Kotaku
Ever since I was a young boy I played the silver ball. While I've never been to Soho or Brighton, I must have played more than my fair share of pinball machines before the bleeps and bloops of video games stole me away. Still pinball is never far from my heart, which explains my excitement over Pinball FX, the new Xbox Live Arcade game from Zen Studios.
The main ingredient to any pinball game is the ball itself. You can have the most beautiful table in the world, filled with ramps, spinners, bumpers, floaters, roofies, and any number of odd items that may or may not be pinball terms and it all means nothing if the ball physics are off.
I'd say Pinball FX completely nailed it.
In this game, the ball is a pinball, no doubt about it. It takes spin, reacts to the table surface, and even does that damn thing pinballs tend to do right between the flippers where it feels like they are being magnetically pulled to their doom. For better or worse, it plays very much like the real thing.
Along with the excellent ball physics, Pinball FX has one of the best implementations of the rumble feature I've ever encountered. Along with the realistic sound effects, I could almost imagine I was getting my hands jarred by an actual machine at an arcade and not a console facsimile. Very well done indeed.
The game comes packed with three tables. Speed Machine, which is all about racing, Extreme, which is about trying to be hip but failing, and Agents, which is about real estate sales. Or spies. Probably spies. Let's give them each the once over, shall we?
Speed Machine
The only table available in the demo version, Speed Machine has the best lines of any of the three initial tables in Pinball FX. By lines I mean the way the ball flows about the table, allowing for more fluid movement and less randomly hitting bumpers, hoping you don't lose the ball. Some very well placed ramps and loops on this table. It's fast and flashy with some great sound effects, and it's the one I'm the best at, which of course makes it my favorite.
Extreme
It's all about rap, skateboarding, and other hip, extreme things, and it comes off feeling like a Jamie Kennedy joke. The table is effectively split into two sections, with the lower half consisting mainly of a hidden loop that just returns the ball right back to you. There is fun to be had here, especially when you get three balls going at once, but it's all a bit too hokey for my tastes.
Agents
It really was neck and neck between this table and Speed Machine. In terms of style, Agents wins out, with modeled pistols, what looks like an industrial complex, a yacht, and a random bird. While the lines don't flow quite as smoothly Speed's, you can get some really nice loops going, and I love the spy-themed missions.
More to come
Even if none of these tables tickles your fancy, Zen promises the release of more tables as DLC later down the line, much like Epic Pinball for the PC back in the early 90's - the best game Epic has ever released. Take that, Gears of War!
Multiplayer
I don't like the way they multiplayer set up, though I suppose it is for the best. Instead of taking turns playing as you would in a bar, everyone plays at the same time, with scores tallied at the end. You might as well just rely on leaderboard scores, as you really aren't playing with other players as you are playing at the same time as other players. It makes sense from a time standpoint, and I guess watching another person play pinball in a bar is only fun because you are in a bar.
Vision Camera Support
No. I will not. Knock yourself out, but there is no reason to control a pinball game with a camera. That's the great thing about giving impressions rather than posting an actual, scored review. I don't have to do silly things like this.
One of the Best
I cannot recommend the game enough to pinball fans. It is one of the best pinball simulations I've come across, and I've been playing these things since Pinball Construction Set back in 1983, before some of you were born. Zen Studios has done a stellar job with Pinball FX.
