#pinbot | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shogikappa · 10 months

Text

My Top 10 digital pinball tables, June 2023

I’ve always been a fan of pinball, but my interest in it had been renewed after playing on the Beatles pinball machine in 2019. After getting tired of getting my ass handed to me by unfair mobile games, it was really refreshing to play games where my loss could only be blamed on my poor play, rather than the designer having calculated it all to make things hard for you so that you have to pay for microtransactions. In any case, I started looking for more pinball games after Flash was no longer supported and Pinball King and Funhouse Pinball (not the Rudy one) became defunct and I need newer pinball games to play. I’ve discovered lots of tables I’ve never played before and here are my top tables.

10. El Dorado (Zen Pinball) - Pinball FX3

Not to be confused with the more well-known pinball table of the same name by Gottlieb. Admittedly, El Dorado is kind of an acquired taste. It didn’t look very fun at first, but after playing it for a bit, I found it pretty fun, and I only really fell in love with it after immersing myself in the role of an Indiana Jones-style archaeologist, and you’re pretty much playing as one digging up treasures, deciphering ancient glyphs, avoiding traps, and collecting idols and poison remedies. As part of Zen’s older original tables, El Dorado is relatively easy in that it’s very easy to keep the ball in play for a long period of time, and the ball saver could be activated easily in the mobile version and on Pinball FX2, so I will say this table isn’t one that offers the most excitement when it comes to the thrill of risking losing your ball all the time as with many of the other tables here. The treasure-hunting theme and the minigames and toys however quite sold me, and the gameplay is fun too, but you might wanna give this game more goes and throw yourself into the role for better enjoyment.

9. Pin-bot

I first discovered Pin-bot via the NES adaptation of the game, but I was always frustrated that it added animated enemies that gobbled up your ball (making you lose it) and other enemies outright destroying your flipper. They probably thought that adding enemies not present on physical tables could spice up the experience, but it just makes me wish I was playing on the real machine instead. With pinball you already have very limited control - 2 flippers. With one or both of your flippers taken away by enemies or additional enemies that eat your ball, that’s a massive handicap and only serves to make me want to play the real table instead. The Moon cheese ball though is a nice touch.

Pin-bot has been recreated for Visual Pinball and is on PSP as part of the Williams Collection. There was also an OK port of it for the Pinball Arcade on mobiles. The game is pretty straight-forward: You want to give Pinbot eyes and score jackpot, and try to reach the Sun as you move around the Solar System. The game is relatively simple to learn and is quite fun for what it is, although it does lack some of the features and presentations present in the more exciting pinball tables from the 90s.

8. Who Dunnit

Who Dunnit has been ported to Visual Pinball, and used to be available on the Pinball Arcade for mobile. Here you play as a noir detective trying to gather clues and interrogating suspects to solve murders. This table incorporates a roulette portion, a slot machine, and essentially a sort of deduction minigame. I personally find it to be great fun. Solving murders would culminate to a climatic roof chase mode where you have to shoot a changing target within a relatively short time limit. It doesn’t have a whole lot of modes, but it packs a lot into a relatively simple-looking table.

7. Pinball Noir - Pinball FX

Another noir detective-themed table, this is a newer Zen original table and these are not plagued by the problem of being too easy to keep the ball in play that you could play for long periods easily without losing a ball that was common in Zen originals in El Dorado’s time. It seems that it’s going for a more modern full-colour display style too since it doesn’t seem to be basing the score display on DMDs. This monochrome-ish table’s got a lot of style, although it seems to me that where you’re supposed to shoot at any given time isn’t so obvious, as everything will just be lit. The voice acting is also a little poor, with the lead actor sounding way too try-hard to sound like a noir detective in a way that doesn’t sound natural. Nonetheless, this is a table I find myself coming back to again and again. It’s fun to shoot the mobsters and score jackpots after they’re down.

6. Curse of the Mummy - Pinball FX

Now this table doesn’t look like much at first, but there’s a lot going on here. I believe you play as archaeologists raiding the mummy’s tomb, although that doesn’t seem very explicit. There are lots of objectives to do here which physically change the layout a little, like building a bridge that connects the two upper playfields, and lighting torches in a maze which turns the centre waterfall into a passageway. Also helping the game is its Egyptian-sounding soundtrack, which seems to be something that’s missing from other Egypt-related games, surprisingly. Just to reiterate, don’t be deceived by the simple-looking layout. There’s a lot to do here.

5. Nautilus Remake - Zaccaria Pinball

I find this to be an outlier in Zaccaria Pinball, in a good way. Now most of the Remake and Deluxe tables in Zaccaria tend to be pretty easy. This table, although the same applies, has really good presentation. An update inspired by their 70s pinball table, this modernized take introduces multiball, ramps, modes, and a wizard mode into the mix while adding a nice soundtrack that makes you feel like you’re diving in the deep sea. I really love this table, although I wish it would ramp up the difficult to match those of the 90s Williams tables and make it so that it’s easier to drain the ball. As with other Zaccaria tables though, there’s no graze period. If you get down to 1 ball, multiball mode immediately ends and you won’t get a few seconds to score a jackpot like Williams tables tend to give you.

4. Whirlwind

Previously available on The Pinball Arcade, and also on the Williams Collection for PSP and on Visual Pinball, and recently made available for Pinball FX, I accidentally discovered this machine after confusing its name for the predecessor table of Hurricane (it turns out to be Cyclone, not Whirlwind). As part of the “natural disaster series” along with Earthshaker and later inspiring features found in the famous pinball table the Addams Family and the Twilight Zone, Hurricane has a very thematic use of its iconic spinners called “Whirlwind spinners” on Wikipedia (though the article strangely does not mention the Whirlwind table), which will cause the ball to be thrown off its trajectory. The physical table also has a fan mounted on top of the backglass which blows wind towards the player’s face when the storm is here (the spinners are spinning). The goofy “storm blaster” and wind from the backglass are also nice treats, and you could hear the wind telling you to “Feel the power of the wind”, a line which would be referenced again in the Addams Family and the Twilight Zone. Overall a very fun table with a very thematic use of spinners.

3. Cirqus Voltaire

At first I didn’t like the theme. Some kind of evil cirqus controlled by a green-faced ringmaster? It seems evil circuses are kind of an overdone trope. Now I will still say that the theme isn’t an especially appealing one, but it really makes up for it in gameplay. You’re trying to perform various acts in hopes of joining the circus, and over the course of the game, you’ll perform the various available acts. My favourite is the juggler, who actually juggles the balls around the juggler ball locks.

But the star of this table is really its wizard mode - what happens after you successfully finish all the marvels. Without wanting to spoil the ending, this is something you should definitely give a try. This table has one of the most climatic endings I’ve seen in a pinball game.

2. Twilight Zone

Available on Visual Pinball and recently for Pinball FX (there was also a super easy adaptation on the Pinball Arcade), Twilight Zone is one of the most well-known pinball tables and its prices are very high if you’re looking to get a machine. If you’re one of my friends, you probably already know I’m a big fan of the TV show, but this table boasts one of the most complex rulesets I had come across in a pinball game.

With a few features taken from the Addams Family and Whirlwind, the goal is to “unlock the door with the key of imagination”. Now I was thoroughly disappointed that on the physical table, the door doesn’t actually open. Pinball FX’s recreation rectifies this by opening the door every time a door panel is awarded. This table is also filled with unconventional features like a gumball machine that dispenses a lighter and faster ball sometimes, and “invisible” magnet flippers called magnaflips.

The Twilight Zone is usually very punishing for its residents... But sometimes, perhaps, just before you score the jackpot, the game will give you opportunities for easier shots... which in itself makes for something quite unexpected and fitting for its theme... of the Twilight Zone.

1. The Getaway: High Speed II

Released for Pinball FX/FX3 and also available on some other platforms (mobile, Visual Pinball, formerly the Pinball Arcade), The Getaway is the sequel table to High Speed. Now I was pretty happy with HS, but after playing the Getaway, it pretty much completely replaces the original HS.

You play as the owner of a sports car trying to pick up a beautiful hitchhiker and running the red light while outrunning a cop in pursuit. The most eye-catching feature is the metal ramp equipped with electromagnets that speed up the ball above the playfield, called the Supercharger (which is apparently something you put on cars to make them go fast). This table also boasts fast-paced gameplay with a matching fast-paced soundtrack (as opposed to HS) as your ball would need to be fast in order to make the necessary shots. This table is also probably the fastest-to-wizard mode table I’ve ever played, with me reaching wizard mode in under 3 minutes regularly. Loop shots are fun as you try to keep looping the ball around the orbits, gaining increasing points for each successive loop. A little gimmick this table has its that in order to move to the next mode, you need to press the launch button, meaning you pretty much have to take your hand away from a flipper button, although it’s considerably easier to do on digital recreations when all you have to do is to press Enter when your flipper key is the right shift.

Overall a very exciting table just due to the fast action it delivers, making it my favourite table, along with Twilight Zone.

Conclusion

These are my personal top pinball tables. I do realize tables like the Addams Family and Medieval Madness are among the most popular tables, but they just don’t resonate with me as well as these ones here, and I wanted to include games other than ones found in Pinball FX’s Williams tables and Zaccaria Pinball here as well for some diversity, hence Pin-bot making it into the top 10s.

#pinball

2 notes · View notes