The Tables

1932 - Baffle Ball

1947 - Humpty Dumpty

1950 - Knock Out

1963 - Slick Chick

1976 - Spirit of '76

1982 - Haunted House

1993 - Cue Ball Wizard

                                          Baffle Ball (1932)

Funny, but at first glance you can't really imagine spending hours in front of this table where pulling a plunger back again and again seems to be all you do. Still I found myself playing it a bit to long (loooong). The table is as simple as it looks but with small depths that heighten it tremendously. The table itself doesn't contain more than a plunger, a ramp that lead the ball out to the top of the table after release, 4 big pockets in the middle of the table and a number of small ones at the bottom plus the so called baffle at the top of the table. The whole table also has small pins sticking up on extremely strategic places. you're constantly amazed with the perfect placements of these pins, always in the way for the ball, always placed so the ball bounces to the lowest scoring pocket!. Notice the use of pins and a ball that bounces on them descending somewhere, now, anyone wanna guess where the word PINBALL comes from?

Anyway, you are supposed to simply try to get the balls into these different pockets, the pocket score different so you try to get the ball into the most scoring one! Getting a ball into a pocket colored as the ball doubles the score for the pocket. Managing to get the ball to stay on the baffle (small metallic plate at the top of the table) doubles all scores, though the ball must still be on the baffle after the last ball has been shot. All these small simple score increasing bits adds up to a lot of challenge and you soon realise there actually is lots of skill involved in this table, no longer is it just pulling the plunger back and hope the ball lands where you want. I'm pretty confused with myself for so happily liking this simple table! :)

Humpty Dumpty (1947) One of the early pinballs featuring flippers (can be said it was the first). The flippers are placed all over the table and on top of it they are backwards, you use the flippers more like a bat or club you swing over your shoulder (these flippers were originally called flipper bumpers). People during this era actually hadn't realised that the best or at least most sensible way of placing the flippers was two at the bottom of the table with their tips against each other! Luckily that changed later on when the first pinball with the now classical pair of flippers at the bottom of the table appeared, though when they first made that appearance the flippers still worked like clubs, and when you pressed a flipper button both flippers flipped at once. Later on in the 1950's Gottlieb was first to introduce the kind of flippers used today, ones working like you imagine flippers working and not like clubs. After that most pinballs that followed also featured that kind of layout for the flippers, it became a standard in a way.

Humpty Dumpty closeup of flipper

The table itself like baffle ball features about the same setup for launching the ball, a plunger which sends the ball up a ramp that drops of the ball at the top of the table. You then have a table which in a sense is split in three parts by 6 flippers, the 6 flippers are placed in sets of two with one of the sets flipper on each side of the table in three levels down the table. As the ball descends down to the bottom of the table you try to hit it with the club like flippers and send it away against bumpers and lock holes, in short keep it alive as long as possible and thus score as much as possible. The revolution has begun, no longer do you just tilt the table to steer the ball where you want it, now you can use flippers to controll it a little!

Knock Out (1950)

This table has some more similarities than Humpty Dumpty with what you picture a pinball like today, the most eye catching thing is a arena in the middle of the table with two boxers in it. As you play you try to get this two to hit each other down again and again, quite a fun idea. :)

The table features rollovers, bumpers and some kind of strange ball saver thingie. This ball saver thing is a metal barrier which can be raised (not just whenever you want ofcourse) between the two flippers and thus make it quite impossible for the ball to drain. Nice little table though I didn't play it for much more than to see those two boxers knock each other out/down over and over again...

Slick Chick (1963)

This is definitively one of my favorite tables in this package (next baffle then ofcourse). The table is crowded with bumpers (eight in all), there is also a gobble hole and some drop targets. To earn credits in this table you can for example hit all bumpers so their lights go off, when that happens a one of five lights is turned on, lighting all five lights awards a credit. I guess I should explain how credits have been simulated, on start of each table you insert a coin (ofcourse!) in the pinball and press start. During play you ofcourse score credits, these will show in a separate counter in the corner of the screen. When the round is over you don't need to insert a coin, you just hit start! (pretty funnily stupid, but who cares, it works and it is fun to win credits). At least this is how I have understood it all.

The flippers should also be noted in this table, they are of the smaller size, I don't think the "standard" size of a flipper had yet been figured out (SC is from '63), they still look a little different in different pinballs. And in this table they are about half the size of a normal lengthen flipper today. Gottlieb did a couple of these types of pinballs I belive. It is a little different playing with those small flippers.

Spirit of '76 (1976)

A sort of fast looking table. You notice a form taking place, the flippers are now of the more common long size and not as in knock out and slick chick small and short. Gottlieb had been among the last to switch to using long flippers (think the first time they used long flippers was in NOW, released '71). The table layout is also more pinballish (if that term exists). This table is actually quite fun, more interesting rules for scoring and more going on... on the table.

Haunted House (1982)

Study the screenshot for this pinball, notice the weird little area in the middle of the table. This table is made in three levels, first the middle level is like any pinball, then there is a small area below the surface of the table. This little area is like a table played from the wrong side, you have the two flippers in front of you and when you flip you flip towards you, kind a neat. This little area thus acts like a table of it's own. The plunger on this table will release the ball so that it either drops down a hole which transfers it directly down to the little haunted room area or to the small top third area of the table (which I haven't described, but it is just a raised portion of the table with ramps going up to it and some targets and two flippers you can use to hit the targets). When in the little room below the table you can light some features on the top table and vice versa. The layout of this table is quite neat and fun if you manage to keep the ball in play long enough. There is some interesting things to do on this table and it can be fun to explore it in the beginning. Though the layout also imo makes it easy for the ball to drain...

Cue Ball Wizard (1993)

The newest table in this pinball package. The first thing you will notice is a really big... Cueball... in the middle of the table, but lets take that last. The table is quite normal with ramps and loops and targets. After launching you are told to hit the ramp, after doing that you get a new suggestion on what to shoot and advance there. I must point out that the sound samples are really really annoying, a voice tells you to shoot the ramp you try, the voice keeps telling you to shoo the ramp and that you really need that ramp shot, I mean, "I know!!!!". :) You can also collect extra balls and start a video mode! Yes, this table is the only one in this package with a real dmd (dot-matrix-display) by todays standards. The other six tables feature some kind of counters that show on the back box but none really has anything resembling a dmd, some also features displays that light up "Tilt" or similar. The video mode is quite simple, you try to catch falling cueballs.

Let's get back till my first mention, the cueball! Look at the screenshot for an idea of how the ball is placed (to hard to describe, a metallic wire thing keeps the cueball in place in the middle of the table). Anyway you try to hit the Cueball with your ball and make the Cueball hit against two drop targets that registers the "hit". Doing this enough times awards different things.

The flippers for this table look quite normal though somehow they don't feel normal to use, I don't really know what this pinball is like to play in reality so I can't comment so much on that. The flippers feel too flippery!

Sounds & Samples

Every single sound you hear in this pinball is a recording from the corresponding real table. When you for example hear a ball bounce against a pin in baffle ball that is how it sound in reality! The sounds samples are quite good though I personally wonder where one turns down the sound for the magnetic err "chargers" for the flippers in slick chick (commonly when you press a flipper button some magnet is activated and makes the flipper move), you hear a dim (loud) buzzzzzing when you press the flipper buttons in that table. SC isn't the only table where you notice this, in Spirit of 76 you can if you listen hear the buzz though not as noticeable. But it is quite atmospheric I guess and probably well motivated (maybe the real table sound like that).

The preview I played didn't feature a lot of music, I suppose that will come later when the pinball is finally released.

Graphics

Commonly the graphics are good, shiny and all, a bit to shiny sometimes imo. I wouldn't have minded if baffle ball had locked a bit more "torn" or "worn" (thoug this isn't clothes). But then for example spirit of 76 looks pretty good with the right oldish look. I also mentioned on Haunted House the weird middle area below the table surface, well I don't know if it was me but it took some getting used to it being there (felt a little Escher like first). Mostly you don't think so much of the graphics, it looks right so you take it for beeing right. Well the final version has yet to be released and it would be silly to rate anything right now.

Physics

The physics are good, yes. Would be wrong to say anything else. But how good? I don't know if it was my machine or just me, but I didn't love the way a ball can move away after a hard shot from the flipper (that is its movement reaction was quite natural but it looked to fast etc, ofcourse this was on slick chick with its cute miniflippers). You always have control over the ball if you want, well at least in the tables where that is possible, it is quite impossible to have some kind of control over the ball in for example Humpty Dumpty, you can aim a shot ofcourse if the ball comes against the flipper though you wont catch it so easily or so. Quite impressing is the way the ball moves on slick chick, lots of bumpers on that, yet you have the impression the ball bumps around naturally (well I think so! :). The balls movement on Cueball still has me a little confused, it felt somewhat hard to aim there. All these tables are so different, I'm happy with baffle ball (have I said that?), though I still without pinpointing think some more work could be done here and there on the different tables physics (which include flipper and ball movement)! To end up I would still say that commonly I'm quite happy with the physics.

A judgement

So no, if you thought so, this pinball wont challenge timeshock! in the sence of realism even though it simulates real tables but this pinball brings so many other things that timeshock! maybe miss! Funny, but when timeshock! is a great simulation (it is a simulation because of its realism level) this is a simulation in the sence of simulating something that exist, thus you who are interested in this package are probably also curious about the real tables, therefore I think anyone who owns or are a fan of the simulated tables in this package will probably just love the package and no kind of pinball fan will probably have a boring time with it. The choice of tables is actually quite good, ok so maybe you would have wanted some other companies in here but now that wasn't possible due to well various reasons, I think you will find tables you don't like and like in it.

And as I said, any fan of the real pinball will probably have some fun seeing their favorite simulated (who wouldn't). That is one reason simulations of real pinballs is always fun to see, the second is that well pinball simulations ultimate goal is well simulations of real pinballs?

You can't help notice some work has been put into the tables. I hope I'm not sounding all to positive right now since I don't want to give out false hopes, I like this pinball package and I think there is others that will (ok that is positive but I'm bad at negative stuff unless there is some major overall or lots of small thing that I have to complain on). This is a good pinball package and I'm looking forward to the final release (even though it probably wont top rank as the most realistic sim with best physics etc) and it absolutely wont be downrated by me. This package is great in the way you can see with your own eyes how 61 years change something like pinballs. This is evolution, this is pinball!

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btw. I'm really looking forward to the day when simulations of real pinballs are just like real pinballs, you have your own little pinball table at home that you put the cd-rom in and then you just play, seeing the simulated table trough the glass cabinet which acts like some kind of monitor. The future is coming or already exist, in any case, pinball will be there! :)