#86 The Sony rootkit was not due to "faulty software". An executive admitted to Sony knowingly installing the software and said 'it wasn't a big deal'(paraphrased). I know Texas, among others, were filing suit for big bucks against Sony. I wonder how that turned out?

Also, I never heard of anyone going to jail at all over this.

What would happen if it had been me who installed spyware on millions of machines?

The first time I downloaded this game, the file was corrupt. I tried again. During installation I was directed to a website to purchase a required codec. I chose not to buy. If you are going to "give" something away, it should be complete and ready to install and tryout.

Uninstalled the thing. It never worked past the intro.

This was the second game that I installed that hijacked my system. All I could do was task manager and uninstall it all. Twice is enough for me, I won't be downloading anything else from this site.

#86, Jorge, you don't have to use security software to block the in-game adware. It's clearly neither illegal nor unethical--they clearly state what the game does in the EULA. As for the endless, irrational complaints that "Oh, it's evil spyware/adware, it's collecting all sorts of information about me"--get real. Monitoring what you click on inside a game is hardly a great intrusion. FYI, Google is adware, and far, far, more invasive than any other product or service that you use. They permanently record every search that you ever do. They deliver targeted ads based on your searches. If you use their other services, they record everything related to those, too. Amazon tracks all of your purchases, profiles you, and targets you with selective (some would say discriminatory) pricing and product suggestions. I could go on and on about how retailers, credit bureaus, the government, etc., collect massive amounts of information about you. If you live in the US, in many states, just about everything about you was recorded and analyzed in the MATRIX (not the movie) until it was shut down--who knows how many similar systems the government has which you don't know about. In the UK, your entire life is recorded on a massive video surveillance network. Those of you complaining about the ads in this game, which again are easily blocked, need to learn what goes on in the real world and get your priorities straight.

What a hung of garbage. I had to download from mirror because Wikisend kept resetting server with 36 or less kb downloads. Then took forever to activate, now won't even play. Come on guys, you usually do better than this. After that Pirate thing,Greedy Spooks, my wife's computer won't even boot. Thanks for the headache.

I uninstalled it. I don't care about the phone home, it's the
a) poor control scheme, (which I could have taken time to adjust, but I didn't)
b) the not great camera angles
c) that my system ran it too fast, like it was a 286 game I was running on a Pentium
and finally d) the tendency of the ball to fall into the outside right lane which means games are far too short for reasons outside my control.

Just a couple follow up comments...

First, my bad on identifying the distributor (MERSCOM) as the developer (FRAMEWORK STUDIOS). Thanks for the correction Whiterabbit.
However, I stand by the gist of that comment ... the game developer CAN NOT (notice I did not say SHOULD NOT) guarantee the behaviour of software created and maintained by a third party. Does anyone here remember the SONY rootkit fiasco of 2005? SONY has now sued the third party developers for creating faulty software but that was AFTER millions of users had their PC's security compromised. WORSE, it seems SONY didn't learn their lesson because now there is a new "faulty" rootkit on another SONY product (the MicroVault fingerprint USB drive) created by a third party developer (aka a hired gun) and SONY's statement to the press is "they had no knowledge of this particular rootkit and did not intend for it to be released".

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070902-another-sony-rootkit-worms-its-way-to-the-surface.html

For those who say things like "live dangerously" or "lighten up" as regards the spyware: My compliments that you have and use security firewalls - such software is intended for blocking illegal and unethical intrusions. To have to use such software on a commercial product (even if it is being given away) suggests that the legitimate manufacturer is behaving in illegal or unethical ways. The bottomline is users should not have to defend against intrusions by commercial products.

Jorge

Wow, lighten up, people. As Whiterabbit noted (glad you're still reviewing), I mentioned the in-game adware in the previous giveaway, which is easily blocked by your firewall. I fail to understand the paranoia over this. There's ad display and data collection in the game only, it doesn't attach to anything else in your computer. Of course the game requires access to your keyboard while you're playing it. If this were some super-secret all-invasive spyware, they wouldn't be telling you about it in the EULA. I choose to block the game's Internet access because it doesn't need it, any unnecessary Internet access is always a risk, I don't want to view ads, especially not while I'm trying to play a game, and the Internet activity would probably slow down the game.

As for the game itself, it seems OK for a pinball game. The graphics are decent, and I haven't experienced any lag on two different computers, neither of which are gaming machines. On my Vista PC, I had to manually select XP SP2 compatibility, even after Vista's automatic compatibility-mode reinstallation prompt. The fact that it requires an old codec which you can download for free (it was already on my PC's) is nothing, many older games require it. As for those complaining that the game didn't install the codec, I prefer that most software not install any codecs--incompatible and old codecs will mess up your PC.

A 'few' comments on what has been said so far about this game.

The game does have gamepad support. The third column in the key sets are for gamepads.

65 MB is too big for dial up? get a download manager like Orbit or DAP
that actually speeds up the download. It took me less than 30 secs to download using orbit with cable Internet.

You see, it works by taking the huge download apart into small pieces. Then it uses a different connections to download each one which does not take very long so you are not 'hogging' the bandwidth. Heck, Orbit even uses others people's computer to download even faster through p2p. I swear ( know I shouldn't ) that it took less than a minute.

I tried (I've been testing the Download managers) to download it using IE's and FF's regular downloaders and they where saying something like 5 minutes, but I knew it would take longer (in case you are not hating me already and actually wonder what I got so far, nothing has beaten Orbit so far).

Free games. Yes lots of them, so why are you here complaining about this one? Cause you may like it and would have to spend $10?. Wow.

Security. Blah, I am with #71. If you know how to check what information is sent, then you can see what it actually does. If you don't, then Google the game and you will see that it is not an 'obscure and menacing' program that is out to get you.

If you are not a techie don't complain about things you don't understand. Read the reviews. They are good and are written for the layman. If you run XP or Vista and worry about personal information and surfing patterns, well, I hate to tell you that it is too late. Most likely Billy Goates already has it all.

Think about it. If the people behind today's download wanted to steal your information THEY WOULDN'T TELL YOU!

People complaining about the speed of the game are of two kinds. One is of course those who don't have the minimum hardware and/or software to play it. Installing new drivers for an Nvidia card correctly is not easy, so if you don't have the latest, read carefully how to do it or ask a friend who knows how to do it and let him do it.

Having the latest DirectX helps too, 9.0c for XP and 10.0 for Vista (although some people are trying to make 10.0 work on XP and apparently succeeding. Google 'Alky Project' or go to http://jordev.net/blogs/technews/archive/2007/03/17/fueling-the-windows-xp-direct-x-10-debate.aspx for an interesting piece of information).

For those who are not sure if they have the hardware to run the game check it on the game's Homepage. You can go there with a simple click inside the big white square at the top of this page and curiously enough it has the following message before it, namely 'Homepage:'.

The world keeps going around the Sun and new and expensive technologies arise. You can either keep up or be left behind. If you choose the later you can complain all you want but the world is not going to care and it will continue to go around and around.

The other type of people who complain about today's GGOTD being slow have the hardware all right, but don't know how to use it. When I first ran today's game, I maxed everything and yes, it was slow. My computer is mostly for doing advanced math so I got a good CPU (the double core thingies) and fast RAM. Yes, all Ram's are not created equal and like their CPU cousins they also have a MHz attached to them. Motherboards tend to be picky about which one you can use. My graphics card costs $50 because I know nothing about rendering.

Ok, now that we have cleared that point I'll get into how I got the game running smoothly on my 'not the latest and greatest' computer.

You don't have to, but I rebooted the machine and ran no other programs. Another way to accomplish the same is to stop using your CPU heat monitors, close all IE windows, stop whatever you don't need while playing Pinball and while you are at it, tune down your AntiVirus. Imagine running a program that, when it executes a few lines of code, gets interrupted by a huge AntiVirus program that makes sure the code is not malicious. Wouldn't that slow the program down? For God's sake it is just a game.

Then I ran the game with ALL the bells and whistles that can possibly be turned off turned off (bad grammar?). Worked like a charm. Then I started to add more things until I got to the point that I liked it and I am happy with it.

I am a very patience guy (not quite as patience as the moderators who seem to have an infinite amount of it), but this morning I cut myself shaving with my Ax and that sort of ruined my day. After reading again all the same posts that get posted everyday for apparently no reason, I am blowing my top (Don't worry, I don't have any firearms, just an Ax).

Aaah, I feel better already now that I got all that off my brain (in collaboration with my chest) and, because there is only a couple of hours left to download, only a few people will get to read this post. It may also get moderated out into oblivion and even less people will read it.

I hate to make a fool of myself in public, even if it is e-public but as you may already found out I am a bit masochistic so maybe I'll post this every day for no apparent reason.

Speaking of patience, I want to thank the Moderator who, in its infinite patience, saw my feeble attempts to post a comment that contained HTML code and failed about three times at which point I gave up.

This unknown benefactor took it upon himself to make my comment it into a pretty good and legible post which, not only had my handle, but it was mentioned in another post and I was thanked for posting it! I wish I knew who that person was because he deserves all the credit for it, not I.

AxCut

This game does not worked for me, I ran it and It just minimzed!

Why does everyone in the later comment complain about the codec? There is a link for a free install in one of the first couple of comments. personally my thought is that if you feel insulted by GOTD, then stop coming back haha. Would install if not for Vista. Thanks anyway, GOTD!

EHhh, not too good. The flippers are slow and the ball lazy. I've seen better free ware games that don't need internet. This is a thumbs down after playing.

I love pinball... but couldnt play this game... have windows xp and downloaded fine... but the delay between when I push paddles and when paddles move is so long that the ball is always missed! sorry... gotta delete!

zonealarm..
a lot of people mention this firewall, I'd say dump it quick as it reports internet usage (specific) to zone alarms owners in a hidden format (some israeli company owns it.. cough)
so while it may work ok as a firewall it allows them to spy on your internet usage etc

I wish GGotD could put up a good game like this one that I could play too. I always have to low of a system. These games usually require a 1gh processor or higher and I have a 633mb processor. Looks like a promicing game, but can't play it. :(

Okay, I don't usually post remarks about anything, but this, I felt a need to. This game looked like an awesome pinball game. The graphics and the way it flows looks creative. It's a shame I'm unable to play it, considering every time I tried to play it, I'd only get as far as releasing the ball with the plunger, and then my MOUSE and KEYBOARD become inactivated. I couldn't do ANYTHING. I had to manually SHUT OFF my computer and turn it back on. So, unfortunately I had to uninstall this game due to such a ridiculous issue.

@vampireRat- that's what external controls are for. look up vpinmame and pinmame.

"This is a great game and does in NO WAY deserve the thrashing people are giving it here.!
Talk about paranoia by people who have not the faintest idea about how a PC works!!!
If you are so up on PC security that you claim to have authority to come and WARN everyone about the ‘dangers’ of this harmless and non invasive game then you surely are spreading disinformation…delusional at best!!
the game has an online mode…ergo - it needs to go online.
the game checks with its authors server and relays ’some’ info bafor statistical purposes. Big deal!!
Is that some kind of terrorist threat to your secure life that I am missing here? It is non identifiable, anonymous information they are talking about!
Why don’t you people with such large shouts of warning!! actually do the proper homework and get a scanner and parser…let the game do its online thing, study and read what information it actually does send back to the server and THEN, and only then, can you come and warn people of how dangerous it is. I think you will find it will be er…not dangerous.
The whole privacy thing is getting worse than political correctness or stupid cries of ‘virus!’ whenever a beginner PC user gets a notification from Norton AV that they are in danger of PC meltdown because they installed a flash active X control or something.
TIP: If you do not understand enough about your PC and the supposed ’security issues’ presented by an inocuous game calling home after a FREE install for you, then just decline it and move on.
There are plenty of us living dangerously enough to deal with it and we will enjoy this fine game thank you very much!!"

#71, it appears you are actually the one who is delusional. This game does in fact contain malware and that is the #1 NO NO of software giveaways on this site. The fact that you also can't play it without a specific codec (which is not free) is simply ridiculous. This game is far more trouble than it is worth, and it is downright insulting that it isn't even the first game to be offered from this site that contained malware.

"living dangerously"? Please.

Oh and I think the word you're looking for is "misinformation".

Installed it, ran it, got an error claiming that I needed to update my video drivers (No shading?). I already had the Indeo driver from the golf game (which worked), so I went to Nvidia and got the latest (NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 v93.71), installed and rebooted. Same error. :(

Sorry Merscom. Uninstall + Thumbs down.

Well, I gave it a try twice and it locked up my Vista Home Premium UberLaptop system. I MAY try it on my XP desktop, but for now, this joker is UNinstalled.

Good game, plays well.....yes it phones home??!?!? but who the f cares? what are you all hiding.....
--Dyl--

This is a great game and does in NO WAY deserve the thrashing people are giving it here.!
Talk about paranoia by people who have not the faintest idea about how a PC works!!!
If you are so up on PC security that you claim to have authority to come and WARN everyone about the 'dangers' of this harmless and non invasive game then you surely are spreading disinformation...delusional at best!!
the game has an online mode...ergo - it needs to go online.
the game checks with its authors server and relays 'some' info back for statistical purposes. Big deal!!
Is that some kind of terrorist threat to your secure life that I am missing here? It is non identifiable, anonymous information they are talking about!
Why don't you people with such large shouts of warning!! actually do the proper homework and get a scanner and parser...let the game do its online thing, study and read what information it actually does send back to the server and THEN, and only then, can you come and warn people of how dangerous it is. I think you will find it will be er...not dangerous.
The whole privacy thing is getting worse than political correctness or stupid cries of 'virus!' whenever a beginner PC user gets a notification from Norton AV that they are in danger of PC meltdown because they installed a flash active X control or something.
TIP: If you do not understand enough about your PC and the supposed 'security issues' presented by an inocuous game calling home after a FREE install for you, then just decline it and move on.
There are plenty of us living dangerously enough to deal with it and we will enjoy this fine game thank you very much!!

Update to my post (#6):
The game is working correctly now, i tried to let it run in compatibility mode, XP SP2 selected and now it run, but not the correct way. I restarted the game a second time and selected 1024x768, then the game worked with all videos and sound and all smoothness possible! My COMODO Firewall Pro firewall had to grant the game a monitor and keyboard access before it worked that way though. So, in the end if you have a PC which is built for gaming and running Windows Vista + a good firewall, i can recommend downloading that game.

The reaction of the flippers is to slow. I'll stick with the pinball that comes with windows xp.

I can't play pinball games on a computer. I keep slapping the sides of the keyboard and giving the front of my desk quick shoves. Old habits die hard.

I also had a problem with the reaction of the flippers. No matter how I push (or even hit) the buttons, the flippers barely moved. Certainly not enough to have force to affect the ball. It's gone.

Umm I will pass after reading the ula, I think IP tracking is enough for me to make me think twice again for free stuff

I'm with #49; installed fine; graphics not the greatest; easy to lose ball; delay with flippers not cool. I too love pinball, that is the main reason I downloaded despite all the negatives earlier today. Uninstalled and thumbs down :(

download fine, install fine. Play for 5 minutes, and uninstalled it.
I really do not like the poor playing field, graphic and actions.
Really not as good as Sierra 3D Ultra Pinball series that I have here.

Dear sir,

I have download the free softwares and games many times and most of the time after downloading,the softwares and games cannot be installed and used.There is always a fatal error message displayed when installing even though I have followed the procedures correctly.Why is this so and how can I rectify this problem?The procedures are all done during the valid time.Please help.Thank you.

Kelvin

To #15

You can download a PC version of Digital Illusions' Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies here http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/41 and here http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/424/Pinball+Fantasies.html here respectively. You can also download the Amiga versions of the games there as well

It is great to see that so many people are actually reading the EULA and that so many -more- care about it's content and their own privacy!! Makes me happy.

GAOTD - I _love_ what you do every day but I trust that you are looking out for me and the community. The ball was dropped here, though - seems to happen every 6 months or so. These people _TRUST_ you - please remember that to keep that trust, it needs to be earned daily.

Merscom LLC - you have graced this site with many quality programs and we look forward to seeing you listed as the Publisher - Please don't become like Double Games where the entire community feels soiled and wants to wash their mouse just seeing their name. Please remember your audience, your host (GAOTD) and the promises made to both regarding the content of this site.

I'm surprised to see all the negative comments. I have played any number of pinball sims over the years, and this one has more than decent graphics and animation without overloading it so much that an ordinary graphics card such as mine can not handle it. The views it provides are a good compromise between needing to see the action and not necessarily scroll up and down so fast that you get a headache. Someone mentioned a slight delay between pressing the buttons and the flippers working, but that is exactly what a real pinball machine can feel like. The challenges are appropriate--it is possible to last a while, but also possible to bomb out quickly--again, just as in the real game. I doubt very much that the internet connection is a danger--imagine what would happen to this company if it were caught uploading people's credit card numbers. I give this game at least an A-.

Sorry, but hopelessly un-responsive pinball simulation. Arcade games are meant to be fast, but trying to think where the ball might be in two-seconds time so you can work the flippers to catch the ball just ain't fun! And this on a 3GHz machine. Played one game then uninstalled...

Thanks for today's offer but I am not a big "pinball" fan. Thanks WR-Stephen for your great review. Be back tomorrow - thanks.

Games are always pretty good on GAOTD, It's just a real shame Wikisend is a terrible server and really slow on my 4Mb Cable connection.
Fast lane pinball is an above average game (I would'nt call it run-of-the-mill)
Installed o-k and activation same.

I still prefer the Break-out clones though :-)

Worked perfectly on my XP Home
To shot the ball you have to first click the down arrow and hold it
until you have it to power and then quick release the button to get the
ball to jump away (if you don't quick release the down arrow button the
ball won't go anywhere (so remember that)
No problem with calling home (none of my security found this software
as a warning) and no lag at all on my PC and everything work smooth
and fast.
I was first not to download this thanks to so many bad comments about
this game but I thought that why should I listen to others and not
try it for myself and so now I have given it a go and am glad I did
as I enjoyed this little game and was missing an good Pinball game.

So ThanX very much for this game.

Grrr!!!!
I hate that pixelshader thingie, and it looked so nice on the screenshots :(

anyway thanks GAOTD-Games.

Niente, con XP HOME si blocca, pur avendo abbondantemente superato i requisiti minimi del sistema. Bocciato.

Not for me, to much unnessary screen movement. i have uninstalled this one.

11. - Hey Dusty,
Thanks for the links to the codec. I should've thought about visiting that site first, but alas it was too late at night for my brain.

-cc

It doesn´t work with FFDShow!

The DL took me 2 minutes and 17 seconds on cable.

I'll try the game later.

Installed fine but graphics are not the greatest. I found it very easy to loose sight of the ball. The paddles were extremely slow to react, took a good 1/2 a second for the paddle to react. I love pinball games but this one is in need off some minor tweaks. Thumbs down from me.

The program doesn't run with my Vista Home Premium. It installs ok but when I click start, I get some music then a black screen. Have to end the application (not responding) with Task Manager. So sadly I've had to uninstall it.

Installieren ging problemlos. Programm bei einer Auflösung von 1024*768 gestartet. Nettes Intro betrachtet und danach stürzte das Spiel ab und meine Arbeitsoberfläche die vorher mit 1280*1024 eingestellt war erschien in der Auflösung des Spiels. 2.Versuch. Das Spiel mit 1280*1024 gestartet, kam ins Game-menü und konnte 1Player-Game auswählen. Spiel startete, schoß die Kugel ab, freute mich das Spiel zu testen und der Rechner stürzte mir ab (Reset). Programm deinstalliert und Thumbs down ausgewählt.

Non parte, con windows xp Athlon 2000 512 Mb RAM Si BLOCCA IL GIOCO!
Non ci siamo

#13 - I wouldn't be scared about the ELUA saying, "If you do not want your personal data to be collected, please do not install or play Fastlane Pinball on any platform which is used to connect to the Internet either now or in the future." Just block the game's access to the internet with your firewall (like ZoneAlarm). The game plays fine, but when blocked you cannot play a Network game. While I can't confirm this, my guess is the "personal data" that is probably collected is your high scores.

So, use a good software firewall and game away...

Is the spyware also removed when the game is uninstalled or do we need to use one of those super-duper-uninstallers just to get rid of all traces of the game?