Archive for the ‘pinball’ Category.
March 27, 2005, 22:17
’s been boring. Missed a lot of things over the first three days of easter. And probably gonna miss some more still.
As roklintu states, there was a retro-esque grunge-cover night at Nosturi. Could have been good fun, after all, I managed to miss all four of the original bands anyway, and thus’d been unable to lean back with rock-police attitude and dis the coverer.
And I was kept utterly in the dark about a pinball tourney in Helsinki, of all the places. Well, now I know where the playas hang out, just wait for next year.
Noted on sunday that Cousin Bill was playing at Molly. The last time was good fun, but just couldn’t drag myself out of the sacred sofa of comfitude. Watching the season three of Shield was a far more attractive proposition.
March 26, 2005, 11:16
Or to be more exact, very low grade smoke tricks and ventriloquism.
Had the third quasi-monthly game night at Pekka’s place. The pinball machines were not the mainstay of the evening, four man Ghost Recon 2 was. Managed to suck at that, too. And in the meantime (once dead, there ain’t coming back until the mission’s finished, one way or the other) played a somewhat respectable score (392M) on the almighty Twilight Zone. The third ball gave out whole 17 million points, and drained immediately after the grace period ran out, so there indeed was potential for a vastly better score.
February 21, 2005, 21:39
Trusted pinball purveyor has his own blog now.
EDIT 18.8.2008: The blog is long gone.
January 31, 2005, 22:00
Suits me right for playing with an alpha release, the engine froze during a well-zoned game of
href="http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=966">Funhouse. Oh well, perfect hits are not as rare with the virtual thing as with the real one.
And my moans about the ancient technology used in visual pinball seem to have been heard… As long as Future Pinball delivers its promises. Looks excellent. And here’s looking forward to fiddling with the demo, when easter bunny comes knocking.
January 27, 2005, 22:41
Get Visual Pinball. Right now.
That is, of course, if you care for the noble sport at all. If not, this is not going to convert you… In a nutshell, visual pinball is an editor that allows the creation of pinball tables. Which is pretty much the smartest move in this area since the classic Pinball Construction Set by Bill Budge in the early eighties.
Supplemented with PinMAME, which offers emulation of actual pinball machines’ ROM chips, it provides means to play virtual pinball on user-created tables. And many of those have indeed been created. Sampled a few: Twilight Zone, Addams Family, Alien Poker (the very first pin I ever played back in ‘81). And as the size of Internet Pinball Database indicates, there’s plenty more to come.
Of course this ain’t a perfect product. The ball movement is not entirely natural, but very convincing nonetheless. The tables are not truly 3D, so you cannot scale the tables or look at details from
different angles. And the engine is visual basic, which means that the game experiences occasional hiccups. And the controls… Sure, they are nothing like real pinball, but then again, who’d expect a
similar haptic experience from a measly keyboard.
January 16, 2005, 17:08
Blogwise, that is. Otherwise, not really. Too busy week at work and a decent number of lengthy extracurricular activities prevented real entries…
Restaurant Koto in downtown Helsinki serves killer sushi. And the literate version of that shall be available soon, when the soon-to-be-opened Raku-ya
employs a fugu-certified chef.
Pinball is still fun. Had a lengthy game night at Lemmy’s place. Sucked at both Twilight Zone and especially Star Trek. Scores way lower than previously. Both Carcassonne and WarioWare proved to be amusing as well.
Finns continue to pester Arsenal. This time it was Jussi Jääskeläinen’s goalkeeping that kept the gunners from scoring against Bolton. Chelsea thus widened their margin on top of the standings.
Addictive, yet utterly mindless flash-games, part n: Tobby.
Hyugens landed on Titan. And is able to transmit images
and sounds.
EDIT 18.8.2008: Tobby seems gone.
June 26, 2004, 11:39
Surprisingly few sausages eaten.
Too much pinball played. Lemmy bought two last week and invited to play.
My favorite board ever, Pat Lawlor’s Twilight Zone is in excellent shape (though the paddles are a wee bit loose), and still as hard as ever. Scored a pitiful 291M, and had too hard a time hitting both the slot machine and the player piano.
The other game, Star Trek: The Next Generation was never a big attraction for me (coincided with too many other quality boards), but it also has stood the test of time well. Had a good time learning the board and missions, some shots still eluded at the end of a long session (delta quadrant). Came off with 566M. In a game that records scores over 10G, it’s not a world-shattering score by any means.
