The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
First Released June 6, 2024
Main Platform: Pinball M
Switch Platform: Pinball M
Designed by Zoltan “Hezol” Hegyi
Stand Alone Release ($5.49)
Awarded a Certificate of Excellence
As of this writing, I’m Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Arcade Mode World Champion. The game that set that record took ten hours. Did I say game? I meant one single wizard multiball. Specifically, it was my second ball of the game, and I had three extra balls banked plus ball #3. Now that time isn’t exact because I had to pause frequently to ice my wrists and cry, but I started the game after 10PM and finished it around 8AM. And in order to finish it, I tilted the game, then laid down the next four balls. My final score: 17,283,870,827,459. Yes, seventeen TRILLION points.
Did I cheat? Did I glitch the game? Nope. I simply gamed the boost system. Pinball M uses Pinball FX 3’s level-up system for arcade mode. There’s a variety of boosts that do things like increase the values of bumpers, multiball shots, etc. For this world record, I had a maxed-out Ball Save, and then I reached the table’s wizard mode. In it, the game cycles between two modes. In the first, ball save activates and you have to make one of two shots within thirty seconds, or another thirty seconds loads. Each lit shot you make charges up the jackpot for the next part. In it, you shoot the chainsaw ramp for super jackpots. When time runs out on the chainsaw part, the first cycle starts again, including the ball save. By maxing out the ball save, all I had to do was convert ONE SHOT within 90 seconds. And I did, all while building up the value of the jackpots. By the end, I was getting over two billion points for every jackpot and three-hundred billion points for hurry-ups. I would have kept going, but I’ve crashed Pinball M multiple times before. I would have been heartbroken if the game had been lost, so I laid it down.
Probably the best thing I can say about Texas Chainsaw Massacre Pinball is that I never got bored with the shots during that session, or the 1.5 trillion point game I had the night before without maxed-boosts. Chainsaw’s shot selection is well-rounded. Designer Zoltan Hegyi’s previous effort, A Samurai’s Vengeance, felt too right-side heavy. Chainsaw is only his second table, but the improvement is dramatic and awesome. The shots feel truly balanced, with no one target dominating all others. Every shot is a nice one, too. Notably, the far-left ramp spans the full width of the table, but it’s not as rejection-heavy as you would think. Lighting the table’s hurry-up is tied to repeating this shot, then hitting the severed head for the conversion. When you light the hurry-up, it makes for an awesome one-two punch. The left ramp also feeds the upper-right flipper, which itself shoots both the cellar and the table’s teardrop ramp.
The teardrop might be slightly too sharp at an angle, as it was the most rejection-heavy shot on TCM. But it’s very satisfying to complete. It also directly feeds the right flipper, which allows for a two-shot combo cycle. Since the modes are all timed and require quick shooting, and since passing feels very natural on Chainsaw, this combo allows for a nice, smooth flow. Surprisingly, the teardrop isn’t even the toughest shot on the table. It’s the skateboard ramp, which requires a full-power shot to convert. It’s tougher than it looks. There’s also a decapitated head on a meat hook that acts as a jackpot during the three-ball multiball, the target of the hurry-up, and has an entire mode built around it. During its mode, it changes its location, something I wish it did outside of its mode just for the sake of variety. On its own, it’s the second toughest shot as you have to hit it with force directly. Weirdly, while we grazed it several times and never got credit for hitting it, there were multiple instances where balls around the bumpers cleared each other out so fast that they triggered jackpots off of it from behind. All the modes are two-part, with a set-up that builds a jackpot and then a “massacre” that pays it off. This sounds great, and it can be, except the modes just aren’t worth enough.
The biggest problem with Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the primary modes are basically worthless checkmarks compared to the multiball and wizard modes. Thankfully, Texas Chainsaw Massacre has none of the grinding that’s common to Zen pins. It’s one of Zen’s most easy wizards in recent years, since you only have to complete a single “massacre” for each mode. A more minor annoyance is that modes could “block” locking balls for multiball, or even activating the lock. It’s probably never a good thing that lighting a mode is aggravating, but since the main modes earn very little points compared to multiball, yea, we wish that the locks couldn’t be blocked by an active mode. We have no objection to blocking the activation of multiball during a mode, but TCM would have a much faster pace if you could make progress towards it while a mode is going. Mode stacking in general would have put this over the top as an all-timer, as it would have added stakes to the modes and made the variety of shots that much more thrilling. But, what here is a damn good table and easily worth the $5.49 buy-in. Another winner for Pinball M, made even better because Hezol proved here he has the chops as a pinball designer here. Outstanding!
Cathy: GREAT (4/5)
Angela: GREAT (4/5)
Oscar: GOOD (3/5)
Jordi: GREAT (4/5)
Elias: MASTERPIECE (5/5) *Played on Nintendo Switch
Sasha: MASTERPIECE (5/5)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is Certified Excellent by The Pinball Chick Team
The Pinball Chick 
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