MICRO REVIEW: "Pinball Arcade (Xbox 360)"

I have decided to make a review sub-category called "MICRO REVIEW" in which I'll give straight to the point reviews about games, and DLC that I have purchased with my own money/msp. I will show no mercy to the titles that truly suck, but will still give praise to games that truly deserve it. To start off this new category of reviews I will be giving you the inside scoop on an XBLA I purchased this morning titled "Pinball Arcade" ...

Farsight Studios feebly attempts to bring to us some pinball gaming nostalgia from four very well known pinball table designers. These four table designers include Gotlieb, Stern, Bally, and of course Williams. The tables within this compilation includes 'Arabian Nights', 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not!', 'Black Hole', and 'Theater of Magic' ... You will need to prepare yourselves for what I'm about to say about this game, because I'm going to tear it a new one ...

Immediately when I began playing the 'Arabian Nights' table my mind was flooded with deja vu. I knew for certain I had seen this collection somewhere else, and was almost positive it was one of the cheap PC collections from back in the day. After doing a little research I confirmed what I had thought to be true. The 'Arabian Nights' pinball table was previously released as a freeware video game suite (Visual Pinball) for the PC (I will provide you with a video in this review). The sad thing about this is that the 'Visual Pinball' version of 'Tales of the Arabian Nights' looked leagues better than this Xbox 360 port. This major "detail" is not the only disappointment I have with 'Pinball Arcade' though ...

Pinball Arcade is a poor translation of the original PC versions. The tables look as if they were just copied, and pasted in an Xbox 360 format. The graphics are of the worst kind, and do not look worthy of an XBLA title. The game's pinball physics are also poorly executed. You'll find as you play that the pinball bounces loosely around the table, and will often times shoot past the flippers causing you to lose a ball. It is extremely hard to get any respectable scores at all on any of the four available tables. If there is anything at all good about 'Pinball Arcade' it is the sound quality. Unfortunately in the world of gaming sound quality doesn't make a game great.

The bottom line is that this game absolutely does not feel like it was intended for the Xbox 360. The only thing related to the Xbox 360 at all are the achievements, and controller displays/functions. The fact that the leaderboard scores do not relate in any way to your gamertag only adds insult to injury. In closing I would strongly suggest that you do not waste your money/msp on this game! If you are looking for a good pinball game on the Xbox 360 save your money for 'Pinball FX2', and the tables that go along with it. 'Pinball Arcade' sucks nuggets!!!

- Brad (OtakuDante) -