Stern is one of the biggest pinball machine manufacturers and the idea of this is to let you play simulated tables, sold in packs as DLC. The issue is that it launched in 2013 and many licenses have run out. There's a couple decent tables worth picking up but you're just picking at scraps at this point.
The simulation itself is mostly high quality. If you're familiar with Visual Pinball it's along the same lines just with a professional UI and high quality assets. The tables are re-created in complete detail and the physics work very well. The tables left however are quite hit and miss. I grabbed Stern pack 1 and 2 which provided 11 tables total, but I only really enjoyed 2 of them - the Ghostbusters table and Frankenstein.
The Ghostbusters (2016) table is my favourite as it has a lot of simple functions, a lot of cute gimmicks, the DMD animations are great, and all the sound effects mix nicely. It's easy to pick up and hard to master but very replayable since there's a lot of features to explore, and lets you 're-enact' scenes from the film in so far as shooting targets lets you. The whole experience has a lot of charm.
Frankenstein, Flight 2000, and Phantom of the Opera were interesting boards, not too difficult but fun to play. I had bought pack 2 for Starship Troopers and Star Trek but found both very underwhelming and overly simple. Last Action Hero was also disappointing as the game has very low quality audio clips and featured lines that weren't memorable at all - just seemed to totally miss the mark.
Since the base game is free there's a couple of tables you can play for free that change each week. It's hard to encourage people to buy in when the game is at the end of its life cycle but there are tables you aren't going to find legally elsewhere. The DLC is compatible with the new release 'Stern's Pinball Arcade' (way worse UI, and alternate free games from the same small list). It's possible SPA will replace PBA going forward but it has the exact same licenses so it's basically the worst time to get into pinball simulation.
The simulation itself is mostly high quality. If you're familiar with Visual Pinball it's along the same lines just with a professional UI and high quality assets. The tables are re-created in complete detail and the physics work very well. The tables left however are quite hit and miss. I grabbed Stern pack 1 and 2 which provided 11 tables total, but I only really enjoyed 2 of them - the Ghostbusters table and Frankenstein.
The Ghostbusters (2016) table is my favourite as it has a lot of simple functions, a lot of cute gimmicks, the DMD animations are great, and all the sound effects mix nicely. It's easy to pick up and hard to master but very replayable since there's a lot of features to explore, and lets you 're-enact' scenes from the film in so far as shooting targets lets you. The whole experience has a lot of charm.
Frankenstein, Flight 2000, and Phantom of the Opera were interesting boards, not too difficult but fun to play. I had bought pack 2 for Starship Troopers and Star Trek but found both very underwhelming and overly simple. Last Action Hero was also disappointing as the game has very low quality audio clips and featured lines that weren't memorable at all - just seemed to totally miss the mark.
Since the base game is free there's a couple of tables you can play for free that change each week. It's hard to encourage people to buy in when the game is at the end of its life cycle but there are tables you aren't going to find legally elsewhere. The DLC is compatible with the new release 'Stern's Pinball Arcade' (way worse UI, and alternate free games from the same small list). It's possible SPA will replace PBA going forward but it has the exact same licenses so it's basically the worst time to get into pinball simulation.