Be Excellent To Each Other

Played the 'Paranormal' table last night (grab it while it's still free!) for the first time and really enjoyed it. Some nice little features on it like the ghost house at the top and the Hellraiser like puzzle cube with the magnets.

free for how long?

26th October until the 2nd of November.

Is it free just for those days, or do you keep it?

I'll tell you on the 3rd November.

My guess is that you keep it seeing as it's not made by Nintendo.

it isn't free on the website, 240 points. Which I think is a bit steep, tbf.

Do it through the dashboard. The paid for version is on next to the free one on the Games Add Ons section.

That's, what £2-£2.50?

Yeah, I am nowhere near my xbox sadly, and won't be until tomorrow. Oh well.

The offer must have expired now as I queued it up via the website over the weekend as it was showing as free on there.

Paranormal is definitely one of the best tables they've released. I love all the extra bits & bobs you have to discover - as someone who never reads the instructions, it took me about ten games before I even realised there was an upper playfield and a reverse flipper at the bottom left.

That reverse flipper seems to be the key to high scores. Hitting the spinner in the multiball modes gradually increases the jackpot value, and there's no limit to how high you can go. Losing balls doesn't bring it back down, either. If you were particularly patient, you could probably end up scoring 50-100mil per jackpot.

I like it, too. It's funny the one I got for free is infinitely more enjoyable than the dozen or so I've paid for.

It's amazing how he's always able to see it from that angle.

It's my mirrored shoes.

A point for me!

The new game is "make Zardoz find an innuendo". The more obscure the better.

You can get 5 extra balls per starting ball on this table, too. I've just scored BIG largely by exploiting this fact, and I lost ball 3 before I'd even collected its extras. Plenty of room for improvement, then!

Am I right in assuming you, YOG, are Klatrymadon on XBLA? If so, you utter bastard - 1.3 billion? For the first time since Malc74 slipped into pinball senility and Runcle ran out of cash I see my superscore in real danger. Curse you!

Yep, that's me! I'd spew some trash-talk about coming for your superscore next, but unless I put in a similar performance on some other tables (and I'm usually lucky if I can reach 100mil on most of them - 25mil on the FX1 tables), I don't think that's on the cards.

1.3 fucking billion, Klat?! I shouldn't have even bothered with that 240 million last night.
*splutters incoherently*
And as for your senility comment, Mr... Mr... I'm sorry, have we met? Is it Tuesday yet? I like Tuesdays. I was in the war you know. *whistles tunelessly*
Nurse. NURSE! I've shit myself again. *falls asleep*

good to read this, i didn't understand in on my first go at all

Hey, imagine how I felt when I saw that the top score was roughly mine multiplied by a hundred.

I had a rather neat lesson in pinball morality this morning. I was trying out YOG’s tip with the extra balls on the Paranormal table. Sure enough you can get up to five of them per normal ball, effectively making it an 18-ball table, unless you’re monstrously unlucky or are Zardoz. It still feels like cheating, though, somehow.
The longer I sat there grinding away with Malc’s wrinkly arse excellent high score firmly in my sights I started feeling strangely dirty, empty inside, morally bankrupt, as if I’d shagged the neighbour’s labrador or nicked their kid’s dinnner money. Worst thing is, I did both of those things this morning too.

And then the Hand of Justice – at around 280 million the ball got permanently stuck in the multiball disc thingy, game over, no score…..ha! I think I may have deserved that….

YOG, how much time did you have to invest to get that 1.3 billion?

AND…..I still can’t do the fucking Levitation mission

I just like the sounds and flashing lights, OK?!

That's pretty much what you tell the police every time you're caught at the "massage parlour", isn't it?

Once they've unzipped my pig mask.

I probably played for about 90 mins or more, over two sessions. I didn't manage to crank up the jackpot value much (I think the highest it got to was about 3 million), but I got lucky with a consistent string of completed multiball missions, video modes, chupacabra objectives, etc. Occasionally you'll make over 100m in a couple of minutes when these all come together. Finishing the multiball modes doesn't seem to be particularly rewarding in itself, though; I think the key to humongous scores would be to slowly raise your jackpot value in the 'Levitation' mode for hours and hours. Fuck that.

BTW, if you turn the console off mid-game, will your last save still be there when you start the game up again? That'd alleviate the game-ruining glitches somewhat (in that you'd lose half your progress rather than all of it).

Stop talking dirty, you know I'm all out of bacon.

Dammit! I'm now hopelessly addicted to this bloody thing again. Upped my Sorcerer's Lair score a bit tonight and then went back to one of the old tables - Agents. It's pretty astounding how far they've come in terms of table design, because it felt really empty and a bit boring. Scraped an extra million or so onto my high score though, but it was hard going.
So, maybe I'm not quite as pinball senile as some people seem to thi... are those prunes? I love prunes. Keep you regular, you know. NURSE! I may need another nappy in a minute or two... *gums greedily*

Look, sorry about the senility comment, I was just pointing out that your forum name doesn’t refer to being born in 1974 but rather actually being 74 when you signed up. As a fellow oldie it was unfair of me to suggest that that in any way mea….lovely year ‘74 by the way, I remember when… ooh lovely cuppa, thank you dear, and no those are NOT my socks I really must protest. NURSE!

I wish I didn't have you two buggers on my friends list.

Ah.. "Trousers Syndrome".

"I wish I didn't have you buggers in my trousers"

NURSE! Get me out of DavPaz's trousers, please! Honestly, I thought they were kiwi fruit. And thank heavens I decided not to smoke that cigar... NURSE!

Yeah, Trousers pretty much has putting me in my place with regards to shmups covered, whilst MrC and Malc like to piss on my pinball parade.

The rare top down Sega schmup based in Hull.

So I'm giving this a try. What tables would you recommend to get started with?

Paranormal is my favourite of the more recent ones, and Sorcerer's Lair is pretty good. The Marvel ones are hit & miss IMO, but I really like Spiderman. Oh, and Ms Splosion Man is good too. Just steer clear of the Pinball FX1 tables, as most of them are a little lacking compared to the newer ones.

You can play trials of them all anyway, Craig.

Thanks. I had in mind ones that have some lively leaderboard competition amongst people here. Although I'll have more chance of climbing Everest than beating Trousers. But it's the taking part that counts, right Trousers?

New Marvel pack is out in a couple of days. Features Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, Thor and X-Men tables.

There's a Hulk one in the works, too.

I don't play this anywhere near as much as I used to, but I'll still be all over these new tables.

I learnt from Pasha never to send those tempting taunt messages over Live, otherwise Malc74 will trounce you.

Damn.. I still haven't bought all the other tables yet. I'm hoping that some of them might go on offer soon.

A few of them were half price a few weeks ago. I've no idea how we're going to spot sales on this new dashboard, though!

That was rather satisfying!

I love sending the taunts. I nearly always get trounced afterwards mind, but it's a great idea.