THINK INSIDE THE BOX

Story dated May 12, 2006 .
Information supplied from The Stinger Report, www.thestingerreport.com

The push towards virtual pinball games continues with this game from GlobalVR.

Our friends at The Stinger Report - the leading amusement and attraction e-newsletter - first broke the news about the link-up between Ultracade Technologies, the American arcade games manufacturer and the developers of the freeware pinball emulator Visual Pinball back in 2005.

GlobalVR, the leading manufacturer of PC-based arcade games joined forces with UltraCade Technologies in December last year to produce a range of arcade emulators including a pinball emulator.

By combining Visual Pinball with VPinMAME and writing their own code to interface with the hardware and manage the audit information, they created a commercial arcade machine called Ultrapin.

We were able to show the development version produced with UK distributor Electrocoin in our ATEI trade show report in January of this year.

At the time, the game was in the early stages of development but now, thanks to The Stinger Report we can bring you details of the finalised game.

As you can see, the changes are substantial. The cathode-ray tube of the original has been replaced by a 32-inch flat panel display and the whole package is now housed in a traditional pinball-shaped cabinet (although it is slightly smaller) making it much more recognisable and - perhaps - more acceptable to fans of the real deal.

The game now features 12 classic Williams and Bally emulations - Medieval Madness, Black Knight 2000, Fathom, Pinbot, Eight Ball Champ, Attack From Mars, Firepower, Funhouse, Xenon, F14 Tomcat, Strikes And Spares and Sorcerer.

The games are licensed from Williams and further games are expected to be available to purchase as Ultrapin table packs.

The second display in the backbox is split in two with the upper half showing the chosen game's backglass while the lower half acts like a dot-matrix display. There is a real plunger and motion sensors to emulate nudging and tilting. Full bookkeeping and audit information is also available to operators.

The machine first appeared in this format at the ASI show in Chicago in March but at the time of writing is not yet available to purchase, nor is it on Global VR's website.

Expect more details to appear there soon.

 

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