RPS Feature Flipping out
The pinball platformer is an idea developers like to feed quarters into every so often. If a character is round (Pac-Man, Kirby) or can bunch up into a ball (Sonic, Samus, enslaved Pokémon), then they’ve probably been bashed about by flippers at some point. But these games tend to be reskins of traditional pinball; few reflect their source material. Yoku’s Island Express doesn’t have a known mascot to trade on, but it does have bigger vision for bumper-boosted platforming.
I’ve been playing a fair bit of actual physical pinball lately, having discovered a half-dozen machines across nearby pubs. My favourites put their themes into motion, like the NBA table where I get to launch the ball at a hoop (aided by mystical magnetism). The selection isn’t ideal, mind; I’m not much into basketball and Monopoly is so undesirable. No, digital pinball is a far better way to #engage with your favourite modern #brands in #brandball. Look, here come three new Bethesda-y DLC tables for Pinball FX2 [official site], plinging balls into Skyrim, Fallout, and Doom. Come see! Read the rest of this entry »
Before my parents abandoned hope of me not growing up a degenerate and allowed me to watch murdermovies, I was fascinated by the local swimming pool’s Aliens arcade cabinet and Terminator 2 pinball table – Cool Things I couldn’t have. Ooh, the hours I spent watching bigger kids play or waggling the joystick as I pretended to play the demo! This… isn’t quite going where I wanted to. Let’s skip ahead to the bit where I explain that an Aliens table is coming to Pinball FX2 this month as DLC. Also coming are an Alien vs. Predator table (boo!) and an Alien: Isolation one too (ooh!).
I’m a huge pinball fan and I get even more excited about that weird subgenre of games that splice pinball with something else. Stuff like Sonic Spinball, Devil Crush, Rollers of the Realm and Odama. The latter’s “tactical wargame + pinball” is one of the best I’ve ever heard and even though the eventual execution wasn’t great, I’m still glad that something so peculiar exists. More of that sort of thing, please.
Hyperspace Pinball‘s [official site] blend of pinball and Space Invaders isn’t quite as peculiar. It seems to work quite well though and I’m keen to see more.
You might look at Kabounce [official site] and say “That is Rocket League with cars – football with cars with pinball.” No. Kabounce is clearly Pinboing with multiplayer.
For those not down with the hottest fad sports of Mega-City One, Pinboing encases players in a bubble of the miracle spray bounce-o-plastic Boing® then launches them into a huge pinball table to rack up Mega-Points. Kabounce looks it’ll be a bit like that, only with multiplayer (multiball?), a neon haze, and a splash of murder. Observe:
It takes a very special something to make me excited about a pinball game. I played Pokemon Pinball to death, way back when, but very few pinball games since have really captured my attention. Until now. Until the Aperture Science Heuristic Portal Pinball Device. It’s a Portal themed table for Zen Pinball [official site] and it looks fantastic. See for yourself in the trailer below the cut.
Rollers of the Realm is a pinball-RPG hybrid. It’s no secret that I like pinball and it turns out I like RPGs as well. If we accept both of those things, must we not also accept that pinball + RPG equals super double-good? I’ll be able to find out later because the game’s out today and I’ll be getting up close and personal with it spherical heroes. Trailer below.
If I write an entire post highlighting a Kickstarter for a downloadable pinball table, chances are I’ll receive seven thousand angry emails (92% from other members of the RPS staff), sixteen angrily worded letters and one visit from a door-to-door punchagram. However, when that table is The Pinball Arcade’s digital rendition of one of the greatest and most celebrated machines of all time, there are a select few who will send me pleasant emails, kindly worded letters and a door-to-door hugagram*.
Farsight have raised half of the license fee for The Addams Family table, which was created by the brilliant Pat Lawlor. The Kickstarter is here and the remainder of the post contains reflections on events in digital pinball since I last wrote about my passion for the game.
I spent most of the weekend lying in bed with a maelstrom in my innards, feeling sorry for myself and occasionally checking the news on a laptop, which made me feel sorry for everyone else in the world instead. To bring the misery back home, I’d occasionally rewatch the trailer for Rollers Of The Realm, a fantasy RPG in the guise of a pinball game. It’s like a modern Devil’s Crush, a more fleshed out Epic Quest (Zen Pinball 2) or a less demanding take on Odama’s battleballs. The reason Rollers brought about bouts of despair is that I thought it was a Playstation exclusive. Clearly I was too weary to spy the Steam logo in the corner of the screen, which leapt out at me this morning. Trailer below.
Zen Pinball 2 isn’t my digital pinball flavour of choice. I prefer the recreation of actual tables, even if sometimes imperfect, to the shiny Marvel and Star Wars licensed fare of Zen Studios. I still dabble in the lightshow occasionally though and a new Guardians of the Galaxy table seems like a good excuse to shake off the ball rust. Judging by the trailer (below), the new table will fall in the Zen tradition of ramp-heavy high-scoring theme park tables. Lots of bang for your buck (actually $2.99), but not necessarily a whole lot of skills and processes to learn.
RPS Feature Pinball was my rock n' roll
A pinball table is more than balls, flippers and lights, although the uninitiated may see it as an almost literal collection of bells and whistles. I see tables in the corner of bars quite often, usually neglected and often unplugged, and was delighted to see an Addams Family machine – one of the great designs of its kind – in Larian’s studios a couple of weeks ago. It was as quiet as a crypt, missing parts dooming it to a long sleep. That’s often the case and it makes me sad because all of those lights and sounds helped to make me. This is one reason why The Pinball Arcade has consumed many of my evenings.
Earlier this week, the Pinball Arcade finally landed on my PC, via the medium of Steam. Pinball tables were among the games that made me and the Arcade contains some of my favourites, so I’ll write more about this soon. The free download contains one table, Tales of the Arabian Nights, and there are two season packs available for purchase, with more to come. Tables can also be bought in packs of two. I’ve tried every table and while there are some camera issues, where I’ve also played the physical counterpart, I’ve found the actual recreations hugely impressive. It’s like owning a lovely digital museum. However, I do have some quibbles and they are below.
I sank countless hours into Pinball Dreams and Epic Pinball when I was a nipper, and then countless 50 pence coins into the table in the college bar at my university. I’ve always maintained that a good way to measure the true wealth of a man is to count the number of pinball tables he owns and I won’t consider myself a proper adult until I have at least one. For some people it’s a mortgage, a child or marriage, for me it’s about having a colourful, tuneful machine with metal balls bouncing around inside it. Until I do have my own pinball kingdom though, The Pinball Arcade may be of use to me, with its computerised recreations of real tables, the first four of which you can see in the trailer below.
