3d pinball games4/1/2024 ![]() It also had a 6-axis accelerometer allowing me to 'nudge' the table to influence the trajectory of the ball just like I do on one of the real pinball tables I own. Then I actually tried a really good virtual pinball cabinet running recent, high-quality open source tables at 120fps 4K HDR with haptic feedback transducers providing positional tactile feedback to the point where I could close my eyes and feel the virtual ball rolling across the table from side to side. I even tried a little virtual pinball unit at some discount warehouse club and it sucked. I can understand that point of view and used to think the same. All these people need to eat and pay rent in order for the game to exist, and it's a hard sell to get people to pay $40+ for a pinball game when the platonic ideal has existed from the 90s. A modern AAA game has artists specialized down to making materials that other artists can then put onto geometry. A 3D game is significantly more complex than a 2D game. Adding more 3D gimmicks or raytracing BS does not improve the core pinball experience (and is more likely to detract, truth be told).Ģ) The market for a "high-fidelity PC pinball" game is not large enough to justify development costs. The fact that a ball is a sphere means that it can be rendered as a circle, and the fact a pinball machine can be rendered entirely without the need for 3D processing means that you can build a large degree of fidelity into that physical simulation. ![]() The reason PC pinball games emerged early is because the physics of a solid, heavy sphere of uniform density are pretty well known from classical mechanics. You could turn a dial and see what it would be like to play pinball on the moon! I hope someone sees this and makes it!ġ) PC Pinball games have basically been done to the platonic ideal, unless you're intent on recreating something in like VR which would truly change the experience. Imagine bumping the machine hard to cheat? Or being able to smash the glass with a hammer and then put objects in the case and see what happens to them while you play? Could also be an amazing physics education thing if you could see real-time free-body diagrams overlaid on the ball that you could freeze in time and study showing all the forces acting on it. I know I'd love to see it just because it would be such a great showcase for the power of modern machines, especially the integration of super realistic physics. Why do you think that is? Would it really be so hard to do? Wouldn't that be popular? I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but after doing a quick search on Steam, I don't see anything like that on the market. You could probably end up with something that truly looks and feels like the real thing. ![]() Then it occured to me that modern GPUs like the nVidia 4090 would be incredible for simulating a pinball machine with insane fidelity using RTX ray tracing and the optimized physics simulator (PhysX) they have. As it stands, it is an above-average pinball game that could be much better given the pedigree of its developer.I recall games like Full Tilt! Pinball and the 3D pinball game included in Windows were pretty popular and good showcases for the speed and quality of computer graphics back in the 90s. Pinball 3D-VCR would have been a Top Dog had 21st Century chosen to lift the tables from Pinball Illusions or Pinball Fantasies. On the downside, the tables are not as interesting as 21st Century's other classics - since they are lifted from Pinball Mania which is not one of 21st Century's best titles, they suffer from the same problems of lackluster table design and awkward ball physics. You can also record your play (hence "VCR" in the title) to watch later. For example, you can switch back to the traditional 2D "flat table" view if you find the isometric mode confusing. Pinball 3D-VCR is not only a rehash of Pinball Mania, but a fun game that introduces several innovations. Most of these extras, such as the headache-inducing "multiball" feature, are a lot of fun to score and pretty to look at. Die-hard pinball experts will probably scoff at the ease of scoring points, though. Which is good news for pinball newbies like me, because it means no matter where you hit the ball and how badly you hit it, it will eventually bring you extra points one way or another. Each of the tables (Tarantula, Jailbreak (my favorite), Kickoff, and Jackpot) is packed with 10 to 16 point-scoring mechanisms. As one can expect from masters of the genre, the game looks good, plays well, and even boasts some innovations in the genre.Īnyone who has played 21st Century's earlier Pinball Mania will instantly recognize the tables in Pinball 3D-VCR: they are the same 4 tables, except presented with more details and in isometric "pseudo 3D" mode. Pinball 3D-VCR (released as Total Pinball 3D in the U.S.) is a decent pinball game from 21st Century.
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