Reviewed: June 12, 2009
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Sony Computer Entertainment

Developer
ZEN Studios

Released: May 14, 2009
Genre: Pinball
Players: 1-4
Online: 2-4

9
9
8
6
8.8

Supported Features:

But the 80’s gave birth to the video game era and arcades were born. Pinball machines were shuffled to the back wall or stuck in bars, bowling alleys, and airports. They were all but forgotten. But the boys over at ZEN Studios in Budapest, Hungary haven’t forgot about this historic pastime. They’ve been making pinball video games for years for consoles, handhelds, and even your iPhone. Their latest effort, simply titled ZEN Pinball arrives on the next-gen PS3 delivering a realistic pinball experience unrivaled by anything else on the market today.

When I heard ZEN Studios was releasing this game to the PS Store I naturally assumed they had just remastered, or even simply ported over the tables from the Xbox 360 version of Pinball FX released in 2007. Much to my surprise I was treated to four totally new and original tables, full of vibrant colors, crazy ramps, chutes, tubes, and rails, and countless hours of classic challenging pinball fun.

The tables include Shaman, a tribal style table with jungle and voodoo themes, swirling pads, elemental targets, and a volcano playfield. Tesla is one of my favorites with all sorts of crazy electrical gizmos and experiments plus a wild network of ramps and wire chutes, magna save, a secret lab, and even a steam cannon. At first look El Dorado would appear to capitalize on the look and fame of Sony’s Uncharted franchise with rich jungle themes, treasure hunts, artifacts, a Mayan challenge, and a two-ball teamwork mode. V12 is another one of my favorites with a heavy theme on racing and muscle cars. Shoot the ball through all sorts of interactive engine parts and even navigate the 12-cylinder manifold or go for nitro multiball.

If these themes sound exciting just wait until you see and hear the stunning presentation value that brings these tables to life. The graphics are off the hook with multiple camera views including a static non-moving table for those prone to motion sickness. You’ll need to stick to the default settings to earn any of the challenging Trophies available for ZEN Pinball, but you do have the freedom to go into operator mode and start tweaking the settings for the tables and even changing the rules like number of balls and score requirements. You can even invoke a slow motion feature.

The controls are pretty simple and equally as flawless. You press the X button to launch the ball and the R1 and L1 buttons work the flippers. Flippers are analog so light pressure works the bottom flippers and heavy pressure will trigger any additional flippers on the table. You are free to reassign the button inputs however you want. I was hoping to reassign the launch plunger to the right stick in order to master some skill shots, but that wasn’t available. The table nudge is assigned to L2 and R2, which works well enough but I though SIXAXIS motion nudge would be even better – perhaps in an update. For now, the only thing you can do with the SIXAXIS is fly around the table in a unique manual camera mode to learn the lay of the land.

Competitive pinball gamers will certainly want to check out the online offerings that include real-time scroll tickers announcing leaderboard champs for all sorts of criteria like high scores, high scoring single ball, high scoring first minute of play, and more. There are also All-Time and Weekly leaderboards as well as online tournaments. Multiplayer modes range from the traditional turn-based high score mode for local hot seat play to the more inventive online mode where up to four players all play simultaneously, racing toward a preset score goal. Each drained ball can optionally deduct a percentage of your points based on the rules set by the host.

Jumping into a game or hosting your own is relatively simple with one single caveat – playing with friends. Setting up a game for you and one or more friends is a major pain and the main reason this game didn’t score in the 9’s. The first thing you have to do is setup private slots so no strangers can jump into your game once it’s launched. Then you have to go to each empty slot and invite the person from your friends list using the external XMB messaging/invite system. Now here comes the big problem. The game only lets you setup one table at a time so when your game is over, if you want to switch tables you have to exit and abandon your friends and setup a new game and resend all those invites. I spend a good 10-20 minutes after each night of pinball cleaning up old messages and invites.

ZEN Pinball, much like real pinball, is a communal experience, and the PlayStation Eye and your headset will allow you to share audio chat and even get visual feedback on the other players with PiP inserts for anyone you might be playing with or against who have those devices. I’m not big into the whole PS3 video chat scene, but if I can be playing pinball while video chatting then I’m all for it.

I have to admit that $10 is a bit steep for only four tables. More tables are coming soon but I doubt they will be free, so this game could get expensive fast. Still, there is no better substitute for playing pinball short of going into the dark recesses of a smoky biker bar.

The menus are slick, the tables are colorful and cool, and the presentation is fun and flashy. ZEN Pinball is fun to play alone as practice, or even if you are just trying to beat your personal best score, but the true fun lies in the great social aspect of heading online to plays with friends and strangers. Alone or with friends, ZEN Pinball is a great game and with a few minor patches, it will be unrivaled on the PS3 or any other system.