the upper part is a densely packed and one has trouble seeing what is going on there. Moreover the playfield is too high in colours and one has a hard time choosing the proper colour for the ball. I opted for a white one, but the green ball is equally OK.
Usually I test the new pinballs on my iPad Air with a 9.7 inch screen and a top-down view. In the case of Last Action Hero I could not enjoy the gameplay and moreover I was unable to find a satisfactory viewing angle. Thus I moved to the iPad Pro and the situation did improve a bit. I guess that for a decent experience one has to play this pinball on a big iMac screen (but I haven't tried that yet).
The new pinball by Zen Studios is a collection of three tables based on the movie "Alien" saga. Being a fan of the original movie and an admirer of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley I decided to give these pinballs a try despite the fact that I cannot stand the other movie-based Zen collection, Star Wars. Well, Alien vs. Pinball is, to my taste, definitely better than Star Wars. On the other I am not sure I will ever become addicted to this pinball (like I do for the Pat Lawlor's creations).
