Pinball might not sound like the most suitable choice for virtual reality (VR) but Zen Studios has shown that’s not the case with its title Pinball FX2 VR. Originally released as an Oculus Rift launch title almost a year ago, its since made its way to HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. Now the pinball experience goes mobile coming to Samsung Gear VR.
Just as its previous releases Pinball FX2 VR comes supplied with three tables Mars, Epic Quest, and Secrets of the Deep. Then if players want more content in-app purchases are available, with Paranormal, CastleStorm, Earth Defense, Wild West Rampage, Biolab and The Walking Dead tables on sale individually. Further tables will be added in the future.
To offer a unique VR pinball experience, Pinball FX2 VR brings the tables to life, with characters and more appearing around the tables. Additionally, the videogame scoreboards will track your Pro Score, Team Score, table stats and more to let you compete against players from all over the world!
Pinball FX2 VR can be purchased through the Oculus Store for $4.99 USD/£3.99 GBP. Paranormal, CastleStorm, Earth Defense, Wild West Rampage, and Biolab are each available as in-app purchases for $2.99, while The Walking Dead table can be bought for $4.99.
While the Oculus and Steam winter sales have now ended, PlayStation VR owners are getting even more deals with 14 new titles added to the January sale.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) launched its PlayStation sale just before Christmas, with 13 virtual reality (VR) videogames included. Those discounts end today, but the newly featured titles below are on offer until 20th January 2017. The deals aren’t available in every territory so check your PlayStation Store to see which ones have been included, all the discounts and prices listed below are for the UK.
Ace Banana – £7.39 (was £11.49 GBP)
Eagle Flight – £24.99 (was £34.99)
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes – £7.99 (was £11.99)
So if you’ve still got some cash left over from Christmas now’s a good time to build your PlayStation VR library. For the latest PlayStation VR news, keep reading VRFocus.
Pinball FX2 VR arrives tomorrow on Vive and PlayStation VR along with a popular new The Walking Dead themed machine. Originally a launch title for the Oculus Rift, the game will now be available on all three major VR platforms. We take a look at Pinball FX2 VR on the HTC Vive.
Pinball FX2 VR Details:
Official Site
Developer:Zen Studios Available On:Oculus Home (Rift), SteamVR (Vive, OSVR HDK), PlayStation VR Reviewed On:HTC Vive Release Date: March 28th, 2016 (Rift), November 29th (Vive, PlayStation VR)
Having developed pinball games for almost a decade, with Pinball FX and Zen Pinball appearing on multiple previous and current-gen consoles, several mobile platforms and PC, developer Zen Studios was in an ideal position to bring their particular brand of pinball to virtual reality. Pinball FX2 originally launched on Xbox 360 in 2010, saw major improvements on Xbox One, and made the jump to VR in the form of Pinball FX2 VR on the Oculus Rift in March. No longer exclusive to Oculus, the game moves to the Vive on SteamVR and to PSVR, along with the first DLC pack of five extra tables, and introduces a new table based on Telltale’s The Walking Dead series (first seen in 2014).
Gameplay
Believe it or not, it’s pretty much pinball. This involves smacking a steel ball around with a pair of flippers, trying to score as many points as possible, avoiding the drain at the bottom. You get three balls, plus the chance to earn more during the game. Each machine has a unique design, with combinations of ramps, bumpers, additional flippers, and so on. You score points by hitting targets, rolling across ramps, or completing combinations of targets and routes. For any hope of a high score, you’ll need to become proficient at hitting specific targets repeatedly in order to advance the ‘mode’. With just three machines provided with the base game, the expectation is to become intimately familiar with each, through hours of practice. Everyone should find some immediate satisfaction from randomly keeping the ball ‘alive’, but as with the real thing, it’s only through learning a machine’s layout and quirks over time that the game becomes truly rewarding.
While Pinball FX2 VR is considered to have very realistic ball physics in terms of impacts and inertia, the design of the tables (for instance the generous angle of the flippers and the positioning of the ‘outlanes’) is such that each round tends to be more forgiving than a real machine and lasts longer; you’re less likely to drain the ball compared to the real thing. In addition, game is not afraid to introduce supernatural or unrealistic elements to the tables to enhance the fun. The result is a pinball simulation that leans towards accessibility, while remaining rewarding in the hands of an expert.
You’ll quickly find a table that suits you best, and it’s easy to become hooked to Pinball FX2 VR. But from a studio renowned for its licensed pinball machine designs, it’s disappointing that The Walking Dead table is the only licensed table available right now. With the three standard tables, five from the first DLC pack and The Walking Dead table, this is still significantly short of the 70+ tables available for the non-VR version of Pinball FX2. Understandable to some extent, as each table isn’t just optimised for VR, it is re-worked and enhanced, but there’s a big discrepancy here.
Immersion
As with most conversions, bringing Pinball FX2 VR into VR delivers a truckload of additional immersion over the original game. Developers effectively get this for ‘free’ due to the nature of virtual reality, but it is a measure of a good VR implementation that extra steps were taken to enhance the experience further. For Pinball FX2 VR, that includes creating an attractive living space, reworking some of the table elements and surrounding the player with themed visual effects in a spectacular manner that can only be achieved in VR.
You’ll find the game’s tables inside a ‘beachside mansion’, a semi-futuristic, semi-retro interior that is intelligently laid-out, although it’s a shame that a freeform teleportation system isn’t available, and you’re stuck moving between fixed nodes. As you launch a game, the mood of the space adjusts to suit the design of the particular machine you’ve picked, but it remains apparent that you haven’t left the living space entirely, which creates a more cohesive experience as you switch tables. I’d like to see some customisation of the room beyond choosing between three machines, or perhaps even several alternative play areas, for instance a ‘retro arcade’ environment.
The Walking Dead table (launching on the 29th as DLC for all versions of the game) in particular impresses with a convincingly spooky atmosphere of a zombie adventure, using the same ‘hand-drawn’ art style and original voice actors from Telltale’s popular series, with a chapter-based progression that is surprisingly effective, all contained within a pinball game.
Every table has a few visual tricks that extend beyond reality, which can become jarring at times. In the case of the ‘Paranormal’ table, the passenger plane passing inches from your nose as it crash-lands just becomes irritating after several games. Pinball is a ‘just one more go’ type of game, and the last thing you want is a repeated irritation. In general however, the balance between visual flourishes and clean design is well balanced. The game could, perhaps, offer an option to disable the external animations for those who just want to concentrate on the machine.
The original game introduced the each table’s detail with fly-by camera views; you won’t find that here in the Vive version, instead you can do your up close inspection by walking around the table and leaning towards it. As with most high-quality VR experiences, you’ll feel like you really need to walk around the machine as if it’s a physical object, and you’ll want to lean on the machine to take a closer look, when there’s nothing physically preventing you from simply clipping straight through it. And if you do, even though it feels odd, it’s a really neat way of seeing the table detail up close.
The best way to take immersion to the next level is with haptic feedback. Construct yourself a PinSim, and if you’re lined up just right, it will really feel like you’re interacting with a physical table. To reproduce some of the sensation, strapping Vive controllers (the triggers activate the flippers) either side of a table with the correct height and width can also deliver a pretty convincing feeling without much effort.
Comfort
I assumed this was going to be one of the less demanding scenarios for VR rendering, but Pinball FX2 VR turned out to be one of the clearest illustrations of the importance of high performance for VR gaming. The low hardware resolution of today’s VR headsets means that there is a significant difference in clarity even across the short distance from the front to the back of the table; it’s such a challenge to resolve the detail with this limited number of pixels.
Stand at a typical viewing distance, and you’ll be missing much of the detail towards the back. As such, the difference between the multiple resolution options (with the very high settings performing super-sampling) is very obvious, and combined with up to 8x MSAA, the image quality that can be achieved with enough performance overhead is remarkable. Pinball seems to be one of the best illustrations of an image quality difference, as the table is full of intricate geometry (the wire ramps show aliasing severely) but it is very demanding. You’ll need a serious GPU in order to hold 90 FPS on high settings, which again is particularly significant in pinball.
Thanks to asynchronous reprojection, the Vive seemed smooth as I scanned around the table on the highest settings, but the ball movement had become a juddering mess, which was affecting the all-important physics and timing. In fact, it was only at very low settings that the motion appeared to hold 90 FPS in all situations, so if you want the very best experience you’ll need a top-end GPU.
The intention is to play standing up, as you would in front of a real table. It’s very convincing, and hard to play it any other way once you’ve tried it, but the problem is that you’re constantly tilting your head down. And in order to get the best image from your VR headset, it’s best to look through the centre of the lenses, so you’re likely to have a slightly more tilted head compared to playing on a real table, which can move the lenses out of their sweet spot. On top of that, you’re wearing a headset, and the case of the Vive, a particularly front-heavy one, which adds a considerable strain on your neck. I began to feel some discomfort after just half an hour, which admittedly is longer than I’ve ever stared at a pinball table in reality.
It’s not all bad news on the comfort front. If you hit the ‘recenter’ button, it assumes you are standing and positions the table at a sensible distance below you. This means that unlike the real thing, players of any height can enjoy the game to its full potential. You can also use the ‘recenter’ button to force a different perspective, hitting the button from one position and then moving to play it in another, so that the table ends up closer to you if you’d prefer.
We partnered with AVA Direct to create the Exemplar 2 Ultimate, our high-end VR hardware reference point against which we perform our tests and reviews. Exemplar 2 is designed to push virtual reality experiences above and beyond what’s possible with systems built to lesser recommended VR specifications.
Pinball FX2 VR’s timed exclusivity with Oculus shortly comes to an end, with the game due to arrive on HTC Vive and PlayStation VR on November 29th. At the same time, the popular Walking Dead-themed table shuffles its way onto all VR versions of the game.
As one of the launch titles for the Oculus Rift, Pinball FX2 VR was well received, introducing a realistic perspective to the popular 2010 game, Pinball FX2, which originally launched on Xbox 360. The VR version initially included three new table designs, and has since received a DLC pack with five classic tables. The game was particularly suitable for VR, due to simulating a stationary real-world activity, and one that is enhanced by physically standing up. Thanks to its production quality and decent ball physics, Pinball FX2 completed the transition to VR very effectively. And if you’re a pinball enthusiast, building a PinSim for haptic feedback takes the immersion to the next level.
On November 29th, Pinball FX2 VR comes to the HTC Vive and PlayStation VR for $15 (November 30th for PSVR in Europe). Like the Rift version, the DLC with the five classic tables is an additional $25, with more content coming soon. Developer Zen Studios also announced that the Walking Dead table will be available for all three versions on the same day for $7. This popular themed table first came to Pinball FX2 in 2014, with choice-driven gameplay and five ‘episodes’ to play.
Having developed two pinball series (Pinball FX and Zen Pinball) for almost a decade, Zen Studios are renowned for their attention to detail, and this table is a great example. It brings the distinctive hand-drawn visual style of Telltale’s adventure series and dialogue from the original voice actors, and the table and environment design has been updated and optimised for VR.
If you love pinball games currently there’s not a great deal to choose from, besides Zen Studios Pinball FX2 VR on Oculus Rift. Today the studio has announced the videogame will be coming to PlayStation VR this month along with some new content.
Bobby Hopper – Community Manager, Zen Studios made the announcement via the PlayStation.Blog, saying that Pinball FX2 VR will be available through the PlayStation Store on 29th November, but only for US customers at present. Along with the standard version of the title which has three tables available, Mars, Secrets of the Deep, and Epic Quest, PlayStation VR owners will also be able to purchase the Season One Expansion pack. This adds a further five tables: CastleStorm, Wild West Rampage, Paranormal, BioLab, and Earth Defense to the base game.
But that’s not all Zen Studios has one more table to add to the pot, one themed on The Walking Dead. “The VR version of The Walking Dead Pinball brings the complete experience of the beloved 2014 table into fully immersive virtual reality,” says Hopper. “You’ll experience choice-driven gameplay along with original story dialogue from the award-winning cast, in scenarios that include choosing who to save and who to leave behind in a walker attack, keeping up morale, searching for food and supplies, acquiring important tools, and navigating through the herd amidst an oncoming walker breach.
“As the action unfolds, walkers bear down on you. Fight your way through all five of the table’ s episodes to a thrillingly climactic wizard mode.”
When it goes on sale Pinball FX2 VR will retail for $14.99 USD with the Season One Expansion pack selling for $24.99. While The Walking Dead pinball table can be downloaded for $6.99 on launch day.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Pinball FX2 VR, reporting back with any further updates.
