Kotaku: pinball hall of fame

PS3, Xbox 360 Getting Some Much Needed Pinball This Summer

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:40:14 MST

Crave's excellent Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection will be getting a pair of high-definition ports this summer, apparently. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game just showed up at GameFly.

And you know, to the best of my knowledge, that's news. Good news, I'd think, because the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions of the collection, full of classic pinball tables like Black Knight, Fun House and Pin*Bot were surprisingly well done. Here's to hoping they expand the list to include other Bally Williams pinball classics.

GameFly shows a June 12th release date for the North American version. We'll bug Crave Entertainment to see if they will admit to being guilty of publishing the thing. Oh, they'll talk. They'll squeal like stuck pigs.

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection [GameFly via NeoGAF]

Hands-On With Wii Williams Pinball

Mike Fahey — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 08:20:03 MDT

If you read Kotaku regularly you may have noticed I'm a sucker for some video game pinball. Give me a controller and a relatively accurate rendering of the silver ball and I am a happy camper. A while back I wrote up a press release about Crave's Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, which is being released sometime this year on the PS2, PSP, and this time around the Wii. A follow-up to the previously released Gottlieb Collection, this anthology features one of my favorite tales of all time, Pinbot. When I visited with Crave at E3 I got a chance to get hands-on with the Wii version of the game, and I have to say that after playing through several balls on good old Pinbot, I am spoiled for virtual pinball on any other system

To get an idea of why I say this, grab your Wiimote and nunchuck attachment. Now hold them with your hands about as far apart as your average pinball table. Pull the trigger buttons, imagining the left and right flippers kicking up. That's how pinball is played, and that's how Willliams plays on the Wii. Such a simple mechanic works wonders in recreating the feel of actually playing at a pinball table. I'd daresay you could even craft a little mount for them to recreate the feeling of resting your thumbs on the glass of the machine, which could even help a little bit considering shaking your controllers acts like smacking the machine, possibly tilting the game if you shake it too hard.

Pinot was recreated in painstaking detail, with the original bells and whistles intact. The gentleman showing me the game explained that Williams has been very hands-on with this project, testing the game at every juncture and coming back with little changes and tweaks to make sure that every table included in the collection was as authentic as video game pinball can get. I'd daresay they're doing a bang-up job so far.

If you're a quarter of the pinball fan I am and own a Wii then you'd be doing yourself a favor to keep an eye out for Pinball Hall Fame: The William's Collection. While I am sure the PSP and PS2 versions will be at least passable, the Wii version of the game looks to bring all new levels of realism to the world of video game pinball.

Pinball Hall of Fame Pics

Brian Crecente — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:40:45 MST

GameSetWatch has a wonderful gallery up showing off some of the amazing pinball machines that can be found at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.

In their second set of pictures, the site concentrates on some of the "classic" pinball machines found in the collection. The grooviest by far has got to be Bally's Tommy-themed pinballer Capt. Fantastic, though there are plenty more to see on the site. Brian Crecente

Pinball Hall of Fame Vol. 2 [GameSetWatch]