This takes away from the overall ambiance of the game experience. Anyone else annoyed by this ?

Yep, me too - and actually, I'm a bit frustrated and confused by the fact that GOG didn't release the CD versions (there were CD versions of Illusions and Dreams too, as far as I remember - the Dreams one being called "Pinball Dreams Deluxe" or whatever, and Pinball Fantasies wasn't much different but it had CD tracks which were a bit higher quality than the floppy music...)

But I'm so happy to see these games on GOG.com that I'm ready to forget and forgive this fact XD

Me too! The music of these games were one big reason to purchase the pinball games those days. I hoped to get MP3 Versions of it ...

If the missing audio tracks for Dreams is mostly caused by the Gog team not being able to track down the CD edition of Pinball Dreams Deluxe I might be able to help them out there as I got it in part of a bundle pack years back. Never got the CD audio working on my computer back then, so didn't realise it had audio tracks till I popped it into my DVD drive this evening.
Personally I think I prefer the mod soundtrack, but if they left the CD audio out because of problems finding a source I'll be happy to help. Not sure how to go about it though.

By the way, Pinball Dreams Deluxe was one of the games that was actually different from just Pinball Dreams 1 and 2 plus CD tracks - that version actually had all eight tables in one bundle and allowed to use high resolution on them all, much like Pinball Fantasies. My friend had it a long time ago and I recall loving it for the high res. :D

Indeed it's the Deluxe CD I have. I haven't gotten around to buying the pinball pack here yet, but from what I can tell on the forum you need to start Pinball Mania from the menu of Pinball Dreams. It might very well be the deluxe version they're using already.
Just did a quick filecopy from my CD onto a folder, then mounted it as CD and installed the game in Dosbox, and the game runs with the normal mod music, not the CD audio.
About the hi-res tables. To enable them you need to press space to get to the table select of each (dreams and mania respectively) then press F5 to enter the options. If gog used the Deluxe data for the Dreams and Mania games then you should be able to switch into hi-res too.

Edit: And this is where I take the disc out of my drive again and realise that scrawl on the menu wasn't dreams but fantasies to begin with, sorry about that. Still might be worth a shot looking into the options menu for the resolutions.

Here's what they have in the pack:

- Pinball Fantasies Deluxe (floppy version?) which includes Fantasy and Mania selectable from a menu.
- Pinball Dreams 1 standard floppy version
- Pinball Dreams 2 standard floppy version
- Pinball Illusions CD version with 4 tables but no CD tracks

I agree with the Pinball Fantasies choice (it's pretty much the same as the CD version except for the mod track), I'd say Pinball Dreams could have been better in its CD Deluxe edition too, and Pinball Illusions should have at least had its CD tracks. :)

With all my sympathy to GoG team - guys, do something about that music. The game is broken without it, because it is not cosmetic thing or something about quality. The CD track should be played in special modes, and without them all we hear is silence + FX. Which sounds horrible, and it's like that for half of playtime (or more).

In this gampelay you can see what I am writing about
From 00m52sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-iAM5zn5nw

Cheers

While I have never played these games in the glory days, the music I've heard so far is rather impressive. I'd love to hear the rest.

Also, the lack of music in the special modes is a let-down and almost breaks the game entirely. This needs to be resolved.

I am bumping this topic once more because this is something important that while I cannot compare this to the Moto Racer 2 issue..... Its incomplete and just bothers me.

While I do understand what people are complaining about, I have to say I find it pretty amusing that people are complaining about the lack of a CD version here, while in the Alone in the Dark forum people are complaining about the lack of the floppy version! It's got to be hard to know which one people are going to want for games from this era, since whichever one gets released there's always going to be people nostalgic for the other version.

Then why not do it as they did with the Gobliins pack? Place both versions in the archive.

I've not seen the AITD forums yet, so I can't say, but I know that that there are problems with the floppy version and DOSBox related to the MIDI music, so it was a logical choice to use the CD version.

It probably wouldn't have been as bad with the floppy versions of the Pinball games, but the whole package just seems sloppily tacked together. Pinball Mania was originally released as a separate game, but here we're left searching around for it.

Pinball Illusions was also released as a floppy version, which had the subgame and intro tunes as MODs. Why was this not used if the CD tracks could not be used? Surely the authors have access to the CD tracks if they used the CD version to create the package. Or was an abandonware rip of the CD used to create it?

The issue with the music is in desperate need of resolving. I actually burn all my GOG games onto CD/DVD with DVD cases and inlays, but I've held off with this one because it is just such a train wreck.

Just sent GoG a message about this as it really does ruin Pinball Illusions. I'm just a bit cheesed off that no-one from GoG has even yet to respond. The product page even advertises "great music"!

I suggest that you all do the same and we should then see this issue fixed. Sure the good guys at GoG can sort this out.

Ashley

PS Cheers guys for your research into this issue!

I got a reply from today:


Hello,

We will check it and will try to find out why music is missing. However I'm afraid that one of the possibilities is that publisher has lost legal rights for the audio tracks.
---
Regards

GOG.com Support

So it's being looked into.


Edit: I've asked if they can post to this thread once they find the issue. I really hope they can fix it, because it is otherwise an awesome package!

Yes lack of music especially when you're on special mode, break the immersion. Suddenly it went quiet.