Zen studios used to be able to make really good original tables (different take regarding Williams)

[Conan]

I've heard many people say that Zen Studios is only good when they're making Williams recreations. That they're not any good at original tables.

I'd say that's half true. Loading up Excalibur, Epic Quest, Rome, one thing in common is they seem to take more chances and be less interchangeable. There's a lot of complex interwoven things going on.

Same with their real old tables back in the day like Tesla.

Now for all the Licensed tables like Pacific Rim, Godzilla vs Kong, Star Trek, Universal TV, I'd say the formula is "here's a theme, here's a sinkhole to start a mode, and here's 4 or five ramps" and there's not much more. Load up Battlestar Galactica, and then after that load up Excalibur and tell me there isn't a huge difference.

Same with other old licensed tables. Many of the Marvel and Star Wars tables felt very unique and, intentional, and not interchangeable.

Take the Darth Vader table. That table, while brutally hard, feels very intentionally and thoughtfully designed and not in any way formulaic. It's not just like an interchangeable layout with some theming. It's very much it's own table.

Modern Zen tables, rarely are that distinguishable in layout/design as much as the older tables in my, to be fair, somewhat limited experience.

I would say that Zen, to my perspective, sort of lost their touch in these last several years for original table designs, whereas their originals from back in the day are very good.

[MikeFulton]

There are some Zen original designs that I think are quite good, but there are a lot of tables, usually the ones based on licensed properties, where they rely too much on the artwork, music, and SFX from the license and don't put in as much effort on the rest of the table design.

Also, a lot of Zen's original designs -- not all but definitely a lot -- are either lacking traditional elements like drop-down targets, or they have them hidden away in parts of the table that are very hard to reach.

Part of that is due to the fact that many of Zen's designs are designed around a horizontally oriented monitor, short and wide, rather than the Williams tables which are vertically oriented, narrow and tall. It makes for differences in game play that aren't always easy to articulate, but which are definitely there.

[monochameleon]

I can't really agree with what you're saying. I would say that, by comparison to, say, Magic Pixel's remakes and deluxe editions in Zaccaria, Zen's originals are very strongly constructed, individual tables. Now, don't get me wrong - I love the remakes and deluxe editions in Zaccaria, but almost all use the same multiball rule, most have similar rulesets for starting and then finishing modes, etc. A few Zen tables are less creative - Garfield, particularly, feels somewhat generic and reliant on a strong art and sound package - but most use the the theme as a building block and create a distinct experience from there.

I think that there is a lot of charm in some of Zen's recent designs. The Star Trek pack - particularly Deep Space Nine and Kelvin - really appealed to me personally in a table design sense. Kelvin is very difficult but I found it so in a White Water sense rather than just outright infuriating. I think in some ways tables like Secret Island and Sky Pirates got a little overcomplicated, but Grimm Tales was wonderful and combined a deep ruleset with classic design elements. Pacific Rim is very traditional whereas I found Knight Rider and Battlestar Galactica more digitally oriented, playing with the non-physical space more.

[Pinballwiz45b]

Originally posted by Conan:

Now for all the Licensed tables like Pacific Rim, Godzilla vs Kong, Star Trek, Universal TV, I'd say the formula is "here's a theme, here's a sinkhole to start a mode, and here's 4 or five ramps" and there's not much more. Load up Battlestar Galactica, and then after that load up Excalibur and tell me there isn't a huge difference.

"Here's Deadpool, here's a sinkhole to start a mode, and here's 4-5 ramps". - Stern Pinball

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Admiral Crunch]

Just thinking this the other day when I played the DS9 table. That table is embarrassing. Looks like someone went on Google Image Search and found some DS9 jpegs and thought their job was done.