Microsoft Pinball Arcade
Score: 40% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Electrosource Developer: Classified Games/Saffire Media: Cart/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: The tables in Microsoft Pinball Arcade are quite nicely detailed, considering the limits of the system that they're being displayed on. While they're nowhere near as visually complex as the real thing, a good bit of the colour and feel is displayed on the small screen. The ball is large enough to see (perhaps a little too large, but I digress), and the screen scrolls smoothly. Because of the limited screenspace, you won't see a score display or ball counter as you play; this is understandable. As for sound, well, what do you expect? The poor old chip in the Gameboy does its little plinks and plonks, and while the digitized sounds for inserting a coin and whatnot are pretty cool, there's nothing here that's going to impress you. Of course, if you're looking to be impressed by sound, you're looking at the wrong system. As usual, I found myself turning the volume down; chirrups and buzzers don't do much for me.
Gameplay: And while Microsoft Pinball Arcade had promise, like its brother Best of Entertainment Pack the collection is ruined by poor implementation. The ball physics are wrong, wrong, wrong, and while the five different boards are nice, there's no getting around the fact that the game just isn't pinball. The different tables represent various pinball machines put out by Gottlieb over the years, from Ball Baffle in the fifties to the eighties' Haunted House. I'd assume that each game is pretty fairly represented in terms of features; Haunted House has a rather bothersome 'upside down' subtable that drove me suitably bonkers, and the pachinko-style Ball Baffle is nothing like the later, more evolved versions of the games. Controls are simple enough, and you'll be launching and batting the ball around in no time. The problem is that the ball simply doesn't behave like a real one. Pulling the plunger a certain amount always makes it land in the same location. Holding the ball 'up' with the plunger so you can better aim a shot results in the ball rapidly ricocheting between two points, never stopping to rest. I routinely observed the ball passing through the paddle, much to my consternation. The ball also seemed a little misshapen, a little too large for the boards on which it was bouncing around on. The boards themselves have no real options, although you can read some tips for each one that may help you score better. They range from the not-very-interactive (Baffle Ball) to the much more so--Spirit of '76 comes to mind. And I do like the fact that there's quite a wide variety of tables to be played. But when they don't act like they should, it's difficult to get into the game, and Microsoft Pinball Arcade suffers because of it. You can play with more than one player, but that involves passing the GBC around, and who's going to want to play it with you?
Difficulty: Even though I'm not a pinball wizard, I can hold my own at a table. Despite that, I found that too often the ball careened around, landing in a gutter or somewhere else that it was irrecoverable. This wasn't helped by the fact that I had very little control over the ball itself, due to the unpredictable physics model. Of course, some of the older tables were hard, intentionally; the huge opening on Knock Out still makes me sick, but it doesn't actually open until the ball's bounced around a bit. I kept a ball alive in Haunted House by repeatedly tapping the two flipper buttons once, but then lost the next two despite my best intentions. I can't say that it's all the game's fault, of course; I'm no perfect player when it comes to tables. But the confusing physics most definitely did not help the experience.
Game Mechanics: Let's come out and say it: the ball physics in Microsoft Pinball Arcade are bad. Really bad. The ball doesn't act in any way, shape or form like it should, and the game becomes less predicting where the ball will go and more predicting where the game will pick the ball to go. It seems a subtle distinction, until you actually play the title. Passing through the paddles seems almost trivial in comparison; once the ball starts bouncing around like an alien larvae, why shouldn't it be able to teleport? On one positive note, the game supports complete remapping of the controls, which is a nice feature. I liked them as-is, but some people may be uncomfortable with the confusing-at-first nudge button placement. I was hoping for a solid pinball experience here; I remember many, many hours of my youth wasted both on real machines and on the excellent Epic Pinball for the PC. Microsoft Pinball Arcade for the GBC is neither realistic nor excellent; the experience is much more frustrating than it is enlightening. Despite the inclusion of a number of 'historical' boards, the half-complete implementation leaves me looking for a real version of pinball. Unless you simply must have every pinball game, stay far away from this one.
-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications AKA Phil Bordelon
The Best of Entertainment Pack Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising