dogmeat
06-09-2009, 02:55 PM
Wild West Pinball - OOO Gameprom
$0.99 6.1MB
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball1.png
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball2.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball3.png
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball4.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball5.png
I picked up Wild West Pinball just a short while after I joined TouchArcade.com. I hadn't really played pinball in quite a while, but I wanted to see how it would work on the iPhone. Needless to say, after a few plays I was completely hooked! Not only had I gotten myself into the top 15 score list, I was eager to keep playing to master the way of the paddle. At any rate, my review of Wild West Pinball lies ahead.
Graphics
Wild West Pinball features 3d graphics, the table layout and the ball itself are all rendered on the screen. The game has an interesting camera style that follows the ball and zooms in/out depending on where it is on the board. I really enjoyed this from the first play, but some players think it is bothersome. I like it because it keeps your eye right on the ball and it helps teach you proper timing with your paddles and gives you a greater depth of your table since you have to memorize more aspects of it. The table design itself is well done, with well placed western decals to the 3D pins on the table that represent tee-pees, train tracks, money bags and lights. The framerate is very fast, I notice some slowdowns sometimes but it has only cost me the ball once. Regardless, the slowdowns aren't anything to worry about as they are very infrequent and last a second or less. The game has an interesting pinball-esque scoreboard ( led style ) at the top of the screen which reflects your score, lives ( represented in bullets ) and nice special effects when you score 100,000 500,000 1 MILLION and so on. All in all, the graphics of this game are very well done in a consistent manner and the presentation value is spot on.
Sound
Wild West Pinball features no soundtrack whatsoever but it does feature a pack of sounds that really fit the theme of the game. When your ball goes through the train track, you hear "choo-choo", when you shoot harry, you hear gun sounds, etc.. All in all, the sound effects in the game really satisfy the ear and keep you wanting to hit those fun spots more and more.
Handling
This game features a nice, big plunger for firing your ball onto the table and is really satisfying to pull back and watch it go. If you pull a little, the ball goes a small distance. If you pull all the way back, your ball fires like a rocket. The speed of the ball is absolutely perfect and when you hit the ball with your flippers there is a lot of force behind every paddle swipe. These mechanisms really add to the realism of the ball feeling like a huge round ball of metal instead of a programmed video game object. When the ball hits the various funspots througout the table they accurately repel the ball away or suck it in depending on what you're doing. The game also features a table shaking feature which will allow you to get your ball out of tough spots by shaking your phone at the right moment. One of the things I didn't like had to do with the gutters on each side of the table. It seems whenever your ball gets stuck in one, and fires out, if you don't intervene with a slight shake at the right moments, it gets repelled back into the gutter and you loose a ball. This happens 95% of the time and seems like a design flaw unless shaking is a requirement with this game. Which leads me to the bank, when you manage to get your ball into the bank, shaking is absolutely necessary. Try to hit each light, and when your ball falls down to the money bags, gently shake it once to have it bounce back up into the lights. You can control your score multiplier in the bank this way, and you can "shake" to hit the money bags repeatedly. Something I found you could do was to shake the ball once its about to exit the bank through the hole, if you can time it perfectly, you can get the ball to hit the money bags over and over. All in all, handling is multi-dimensional in this game, not only do you have to use the paddles, but shaking is absolutely necessary to achieve a multi-million score. You can pause the game by tapping the scoreboard at the top of the screen, this is handy when getting on or off the train!
Fun
Wild West Pinball is by far, the most fun I've had on a portable device, period. Not only have I played this game since the day it came out, I continuously play this game even while reviewing the other pinball games. This game is my inspiration for reviewing all the other pinball games as well, its a great comparison to the others and while it doesn't get all 5's it is probably the most fun pinball game I have. One of the best features of this game is the online hiscoring. I loved playing in the arcade due to getting your name up there on that scoreboard and defending that title day in and day out. With the online hiscoring, I am absolutely motivated to unlock all the secrets of the table and perfect my techniques to play since I want to always stay in a certain score range. This kind of motivation is really lacking from a lot of games these days although with the iPhone I'm starting to think the arcade is just coming to our palms now. Wild West Pinball is absolutely fun, fun to play, fun to talk about and fun to compete in!
Price
Wild West Pinball at $0.99 is an absolute steal. Being possibly the best pinball game on the app store, one could easily pay $2.99 for such a treasure. Wild West Pinball is highly accessable, you can pull it out of your pocket and get into a game in less than 30 seconds or you can sit for 6 hours straight trying to beat that online hiscore you've been after. For the price, you won't go wrong. Wild West Pinball is the model of what a pinball game should be on the iDevice, so go get it today!
$0.99 6.1MB
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball1.png
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball2.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball3.png
http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball4.png http://www.mindcrank.com/reviews/rev_wildwestpinball5.png
I picked up Wild West Pinball just a short while after I joined TouchArcade.com. I hadn't really played pinball in quite a while, but I wanted to see how it would work on the iPhone. Needless to say, after a few plays I was completely hooked! Not only had I gotten myself into the top 15 score list, I was eager to keep playing to master the way of the paddle. At any rate, my review of Wild West Pinball lies ahead.
Graphics
Wild West Pinball features 3d graphics, the table layout and the ball itself are all rendered on the screen. The game has an interesting camera style that follows the ball and zooms in/out depending on where it is on the board. I really enjoyed this from the first play, but some players think it is bothersome. I like it because it keeps your eye right on the ball and it helps teach you proper timing with your paddles and gives you a greater depth of your table since you have to memorize more aspects of it. The table design itself is well done, with well placed western decals to the 3D pins on the table that represent tee-pees, train tracks, money bags and lights. The framerate is very fast, I notice some slowdowns sometimes but it has only cost me the ball once. Regardless, the slowdowns aren't anything to worry about as they are very infrequent and last a second or less. The game has an interesting pinball-esque scoreboard ( led style ) at the top of the screen which reflects your score, lives ( represented in bullets ) and nice special effects when you score 100,000 500,000 1 MILLION and so on. All in all, the graphics of this game are very well done in a consistent manner and the presentation value is spot on.
Sound
Wild West Pinball features no soundtrack whatsoever but it does feature a pack of sounds that really fit the theme of the game. When your ball goes through the train track, you hear "choo-choo", when you shoot harry, you hear gun sounds, etc.. All in all, the sound effects in the game really satisfy the ear and keep you wanting to hit those fun spots more and more.
Handling
This game features a nice, big plunger for firing your ball onto the table and is really satisfying to pull back and watch it go. If you pull a little, the ball goes a small distance. If you pull all the way back, your ball fires like a rocket. The speed of the ball is absolutely perfect and when you hit the ball with your flippers there is a lot of force behind every paddle swipe. These mechanisms really add to the realism of the ball feeling like a huge round ball of metal instead of a programmed video game object. When the ball hits the various funspots througout the table they accurately repel the ball away or suck it in depending on what you're doing. The game also features a table shaking feature which will allow you to get your ball out of tough spots by shaking your phone at the right moment. One of the things I didn't like had to do with the gutters on each side of the table. It seems whenever your ball gets stuck in one, and fires out, if you don't intervene with a slight shake at the right moments, it gets repelled back into the gutter and you loose a ball. This happens 95% of the time and seems like a design flaw unless shaking is a requirement with this game. Which leads me to the bank, when you manage to get your ball into the bank, shaking is absolutely necessary. Try to hit each light, and when your ball falls down to the money bags, gently shake it once to have it bounce back up into the lights. You can control your score multiplier in the bank this way, and you can "shake" to hit the money bags repeatedly. Something I found you could do was to shake the ball once its about to exit the bank through the hole, if you can time it perfectly, you can get the ball to hit the money bags over and over. All in all, handling is multi-dimensional in this game, not only do you have to use the paddles, but shaking is absolutely necessary to achieve a multi-million score. You can pause the game by tapping the scoreboard at the top of the screen, this is handy when getting on or off the train!
Fun
Wild West Pinball is by far, the most fun I've had on a portable device, period. Not only have I played this game since the day it came out, I continuously play this game even while reviewing the other pinball games. This game is my inspiration for reviewing all the other pinball games as well, its a great comparison to the others and while it doesn't get all 5's it is probably the most fun pinball game I have. One of the best features of this game is the online hiscoring. I loved playing in the arcade due to getting your name up there on that scoreboard and defending that title day in and day out. With the online hiscoring, I am absolutely motivated to unlock all the secrets of the table and perfect my techniques to play since I want to always stay in a certain score range. This kind of motivation is really lacking from a lot of games these days although with the iPhone I'm starting to think the arcade is just coming to our palms now. Wild West Pinball is absolutely fun, fun to play, fun to talk about and fun to compete in!
Price
Wild West Pinball at $0.99 is an absolute steal. Being possibly the best pinball game on the app store, one could easily pay $2.99 for such a treasure. Wild West Pinball is highly accessable, you can pull it out of your pocket and get into a game in less than 30 seconds or you can sit for 6 hours straight trying to beat that online hiscore you've been after. For the price, you won't go wrong. Wild West Pinball is the model of what a pinball game should be on the iDevice, so go get it today!