BTW, I STILL can't seem to surf to that http://www.cyberscore.me.uk web site (or http://cyberscore.me.uk either). Is anyone having a problem surfing there?

I was able to update my score last night after waking the android (359mln points), but when I go there now my virus scanner says it's infected with some javascript trojan 😳 The site may be hijacked or something.

I'd run a virus check if I were you (and anyone else who have clicked that link) !

edit: site seems to be working again now? At least avast keeps quiet.

After all of these years of playing "Silverball Plus 2", I wasn't previously aware of a bug with the default high scores for two of the pinball tables, "Duel" and "Warbot".

After a fresh install, and when running the game for the first time, the game generates the file "HIGHSCORE.PIN"... which stores your high scores. Note that the default name for the players as seen within the game is "JDS".

This default "HIGHSCORE.PIN" file has two extremely unrealistic high scores for the "Duel" and "Warbot" pinball tables. The "Warbot" pinball table is fairly easy to obtain a high score that is greater than the default scores, but doing the same when playing the "Duel" table is 100% IMPOSSIBLE!

Included is a ZIP containing a replacement hex-edited "SILVER.EXE" that fixes this problem 😀

I have changed the default high scores for the two tables as detailed below. The reason that I used the default score values from Epic Pinball's "Magic" and "Excalibur" pinball tables is simply that they are essentially the SAME tables as Silverball Plus 2's "Duel" and "Warbot" pinball tables (refer to included screenshot collage). The only real differences between the two versions are the graphics, sound effects, and music for the two tables.

Default High Scores ("HISCORE.PIN" file when the games are first executed from a fresh install):

1Epic Pinball Magic     =  1,000 / Silverball Plus 2 Duel   = 100,000
2Epic Pinball Excalibur = 10,000 / Silverball Plus 2 Warbot = 100,000

Comparing files SILVER.ORI and SILVER.FIX ("SILVER.EXE"):

1Warbot Default High Scores Fix:
2
30000846E: A0 10
40000846F: 86 27
500008470: 01 00
600008476: A0 10
700008477: 86 27
800008478: 01 00
90000847E: A0 10
100000847F: 86 27
1100008480: 01 00
1200008486: A0 10
1300008487: 86 27
1400008488: 01 00
150000848E: A0 10
160000848F: 86 27
1700008490: 01 00

1Duel Default High Scores Fix:
2
3000084E6: A0 E8
4000084E7: 86 03
5000084E8: 01 00
6000084EE: A0 E8
7000084EF: 86 03
8000084F0: 01 00
9000084F6: A0 E8
10000084F7: 86 03
11000084F8: 01 00
12000084FE: A0 E8
13000084FF: 86 03
1400008500: 01 00
1500008506: A0 E8
1600008507: 86 03
1700008508: 01 00

Anyhow, simply unzip "SILVER.EXE" to your "SILVER" directory on your hard drive. Then DELETE your existing "HISCORE.PIN" file within the same directory, and then run Silverball Plus 2. Note that this will ERASE ALL of your current high scores for all of the pinball tables for the game, but this method is the ONLY way to correct the problem (short of some creative hex-editing of your exisiting "HISCORE.PIN" file).

I regret not picking up the boxed standalone copy of Enigma I saw in a thrift store some years ago, if only for the ingenuity of the box art.
http://www.magisterrex.com/proddetail.asp?prod=WEBIPC065

What better way to entice a potential buyer than to show a screenshot of an empty pinball table? Genius!

Jorpho wrote:

I regret not picking up the boxed standalone copy of Enigma I saw in a thrift store some years ago, if only for the ingenuity of the box art.
http://www.magisterrex.com/proddetail.asp?prod=WEBIPC065

What better way to entice a potential buyer than to show a screenshot of an empty pinball table? Genius!

🤣! I've never seen that edition/version of EP before.

Seems that they sorted out the problems over at http://www.cyberscore.me.uk 😀

I have successfully created a new account there, and have posted a very few of my meager high scores for Silverball's "Duel" pinball table, Epic Pinball's "Magic" pinball table, as well as Microsoft Pinball Arcade's "Spirit of 76" pinball table 😀

http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/user/RichNagel/stats

http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/user/23606/stats
http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/user/23606/records

Ah great! I'll remove the warning in the first post then.

I don't have Silverball unfortunately, I'll see if I can find a copy of it. Was it released before or after EP? Not only the tables but also the bottom robot from the Robot table looks familiar 😜

Have you tried reproducing the bug I found in Enigma (hit space when you're about to lose the ball)? Or did you already know about it? You seem to know just about everything about these games 🤣

jwt27 wrote:

I don't have Silverball unfortunately, I'll see if I can find a copy of it. Was it released before or after EP?

Silverball was released about a year (or two) before Epic Pinball Pack 1, back in 1993. A year later (around 1994) they released Silverball Plus 2.

Both incarnations of Silverball/SilverBall Plus 2 included the bonus "Nova" pinball table, if you ordered the game(s) directly from Epic MegeGames.

jwt27 wrote:

Not only the tables but also the bottom robot from the Robot table looks familiar 😜

Yeah, those two tables from EP and SB were almost identical. But, I'm now realizing what you said... the robot in the "Warbot" pinball table looks EXTREMELY familiar 🤣! Any idea of what it was from? Kind of reminds me of the "Shredder" from "One Must Fall: 2097" 🤣! (although OMF2097 was released quite a few years later).

jwt27 wrote:

Have you tried reproducing the bug I found in Enigma (hit space when you're about to lose the ball)? Or did you already know about it?

Yep, that bug used to plague me way back when I used to play EP on an old 486DX-50.

jwt27 wrote:

You seem to know just about everything about these games 🤣

Hehe, I wouldn't quite say that <grin>. Although, I have been playing these games since they released they first version of "Silverball" in 1993 😀 Still have ALL of my manuals, floppies, and sales brochures as well 😀

rfnagel wrote:

jwt27 wrote:

Not only the tables but also the bottom robot from the Robot table looks familiar 😜

Yeah, those two tables from EP and SB were almost identical. But, I'm now realizing what you said... the robot in the "Warbot" pinball table looks EXTREMELY familiar 🤣! Any idea of what it was from? Kind of reminds me of the "Shredder" from "One Must Fall: 2097" 🤣! (although OMF2097 was released quite a few years later).

If you finished Enigma you should know... that is THE Enigma 😀

rfnagel wrote:

jwt27 wrote:

Have you tried reproducing the bug I found in Enigma (hit space when you're about to lose the ball)? Or did you already know about it?

Yep, that bug used to plague me way back when I used to play EP on an old 486DX-50.

No no, not the crashing bug. I mean the glitch to relaunch the ball after you lost it by hitting spacebar at just the right moment.

I think this is just another timing glitch. The ball drops offscreen and is registered as "lost", and the spacebar function switches from "nudge" to "launch". But there's a slight delay between losing the ball and the ball counter actually incrementing. So if you hit the spacebar at that exact moment you'll get the same ball again.

jwt27 wrote:

Have you tried reproducing the bug I found in Enigma (hit space when you're about to lose the ball)?

heh, I get something slightly different when I do that - it plays the launching sound, and the screen will even scroll up rapidly (to follow the new ball), but no ball is actually launched... I have to press space once again for that to happen. FYI, I'm running v2.1 (in DOSBox).

That happened to me a few times as well. Actually it will always do that if you lose the ball by hitting a mine. Try it again, if you get the timing just right you'll get the same ball again 😀

(edit: Dosbox might be a bit too slow for that... at least on my system, it turns the game into a slideshow)

jwt27 wrote:

If you finished Enigma you should know... that is THE Enigma 😀

Well :duh: ... my brain isn't working properly 🤣! YES, I DO remember that now 😀

jwt27 wrote:

No no, not the crashing bug. I mean the glitch to relaunch the ball after you lost it by hitting spacebar at just the right moment. I think this is just another timing glitch. The ball drops offscreen and is registered as "lost", and the spacebar function switches from "nudge" to "launch". But there's a slight delay between losing the ball and the ball counter actually incrementing. So if you hit the spacebar at that exact moment you'll get the same ball again.

Oh, now I know what you're refering too. Yes, I've seen that glitch as well.

(re: Silverball / Silverball Plus 2) Man, I sure wish that Epic MegaGames would have update that game (sound driver-wise)... the sound is a LOT lower quality compared to Epic Pinball (after the version 2.0 update) and Extreme Pinball, and the reversed-stereo sound bug drives me CRAZY!

That swapped stereo bug even happened on REAL Sound Blaster hardware as well (SBPro/SB16/AWE32).

P.S. See here for more info about DOSBox and a "swap stereo patch" -> Invert Left/Right Audio Channels Stereo Sound? .

jwt27 wrote:

(edit: Dosbox might be a bit too slow for that... at least on my system, it turns the game into a slideshow)

It does that with cycles=auto... try max or a fixed value (6000 seems enough, may be higher depending on the music quality you select).
I can confirm the glitch you're talking about though, just reproduced that and got the same ball launched twice in a row. :)

I wonder if exploiting a bug like that in a competition would be considered cheating... If you're careful not to hit the mines and you have quick reflexes you would have an unlimited amount of balls, in theory.

Hehe, here's an old screenhot for ya (icons "T", "U", and "V"), from my old 486DX4-100 way back when <grin> 😀

2012 was not that long ago really 🤣

edit: just lost a ball in Pangaea by shooting it at a drop hole too quickly.. It just went straight through, into the black void outside the table 🤣

jwt27 wrote:

2012 was not that long ago really 🤣

Hehe, I fudged a bit with those screenshots... they were taken from DOSBox running on my current rig, with my OLD QuikMenu III menus and setup that I used to have on my old 486 <grin> 😀

jwt27 wrote:

edit: just lost a ball in Pangaea by shooting it at a drop hole too quickly.. It just went straight through, into the black void outside the table 🤣

Weird 🤣! I don't think I've ever seen that bug before.

Funny story about Pangaea...

After I first bought that Epic Pinball pack, and when I was playing that table for the first time, it was rather late. I had been up all night playing the pack, and was about half asleep when I first started a game on that table.

I could have SWORN that I saw the alligator wink his eye, but then other times not... I wasn't sure. I thought I was losing my mind due to lack of sleep at the time 🤣!

P.S. Pinball related, but not EP/SB... a new game added to CyberScore -> http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/game/1272 , requested by your's truly 😀

rfnagel wrote:

P.S. Pinball related, but not EP/SB... a new game added to CyberScore -> http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/game/1272 , requested by your's truly 😀

Great! I've searched for that game on there earlier but was unable find it, and I didn't bother to add it. I never played this very often anyway, but this is certainly a good reason to start doing so 😀

I just added two scores on the Duke Nukem table, on Novice and Regular.

The only reason why I used to play Extreme Pinball was because the pinball table Rock Fantasy´s theme. Which is rocking to this day. And I remember I mentioned on youtube , that some guy should make nice cover of that theme, and lo and behold a guy named Mike Revees PMed me, and gave me a myspace link to his cover of that theme.

http://www.myspace.com/reevesmikew/music

rfnagel: It seems to me, I am not the only who collected cheats and what not many years ago, and I suffered from being shitty at games. Cause I was constantly "hunting" for cheats and codes and so forth back in 1990s. And I though I was "helping" people with knowing and finding cheat codes and so forth for the games. Oh well I learned my lesson, but I still had fun 😀

jwt27 wrote:

Great! I've searched for that game on there earlier but was unable find it, and I didn't bother to add it. I never played this very often anyway, but this is certainly a good reason to start doing so 😀 I just added two scores on the Duke Nukem table, on Novice and Regular.

And you more than DOUBLED my score for the Duke Nukem pinball table <AARRGGHH> 🤣! 😀 Man, I remember when I got the score a while back that I posted for that table... I "played my ass off", I don't think I could get any higher 🤣!

WolverineDK wrote:

The only reason why I used to play Extreme Pinball was because the pinball table Rock Fantasy´s theme. Which is rocking to this day.

Being not a fan of rock music myself, I always loved that tune! 😀 Hehe, I USED to have an FastTracker format version of that tune that I had heavily edited in (I forget which Tracker music program).

If you've ever heard direct FastTracker "XM" format conversions of the Extreme Pinball music, you'll notice that each file is a bunch of "sub-song" clips... they are played at different times in the game (depending on what action is going on within the game). I had edited the XM to sound more like a "real" song... came out fairly nice sounding, too 😀

WolverineDK wrote:

It seems to me, I am not the only who collected cheats and what not many years ago, and I suffered from being shitty at games. Cause I was constantly "hunting" for cheats and codes and so forth back in 1990s. And I though I was "helping" people with knowing and finding cheat codes and so forth for the games. Oh well I learned my lesson, but I still had fun 😀

You know, I SWEAR... I SUCK at SOOOOOOO may games.

Why?

Because when I get a new game I spend MORE freakin' time trying to figure out every little "tidbit" and "niblet" of the game, than ACTUALLY PLAYING IT 🤣!

(EDIT) gawd knows I spend MORE TIME using the utility in the attached screenshot than I usually do playing the games 🤣!