Screenshots :.
Pinball Fantasies
iPhone
Matt
31-07-2009
"I <3 this table"
"This, on the other hand, is tricky."
I’m of a generation that grew up with computers and consoles, meaning that I am juuust too young to have ever really been bitten by the pinball bug. Apart from a short nostalgic blast on Kirby’s Pinball Land a year or so back there has only been one pinball game that held my attention, and that was Pinball Fantasies. As coincidences go, it happened to pop up on the App Store this week as I was thinking about it, and a heck of a lot of thumb-tapping action later I am addicted all over again.
Pinball games are obviously rather limited in appeal as you’re just going to be playing pinball and nothing else, so table design and layout is utterly crucial to how well such a game is going to work. As you would probably have already guessed given my above comment, Fantasies nails it perfectly. Each table’s ramps, bumpers and loops all work well with each other, and each table has a differing set of rules for you to complete the tasks at hand and head toward mega bonus scores.
There are but four tables, no unlockables and no online score tables (although the latter is probably for the best given how average I probably am at it) so you’re not going to be swimming in content, but to be honest that gives you the chance to learn the tables and get the maximum you can out of each. It takes a heck of a lot of time too – the first table (my favourite, as it happens) is called Partyland and requires you to hit all sorts of objects in sequence to get mega bonuses.
It can get bloody frustrating of course, but that’s the nature of pinball for you. Half the time you lose it’ll just be down to plain old bad luck, and there will be nothing you can do about it. The ball physics are decent enough if a little simple at times – such as when the ball gets stuck on things and needs to be tilted out – but it’s instinctive enough to allow you to get the feeling that you are getting better the more time you put in.
The controls work fairly well, with a tap on the left side flipping the left bumper and the right flicking the corresponding projectile launcher. There are a number of options for how the screen is laid out too; the one that seems to work out best is having a small black border at the bottom so your thumbs don’t block what’s going on. Annoyingly the game is often susceptible to a bout of slowdown (running on a 3G anyway – a 3GS may solve this issue), but it’s never for more than a couple of seconds and it’s not too harsh.
Combined with some utterly awesome music (trust me folks, it’s proper old-school goodness) and the option of the original graphical style or the newer, slightly tweaked version you get a really entertaining pinball game that, despite it’s 15+ years, is probably as good as anything you’re going to get short of buying an actual table. £3.49 is a reasonably expensive price in context of other things available, but if like me you start playing at 10pm and realise it is 2.30am when you stop, chances are you’ll get good value for money. What are you waiting for?
Pinball games are obviously rather limited in appeal as you’re just going to be playing pinball and nothing else, so table design and layout is utterly crucial to how well such a game is going to work. As you would probably have already guessed given my above comment, Fantasies nails it perfectly. Each table’s ramps, bumpers and loops all work well with each other, and each table has a differing set of rules for you to complete the tasks at hand and head toward mega bonus scores.
There are but four tables, no unlockables and no online score tables (although the latter is probably for the best given how average I probably am at it) so you’re not going to be swimming in content, but to be honest that gives you the chance to learn the tables and get the maximum you can out of each. It takes a heck of a lot of time too – the first table (my favourite, as it happens) is called Partyland and requires you to hit all sorts of objects in sequence to get mega bonuses.
It can get bloody frustrating of course, but that’s the nature of pinball for you. Half the time you lose it’ll just be down to plain old bad luck, and there will be nothing you can do about it. The ball physics are decent enough if a little simple at times – such as when the ball gets stuck on things and needs to be tilted out – but it’s instinctive enough to allow you to get the feeling that you are getting better the more time you put in.
The controls work fairly well, with a tap on the left side flipping the left bumper and the right flicking the corresponding projectile launcher. There are a number of options for how the screen is laid out too; the one that seems to work out best is having a small black border at the bottom so your thumbs don’t block what’s going on. Annoyingly the game is often susceptible to a bout of slowdown (running on a 3G anyway – a 3GS may solve this issue), but it’s never for more than a couple of seconds and it’s not too harsh.
Combined with some utterly awesome music (trust me folks, it’s proper old-school goodness) and the option of the original graphical style or the newer, slightly tweaked version you get a really entertaining pinball game that, despite it’s 15+ years, is probably as good as anything you’re going to get short of buying an actual table. £3.49 is a reasonably expensive price in context of other things available, but if like me you start playing at 10pm and realise it is 2.30am when you stop, chances are you’ll get good value for money. What are you waiting for?
