The Pinball Arcade Review (XBLA)

Posted by Jim Cook, 5 days ago

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Tales of the Arabian Nights (Williams, 1996): As the name suggests, Tales invokes several ’exotic east’ ideas; a genie, dancing girls, and curved swords just to name a few. This gives it a very distinct visual style, one that is used both in the table art and parts of the playfield itself such as a spinning genie lamp. Much like Theatre of Magic, Tales of the Arabian Nights is a rather target-laden table and this is almost taken to an extreme; a few targets are so close together that you must have absolutely perfect timing to hit the one you want. Easily one of the strongest tables in the set, and almost worth the price of admission on its own.

Ripley’s Believe it or Not (Stern, 2004): Built on the ’strange facts of the world’ franchise, the Ripley’s table is an odd mix of visual themes from all around the world and dispensing various factoids (such as claiming the world’s tallest broom is forty feet). This seemingly random presentation won’t do the table any favors in attracting players, but an excellent field design might. Nearly every part of the table has an interesting target, so you should be entertained throughout.

While this is an excellent collection of famous pinball tables, there are some problems worth discussing. The most obvious is a lack of online multiplayer, which is a strange thing to leave out; hotseat pinball play over the internet may not have a universal appeal, but seems like it would be easy to do and interest some people all the same. Fortunately, local play does support up to four players taking turns. Less worrying is that a handful of table textures don’t look very convincing, but they tend to be ones you don’t look at much (such as the coin slots); the others are fine. Some of the sales flyer images are low quality too, which makes little sense when celebrating pinball history is a major part of the product’s purpose.

GDN Silver

Modest problems like that don’t even come close to ruining The Pinball Arcade. It has good controls, an excellent variety in tables, and even the weakest of them is worth playing a few times. $10 USD/800 Microsoft Points is a fair price, and pinball fans should be delighted. If you’re willing to accept that real-world tables simply won’t have the more outrageous gimmicks that ’game original’ tables sometimes use, then you’ll have plenty of fun!

This review was based on a download of the Xbox Live Arcade/Xbox 360 version, provided by Crave.

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For more video game reviews on this and many others head to Game Rankings

Our Rating for The Pinball Arcade Review (XBLA)
7.5	Replay These four classic tables are good enough to bring you back for a few repeat sessions, and pinball is obviously a fine choice for score attack play.
8.0	Graphics Mostly convincing replicas of each table do a great job of presenting even some of the more subtle details correctly. A few blurry flyer images and other minor gaffes stand out, but it still looks like you�re playing on the original pinball cabinet in an arcade.
8.5	Sound The voices and sound effects have been faithfully ported over, and it at least tries to duplicate a few of the �physical� sounds such as the knock-on-wood one would hear upon winning a free game.
9.0	Gameplay Even the weakest table in the set is still worth playing, and the rest are very fun. Good controls and physics keep �cheap� losses to a minimum, so you can focus on improving your game.
6.5	Multiplayer/Online Content Local hotseat play for up to four players is provided, but is the only option. This makes it best as a �social game� played in turns by friends on a slow day, and may not offer much multiplayer appeal beyond that.
8.5	Overall A nice trip through pinball history at a fair price, The Pinball Arcade is worth getting now and should only become more interesting as DLC tables are released.