Being a tester in the games group when this title was being developed, I am happy to see the overall warm reception that this title is drawing. I personally love it, It's what I have been waiting for for some time. One of the chief criticisms I have seen is the "table selection". Well, that one is easy to answer. The reason is economics. Gottlieb has been out of business for awhile and their licensing fees were quite less. In fact, Bally and Williams tables were unobtainable because Midway still has a software division, so you wouldn't see them give up intellectual rights to any of their pinballs. So Microsoft had to stick with Gottlieb. Early plans included the "Close Encounters Of the Third Kind" table, but with the recent release "directors cut" of the video by Columbia, the rights for that table were just astronomical. This did not fit in with the idea of keeping the cost of the item to a minimum. The idea was to accurately simulate 7 tables from 7 decades of pinball. Some of them were milestones (like baffle ball (first Pinball),Humpty Dumpty (first flippers) and Haunted House (first tri-level table) but others were merely "representative" of tables of the era. I think the Mir team did a wonderful job and I really hope that others find this title as much of a "value" as I do.

• Re: Why all Gottlieb Tables? JJ 12/24/98 (0)