Table of Contents

01. Editorial
02. WBP99 Vote - Vote NOW!
03. The "complete" release list of 1998

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1. Editorial
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Since it is a new year and I have once again put up the Worlds Best Pinball Vote (WBP99) I thought I would send out a clubmail informing so. This clubmail will be shorter than the ones I usually send out, it is supposed to summarize the last year more than anything else.

The biggest thing, at least in my opinion, that happened during 1998 was that 21st Century dropped dead. Well at least partly, their US division still lives on and are planning on developing their own pinball's (they used to only distribute whatever the original part of 21st made). A couple of programmers have been contracted and are supposedly working at this very moment on a 3D version of the very neat 2D scroller SlamTilt. In the beginning of December Peter Mason (for 21st Century) said: "In reality it is not a conversion from SlamTilt, it uses roughly the same table layouts but is otherwise all new. We expect to release the first two table product in the first quarter of 1999 followed by the other two tables some time later in the year."

This is also a really big news for 1998 (at least for Europe and PC users), the release of Pro Pinball: Big Race U.S.A. At the time of writing there is by the way No CLEAR dates for the release of the us pc version and mac version (the mac version hasn't yet been released anywhere). So to all you ppl living in the US or not currently owning a copy of BRUSA I'd just like to point out it is really great! :-)

You can though order BRUSA (PC) from www.outpost.com and www.cdaccess.com. The Store part of the page will have more information on ordering brusa (pc) within a near future.

The BRUSA ladder and hiscore page are both available at the propinball.com domain (don't check the ladder though, I was up at a one digit position, then I had some silly loss strike and uhm, nevermind ended up somewhere).

I don't really know much about this new year. The Cunning Development team is busy with fixing the mac release of brusa and such. What their plans when they are done with that might be I have no clear idea of. There is still a couple of pinball's that were awaited already last year but have not yet been released (besides brusa). LittleWing made Golden Logres English Version available to buy trough their webpage (don't know if it is also available in stores now, it will hopefully become so soon otherwise). Angel Egg, the english version, has not yet been released at all for what I know, something for LittleWing fans to await I think.

KaZe, the developers of some quite popular playstation pinball titles, was quite certain when I talked to them that their PC conversion of Last Gladiator would hit the pc during 1998, well that didn't happen. Hopefully it gets out this year instead?

Then microsoft made it's more gracious entry to the pinball world (the only thing they had released before this one was a educational title for children that included a pinball called "heart pinball", quite laughable thing, see Files page for demo of it). It was Microsoft Pinball Arcade, a sort of historical pinball if you so wish, including simulations of real pinball tables. A vote for what people would like to see in MPA2 or just simulated sometime in a near future by some company was also held last year. The five real pinball's that topped that list was: Funhouse, Fireball, Black Knight, High Speed and Twilight Zone. High Speed has actually been simulated already, though that was for nintendo.

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2. WBP99 Vote - Vote NOW!
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It is now 1999 and the year of 1998 has given us a number of new titles to add to our list of pinball simulations, it is therefore now time to vote. All pinball simulations released since the dawn of time until the end of 1998 qualify for the vote.

You can vote for any pinball simulation title (released before 1999) for any platform (pc/mac/atari/c64/nintendo/psx... and on). BRUSA, if you wonder, qualifies for the vote even though it unfortunately hasn't yet been released for all platforms and worldwide.

To vote fill out the form on the voting page. You can vote for you three favorite pinball simulations.

Voting Page: http://www.pcpinball.com/club/wbp/wbp99.html

Voting open until the end of January. The winning title will be presented on the voting page during February.

Please do what you can to spread the word of this vote, tell games pages (I've mailed a couple, it's hard to convince them to support a vote for pinball simulations for some reason), tell your friends, your parents! :)

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3. The "complete" release list of 1998
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PC
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Addiction Pinball | Team 17 | Microprose
awarded a recommended title of 1998
Great pinball featuring two tables (worms/world rally fever) and a 3d view of the tables. Definitively worth a try.

3D Flipper | Data Becker
Not good, not so impressing, pretty creepy and lousy.

3D Ultra Pinball: Nascar Pinball | Sierra
Sierra came out with another pinball in their series, this time with a racing theme. I still can't quite get a feel for their pinballs.

Cyberball | Arena Games
The demo of this pinball wasn't all that impressing. I was hoping a little that it would be a new Pinball Prelude (atmospheric weird pinball), though it overall was just quite disappointing (to quote someones post to the msgboard on the page; "I'm glad I don't have to review this one...").

David Macaulay Pinball Science | Dorling Kindersley
Some kind of pinball construction set for kids. Answer questions and learn about the physics of pinball, as you advance trough the game you will receive more and more things to use to build your very own pinball table.

Judge Dredd Pinball | Pin-Ball Games Ltd
Uses a game engine quite similar to Tilt! (based on it) and Star Trek Pinball's (which also used an engine based on Tilt!), and the Tilt! engine is really lousy. I haven't yet bothered to check out this title, but for what I've heard and for what one might guess it isn't especially good (other players comments seem to comfirm this).

Julietta Pinball v.5.0 | Digital Disaster
Cheesy pinball. ;) Shareware, take a look if you want (includes a simple pinball editor).

Microsoft Pinball Arcade | Mir-Dialouge / Microsoft
awarded a recommended title of 1998
Microsoft published this title created by the russian company Mir-Dialouge. This is quite a good attempt at simulating real pinball tables, at least it is fun to take a look at the simulations and play them a little.

Golden Logres | LittleWing
For any fan of LittleWing's Solid State series! Nice tables, lovely theme.

Star Trek Pinball | Interplay
What, another pinball using a reworked version of the Tilt! engine?? The Tilt!(/Hyper 3D Pinball) engine isn't good. This pinball features some voice samples of various TOS characters (I've been told). A internet play mode was included though didn't work in the final retail version, a patch was promised (not sure if one has yet been released?)

Pinball Soccer '98 | Pin-Ball Games Ltd
Another table released by PBG, the demo wasn't too exciting. I believe a two player mode was included but not an especially successful attempt at one.

Pro Pinball: Timeshock! | Cunning Developments | Empire Interactive
The us release of the title was a little late...

Pro Pinball: Big Race U.S.A | Cunning Developments | Empire Interactive
awarded a recommended title of 1998
awarded a best title of 1998
Wroom. Cunning just is the best. The BRUSA table is really great, I find it highly enjoyable to play. And the h2h (internet pinball) is fun!

XXL Pinball | Data Becker
Another pinball released by DB. Quite cheesy, better than their first release (3D Flipper) but that doesn't mean much.

Mac
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Golden Logres | LittleWing
English version was released and sold trough LittleWings homepage.

Royal Flush | Gerard Putter | MAC conversion finally released!
A hurray for Gerard! He finished the mac conversion of Royal Flush by himself and then released it as freeware (amtex who hired him to do it originally went out of business and well... let's just say lots of people still think Amtex own them money).

Pro Pinball: Timeshock! | Cunning Developments | Empire Interactive
The release was a little late...

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Copyright (C) Sam Gabrielsson (ttop)

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