Pro Pinball

• Release Date: 1996
• Genre: Traditional
• Style: 3D Pinball
• Similar Games: Sonic Spinball (Sega Genesis), Balls of Steel (IBM PC Compatible), Extreme Pinball (IBM PC Compatible), Pinball (Intellivision), Pinball (Nintendo Entertainment System), Extreme Pinball (PlayStation), Pinball (Philips CD-i), Pinball (Milton Bradley Microvision), Pinball Madness (IBM PC Compatible)

Game Description

Empire Entertainment's Pro-Pinball simulates a fictional, futuristic pinball table known as The Web. Taking advantage of the PlayStation's 3D capabilities, the table is decorated with blue webbing and features multicolored lights, a guitar, three bumpers, an assortment of targets and ramps and a video screen that allows you to play a brief video game.

There are several missions located throughout The Web, all of which having a different purpose; obtainable after completing every mission objective, the Ultimate Showdown has you controlling six balls while trying to kill a beastly opponent and the Fast Frenzy has you hitting certain ramps for extra balls. Likewise, the Space Station Frenzy will have you destroying all targets aboard the light dock and the Skill Shot requires you to aim for a spider -- hit it and you'll rack up a large point bonus! There's also an arena with power levels and various racing challenges.

If you're planning on making it to the Ultimate Showdown, you'll want to master combinations and do anything it takes to increase your point total. A combination shot involves a single ball orbiting a ramp or loop; if the ball circles a loop three times, you're awarded with a Triple Combo and more points. Additionally, the manual outlines each mission objective and what you can do to complete it.

Pro-Pinball also has two graphics options including sharp or soft focus, a transparent and solid dot-matrix view, a slideshow that displays various angles of The Web and an alternating four-player capability. You can also view the action from six distinctive camera angles and nudge and shake the table.

Roots & Influences

Pro-Pinball is attempts to bring the traditional pastime of pinball to the PlayStation with 3D graphics. Much like Extreme Pinball and the PC's Balls of Steel, there are many different objectives in which to complete.

Review: Overall

In terms of realistic pinball simulations for the PlayStation as of 1996, it doesn't get much better than Pro-Pinball. Featuring a table known as The Web, the playing field is represented with a perfect angle; the ball movement is so smooth, it's almost ghostly. Additionally, the flippers move, feel and sound like the real thing while the various targets, bumpers and spinners are true to life.

You can also pop a free game, match for an extra ball, control extra balls, nudge and tilt the machine. There's even a video screen above the playing field that complements the action -- sometimes you can even play a little videogame on the screen! The video "mini-game" is nothing to get excited about, but it has a novelty flavor to it.

While Pro-Pinball is indeed a very realistic pinball simulation, if it were a real pinball machine, it would be considered pretty average. Although the video screen is a welcome addition, there's nothing particularly special or unique about what the playing field contains. Additionally, the table designs and overall graphical quality is a bit dull.

The real kicker is there's only one pinball table to speak of -- The Web. This is almost unforgivable on a system such as the PlayStation. Not only is the system capable of so much more, it's CDs can hold a lot of data; the developers seem to have wasted the extra space. Even Super Pinball: Behind the Mask for the Super Nintendo, a pretty realistic game in its own right, had three different pinball machines.

One of the more distinguishing aspects of Pro-Pinball is the music and use of guitars. Although Eddie Van Halen has nothing to worry about, the mostly generic rock music score features some pretty nice guitar work.

Bottom line is that if you're looking to shell out hard-earned cash for a near-perfect translation of an average pinball machine, Pro-Pinball is the game for. However, if you require multiple pinball tables, scrolling play fields and multi-layered levels, you'd better look elsewhere.

Review: Enjoyment

Although a fun game for the pinball purist, others may wish for more.

Review: Graphics

The graphics are realistic but a little dull.

Review: Sound

The music rocks and the sound effects are arcade perfect.

Review: Replay Value

The inclusion of only one pinball machine limits replay value quite a bit.

Review: Documentation

The instruction manual has no pictures but it effectively tells you how to play the game.

Production Credits