Going to the arcade as a kid, I was never a big pinball person myself. Although the tables looked cool, I found them kind of arcane with their magical 'specials' and 'lit' ramps and such. Plus, I was never a good enough player to make my quarter last more than a few minutes. For that reason I tended to gravitate towards more familiar games such as air hockey, Die Hard Arcade and the Terminator 2 shooter.
However, as arcades have come and gone (and hopefully are coming back again, albeit more sparsely), my interest in pinball has been renewed. It would seem that pinball and its associated community is still relatively strong, despite the downfall of arcades. In fact, it is much easier to find a pinball table in a bowling alley than it is to find an older style arcade cabinet. There seems to be something about pinball that keeps fans dedicated to its upkeep.
I have never been all that impressed with digital pinball games. Although my wife swears by Epic Pinball (Epic Megagames - DOS), I could never really get in to pinball games in general. Manipulating the flippers by using buttons on a keyboard just didn't feel right, and the physics always seemed very artificial. That has all changed though with my discovery of The Pinball Arcade.
I can't remember where I found out about this game. It could have been a mention on Reddit, or maybe an advertisement in RetroGamer magazine. Either way it doesn't matter. This game is the cats meow.
You only have 20 minutes to kill? Fire up your favourite table and practice hitting the left ramp a few times. Your schedule suddenly clears up a bit and that twenty minutes becomes an hour of downtime? Perfect! Now you can put your practice to good use and go for the jackpot.
Farsight Studios obviously loves pinball and obviously cares about their product. You can feel it in the fit and finish of the game. I'm not talking about genius menus trees, or amazing intro cinematics because it has neither of these. I'm talking about the game play itself. It. Is. Awesome. It easily is the closest thing to playing pinball you can experience without having a table in your house.
Tables run for about $4.99 for two (usually), or you can buy the season pack for either $30 or $40 depending on season. Yes, that seems expensive, but the tables have been beautifully recreated from original, authentic pinball tables. Plus, the pinball table at the local bowling alley near me costs a dollar per ball, or three balls for two dollars. It doesn't take a genius to see how fast you can eat through real money, especially when you're new to a table. This game also includes instructions for every table so that you can unravel those previously mentioned 'arcane' strategies and put them to use racking up points!
Having mentioned the fact that the tables are based off of real tables, I want to speak to this for a moment. Being a nostalgia junky, I think it is absolutely amazing that a company is taking the time to digitally archive electro-mechanical devices, and that they're doing it properly right from the beginning. Yes, you can emulate old consoles and arcade cabinets but it's never truly the same. Somehow, Farsight has done it in such a way that it 'feels' right. It'll never be exactly the same as playing a real table - you can't feel the life of the table through you hands nor can you smell the warm bulbs, but it's pretty freakin' close. I'm not sure what they've put in their secret sauce, but I hope they never change it!
I highly recommend that anyone with any device (sorry Blackberry!) at least give it a shot. There is a free table of the month available for play, and you can try any table up to the minimum high score.
Who knows, maybe you'll get hooked as well. The more pinball fanatics, the better for the community!
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