Your top 10 digital Pinball tables (Pinball FX2 & Pinball Arcade)

I would love to see everyone’s Top 10 Pinball Tables for Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX2. There’s a lot more available now than when I lasted played 2 years ago!

In no particular order:

Butters’ Very Own Pinball
Rome
Pasha
Tesla
Boba Fett
Plants vs Zombies

I haven’t played the others enough to feel like I can round out a top 10.

EDIT: I forgot El Dorado, many hours spent on that one. Getting close to 10 . . .

Not sure I can do a Top 10, but my faves are probably Infinity Gauntlet, Civil War, Ms. Splosion Man and Epic Quest. Sorceror’s Lair and Earth Defense are fun and relatively easy tables as well.

Keeping in mind that I haven’t played all of them:

PINBALL ARCADE

  1. Star Trek: The Next Generation
  2. Twilight Zone
  3. Medieval Madness
  4. PIN*BOT (sentimental favorite)
  5. Theatre of Magic
  6. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
  7. Attack from Mars
  8. Taxi
  9. Whirlwind
  10. Funhouse

PINBALL FX2

  1. Moon Knight
  2. Fantastic Four
  3. Secrets of the Deep
  4. Spider-Man
  5. Wolverine
  6. Paranormal
  7. Captain America
  8. Blade
  9. Tesla
  10. X-Men

Hmm, not sure yet. Have probably not even played 10 tables in pinball FX2 more than once or twice yet. The only one I’ve really got any degree of understanding is Empire Strikes Back. So I’ll just see what others say first. So keep 'em coming, I want to know which ones to play most!

My favorite tables at any given moment depend mostly on what I’m playing. So while I’m not sure I could come up with a top ten, at this point in time, I’d definitely call out Moon Knight, Star Wars: Starfighter Assault, Earth Defense Force, The Avengers, and Secrets of the Deep.

-Tom

I’m curious, since I’ve only recently picked up Pinball FX2, what makes a table you like versus one you don’t? I know that Paranormal is one of Tom’s favorites, I bought it for that very reason, but I’m curious why? Right now I dabble far too much on the numerous tables to even have an idea what I do and do not like in a table. My favorite is Empire Strikes Back so far, but that’s simply because it is the first one I’ve started to come to grips with the mechanics. Boba Fett, however, I didn’t care much for my first go round, seemed far too ‘noisy’.

So what are the features you like, and the ones you dislike, for different tables?

I haven’t played Zen/FX much since Pinball Arcade came out, but I liked Earth Defence Force and Empire Strikes Back.

On Pinball Arcade, I love Twilight Zone, Attack From Mars, Theatre of Magic and Star Trek:TNG. Can’t wait for Addams Family, and praying in vain for Indiana Jones.

No Paranormal? Oh, how fickle.

Honestly, I like harder tables that 1) have lots of mission modes and 2) don’t have table layouts that are all space and ramps (Iron Man) or are overly complicated (Biolab). I’ve felt like most of the FX2 releases since Epic Quest have been geared for the newer player. Not that I’m against easier tables, but I’d like more an even split.

Now that Pinball FX2 has a skadillion tables, and a truly glorious three screen pinball cabinet mode to go with my excellent pinball cabinet, I do wonder: which Pinball FX2 tables are worth your time?

This article sez:

  1. World War Hulk
  2. Epic Quest
  3. Portal
  4. Avengers: Ultron
  5. Star Wars: Clone Wars
  6. Guardians of the Galaxy
  7. Sorcerer’s Lair
  8. Star Wars: First Order
  9. Avengers
  10. Moon Knight

Also a good stats oriented summary here:

4.5	3-5	South Park
4	3-5	Sorcerer's Lair
4	3-5	Epic Quest
4	3-5	World War Hulk
4	3-5	Avengers
4	3-5	Guardians of the Galaxy
4	3-5	Empire Strikes Back
4	3-5	Starfighter Assault
4	2-5	Fear Itself
3.5	3-5	Doctor Strange

This YouTube video says:

Best

  1. Empire Strikes Back
  2. Guardians of the Galaxy
  3. Super League Football
  4. Dr. Strange
  5. Plants vs. Zombies

Worst

  1. Iron Man
  2. Han Solo
  3. V-12
  4. Excalibur
  5. Fear Itself

Merge these lists as you see fit ;)

Super League Football gets accolades and that’s literally the only table I don’t have so I need to jump on that one. There is definitely some consensus on tables that get a lot of love, and some that are clearly awful. V-12 I am looking at you.

Another trend I noticed: a lot of the earliest Zen tables aren’t great (with the exception of Sorcerer’s Lair), and probably should be avoided in favor of their later tables. This makes sense, as they’ve been building this damn game for 5 years now, and probably got better at making the tables as they went.

As for Pinball Arcade, since those are largely accurate recreations of existing tables, just check the top 100 of real pinball tables:

https://pinside.com/pinball/top-100
http://www.ipdb.org/lists.cgi?anonymously=true&list=top300

Here’s hoping TPA gets to building the remaining missing greats in this list, Simpsons Pinball Party, Indiana Jones, The Shadow… they’ve hit a ton of them, to their credit. Go buy TPA tables to support them!

(Stern AC/DC which is also very highly rated is coming in the Stern Pinball Arcade thingie they should ship on Steam any day now, I hope. The kickstarter for that table was cancelled when they got Stern funding.)

Well damn the soccer table was pulled from fx2 due to licensing issues but “will return at a later date”.

Black Knight 2000 all the way, dudes.

High Speed is a close second.

The new bethesda pack is out for FX2 and it’s quite good, I recommend it. The Doom table alone is outstanding.

I love the Creature from the Black Lagoon table because it’s not really about Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’s about trying to make out with your date at a drive-in that happens to be showing Creature from the Black Lagoon!

What do you like about the Doom table? It’s the one I’ve probably played the least, but it’s also the one that feels/looks least like the game that inspired it. It’s just a splashy bunch of orange to me, but I haven’t really given it a chance yet.

-Tom

The amazing music (directly from the game), awesome creepy ass narrator voice (again, directly from the game), the pixel art in the DMD which directly references classic Doom, the cyberdemon on the playfield, the various interactive satantic toys and runes on the playfield… I dunno, they nailed it. Zen is getting better and better as they go, they’ve figured out what makes tables great on FX2 at this point (geez, what, almost 6 years later!) and they are more sophisticated.

Finallly, a version of Doom I can play without being bored!

Also my initial take on Skyrim is that it’s a better, more interesting Epic Quest. Since you level a character who is persistent, and can even equip stuff on your character!

Need more PSVR tables!

It’s certainly more detailed, but I’m not quite willing to say better than Epic Quest. I went back to Epic Quest after getting my elf mage up to level 11 in Skyrim. Now I really miss some of the things in Epic Quest. The way combat works, the way you set up specific enemies, the magic system, the simplicity and immediate feedback for gear. I’m not convinced all that detail in the Skyrim table works. Having to hold the launch button to pause the table, holding up both flippers to move around in the menu, and all to drink a potion that gives me +25% armor for 60 seconds? Yikes.

Epic Quest feels more like a pinball table, whereas Skyrim feels like another branded Zen add-on. Again, maybe it’s just that I don’t know the Skyrim table as well as the Epic Quest table. I really like both tables, and it’s a blast progressing through the different dragon battles, but my personal preference is leaning a bit toward Epic Quest at this point.

Hey, did you try those two Women of Marvel tables? I love the speed on the coffee shop table, the one with, uh, I think her name is Power Girl? Squirrel Girl shows up. That one? Not the Black Widow one, but the other one. I’m pretty much over the tights-and-capes tables, but I thought the layout and mechanics of that Power Girl table were a blast.

-Tom

Yeah it is a little extreme, but I figure most of that can be ignored. I guess the cartoony ramp overdose goal tables, like PvZ and Epic Quest, don’t work so well for me. The table layout feels so damn generic for Epic Quest – here’s 8 straight up ramps! So it’s a combination of the dragon theme feeling a bit more interesting to me than vanilla cartoony stuff, and the table design being less ramp-centric. Consider how many ramp-a-licious tables there are in FX2. It’s a lot. Bob’s Burgers, American Dad, Family Guy… too many table designs fall into this trap of slapping a zillion ramps at the top to choose from, and I’d put Epic Quest and PvZ in that same bucket.

I didn’t care for either of the Women of Power tables very much, nothing about them stood out to me, and there’s definitely some superhero fatigue setting in at this point. That’s partly why the Bethesda tables are a nice change of pace.

Ha, you just listed the three tables I’ve played the least! And you know why? Because I’m an adult. Adults don’t watch cartoons. I don’t know the first thing about those shows, so after plinking the ball around a bit on those tables I just shrugged and moved on to tables more relevant to my life, like Shaman, V12, and the awful skateboarding table.

-Tom