Pinball FX 2

[fuzzyslug]

You never get to pick your equipment for a battle, but the magic system does let you tailor attacks based on a creature's resistance.

The magic system is driven entirely by the 3 (I'm sure they have an official name but I don't know what it is) pokers that push the ball into one of three holes on the right side contraption, correct? It looks like you have three choices, although I'll admit I was going with luck last night.

That same contraption let's you face monsters, complete with a theater performance. What I missed, however, is what determined when I was farting with spells and when I'd get a monster.

Does anyone know what it means to get a spell when you aren't facing a monster? It seems like I could acquire a spell but have no way to use that spell when I face a monster.

Side note: Skip is not a monster you fight. :)

[Wader]

Here's what I think... (Could be wrong)

The puppet theatre can do three different things:

1. On normal gameplay, putting the ball in there starts a fight with a monster, with type determined by which hole it sinks into.

2. On a skill shot attempt, if you put the ball over there, you earn a magic scroll, with type determined by what hole you put the ball into.

3. During a monster fight, if you put the ball over there, you can USE the scrolls you earned on skill shots. However, you have to put the ball in the same hole you earned the scroll in. If you put the ball in a different hole, the game will say that you don't have any of that type of scroll.

Basically, there are only 4 magic scrolls, each corresponding to one of the puppet theatre holes. First you have to earn the scroll on a skillshot, then you can use it during a monster fight.

[Deadbuffalo]

You can also obtain the scrolls on the orbits, but it's random if it's loot, scroll, potion, or a kickback.

I agree with Tom, it's easily the worst rulebook for a table because it tries to do something besides just tell me the rules.

[Misguided]

Speaking of scrolls, the camera makes me crazy on the skillshots. It takes too long to move over to where the flipper is and I end up with the ball passed the flipper before I can react half the time.

I'm actually doing the exact same thing for the forest shots. Before I did, they were incredibly annoying, causing me to lose the ball almost immediately. For the first 5 or 10 minutes, I complained about the forest shot because it caused my game to end. Now I complain because it is too easy to use to set yourself up.

I have to try this, because while I am good at hitting the shield ramp, I have a terrible time hitting the sword ramp.

[Justin Fletcher]

I was amused by the rule sheet's choose-your-own-adventure vibe, but like most Zen tables it doesn't give a huge amount of info, or at least not clearly (although the instructions have gotten much better than they were on the first set of FX 2 tables).

I haven't complained about the FX physics in a while, but this table seems more bouncy than usual. 90% of my drains have been due to some weird bounce off of the slingshots. And I hate, hate, hate the zoom on the flipper to the orcanium. It usually throws off my timing. If I'm in one of the full table views, KEEP IT FULL TABLE.

But there's a lot to like. The theme and presentation are well done, and I really enjoy the writing and voice acting (very Medieval Madness). The RPG elements are nice and make me feel like I'm always progressing, but it's still more about completing modes and high scores than leveling up. But, I have to admit, getting an epic weapon still gave me a frission of accomplishment.

The coolest thing about the table is the multiball. Having the player build the components of the mode (e.g. ball saver, extra ball, super jackpot, etc.) is very clever and promotes lots of variety. The roulette wheel also makes me a lot more invested in the activation process ("Add a jackpot lane? No! I wanted extra ball!")

Such variety is welcome when the rest of the modes are pretty much the same. The monster fights are repetitive with the primary difference being the amount of hit points involved. There are also a million of them, so they take up a lot of time and focus. Hopefully, this will be addressed more as the monsters become stronger and gain elemental resistances that force me to use the magic system more. Another minor gripe is that I wish you could choose whether or not to drink a healing potion; I seem to always get them when I'm down 10 hit points.

I'll have to play it a bit more to see how long it will be in the rotation. I think this is going to be a huge scoring table, which tends to lower my interest (I don't want to have to play three hours straight to approach the top ten scores). But it's certainly worth the money and, in my opinion, brings more bang for the buck than a Ms. 'Splosion Man or Mars.

Side note: Skip is not a monster you fight. :)

I did that, too :)

[dannimal]

The table rulesheets are easily the WORST part of Pinball FX2. Which is kind of frustrating, because some of these tables have so much going on that the sheet is important.

They're haphazard, not complete, confusing as balls, and riddled with typos/misspellings. This is true on every table I've played, not just Epic Quest.

I'm all for putting the game first, but this piece seems like it should be so easy. I'd write them (or even just edit them) for free, that's how frustrating they are.

On the bright side, one of a handful of Pinball Super-Masters usually have a much better guide/rulesheet available 3-5 days after a table comes out.

[Misguided]

The sad part is I love how in the table guides they float the camera around to show you different objectives and how they light up the indicators you are looking for. Mechanically, they do a great job, it is the content of the guides that is the problem.

[Justin Fletcher]

I've said this before, but it bears repeating:

• Zen needs to steal the excellent tutorials from FarSight (Pinball Hall of Fame, Pinball Arcade).

• FarSight needs to steal the social interaction elements from Zen.

What a wonderful world this would be.

[Misguided]

I don't actually find Farsight's tutorials to be so great either, at least on the new PA. They could probably reduce the number of screens by 75% with less repetition and better use of screen space. Then they might find areas they haven't covered.

[Justin Fletcher]

Haven't seen PA yet (waiting for the 360 version), but the ones in the Williams Collection gave me a far better understanding of all of the tables, including some that I'd played for years in "real-life." About the only way to make them better, I guess, would be to include mini-movies showing the ball moving, maybe in slow motion.

Someone remind me: Does PHOF have the free camera that allows you to look at the table like FX2 does? Or is it only the non-controllable pre-game table "fly-bys." If the latter, FarSight should steal that, too.

[Torbe]

R.I.P Steve, thank you for a great game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-dies-aged-100

[Justin Fletcher]

Saw that a couple of days ago. I watched the TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball documentary a few months ago and was completely charmed by him.

Very sorry to hear about his passing. I hope I last as long.

[Alan Friesen]

So, Pinball FX 2 is available on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Tempting to install it just for the preview, but good news that FX 2 is coming soon to the PC!

[Telefrog]

Presumably, only through the Windows 8 store.

[Alan Friesen]

Presumably, only through the Windows 8 store.

Thankfully, no!

[Telefrog]

Thankfully, no!

Great news! Hopefully, the wait won't be too long because I don't see myself upgrading to Win 8 anytime soon.

[Jarrodhk]

I would like to say that Ping is a poo poo head.

Improved my best score on Epic Quest by 70 odd million. While I was playing that game Ping improved his best score by my ENTIRE score of 300 or so million.

'Keep going! Beat Ping's score! Only 1.5 billion to go.'

[pingwrx]

I would like to say that Ping is a poo poo head.

Improved my best score on Epic Quest by 70 odd million. While I was playing that game Ping improved his best score by my ENTIRE score of 300 or so million.

'Keep going! Beat Ping's score! Only 1.5 billion to go.'

My goal is to get into the top 10 will be tough to get there.

[Rimbo]

I just sat down for a quickie with Sorcerer's Lair, and ended up having the most epic game of pinball of my life: 335 million. Prior to this, my best on any table was the 105M or so I had on Pasha, and on that table, I had a high of oh... 28M.

I had two extra balls and defeated the wizard... but didn't save Whisper.

But I'm mostly pissed off because if I'd just held on for 3M longer... which was in my grasp... I would've beaten Tom's superscore. Bugger!

[Sonky]

Hi, Pinball FX 2 enthusiasts -

I'm fairly new to XBox Live and so far I have just a few (excellent) pinball-playing friends on my list. As I would feel mega weird about combing this thread for gamertags and sending people unexpected friend requests, I thought I'd just put this out there and say HEY, if anyone would like a new friend for Pinball FX 2 funtimes, please feel free to send a request to SonkMcMonk. I'm always looking for challenges!

[Justin Fletcher]

My nemesis revealed! Your Moon Knight score will be mine!

(Paranormal...not so much.)

[Sonky]

My nemesis revealed! Your Moon Knight score will be mine!

(Paranormal...not so much.)

Lordy, my Moon Night score probably WILL be yours. You're hot on my heels!

However, I'm currently focusing on the Excalibur table. I'm coming for you, Fletcher.

[djkeogh]

Finally got some good scores on Fantastic 4 and Captain America tables. Had been struggling with the F4 table for ages but a good 500M plus score has me happy to put it on the back burner for awhile if not permanently.

Going to start putting some more time into the Vengeance and Virtue tables now as I'm not happy with my mere 28M on Moon Knight so time to hammer each of these tables up into the hundreds of millions.

Just read there about the new set of 4 tables due out in May. These look interesting as well.

They do run a risk here of over doing some characters and voices as alot of characters in these tables already feature very heavily in other tables as well.

Avengers Chronicles
[COLOR=#0000ff]http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ex...onicles/728164[/COLOR]

Worl War Hulk Table
http://youtu.be/MK6LAepQoCs

[MattKeil]

I'd say the new tables look different enough that they won't be repeating themselves too badly. Plus, with the Avengers movie coming out in May they really don't have a choice.

World War Hulk looks like a really cool table, and while I'm less enthused by what I've seen of the Fear Itself table, I love the broken Cap shield slingshots.

[wumpus]

Jesus, MORE superhero pinball? Enough already.

[MattKeil]

I'll take more Marvel tables over the uninspired original stuff. I almost like Paranormal, but the agent's ridiculous voice drives me nuts.

[Brad Grenz]

It's obviously what is selling.

[notatiger]

I've been playing quite a bit of pinball lately, trying to get into the top 4 of my friends list for every table. Along the way I set a high score for the Thor table by 40 million and beat Klamiti's already impressive Sorcerer's Lair score with a final score of 350 million. Time to take on Paranormal, I think.

[Rock8man]

Trailer for new table. When it first started, I thought we were going into space!

[MattKeil]

The Avengers tables are due out on June 19th, for those wondering.