Two Grumpy Old Men (TGOM) review... The Lord of the Slings! Wait, I mean Rings! (long)
The Korn
Korn: Probably with a disclaimer. Anything worth reading these days
has a disclaimer at the front.
DISCLAIMER: Korn is not a LOTR dork and has refused throughout
history to read even word one or see minute one of any of the movies
or books. In contrast, Wolffy is a LOTR dork but can't play pinball
worth a damn. In addition, this review is based on a prototype game
that has been on test less than a week, so features, modes, rules,
etc. will change between this review and any machine you are likely to
play. Do not find this review six months from now and tell us that
things we felt are missing from the game are present. They aren't at
the time of this writing, so nyah!
SECOND DISCLAIMER: Since the weather sucks, Yancy's comments are being
written by proxy.
"BIG MONEY! BIG PRIZES! I LOVE IT!!"
Korn: As many of you know, I went long and hard against South Park 2.0
because I thought the layout of the game sucked (non steel) balls.
Some will say that the layout of LOTR is suspiciously close to that of
a certain Williams game from six years ago. It certainly does bear a
resemblance, but the difference between the two is that LOTR is close
to the layout of a good game rather than a bad one!
Wolffy: I don't know. It feels more like MB to me.
Korn: To each his own. Let's start by going through the shot map.
Starting at 9 o'clock we have the mystery shot.
Yancy: It sure is.
Wolffy: No, it's the mystery shot. You know random award kind of
thing. However unlike popular opinion, it is NOT a catapult. Instead
it's a VUK that feeds the left habitrail.
Korn: Wireform.
Wolffy: Stop it! There's a redundant target in there which does the
same thing if you hit the mystery shot.
Korn: That will probably get costed out of the game. The game awards
you mystery whether you hit the target or not as long as the ball
stays and hits the hole.
Wolffy: The next shot is the spirit of the river!!! It's totally
large.
Yancy: Represent!
Wolffy: Ok it's the outer left lane which feeds the right tower when
not diverted. It feeds the left tower if it is diverted.
Korn: Next up is the left ramp to left habitrail shot. The shot pics
up off the playfield, and makes a u-turn while still rising up off the
playfield. It's kind of funny to see a ball rolling toward the back
of the cabinet under gravity power on a weak shot.
Wolffy: This is probably one of the sweetest shots
Yancy: In alllll of pinballlll!
Wolffy: ...in the game. Next to that is the inner left lane which if
not divertered acts as an orbit, otherwise it feeds the left tower.
Korn: I want to talk about the money shot! Alright here's what you
are playing the game for folks. The center ring shot is actually a
split tounge skip ramp that lofts the ball over the rear orbit lane
and into The Ring which is mounted in the back wall (bad video and
drippy wet floors not included). I'm not going to spoil The Ring
effect (that was stolen lock, stock and barrel from a Williams game
from nine years ago) but suffice it to say that this game does the
effect justice! If you make the shot while start mode is lit, the
ball goes through the back wall and exits via the right habitrail.
Wolffy: Wireform!
Korn: The ring shot is intentionally difficult. Weak shots will flop
off the end of the ramp into either the left tower, the right tower,
or the O-R-C lanes. Amazingly this ramp is not a source of SDTM
drains. After playing roughly thirty games on at to forty this point,
I've had a total of three balls hit that ramp and come SDTM.
Wolffy: Well I've had a few more than that SDTM drain on me, mainly
because if you hit that ramp with a weak shot you're pretty much done.
Yancy: Drama!
Wolffy: Don't forget that the ramp entrance has a spinner. There's
also a big ugly red guy in front of it but we'll come back that a bit
later.
Yancy: You don't want to let the big ugly red guy out before his
time. He's not ripe yet!
Wolffy: Next thing are the ORC lanes at the top of the jet bumpers.
And what's really nice about this layout is that some good jet bumper
action will send the ball up and back down through the ORC lanes.
Korn: Don't forget the flashy-flashy! The jet bumpers have flashers
in them (a la Scared Stiff) so that when you hit a bumper, a flasher
fires. Unfortunately, all three flashers fire on any bumper hit, so
it's not quite as cool as it _could_ be, but it's nice.
The Wolffy: directly to the right of the big red guy is Gullom's
cave. Tis supposed to be a VUK that feeds the right habitrail.
The Korn: wireform! It's accessible from below by the flippers and
above by the jet bumpers much like AFM's Stroke of eat your playfield
hole.
Wolffy: But unlike the stroke of eat your playfield, the ball can
sail right through from the flippers into the jet bumpers.
Korn: that shot pisses me off. It doesn't make sense on ANY level to
design a shot that you have to shoot crappily to make reliably. Even
backhanding this shot you'll sail right over the hole and get screwed
out of the award 50% of the time.
Yancy: Yeah, that's like playing the cheap hizz-o.
Wolffy: There's a ramp shot next. It's the right ramp. It is what
feeds the sword and the really cool rolling lock.
Korn: ...that spits balls out sideways.
Wolffy: It's a feature!
Korn: It's a bug! Balls have a tendency to pop off the sword lock
perpendicular to the intended direction of travel. We mentioned this
to KJ and he let us know they are redesigning the sword lock area, so
hopefully this will get fixed in the near future.
Wolffy: Then there is the right orbit shot (*duh*, wonder what that
does?) and the "spot ring" target, which is self explanatory.
Korn: One thing that's not a shot but looks really neat are the ring
lights right between the flippers. This is the first use (that I
know) of LED lighting for insert lights. They used the LEDs here
because the inserts are very dense, so regular bulbs wouldn't fit. I
have a feeling this is a durability experiment for Stern; none of the
_shots_ are lit by LEDs, just these secondary status lights. They
look nice, and you can instantly tell that
something is different about them.
Wolffy: We need to go back, because we completely missed the Path of
the Dead. The left tower shot is to a VUK which pops the ball onto
the Path of the Dead. This is in NO way an upper playfield.
Korn: The Path of the Dead is a nudge-o-matic experience. There are
four rollover switches (two rows of two) separated by plastic posts
with rubbers on them, just like... SOUTH PARK!
Wolffy: It's not a nudge-o-matic because I tried that and
successfully tilted the machine!
Korn: You need a lighter touch! You can (somewhat) nudge the machine
to get the ball where you want it to go. The four rollover switches
can each be worth 100, 250, or 500 souls, so choosing the correct path
is advantageous. In addition to the rollovers, for every tenth of a
second the ball is on the nudge-o-matic, the game adds one soul to
your tally.
Yancy: tally me souls, get me a banana...
Korn: collect five thousand souls to light return of the king
multiball. Collect five thousand tilts to collect Play Like Wolffy.
Wolffy: each shot on the playfield awards you one of the nine
characters in the fellowship.
Wolffy: WHEN YOU HAVE ALL NINE CHARACTERS, shoot the left lane to the
tower to start fellowship of the ring multiball. Now this tower...
Korn: blows.
Wolffy: ...is not the magical collapsing tower that it's been made
out to be. It wiggles, and it falls over about a whole thirty degrees
at most.
Korn: Think about the castle on MM, how it had five or six moving
parts when it exploded. Now take ONE of those spires, and mount it
onto an assembly that can wiggle back and forth with optional tilt,
just like.... SOUTH PARK! Quite seriously, yelling "YOU KILLED
KENNY!" is most appropriate for tower hits.
Wolffy: Keeping up the tempo, this playfield feels like it has a
really good clearcoat.
Korn: How the [censored for the PC police out there] can you tell
THAT!?? I can't tell if it's clearcoated, waxed, or something else.
What are you _talking_ about???
Wolffy: The shots have a nice smooth feel to them, and the playfield
when you look at it has a very deep shine to it.
Korn: It better, it's brand new! I still don't know how you can
comment on the quality of the clearcoat at this point.
Wolffy: It just seemed like it had a nice smooth feel, especially
when hitting longer shots.
Korn: Want to talk about the art?
Wolffy: The artwork is very Sega-like. Yeah, they did another
photoshop of the pictures, however unlike T3 they didn't do it on top
of line art. So it doesn't really hurt they eye as much. In fact,
the whole playfield is done in this format, so it's consistent.
Korn: To be truthful, I wasn't paying much attention to the art as I
was having far too much fun playing the game to bothered with it. But
I'm getting ahead in the story. :)
Wolffy: It just shows that the days of an artist actually drawing
artwork for a playfield have officially died.
Korn: Well OK then!
Wolffy: Shall we talk about the cabinet?
Korn: The cabinet did a good job holding up the playfield, and held
the legs and backbox on nicely, too!
Wolffy: The cabinet artwork is a big improvement over what we have
seen previously. Yeah, it's still pixelated, but you have to put your
nose right up to the wood to see it.
Korn: I asked KJ if Stern had changed their printing process (or
printer) for the cabinets, since the cabinet seems a lot less
pixelated to me. Nope. I think it was either deliberate
or dumb luck in selecting what art to put on the cabinet sides, so
that the art screened onto
the cabinet a lot nicer than previous work, such as T3.
Wolffy: The only thing I don't care for is that the right side of the
cabinet is brorange. That's red, brown, and orange all mixed in some
pot. The blue side looks so much richer and deeeper...
Yancy: and sexful!
Wolffy: ...that I think they should have done it on both sides.
Korn: I kind of like the dissimilar art sides; one side is dusk, and
the other side is night. It's kind of a strange place to spend extra
money, though.
Wolffy: But the playfield does have some of the best shot feel that we
have ever seen from Stern.
Korn: Quantifying flow on this game is almost impossible. The reason
is because depending on what mode you are in the shots can either flow
or stop. For example: The sword lock when empty and no locks are lit
has very good flow. The game manages to pull the plunger out of the
way before it hits the ball. Obviously, if you have a lock lit, then
the game stops the ball there and destroys any flow.
Korn: Another example of this spilt personality behavior is this
orthanac tower shot. Normally this is an orbit to the right (flow
city) but can also be diverted and stopped in a VUK depending on the
mode. So overall LOTR has a medium amount of flow because sometimes
it has a lot of flow and other times it has none.
Wolffy: Moving on, the game has a rule set similar to South Park
2.0...
Yancy: It has the whole Keith Johnson Box-o-modes thing going on.
Wolffy: ...that is you have to focus on completing many things. One
of the first things you have to complete are the six ring modes.
Obviously hitting the center ramp hard enough for the ball to end up
in the center of the ring will start a ring mode (when lit). Six
lamps (with a either a strange gold color bulb condom or paint) are
placed around the top half of the ring. A flashing lamp indicates the
mode to start which is selectable by the flippers. A lit lamp
indicates that you have played the mode regardless if you completed it
or not. During the mode start animation you will some of my personal
favorite dot work in not only this game but from all Stern games so
far.
Korn: There's a lot of dot animation in LOTR. Some of it is recycled,
though. When ever you start a ring mode, you get a spinning ring
effect at the start of all of them, followed by the specific animation
for that mode.
Wolffy: The mode start animations can be cancelled by hitting the
flippers however if you choose to do this you are really missing out
on some great effects. Each ring mode gives you about 30 seconds to
complete it. Red arrows light up to show you what shots you need to
hit. The only problem is after you hit a shot there is no feed back
to show you how far you are from completing the mode. That's
unfortunate because you need to complete the mode to light the "Gift
of the Elves" shot on the left lane.
Korn: That's true. I couldn't figure out what was lighting gift of
the Elves. Sometimes it was lit and sometimes it wasn't. On balance
though I'm really digging the rule set. Even without status messages,
what you need to do is always clear.
Wolffy: That's true. Unlike South Park 2.0 people who aren't good at
completing the modes or all the rules will still get a watered down
version of the wizard mode, much like MB.
Korn: Moving right along, let's talk about sound!
Wolffy: According to KJ, this is the second game to use Stern's new
sound card. The first game was the most recent run of South Park 2.0,
however the sound was not redigitized for the new card. The BMST is
long gone and instead an emulation is used. The effect is that
instead of using 7-bit or 8-bit audio they can now use 16-bit audio
and the improvement is excellent, especially with the volume set to
level 10.
Korn: I don't know if I would say THAT. The voices sound better to
me, but in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary way. It's sort
of like the difference between using a land line phone rather than a
cell phone; you can tell which one sounds better but neither sounds
great.
Wolffy: Really, I thought the voice of the Ents, the deep slowly
spoken speech would sound great through an upgraded subwoofer.
Korn: New speakers are always a good thing. However, the sound still
suffers from quite a bit of digital compression artifacts which give
the voices a strangely hollow sound. Again it's betTER than it was
before but doesn't quite match DCS quality for example.
Korn: Keeping on with the sound, the music and sound effects on LOTR
are very good. While the "sixth sunday in ordinary time" music is a
bit fruity for my personal taste, it is appropriate for the game.
Wolffy: The music is actually redone clips from the movie soundtrack.
Korn: The multiball pieces are well done, and the sound effects are
very appropriate and (dare I say it!) neat sounding. (I absolutely
love the hammer sound when you complete the ORC rollover lanes!) A
few sound effects seem to be recycled from T3 (example: every time a
VUK fires it makes the same sound), but they aren't so numerous as to
be annoying.
Korn: The good news is that LOTR is not afraid to shut up! Yessiree
bob, this game strikes the _perfect_ balance (IMHO) of voice usage,
and literally has me singing its praises that it's not constantly
yammering. It is only yammering when you've done something
significant, which is exactly when it _should_ be yammering! There
was NO unplugging this machine and rolling it into the bathroom this
time.
Wolffy: I thought the countdown when you have nine seconds left in a
mode (where the character has an increasing sense of urgency)...
Yancy: I GOTTA PEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
Wolffy: ... really helps build the choke factor.
Yancy: Oh shoot, now I can't!
Korn: What really isn't coming through in this review is how much I
really, really, REALLY like this game. This is hands down Stern's
best game, ever. The game has that unquantifiable FUN factor that's
been only halfway present (at best!) in every previous Stern release.
I have never seriously considered buying a NIB Stern game up to this
point because they simply didn't deliver anywhere near enough fun
value for the money. LOTR is truly in a class of one at Stern because
right off the bat the game grips you and keeps reeling you back in for
more. I even had to make a special trip to Fifty North because
SheKorn wanted to play some more!
Wolffy: I'll put in here what I told Keith. This game has a tendency
of really kicking my ass.
Korn: Note to self: cabinet did a good job kicking Wolffy's ass.
Wolffy: But it's kind of like that ass kicking you get when you play
funhouse. You just have to keep playing it until you can actually
have that breakthrough game.
Korn: ...which will be 2084 at the rate Wolffy is going...
Yancy: Damn dude, you're harsh!
Korn: On a scale of ten, I'd have to give LOTR a nine easily. I'm
really THAT impressed with how well the game plays, how well the theme
is integrated, and the entire package. It's one of those games where
the total is far greater than the sum of its parts. The sins that
South Park 2.0 had (overuse of voice work, absolutely stupid voice
quotes, annoying music, crappy layout, stop and go play until the end
of time) were not repeated, making LOTR so far superior to anything
else that has come out of Stern that it's going to be hard NOT to buy
one. BEST STERN GAME, EVER! (And gives quite a few WMS games a run
for their money!)
Wolffy: I'm debating whether this game would get a nine or whether I
would give it a flat out ten. There are just a few things that are
really small (and to point them out would just be nit-picking), but if
you take into consideration the games that came before LOTR (granted
it's all evolutionary), it's really bringing Stern games into the big
leagues.
Yancy: I want to refrain from giving it a number because of the T3
review; originally I was very tepid on T3 and then after playing it I
liked it a lot more.
Korn: So you're saying you think it's just OK but you're writing an
IOU for "it kicks ass"? :)
-----------------------
Korn: It's kind of interesting that this game deliberately breaks all
the rules that Gary Stern has been talking about for the last four
years. All of his talk about physical action pinball and in
particular the absence of any drop targets make this game feel very
un-Stern and by the same token very WMS. Gary has in the past decried
the use of a target with a light (either in front of it or _inside_ of
it in this case) because the light could break and all feedback to the
player is lost. Yet this is exactly what happens with the Balrog in
the middle of the field. You hit him and he doesn't lunge or move, he
simply links bright red. Don't get me wrong, I like the effect a lot,
it just seems to be going in the opposite direction of where he wants
to go.
Wolffy: Damn dude, you're _harsh_! It's not like this game is
actually missing anything. It's come a long way in giving the player
feedback as to how far they're progressing. The ring modes still need
to do something, even if it's recycling the countdown quotes to shout
out "FIVE" to tell me I need to hit the shot five more times. The
stuff is already in there, it can be used.
Korn: On that note, I'd really love it if the game pulled a Sinistar
while pulling out the Balrog and said "RUN! RUN! RUN!" instead of the
one time. But maybe that's just me. :)
Manic
--
*Because John Shields HATES to see people's collections:*
M.M, C.V, N.G.G, T.O.M, J.Y, N.F, J.D,
Shad*w, C.F.T.B.L, T.A.F, A.F.M, F.T, W.W
"The Korn" <the...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b2262ce8.0311...@posting.google.com...
> Wolffy: How the hell do we start these things out?
>
>(good review clipped for brevity)
Rather Play Pinball
Nice review, thanks. Now, thanks to you guys, I may have to buy one...
:-)
- - -
"The Korn" <the...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b2262ce8.0311...@posting.google.com...
Lloyd Olson
I like the enthusiasm the game brings out in Korn. LTG :)
Joe M
one...
Joe M.
Ron Eichelman
Regards,
Ron
"The Korn" <the...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b2262ce8.0311...@posting.google.com...
Rob G
--
Rob
"Ron Eichelman" <ron...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
news:pcfwb.32076$M31.7...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
Kevin Strasser
Thanks for taking the time out...great stuff.
- Kevin
"The Korn" <the...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b2262ce8.0311...@posting.google.com...
BRiban
Wolffy: The mode start animations can be cancelled by hitting the
>flippers however if you choose to do this you are really missing out
>on some great effects. Each ring mode gives you about 30 seconds to
>complete it. Red arrows light up to show you what shots you need to
>hit. The only problem is after you hit a shot there is no feed back
>to show you how far you are from completing the mode. That's
>unfortunate because you need to complete the mode to light the "Gift
>of the Elves" shot on the left lane.
>
>Korn: That's true. I couldn't figure out what was lighting gift of
>the Elves. Sometimes it was lit and sometimes it wasn't. On balance
>though I'm really digging the rule set. Even without status messages,
>what you need to do is always clear.
I had a similar experience. On one game I was lucky enough to complete three
of the modes. Each time I completed a mode, one of the triangular shaped
lights in the elf wheel started flashing and I noticed the Gift light was on,
shoot the gift and collect the award on the wheel. While there was no mode
completed sign, I did notice that the award was significant with a nice
animation and then the mode stopped. It was easy to tell when a mode was not
completed due to the countdown, but I never knew how close or far away I was
from completion.
As I understand it from KJ, completing all of the modes leads to something and
completing all the multiballs leads to something else, too.
>
>Korn: Moving right along, let's talk about sound!
>
>Wolffy: According to KJ, this is the second game to use Stern's new
>sound card. The first game was the most recent run of South Park 2.0,
>however the sound was not redigitized for the new card. The BMST is
>long gone and instead an emulation is used. The effect is that
>instead of using 7-bit or 8-bit audio they can now use 16-bit audio
>and the improvement is excellent, especially with the volume set to
>level 10.
As I mentioned in a previous post, outstanding custom voice work by John
Rhys-Davies. Elijah Wood puts his heart into it, too.
I must say the my left wrist is still sore from playing the game on Wednesday
night, which has never happened to me on any other game. That is how intense
the game can be with multiball after multiball with hardly a moment to catch a
breath.
>Korn: What really isn't coming through in this review is how much I
>really, really, REALLY like this game. This is hands down Stern's
>best game, ever.
Yep, feel the same way. LOTR makes you want to play it again and again.
Enough difficulty to be challenging, yet not too much to be frustrating. For
me this is what pinball is all about, the entire experience of playing the
game. Stern really put it all together on this one.
Brian Bannon
Pete Hoerber
And I have to admit, the fact that Korn is excited about LOTR really
is encouraging! Thanks all three of you for your time and looking
forward to seeing you all at next years' EXPO!
Pete in Seattle
TheKorn
> Nice review. Thank you !
>
> I like the enthusiasm the game brings out in Korn. LTG :)
I'm happy that there's finally something to get enthusiastic about. Up until now, I've been supporting Stern, but it's
mainly been the obligatory lip service; my heart really wasn't in it. But LOTR finally gives those of us with high
expectations something worth cheering about.
Don't get me wrong; the game has bugs in it right now. But that makes sense; the game has been out a week!
More to the point, if you don't have any bugs then you haven't taken any chances. I'm not particularly worried
about the bugs that are in the game; it's early and they can all be fixed; they're all under the "stupid little stuff"
category, which is why they weren't in the review proper.
But just for a chuckle, here are a few of the bugs we noticed:
* Multiball mode that shoots out... only one ball! :)
* Occasionally, the game will forget to light a shot at the start of a mode, so that you know a mode is running
because of the DMD, but don't know what to shoot for.
* Occasionally, you'll complete a mode and _every_ _single_ _insert_ will start flashing, simultaneously. (Looks like
an "all lamps" test!)
* Occasionally, you'll get the opposite; all insert lights go dark, and all you have is GI and flashers.
All of these have been reported to KJ, and I'm not worried about them. (The flashing/dead insert lights would go
back to normal on the next player or ball; absolutely NOT indicitive of anything wrong with the hardware.)
TheKorn
> Nice review! And damn you, I may have to find the dough and space for this
> one...
Yeah, me too. Guess I'm going to have to get off my butt, shop my P*haraoh, and sell it to get together the cash.
(and space! :) )
Brett B
got a great picture of what LOTR is going to play like. I oredered
mine from my buds at Pinballsales.com last week and I guess this helps
with potential buyer's remorse since I swore I would never buy a Stern
game but rolled the dice anyway. Cool. :)
the...@hotmail.com (The Korn) wrote in message news:<b2262ce8.0311...@posting.google.com>...
PinballMoxie
Everyone has always ripped Stern about their Flippers in previous games.
Soooo, what's the deal with the Flippers in LOTR - great/good/bad/same/???
Yancy Blaylock
> SECOND DISCLAIMER: Since the weather sucks, Yancy's
> comments are being written by proxy.
Cool, I'm funnier when it's not me coming up with the stuff. =)
> Wolffy: I don't know. It feels more like MB to me.
I can definitely see the MB thing... left ramp, orbits, Balrog/Frank,
rollovers & bumpers.
> Korn: The ring shot is intentionally difficult. Weak shots will flop
> off the end of the ramp into either the left tower, the right tower,
> or the O-R-C lanes. Amazingly this ramp is not a source of SDTM
> drains. After playing roughly thirty games on at to forty this point,
> I've had a total of three balls hit that ramp and come SDTM.
>
> Wolffy: Well I've had a few more than that SDTM drain on me, mainly
> because if you hit that ramp with a weak shot you're pretty much done.
Nah, you just suck! =) But seriously... if you look closely, that
ramp is slightly left-of-center, which means that balls coming
straight back down will hit the end of the left flipper. I share
Korn's experience with center ramp drains, meaning almost none.
> Wolffy: Don't forget that the ramp entrance has a spinner.
I just have to interject here... ramps with spinners are the coolest
thing ever, and the sound effect for the LOTR spinner makes it even
cooler.
> The Wolffy: directly to the right of the big red guy is Gullom's
> cave.
That's Gollum to you, mister! This is the last time I leave the
reviewing to couple of dorks who haven't read the books. =P (er, I
guess I haven't read them either, but anyway)
> Korn: It's a bug! Balls have a tendency to pop off the sword lock
> perpendicular to the intended direction of travel. We mentioned this
> to KJ and he let us know they are redesigning the sword lock area, so
> hopefully this will get fixed in the near future.
I haven't seen this happen yet. Could be luck, could be my inability
to hit the right ramp with any regularity.
> Yancy: tally me souls, get me a banana...
I gotta lay off the Detroit crack.
> Wolffy: It just shows that the days of an artist actually drawing
> artwork for a playfield have officially died.
Those days were alive up through TSPP... don't give up hope!
> Wolffy: The only thing I don't care for is that the right side of the
> cabinet is brorange. That's red, brown, and orange all mixed in some
> pot. The blue side looks so much richer and deeeper...
>
> Yancy: and sexful!
>
> Wolffy: ...that I think they should have done it on both sides.
Despite what my alter-ego thinks is sexful, the orange side looks
awesome. I'm no Trading Spaces designer, but blue with that brownish
gold just looks *ugly*. I wish they would have used orange for both
sides.
> Wolffy: According to KJ, this is the second game to use Stern's new
> sound card. The first game was the most recent run of South Park 2.0,
> however the sound was not redigitized for the new card. The BMST is
> long gone and instead an emulation is used. The effect is that
> instead of using 7-bit or 8-bit audio they can now use 16-bit audio
> and the improvement is excellent, especially with the volume set to
> level 10.
Word. This is the first Stern game I want to play cranked up all the
way. Too bad the trailer park queen of a bartender at 50 North doesn't
agree, and spitefully cranks up horrible music on the jukebox every
time I come in to play on my lunch. It's not enough that I have to
hear Kid frikkin' Rock when I play LOTR at night, I have to hear a
live version of the "hidey hidey hidey ho" song cranked up to 11 in
the middle of the day. But I digress.
> Wolffy: Really, I thought the voice of the Ents, the deep slowly
> spoken speech would sound great through an upgraded subwoofer.
Everyone, be sure and tilt just so you can hear the cool Ent tilt
speech. That's the only reason I ever tilt LOTR, honest. =)
> Yancy: I want to refrain from giving it a number because of the T3
> review; originally I was very tepid on T3 and then after playing it I
> liked it a lot more.
>
> Korn: So you're saying you think it's just OK but you're writing an
> IOU for "it kicks ass"? :)
More like I'm pretty sure it kicks ass and is the best Stern ever, and
I'm writing an IOU for "f#$king awesome!!!" once I see the wizard
mode(s). =)
Yancy
-----------------------------------------------
e-mail address in header is a trash account...
you can find me here: yancy at musician dot org
TheKorn
Same. Nothing to write home about, but they definitely _feel_ like Stern flippers.
(honestly, I wish they were a bit more powerful, because if the op gets sloppy on the maintenance, that ring shot is
going to get next to impossible.)
ChrisWoodruff
detail and making the it fun to read. Personally I would mind if you all
reviewed older machines from time to time (so I and others could get a
taste of machines we may not have seen/played before).
Thanks again,
cw
TheKorn
If you'd mind it, it's a good thing we don't do it. :)
Nah, seriously, it takes quite a bit of time and effort to do any of the TGOM reviews. That's why they have the sort
of strange layout; we basically have a long shootout ("discussion") on the target game, and decide to transcribe the
best parts. That's one of the reasons why there are the outtakes on Wolffy's site; some things just aren't kosher (or
too boring or just fit into the *DUH* category) to put in an archive that will (ideally) last forever, which is why they're
kept off the group.
A TGOM review is really a compressed version of a six hour debate when you get down to it. That's just
writing/debate time; it doesn't include any play time whatsoever. To spend that kind of time on non-new games,
well....
...no thanks. We'll leave that to the pinballreviews.com guys. :)
Mani
Although if you'd like to read entertaining reviews of old machines,
check out http://www.pinballreviews.com ... they're jokers but a lot
of what the say has merit.
-Mani
ChrisWoodruff <cde...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<Xns943DF362ADAB3w...@64.164.98.50>...