Game Review: Pinball Hall of Fame

Valerie Gorchinski - Military.com

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection
Wii – $29.99 

Rank: ***

I love pinball. The old-school, drop a quarter in, pull the plunger and hit the flippers, have your friends help you tilt the box to beat the high score, pinball. The precision timing needed to hit the flipper buttons for optimum effect and the focus required to follow the ball without being distracted by the flashing lights or shrill sounds. It’s a skill game and I love it.

When Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection from Crave Entertainment showed up for my reviewing consideration I scoffed. Although the box claimed to feature actual pinball machines from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, I couldn’t even imagine how this piece of software could come close to the actual experience.

I was wrong. I put the disc in and picked a game at random. Two and a half hours later I was still having fun.

The controls are simple; hold the Wii remote in one hand and the nunchuck in the other. The left and right trigger buttons activate the left and right flippers. Pull back on the joystick to pull back the plunger. That’s it, and that’s all it takes.

While I enjoy the whole of the virtual arcade, a few of the games really shine:

Taxi
From 1988, taxi is a wild maze of loops in which you “pick up” passengers scattered around the table surface. The game is hectic, but highly addictive.

Pinbot
A delicious 80’s relic, Pinbot features a robot head at the top center of the board that opens to reveal to empty, circuit filled eye sockets for you to aim your balls in. Sink both of them and get ready for multi ball play.

Funhouse
This is easily the most enjoyable of the collection. Navigate a maze of ramps, trap doors and mirrors to close the funhouse and put the fantastically annoying talking doll head to sleep.

All nine of the available machines are a treat to play with different charms, quirks, and challenges. Both the look and physics of a real pinball table have been successfully recreated which easily makes Pinball Hall of Fame worth its bargain price.

Pinball Hall of Fame is also available on the Playstation 2 and PSP.

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