Here are Eric Mooney's comments on Microsoft Arcade Pinball from rec.games.pinball. Very interesting reading:--
theo
Microsoft on the whole didn't do a very good job with the thing. The
physics aren't done with a high enough resolution. If you play Baffle
Ball, you see exactly what I mean here - there's only about eight possible
different strengths with which you can launch the ball. (so it just clears
the gate and drops into no-man's land; so it plunks neatly into the 300/350
circle; so it hits the right side of the 100/150 circle; so it sails neatly
into the baffle; so it flies over the baffle and *just* misses the rubber
sticking out from the top and drops into no-man's land; so it hits the
rubber thing, back to the gate, and towards the 300/350 circle; and so it
hits the rubber, gate, and then back into the baffle.) It is *IMPOSSIBLE*
to get it into the 100/150 circle on a direct shot; it's also *impossible*
to aim between the 100 and 300 circles at the 400 circle. And the blue
circle is right out.
Not to mention the fact that getting correct timing on a plunger pullback
is *vastly* different than getting the correct distance of plunger pullback
on a real machine. We've had golf games with mouse-simulated-swings for
years; why not have a mouse simulate the plunger pullback? Ditto on the others. In Knock-Out (which is the best implemented of the
bunch), it's impossible to aim for the lower entrances to the rollovers
from the flippers; the best you can do is send the ball generally upwards
and hope it drops into and through the side rollover lanes. And the
restriction of timing on the plunger sucks too... I like to have a ball in
the plunger lane at the ready, so when it looks like the ball is going to
drain, you whack the next one into play and reactivate the gate. No good
in the simulation, cause you have to wait a good two seconds for the
plunger to pull back. In Slick Chick, you can't aim for much of anything. Ditto for Spirit of
76. In Haunted House, it's more luck than skill as to whether the ball
actually goes where you're trying to send it, and I've experienced the same
problems as what you said. There's also a problem (seems confined to HH
though) that the code decelerates the flipper too soon... that is, if the
flipper hits the ball just before the flipper stops moving, the ball
doesn't go near as far as it should. Physics are about the only problem
with these games, though. The pseudo-backbox lights and stuff are
reasonably well done, and the high score lists are a welcome improvement
over real EMs. Cue Ball Wizard was a poor concept to begin with, was a horrible choice for
simulation, and the simulation was implemented terribly. This game isn't
part of the history of pinball... it's a weird aberration that someone
thought was a good idea at the time. As a documentation / nostalgia / historical interest project, it mildly
succeeds. The electromechanical pins are rendered fairly well, and the
sound effects are done well too (right down to the hum of AC-powered
flippers.) It does have a nice atmosphere, but that's all it's got. Don't
anyone make the mistake of assuming that it accurately recreates the play
of any of the games, though, especially Haunted House, Cue Ball Wizard, and
Baffle Ball. I said back when beta testing for this was first announced that Microsoft
would never have the interest, dedication, or just plain caring about
getting it right to spend any time at all on the physics, and I was right
on that call. (I'm not saying I can do it any better, but our friends over
in the UK certainly can, and Microsoft is a couple hundred times the size
of Empire...) Not to mention the jerky framerate... my P166 with 56 megs
of memory should damn well be enough to play it. It plays Timeshock! and
BRUSA fine with four balls on the table; how the hell can Microsoft be
unable to make one ball in an EM display smoothly? And even the pinball
trivia quiz in the help is implemented poorly - it won't even keep score
for you?? Microsoft Pinball Arcade is shovelware shlock thrown out there for the
quick sell with zero regard to quality, in the typical Microsoft tradition.
These comments are also all based on the final version, not the beta.
Unless you *really* need to see what Humpty Dumpty or Slick Chick looked
like, don't support this CRAP.
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