Excellent post. I love Pinball Arcade, but I think the criticisms are on the mark. And Rob-o-Bot is great.
It's actually their fourth pinball game for iOS As it blows away their other pinball tables, I wouldn't exactly call them 'newbies'
Not true. Its the first table from Color Monkey. The other tables were designed by NENA, the developers of the pinball engine. Those three arent anywhere near as good, like you mentioned, and you shouldnt use those to judge the quality of Rob-O-Bot. Theyre night and day different. For whatever reason, they published Rob-O-Bot under NENAs name. This was a mistake, I think. My guess is that theyre losing out on sales from people who are trying the lite versions of NENAs tables before deciding to plunk down the couple bucks for Rob-O-Bot. Dont make this same mistake.
I say Last Gladiator is the best table on IOS but that's not exactly fair since it was once a $50 Sega Saturn game. I haven't played Robo bot but I tried Nene's other games they were fun but dont feel very realistic.
What do you get with the paid version of the app that you don't with the free version? Also, how does it run on a 4th gen iPod touch?
Just want to say I agree very strongly with Bohemian and Herbert. I get the most pronounced difference with Funhouse. Played it for many years in arcades. Real World: Average roughly 3 mil. Best 27 mil. Pinball Arcade: FIRST GAME 45 mil. Average 30 mil. Best 77 mil (got bored and let the last ball drain) Rob-O-Bot it's tougher and the lighting is much better. Also I have some faith that bugs will be fixed as time goes by (Pinball Arcade new versions generally mean more bugs.) So I'm with HerbertKornfeld: it might not have as good a layout as the top real world games but for now Rob is iOS pin boss.
There are WORLDS between the Robo table (partly from the guys who actually NAILED ball physics with the early iOS Labyrinth masterpieces) and the other very crappy Nena tables. Get ROTR... it's amazing.
Boy, on the Twilight Zone table the ball sure gets stuck under the upper right flipper a lot. Does that happen on the physical table too?
I bought it and I really like the Arabian Nights table. It runs pretty well on my 4th gen. Can you try a table before you buy it? Are the pro versions worth it? If I were to get another table, which should it be? Sorry for all the questions. Lol
I never thought I would tell this, because I absolutely love pinball, but I will not buy twilight zone or any other modern table farsight will release in the future. It´s a shame that this sad company bought the rights for that fantastic pinball licences. Their tables are boring,boring,boring. I hate, that the tables are so damn easy. a pinball game should not last endless, until you let the ball drain, because it´s so boring easy.
Ah, gotcha. I thought I read somewhere that they both contributed to developing this one. You're right though, the other three shouldn't be used to judge the quality of Rob-O-Bot. I am a big pinball fan, and this is one of the best for iOS. (I also love gameprom, zen, ask homework, matmi, Tristan, pinball dreams, etc) I play pinball arcade on my vita as well as zen, so they don't get much play on my ipad. I hope that Rob-O-Bot starts a collection of tables made with this quality.
I have yet to see the point to these "pro" tables but maybe I'm missing something. It certainly isn't that they offer up more challenging/realistic version of the tables, as I understand, just that you can play with the real life table setting switches and enable a few cheat codes.
That's what I thought, when I first read about the pro version, more realistic challenging gameplay. But the difficulty still not possible to change, stays at this strange, easy "family mode".
I'm not finding PA too easy. I am certainly not new to pinball, but I have never been an expert. I will say I have had some rather long games, but it was quite exciting to me to make it farther than I’ve ever made it in the arcade. That is partially what I love about the app. I finally get to see more of the stuff I never was good enough (or rich enough with quarters) to ever get to. Also, I have seen complaints (even in this thread) that the game is too hard. So for every hardcore pinball player saying it's too easy, there will be a pinball newbie that says it's too hard. For me, it’s just right. So adding an adjustable difficulty setting is really the only way they can please everyone. It's unfortunate they are calling the operators menu "Pro" because that is really confusing. I love the game, but here are the improvements/changes I would like to see: Add some optional ways to browse the tables. I would be happy with a text list, and a button to sort them by: a. Alphabetical. b. Original release date. c. Most recently played. Add an adjustable difficulty: Easy, Normal, Pro (pro would be a match for the physical table difficulty) Change the additional-cost version of the tables from "Pro" to "Operator" to distinguish it from the difficulty setting I am also having lots of problems getting my TZ table to work at same time as the others due to the Kickstarter reward being tied to my FarSight account rather than Apple ID. I hope they work that out as it's pretty frustrating. I wish "restore purchases" could just work for everything.
Farsight screwed up the Kickstarter for TZ. I can have TZ, or I can have all my other games, but not both. If I relogin I get TZ+Pro, but all my other tables are gone. When I restore purchases my other tables are back, but TZ says BUY. Frustrating.
Yepp, that's how it is "working" right now. Same for me. Sadly. But they gonna fix it. Until then, I'm pretty amazed by the TZ table. Never saw a real table. But I can understand that this is the opus magnum of tables. It's extremely challenging and very complex. No easy entertainer here, this thing wants to get conquered. Love it!
I don't get what the big deal with Rob-o-bot is. I mean, its an ok table, but not nearly as fun as the PA ones. I find that the ball drains too easily (and unfairly), which leads to a lot of frustration. Of course, I'm more of a casual pinball fan (maybe I'm not good enough?). Also, is it just me or does Rob-o-bot not have local high scores?
