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(More customer reviews)I've played real pinball since the 1970s and video pinball since the days of the Atari 2600, and the last few years have been dry ones. The real-life pinball industry is in sad, sad decline, with only Chicago's Stern Company still making new machines. Legendary manufacturers Bally and Williams have faded into history, with Gottlieb/Premier having folded shortly before them. Remaining machines are skyrocketing in price as complete machines and replacement parts in any condition become more and more scarce with the passage of time.
As their real-life counterparts become harder to find, good new commercial pinball software has also become increasingly rare. On the non-commercial front, there's the brilliant Visual Pinball/PinMAME, and more recently Future Pinball, but that's another story altogether...
Since the mid-90s, the king of the commercial pinball software hill has been the Pro Pinball series, most notably the landmark "Timeshock". It took until now for a challenger to emerge, and this game is the decisive winner. It surpasses the Pro Pinball series in every sense but one--unlike the Pro Pinball titles, it doesn't provide access to operator menus where you can adjust machine settings for things like number of balls, replay, match, kickback, tournament, system tests, etc.
Graphically, this title is nothing short of astonishing, particularly on a beefy PC at 1600x1200 resolution and with graphics settings maxed out. Yes, that's your player reflection you're seeing when the ball drops down to the flippers! Yes, that's a brilliantly rendered full-color dot matrix display with great animations! In the options, you can choose to include the playfield glass or not, include the glass and metal reflections or not, or even include the surrounding room or not. On top of the jaw-dropping graphic detail is the 12 separate views available, assigned to each of the function keys. Those allow you to see the action from a variety of perspectives and with varying amounts of scrolling action.
Though the eye candy is lavishly abundant, the substance supporting it is equally incredible, especially for the experienced pinball player, who will get more and more excited as they begin to read the rulesheets for these tables. Each table rewards replay in ways so numerous that the fact that only 3 tables are included becomes almost over-generous the more you play.
Yes, only 3 tables are presented here, and unlike today's few real-life machines, none of them use licensed themes--"20th century warfare", "street racing", and "railroading"--but each of the tables is so deep, detailed and polished that you won't feel shorted in the slightest. After all, the Pro Pinball titles were each a single table. We'd still love to get the 4th table that came with the Xbox version as a downloadable extra sometime, though (hint, hint!!)
The ball physics model is the most important part of any pinball software, and while this one isn't totally perfect, it is more than close enough for 95% of players--only highly experienced real-life players will likely quibble, primarily with the details fudged with regard to ball spin and bounce, not velocity and direction.
The audio is appropriate and well-done. The music (particularly on the "World War" table, which has as its accompanying music an interesting take on the Adagio) is plentiful enough not to get too repetitive too quickly. The sound effects are very good, and fit the themes very appropriately. I would like to have heard a bit more of the ambient noises; the sound of the ball rolling on the wooden playfield and against metal ball guides and wire ramps, etc.
The table designs are brilliantly executed, with tons of flow, great playfield toys and ramps, opportunities for high-yield strategic shotmaking, insanely deep rulesets, fantastic detail and fully-realized theme integration. It'll take some time to crack the high score board, and when you get there, you'll definitely feel a sense of reward and accomplishment.
The credits list a team of only about 20 people, 2 of whom were testers and 2 others who designed the Xbox packaging. That's boggling to consider after you've spent some time with this software and really begin to get a feel for the level of accomplishment this game represents.
If these 3 tables actually existed in real life--and they absolutely could, as this is not an arcadey or cartoony version of pinball--these machines would be snapped up by operators and collectors at $5-7000 each and would immediately vault into the top eschelon of machines ever made--they're that good.
If this development team and the tools they used to build this software had the rights to develop re-creations of the greatest 15-20 pinball machines of the last 20-25 years, collectors and serious players would be nothing less than overjoyed. The 3 tables in this package more than prove that doing so with phenomenal results would be well within the capabilities of this team and their tools and talents.
This game will delight the hardcore pinball aficionado while fully satisfying others who simply know a great pinball game when they see it. If you have any interest in pinball whatsoever, I strongly recommend that you spend the pittance they're charging for this software--you will WAY more than get your money's worth. This is hours and hours of pinball fun for half the cost of a flipper coil. Even a pinhead would take a deal like that!
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Pure Pinball Reloaded
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