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What The Empire Strikes Back Looks Like In Pinball Form

I can't stop staring at table-art Mark Hamill.

Feb. 13 2013

Posted by: Brad

In This Episode:

Zen Pinball 2

66 Comments

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hilld1985

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Not sure I'm feeling super confident of the cleaned up voice work. It feels wrong.

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Nezza

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I really enjoyed Marvel Pinball (except the Iron Man table). I think its probably my most played game on my 3DS, so this will likely be an insta-purchase providing the price is in the same ball park.

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ApexDefect

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Edited By ApexDefect

@legendarychopchop: Its so hypnotizing!

I like what they're trying to do, its pretty much taking all those little simple animations from the display and making them pretty awesome.

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darkjester74

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I wish those Pinball Arcade guys would do a digital version of the ACTUAL Star Wars pinball machine.

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bosshog70

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looks good, I'll be downloading it

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buft

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I love pinball FX, I love Star wars, whats not to love. ice cream and steak sandwiches here i come.

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Rekt_Hed

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I thought I was totally sick of Star Wars! This trailer made me feel like I was 15 again. I have to play these tables

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Thor_Molecules

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Man, virtual fictional pinball tables suck. None of the mechanical charm of playing an actual pinball table, or an accurate representation of a real one.

I don't want to see poorly 3D-animated Luke and Vader fucking swordfighting while i'm playing pinball.

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paisan13

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Edited By paisan13

This just looks annoying, a lot of irritating stuff flying/moving across the playfield it just idiotic design, to bad.

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jaycrockett

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Man, I played the living crap out of the Star Wars pinball machine that came out in the early ninties. It's the only pinball game I ever got any good at.

This new one seems ok. I do like pinball fx, but as others have said, I don't like when they add elements that couldn't be reproduced in real life.

Seems an odd complaint for a video game, if you are going to call it pinball I think it should stay somewhat grounded.

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jscro

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I really enjoyed Pinball FX2. I have most of the tables but I've started to enjoy their work less and less with each branded title that comes out. Having small animations on the table as in Sorcerer's Lair is fine and actually adds something to the experience. Having a full size Wolverine leap around the table and fight Sabretooth is a cool effect but it's ultimately distracting to the gameplay experience. I wish Zen had stuck with making regular pinball tables that featured a few arcady elements instead of making arcade machines with a few pinball elements. Pinball Arcade is doing something closer to what I want but I'm so pissed off at myself for purchasing their table on XBOX first, never anticipating the disaster that would be their XBOX distribution system. All that being said, I will probably not let Zen know my displeasure with their current product because as a Star Wars nerd I'll picking these tables up regardless of the bad taste they leave in my mouth (which is something they are rightly counting on).

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weegieanawrench

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Could they really not get Mark Hamill to do the voice of Luke? I bet he's not up to much at the moment.

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Ataribomb

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Edited By Ataribomb

Really hoping this makes its way over to PBFX2. I'd absolutely love to play this.

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BasketSnake

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YEAR OF LUIGI! DAMN YOU NINTENDO!

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WaiteyBulger

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Wheres Lando At???? Billy D needs to get his

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retsub101

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Man... I am sooooo sick of Star Wars shit.

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LegendaryChopChop

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No Caption Provided

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hockeymask27

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Edited By hockeymask27

W T F

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Winternet

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What?

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smiddy

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This is fucking ridiculous.

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xxDrAiNxx

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Frickin awesome !

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Grimluck343

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This is one creepy ass picture of Mark Hamill.

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Senate4242

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So very loud..

Not sure I how I feel about this. And they couldn't even get the voice tracks from the movies?

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bobafettjm

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Oh man I really want these. I have been playing a ton of Pinball FX 2 lately.

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kinapuff

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Am I the only one beyond sick of the star wars opening theme along with the logo fading backwards?

It feels beyond overdone and pasé even for Star wars properties.

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Fearbeard

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Edited By Fearbeard
@fox01313 said:

If I remember right, there were star wars pinball tables made years ago, think with the quality of tables on pinball fx2 & the other digitally recreated tables, I'd rather have those over this new one.

Uhhh what? Pinball FX2 (Xbox) is the exact same as Zen Pinball 2 (PS3/Vita), but simply re-branded. Aside from the name and the fact that the PS3 version supports cross-platform purchases with your Vita, they are exactly the same thing.

They weren't made "years ago" or anything. The Star Wars tables are coming out on the exact same date later this month for both platforms.

Did I miss part of this conversation? Where did fox mention Zen pinball? I got the impression he was talking about physical pinball tables.

Anyways, the voices didn't sound very good to me in the trailer and were really distracting. Still gonna buy it and probably love it though.

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KaneRobot

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Looks nice and crazy, too bad it's going to have Zen/FX's shitty physics. Ball feels like it's made of air. I'll stick with Pinball Arcade's Star Trek TNG table for my dorky franchise on a pinball machine fix.

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CaptRocketblaze

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President_Barackbar

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The sound-alike voices REALLY threw me off. Since its an officially licensed table and those lines are LITERALLY the same lines from the movie, why didn't they just pull the lines directly from the films?

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raremonkey

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Edited By raremonkey

is this part of zen pinball 2?

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Vuud

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Awww, I clicked hoping to see a real pinball table in the GB office.

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jaks

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Edited By jaks

I wish that was a real table mmmnnnnnggghhhh

Sans the live action stuff. Oh fuck it, with the live action stuff!

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djames216

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I like the original Star Wars movies but I wouldn't say I was a big fan. But it seems to me that using other actors for the voices is a dis-service to the fans that would be in to this. Perhaps there are additional legal (and maybe financial?) hoops to jump through if they wanted to sample voice work from the original films? I have no idea, does anyone else have any insight into this?

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melodiousj

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Uh... so... do you actually play pinball at any point?

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Roddykat

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Most impressive...the voice work is alright, but still kinda distracting.

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natureboy46

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A combination of two of my favorite things. Can't wait.

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rand0mZer00

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On a completely unrelated note, the pizza parlor my brother works at still has a functioning Twilight Zone table. I still play it every chance I get.

Oh, and this looks pretty cool.

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briansanderson

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Will have to pick this up. Looks good.

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deactivated-60a530ec4d635

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The moment they said 'prepare for hyperspeed', A piece of my soul died....

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ChrisTaran

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And here I thought that the new site would fix the video player problems :/

Ahh well, there's always the next redesign!

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rev_vadaul

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Wow, the music gave me a flashback, but to the SNES game. I guess I probably spent a lot more time playing the SNES game than the films but still, feels weird.

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MaxOpower

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Edited By MaxOpower

Do people buy these things based on the IP?

Maybe it's a tradition thing, but I really don't get acquiring licenses to big names, just to turn them into digital pinball. I mean this isn't going to attache people like I must assume big names on pinball machines used to. This wont be standing at a bar, or in somebodies living room or whatever.

People who buy this must really be into Pinball, can't see someone randomly browsing the marketplace and say "Wow cool, a star was pinball thing" and buy it solely on it's connection with Star Wars.

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rjaylee

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Edited By rjaylee

@pixeldemon

said:

@mellotronrules

said:

i don't think i care for this. something about the dissonance of an electro-mechanical apparatus featuring rendered film scenes...it's a strange mashup.

I don't like it either.This would be way cooler if it was a Pinball Arcade style simulated table, even if the table being simulated was never actually built.

Jeff has mentioned many times in the past regarding Pinball FX2/Zen Pinball 2, and Pinball Arcade, and I generally agree with him. Pinball Arcade is great if you want actual tables with actual pinball simulation, and Pinball FX2 isn't bad but doesn't seem to have the best physics and never truly goes crazy enough for fake pinball tables either.

While I do wish the tables were crazier and the physics were better, I still think Pinball FX2 plays fine and can easily sink a lot of hours into some of their tables. Not only that, but the tables are also generally inexpensive too, and the scoring/leaderboard stuff surrounding the platform is still really solid.

I still think that first run of Marvel Pinball tables are still really good, especially the Spiderman table and the Blade tables.

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kindgineer

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Edited By kindgineer

That actually looks like a fun pinball table. Developers never seem to go far enough when it comes to a digital table, and this looks like a milestone.

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BBAlpert

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Edited By BBAlpert

I don't know if it's more telling about me or about the trajectory of Star Wars as a franchise, but I think I'm more excited about this than just about any other Star Wars product in recent history.

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rjaylee

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@fox01313 said:

If I remember right, there were star wars pinball tables made years ago, think with the quality of tables on pinball fx2 & the other digitally recreated tables, I'd rather have those over this new one.

Uhhh what? Pinball FX2 (Xbox) is the exact same as Zen Pinball 2 (PS3/Vita), but simply re-branded. Aside from the name and the fact that the PS3 version supports cross-platform purchases with your Vita, they are exactly the same thing.

They weren't made "years ago" or anything. The Star Wars tables are coming out on the exact same date later this month for both platforms.

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Nephrahim

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Edited By Nephrahim

So, uh, none of the voices are from the movies, are they? They all sound fake.

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TheSouthernDandy

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Sweet baby Jesus I'm buying this as soon as possible.

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Trojan

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Edited By Trojan

I can't decide if that looks awesome or incredibly distracting.