Visual Pinball V9 review

[Shockman]

Like everything else, VP is what it is. VP use to be more though. I have said it has some nice graphics improvements, but your interaction with a pinball machine is limited, and NOTHING should come before that interaction. The plunger, the flippers and the nudging. It's the absolute minimum isn't it?

What will kill the opportunity for VP to continue is not time. As long as Windows updates allow VP to work correctly it still has a chance. The code structure is not so bad, the base is outdated, but that could be patched without a re-write.

VP needs devs that care about the basics of gameplay. Those that do are not devs and those that don't are. The niche did not create this product. This product created the niche. The niche can not support it's self, it has to have the program support them. At this point the program should support them, but it should also support it's roots. What it does is holds their hands, and for all I know that is the only reason it is so popular with cabinet users. Because I have asked for example why don't the put the table nudge in and rem it out if they would rather nudge the ball instead of the table. That was like asking them to burn their cabinets.

How much graphics improvements would make VP worth not having the most basic of function? I think the answer is no amount of graphics improvements will ever be worth not having the basic pinball function.

How do you rate a program that goes backwards in the most basic element of it's design? I rate it a 10 and it's lucky I was feeling generous at the time.

[unclewilly]

ive watched the dev page and honestly it doesnt really look like anyone is really working on it. the only thing ive seen worked on is gamepad support.

if the nudge was so easily reverted please feel free to fix it and add it to the current build. i would gladly use it. but no one seems willing to step up to the plate on that one. if i understood how to do it i would have done it a long time ago.

but the great thing about vp which you know all to well is overcomming its shortcommings.
you yourself have been a part of more work arounds then i can count.

so until one of us figures out how to replace the nuging with the old vp8 nudge well have to work around it.

i dont know if you can still get on vpf but my buddy jimmyfingers have created a ball momenrum engine that makes the ball movement much more realistic. if you cant let me know and ill send you some tables with the momentum engine so you can check it out.

vp jas always been a 10 for me as for me the joy comes from making stuff work that doesnt work right

[Shockman]

I've had it working but not perfectly. I came to believe that I could do it, but that it would probably break the reason it was taken out in the first place, the cabinet hardware. That was with version 9.07. I could not get later versions to work at all. When Paul said he would not host it or allow a link to it, I saw no point. I don't want to use 9.07

The problem, as I said, has nothing to do with software.

[unclewilly]

i honestly dont use the accelerometer nudge. it never functioned properly for me. no matter how many times i would calibrate it, the ball was always pulled to one side or the other.

so i opted for nudge buttons on my cabinet. so the old nudge was fine for me.

[Shockman]

VP tables authors' talent is off the scale, JP and you too. VP was not built for JP and you though. My point is that it should not take such grey matter to get some of this stuff to work. It has always taken someone special to make VP more than the sum of it's parts, but anyone could build a table that the nudge keys would work on. It's not hard to understand that some people still can, knowing said people.

[sleepy]

Sleepy missed the boat.

It's not VP. The Unity 3D project is all about upgrading Future Pinball to use the Unity 3D physics engine and integrate VPinMame.

[Shockman]

Well, FP would be better too, if it had a good physics engine and mame support.

[unclewilly]

from the videos posted. it looks like the physics are much better and the guy says they are pretty adjustable

[Shockman]

Personally, of course vpinmame support is nice where it is and would be nice to have where it isn't, but I think it's over rated. I think it's the coolness of this that is the biggest factor in people over-rating a simulation of pinball that is weak at best.