For those of you that have played around with both, what are you thoughts on pinball arcade vs. visual pinball? Have you played one but not the other? What do you like/dislike about either platform?
My thoughts -
Pinball Arcade
- Super easy to use and obtain new tables
- Works on most devices out of the box (some bugs once in a while like the super-speed bug)
- Largest collection of games available and new ones keep coming. Will be getting Stern titles soon.
- Pricey. At least for mobile platforms and the quality of the tables.
- Poor physics. Odd bounces and some shots are impossible unlike the real-life version of the game.
- Some features left out entirely or partially (flashlamps being the most obvious).
- Some of the games are much easier than their real-life counterparts. I've gotten Monsters of Rock in 6 of the 7 games I've played MB. Which isn't right.
Visual Pinball
- It's free.
- Requires a bit of tinkering and downloading/copying multiples files to the appropriate folders.
- Many of the most popular tables are of significantly better quality than Pinball Arcade. MM, MB, BoP, JY, and T2 are incredibly well done. The fact that folks recreated these for free at this quality is just incredible. Most of the good tables scale to 4K well and look absolutely gorgeous on a 4K desktop monitor. (I play on my PC rather than a standalone virtual pinball machine setup)
- Higher quality sound.
- Some lesser quality tables have significant bugs that make them unplayable (ST: TNG).
- The physics for most games is spot on. Higher frame rate and the ball reacts how you expect it.
- Not many new titles being done.
Love to hear your thoughts and feel free to mention other virtual pinball solutions (Future Pinball, etc.) and how they compare.