dogmeat
06-09-2009, 02:54 PM
Pinball - Tiny Diversions
$0.99 4.0MB
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_pinball.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_pinball1.png
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_pinball2.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_pinball3.png
I picked up "Pinball" from the appStore for 99 cents. When you fire it up, it just states "pinball" with some background music. The game offers the minimal ammount of options once the title screen dissapears and the menu pops up. You can choose game length, which is measured in the terms of how many balls or "plays" you want. You can choose from 1 play, 3 plays or 5 plays. You can also adjust the game speed from slow, normal to turbo. The differences between the speeds are very well balanced, turbo for example would be well suited for a pinball pro, while the slow mode may be for grandma.
All in all, I played the game for my entire lunch break and every spare moment I got from there to now. I will go into more depth below, as far as the specifics on why I think this is a worthy pinball game on the appstore but I really found myself liking this purchase and will continue to play this pinball game daily.
Graphics
The graphics in "Pinball" are 2d and very simple. Upon looking at a screenshot or two of the game, I can see how some people may be turned off by its looks but when you jump in and play the table itself the graphics play very smoothly and I found no graphical hiccups while playing. The table itself is fairly simple, consisting of 4 main fun zones for the ball to trigger. All in all, the graphics are consistently done and once you get into playing, you will soon realize the graphics aren't what make this game enjoyable, the game is.
Sound
The sound in "Pinball" is very simple. There is a musical track that plays when you first start the game but no music anywhere else. You can't play your music while playing this game either. The sounds while playing the table are simple yet satisfying.
Handling
Handling can either make or break a pinball game and the handling in "Pinball" is very well done, a notch below Wild West Pinball. The Ball physics seem very solid and I never noticed the ball going in some odd direction it shouldn't go while rolling around. Using the flippers in this game is very satisfying in the sense you can really control the direction the ball is going and with how much force you want to apply to it. My only gripe about the handling is the fact that the contact area for your thumbs/fingers to activate each lever seems short in height so I find myself having to keep my thumbs all the way towards the bottom, which is fine, just took some getting used to. One thing I could not figure out, was a pause feature. The game seems to pause if you let it sit till your phone goes to sleep but other than that, I couldn't figure out how to pause the game.
Fun
"Pinball" is fun! No doubt about that, and this developers take on pinball works well. For one simple table I found myself going back for more and more trying to get a higher score. The best feature in this game is once you roll your ball up one of the rails, the game will display an arrow pointing at your next target, the more you hit the targets, your score multiplies, if you complete the circuit, you get 2 balls at a time. I'm sure if you're really good you can get more balls than 2 but we'll see. I had a blast playing this one and I'm going to keep going till I hit 1 million points, maybe more, who knows.
Price
This game is priced perfectly, you get one simplified table with 4 fun zone areas and objectives to keep you wanting those multipliers and double balls. I definitely reccomend this pinball game for anyone looking for that "simplified" table in their iDevice pinball collection. Go get it!
$0.99 4.0MB
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_pinball.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_pinball1.png
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_pinball2.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_pinball3.png
I picked up "Pinball" from the appStore for 99 cents. When you fire it up, it just states "pinball" with some background music. The game offers the minimal ammount of options once the title screen dissapears and the menu pops up. You can choose game length, which is measured in the terms of how many balls or "plays" you want. You can choose from 1 play, 3 plays or 5 plays. You can also adjust the game speed from slow, normal to turbo. The differences between the speeds are very well balanced, turbo for example would be well suited for a pinball pro, while the slow mode may be for grandma.
All in all, I played the game for my entire lunch break and every spare moment I got from there to now. I will go into more depth below, as far as the specifics on why I think this is a worthy pinball game on the appstore but I really found myself liking this purchase and will continue to play this pinball game daily.
Graphics
The graphics in "Pinball" are 2d and very simple. Upon looking at a screenshot or two of the game, I can see how some people may be turned off by its looks but when you jump in and play the table itself the graphics play very smoothly and I found no graphical hiccups while playing. The table itself is fairly simple, consisting of 4 main fun zones for the ball to trigger. All in all, the graphics are consistently done and once you get into playing, you will soon realize the graphics aren't what make this game enjoyable, the game is.
Sound
The sound in "Pinball" is very simple. There is a musical track that plays when you first start the game but no music anywhere else. You can't play your music while playing this game either. The sounds while playing the table are simple yet satisfying.
Handling
Handling can either make or break a pinball game and the handling in "Pinball" is very well done, a notch below Wild West Pinball. The Ball physics seem very solid and I never noticed the ball going in some odd direction it shouldn't go while rolling around. Using the flippers in this game is very satisfying in the sense you can really control the direction the ball is going and with how much force you want to apply to it. My only gripe about the handling is the fact that the contact area for your thumbs/fingers to activate each lever seems short in height so I find myself having to keep my thumbs all the way towards the bottom, which is fine, just took some getting used to. One thing I could not figure out, was a pause feature. The game seems to pause if you let it sit till your phone goes to sleep but other than that, I couldn't figure out how to pause the game.
Fun
"Pinball" is fun! No doubt about that, and this developers take on pinball works well. For one simple table I found myself going back for more and more trying to get a higher score. The best feature in this game is once you roll your ball up one of the rails, the game will display an arrow pointing at your next target, the more you hit the targets, your score multiplies, if you complete the circuit, you get 2 balls at a time. I'm sure if you're really good you can get more balls than 2 but we'll see. I had a blast playing this one and I'm going to keep going till I hit 1 million points, maybe more, who knows.
Price
This game is priced perfectly, you get one simplified table with 4 fun zone areas and objectives to keep you wanting those multipliers and double balls. I definitely reccomend this pinball game for anyone looking for that "simplified" table in their iDevice pinball collection. Go get it!