Posts tagged 360

I’m not sure whether this is a good thing yet, although it sounds promising. On October 13, the Pinball FX 2 platform will be available for download on XBOX Live Arcade. Once again, that’s platform. Much like XBOX Live’s Game Room. Pinball FX 2 will be a place to house all of your Pinball FX tables. This also means that you can import your old tables to give them new achievements and graphical improvements. Each new Pinball FX 2 table will be available for purchase, hopefully at a lower-than-normal price point.

For one thing, since Pinball FX is a platform, that should mean a more plentiful release schedule for new tables to support this new effort. Come to think of it, all of the bullet points for this new platform sound like great ideas. I’m on board.

There is only one thing I dislike about Pinball FX tables, and this also pertains to the Zen Pinball tables for the PS3. It’s the lack of variety in the music. Each game seems to depend on one long musical score for the entire game. I don’t recall many musical changes for modes, multiball or any other major event. It’s annoying, for example, to hear the same Street Fighter music over and over again on the Street Fighter Tribute table. I usually mute the music after I’ve heard it for the 20th time.

The music and sound of pinball games are so important to me. One reason why games like Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man are so well designed is that every mode and multiball have a different musical bed. I can tell exactly what is going on without looking up at the scoreboard. This way I can give undivided attention to planning and making good plays, as well as defending against ball drains when I’ve missed a shot.