Has anybody seen an UltraPin machine?

[diskoboy]

I've never heard of these until tonight, and now I want one. It's basically a full sized, wide-bodied Visual Pinball/pinMAME cabinet. How they recreated the 'playfields' on a vertical HDTV is pretty damn cool. The dot-matrix display adds a bit of authenticity.

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2006/11/ultrapin-livetopview.jpg

http://www.bmigaming.com/Images/ultrapin-flyer1.jpg

Sucks there's no Twilight Zone, Addams Family, Judge Dredd, or Safecracker tables, yet.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Medieval Madness is enough for me to be interested ... I've heard about them but also never seen one in action.

No audio, but a fascinating comparison!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UKTfgn08dM

[Videogamerdaryll]

I've breen wanting to play one of these as this place
http://www.betson.com/
usually has stuff on display for play-free play

I just haven't got a chance to go over to the one located near me.

[Cryomancer]

I have seen video pinball machines around before and had thought of doing this exact thing with them. Glad someone is.

[InsaneDavid]

They're very cool (as is Visual Pinball / VPin MAME), however it's still not pinball. In pinball the ball is live, it's what makes the game unlike anything else. A video emulation of pinball, no matter how authentic it may strive to be, is just that - a video emulation - a program. The crazy random element just isn't there.

Granted I do love video pinball (Epic Pinball, Flipnic, Alien Crush, etc.) but that's just what the title implies, video pinball. Visual Pinball is a great tool for learning how play routines work, how to set off events and the like - but it's still nowhere near a replacement for the silverball.

[Videogamerdaryll]

They're very cool (as is Visual Pinball / VPin MAME), however it's still not pinball. In pinball the ball is live, it's what makes the game unlike anything else. A video emulation of pinball, no matter how authentic it may strive to be, is just that - a video emulation - a program. The crazy random element just isn't there.

Granted I do love video pinball (Epic Pinball, Flipnic, Alien Crush, etc.) but that's just what the title implies, video pinball. Visual Pinball is a great tool for learning how play routines work, how to set off events and the like - but it's still nowhere near a replacement for the silverball.



Awesome!!! I totally agree with you,that is so spot on..

............
Though I love the idea of the Ultrapin is just not the same as the real thing.

[john_soper]

I've played one that was on location in a Santa Clara liquor store with a few other pins. While I respect the effort involved in creating it, it simply wasn't fun. I would move over and play the loser Gottlieb Surf N Safari instead. Any real pin beats it, IMHO

[Flack]

Semi-related, I would love for someone to write up a tutorial complete with links (to everything but roms) explaining how to get Visual Pinball up and running. I tried a few times a couple of years ago and never did get it to work.

[InsaneDavid]

Semi-related, I would love for someone to write up a tutorial complete with links (to everything but roms) explaining how to get Visual Pinball up and running. I tried a few times a couple of years ago and never did get it to work.

I wrote one a long time ago but it involved using the package you could get at PinballSim.com - however don't go there, the site went away a long time ago. I'll see if I can dig my turtorial up this week and convert it into something that can be used without their "pinball pack."

[jb143]

Semi-related, I would love for someone to write up a tutorial complete with links (to everything but roms) explaining how to get Visual Pinball up and running. I tried a few times a couple of years ago and never did get it to work.

I got it to work perfectly once, and then got it work perfectly from Mamewah. But then the Beta expirered or someting and I was never able to get it working again.

[norkusa]

I had problems getting Visual Pinball started when I was first messing around with it. Don't know why it's so complicated. The emulator is so old and dated, they really need to scrap the whole thing and start over from scratch. I guess that's what Future Pinball is supposed to be.

All you gotta do is put the table files (unzipped) in your Tables folder and the roms (zipped) in the Roms folder. After that, open up Visual Pinball, select your game, and hit F5 and you're ready to play (5 key for coin-in, 1 & 2 keys to start - just like MAME)
More info here:
http://www.vpforums.com/modules/Jig/index.php

You can get the tables & roms here:
http://www.vpforums.com/vptables/download/category.php?id=1

[Kid Ice]

I tried it once and I actually found it pretty easy to set up, just not fun (not fun to play that is). I believe a Star Trek TNG table actually came with the software I downloaded.

[InsaneDavid]

Visual Pinball Launcher does all the Visual Pinball and VPinMAME combining and loading for you. Once you get everything set up you just drop the tables you wish to play into the proper folders.

[john_soper]

I picked up the VP collection bundle from romcollector, and it worked right off the bat. Surprised me, because I'd heard of so many people having a battle.

BTW, I'm not endorsing romcollector, that stuff is just wrong.