Tag: Pinball FX

Monster Bash (Pinball FX Table Review)

Monster Bash
First Released July, 1998
Zen Build Released October 29, 2019
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX 3
Designed by George Gomez
Conversion by Peter “Deep” Grafl
Set: Universal Monsters Pack  ($6.99)
Like so many Pinball FX builds, what’s here is fine, but there’s always room for improvement.

Monster Bash was created to be a table simple enough anyone could get into it but deep enough that anyone could get REALLY into it. So, it’s arguable that this table’s journey from conception to reality is one of the most successful the medium has ever seen, because it accomplished every goal George Gomez set out to complete. If you want to learn more, I interviewed George here. Monster Bash is so instantly charming that you forget that it’s actually one of the tougher shooters Williams had in the DMD era. I imagine this must have been popular with what few operators were still installing pins in their arcades in 1998. We’ve had games that ended shockingly quickly, given our skill levels.

Normally we dislike the “enhanced graphics” of Pinball FX’s Williams/Bally pins. In the case of Monster Bash, whoever came up with the concept nailed it. They kept the plastic toy look of the elements and just, you know, animated them. I like that.

Most problematic is right orbit, where a rolling ball sometimes lightly grazes the inactive Dracula toy, giving it enough bounce to give you a house ball right down the middle of the drain. This happened so much that a house ball is all but guaranteed over the course of a normal three ball game, which is why Dad and Angela dropped their scores to GREAT and refused to budge until Zen fixes this. It became quite the argument, especially since this can happen in real Monster Bash tables. In fact, people have been known to cut the toes off the Dracula toy to prevent it. Angela took the “Spirit of the Table” argument: this should not happen in any video version, because this phenomena was never George Gomez’s intention, and that the infamous “toe clip” is a byproduct of the mechanism not working as intended, so Zen’s conversion should have no collision with the toes. My argument is the “reality of a real table” argument: whether intended or not, it happens in real life and game designers don’t intend all kinds of things that ultimately factor into gameplay. While I’m all for fixing old games, in the case of Monster Bash, Dracula’s toes are one of those bugs that have risen to the level of becoming legitimately part of the table’s lore.

We did our best to try to find a correlation with how much bumper activity there was versus house balls off the Drac toes. The result was the opposite of what we expected. In fact, the more lively the bumpers were on the ball, the less likely it was that a house ball would result. Instead, the more slowly and smoothly a ball rolled in the orbit, regardless of what the ball had been doing before that (IE bumpers or a rejection), the more likely it is to clip the Drac toy and dive down the center of the table. For example, a full Wolfman orbit, left to right “around the world” circuit NEVER ONCE was aimed at the drain, but a slow moving drop off the lanes above the bumpers became very high risk.

Since I guess I’m starting with the negatives, what is up with those ramps? My father compared that left ramp to Wile E. Coyote’s giant slingshot contraption, where the coyote catches himself in the sling and he always has enough time to look into the camera with that wide-eyed “uh-oh” look before being launched backwards to his doom. Again, it’s hard to complain because this happens on real Monster Bash tables, but in the wacky world of video game adaptations of real tables, sometimes those rejections sure feel like they were hit cleanly enough and with enough force to clear the ramp and it still rejects. Since Zen’s physics have so much side-spin (I lost count of how many times we’ve said “didn’t you think video pinball physics would be better by 2024?” playing this table), sometimes it feels like a made-shot gets cancelled by physics engine quirks. The right ramp, on the other hand, is much easier to clear even when you shank a shot and it seems like it should be a rejection. You’d swear the two ramps each had their own unique physics engine.

Dracula shoots great. One thing about Pinball FX over Pinball FX 3 is we all think toy targets shoot better.

And, that’s pretty much everything we can complain about, except we all note that this table is bad for blood pressure because there’s just so many house balls, rejections, or bad breaks that scores feel capped by the ball doing something weird. Oh, and timing never feels consistent. When we were dueling for high scores, sometimes it feels like the “overtime” for a mode ends instantly, and other times we’d scream bloody murder when someone scored a final hit well after time felt like time should have expired. So, why the hell do the rest of us have this as a MASTERPIECE? It sure seems like we have a lot to complain about, right? Well, I think Monster Bash is a MASTERPIECE because how many tables can say that nearly every single shot, and every single angle, is a joy to shoot?

Do you know what’s weird about the giant CD called “Monsters of Rock” in the center of the playfield? There really was a famous CD called Monsters of Rock, that was released in June of 1998. Anyone who watched TV in the United States around this time, no matter WHAT you watched, surely remembers the onslaught of ads for it. They were EVERYWHERE, but I mostly remember the CD because my mother listened to it while dancing and singing around the house all day long with the biggest, most joyous smile on her face while holding the TV remote like it was a microphone. Over twenty-five years later and she can still recite the tracks in order. The pinball machine called Monster Bash came out in July of 1998, one month AFTER the CD. This seems to be a monster-sized coincidence, and it took my mother a single glance at the CD on the playfield to confirm that wasn’t the font on her CD. This is a cosmic fluke right up there with Dennis Menace being created by two people at roughly the same time on separate continents. The famous barrage of TV ads for the CD wouldn’t have been airing by time the “Monsters of Rock” CD design on the pinball table was finalized and being manufactured. Did this cause any problems? I dunno, but I wish I had thought to ask George Gomez about it. And yes, Mom had ALL the CDs, including Monster Ballads and Monster Mayhem.

Since the modes stack and any active mode stays active during multiball, Monster Bash is relatively grind-free. Best of all is the scoring is so finely-tuned that it feels scientific, at least before you factor in how overvalued just activating Monsters of Rock is. The truly great and deeply missed Lyman Sheats Jr. did the scoresheet, and along with the rules for Attack From Mars and Medieval Madness, Monster Bash’s scoresheet is Sheats’ masterwork. The two tiers of Wizard Modes and how those modes work is particularly genius. Fully completing any one mode lights that monster’s instrument. Light EVERY instrument and you get “Monsters of Rock” with massive payouts. So massive that I question the wisdom of having such a large point bonus just for starting the mode. On the plus side, the journey to getting to Monsters of Rock is so open to variation that it lends itself PERFECTLY towards creating your own strategy. I’m a fan of just trying to get as many normal Monster Bash wizards and extra balls as possible. Angela preferred to get as many monsters as possible to the VERGE of their mode starting, then lightning either Frankenstein OR Monster Bash itself and using the multiball to light instruments. She was the only one of us who could consistently get Monsters of Rock, so hey, maybe she’s onto something.

The only shot in Monster Bash that we didn’t universally agree was “satisfying” was the Creech locker. Angela and Elias are not fans of it. And since I couldn’t find another space for it, I’d like to say that the Monster Bombs are a clever idea. Each creature has its own unique “bomb” that can be activated to score a jackpot during its mode and tick off one of the required hits. Again, it lends itself to risk/reward gameplay and multiple possible strategies.

The other big reason to put Monster Bash in the elite category is because it’s a table that builds your confidence like no other pinball machine does. It mostly does this via being surprisingly generous with its extra balls. One is gotten just by lightning half the modes, which takes maybe a minute. This even works on your second cycle of modes, after you’ve already done a Monster Bash. Wha? Really? That’s awesome! Also, the replay extra ball is set to a fairly low 60,000,000 points, cherry bombing twelve shots up the middle channel lights an extra ball (thirty will too, but I’ve never done THAT good) and lighting four out of six instruments lights the special. Hell, if your first ball dies quickly, or especially your first two, it’s likely the mystery hole will award an extra ball. Sometimes the mystery hole just gives you an extra ball even if you’re putting up a massive score. Angela was given so many bullsh*t extra balls that there was nearly a riot in my home. There’s no point in doing a Vice Versus section for Monster Bash. We dueled 31 games. She won 29 of them. The best thing I can say about Monster Bash is, even getting dominated during the dueling, I don’t remember my family having as much fun as we’ve had playing Monster Bash the last couple weeks. If the ramps were just a teeny tiny bit less rejection heavy, or if the right orbit didn’t just randomly feed the drain, or especially if Monsters of Rock didn’t have such an absurdly high auto-payout before you even start shooting for scores, I’d call Monster Bash the best pin ever. Few tables personify “fun for all ages” quite like it.
Cathy: MASTERPIECE (5/5)
Angela: GREAT (4/5)
Oscar: GREAT
Jordi: MASTERPIECE
Dash: MASTERPIECE
Dave: MASTERPIECE (Pinball FX 3)
Elias: MASTERPIECE (Pinball FX3)
Sasha: MASTERPIECE
Scoring Average: 4.75 – MASTERPIECE
🏛️THE PINBALL CHICK PANTHEON OF DIGITAL PINBALL INDUCTEE🏛️
N00b Factor: The frequent houseballs might frustrate newcomers, but Monster Bash was also created specifically to appeal to players of all skill sets with simple angles and rules. It largely succeeds in this and is one of THE great casual tables that can also remain fun as players gain skill.
Verdict: At only $6.99, the Universal Monster Pack is a must-buy Pinball FX pack for newcomers interested in learning pinball. Creature of the Black Lagoon makes for a decent if unspectacular throw-in bonus with it.

Creature From the Black Lagoon (Pinball FX Table Review)

Creature From the Black Lagoon
aka Creech
First Released December, 1992
Zen Build Released October 29, 2019
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX 3
Designed by a different sort of creature.
Conversion by Zoltan Vari
Set: Universal Monster Pack ($6.99)
Link to Strategy Guide
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Angela on Color: While I don’t like Creech’s layout or scoring, I think it’s one of the prettiest tables out there. Lagoon stands out among its 80s and 90s brethren thanks to its use of pastels. You might see the odd teal or light pink here and there, but Creech is fully committed to the faded look. There’s a thematic reason for it: I’m guessing it’s trying to replicate the look of Technicolor film posters that one would expect to see if going to the movies in 1959. Ironically, Creature from the Black Lagoon is a black-and-white film, albeit one shot in 3D. The hologram is a tribute to that aspect of the film.

When I think of Creature From the Black Lagoon, I think of two things. I think of the 50s drive-in theme, one of THE great themes of the DMD era. I also think “the table where the ball flies around like a hockey puck.” It’s one of the era’s most popular tables, though our ratings don’t reflect that at all. With the exception of my father, who really likes Creech, we all agree that it’s a middle-of-the-pack table. So why is this such a famous pin? It can’t just be a cheap hologram sticker, can it? Nah. I think the theme plays the largest role in the table’s legacy. It’s so unexpected, too. You hear the name “Creature from The Black Lagoon” and you perhaps imagine a macabre Addams-like “chaotic wickedness” affair. Instead, the theme is date night in 1959, watching the Universal classic Creature from the Black Lagoon at a drive-in. Presumably this table would have happened even if they hadn’t gotten the license from Universal under a generic name like “Drive-In” or “Silver Screen” or something along those lines. The movie is completely arbitrary. It could have been any film, because the film isn’t the point. It’s everything around the viewing of that film, and it’s a wonderful premise. I just wish the gameplay was better.

Creech’s bumpers are the stuff of nightmares. Some of the most violent and time-consuming bumpers in all of Pinball FX. When we competed in the distance challenge, Sasha got what would, in normal circumstances, be a lucky break: the ball got stuck in the bumpers for nearly a full minute. The problem is this ate-up a whopping 60 of her 200 distance points. It was surreal to watch, and the look on her face was pure agony, because she had just relit the multiball, but the bumpers ate up the distance points she would have needed to score one final, game-winning jackpot. Not even a super jackpot. A normal jackpot would have been enough. Alas.

Creature’s shot selection, at least individually, is well done. There’s really only five main shots, but each is satisfying enough. The most notable, and perhaps the most famous cherry bomb shot of the era, is the straight-up-the-middle lane known as the MOVE YOUR CAR shot. Cleanly accessible with either flipper and essential to both the 80M-max MOVE YOUR CAR hurry-up and for charging-up the high-paying super jackpot, it’s one of the better switch-hitters in pinball. It even has the table’s extra ball light mapped to it. Both ramps are well-placed, but it’s the left ramp especially that’s deceptively challenging. It was the perfect shot to attach the oh so tempting  multiball scoring multiplier to. Trust me, it needed it, because the good stuff is already over.

The most difficult and highest-risk shot in the game is one you don’t have to worry about until after your first jackpot. The snackbar lights are off-angle and hard to access directly via the flippers. All four also hang precariously over the drain. BUT, these must be lit in order to gain the “I” light in F-I-L-M in order to start multiball. Before your first multiball jackpot, shooting the unlit Snack Bar cellar will give you a light every time. Unlike the targets that light the shot, the Snack Bar is low-risk and hangs over the left flipper. It’s also a shot that lights AND collects the jackpot, and later collects the lit super jackpot. We all have a shooting average of around 90% to 95% for the snack bar, so it’s a cinchy shot. After the jackpot? None of us have found a comfortable angle for the upper Snack Bar lights. Oh, and in Pro-mode, the Snack Bar trick doesn’t work. Have fun!

Creech’s most important shot, the aforementioned MOVE YOUR CAR shot, will reliably feed the right flipper every single time. When the ball finally clears the bumpers, it has plenty of run-off to lose whatever momentum it has before falling gently to the right flipper. That flipper just so happens to have clean access to both the Snack Bar and to MOVE YOUR CAR. The second is the most important, because it creates the safest, lowest-risk complete circuit in DMD pinball. If one were to play at VERY conservative pace and had the luck of the Creature hiding in the Snack Bar shot during the two-ball multiball, you can grind-out a respectable score without ever slapping a single high risk shot. I put a 5.7 billion point game in the One Ball challenge. 5.6 billion of that was shooting just those two shots, all while trapping the second ball with the left flipper.

The hologram uses up real estate that could have been used for lights for additional modes. It’s a neat gimmick in real life and I’m sure it was an attraction in 1993 (even though it’s essentially just one of those hologram stickers grocery store vending machines sell for $0.50 – $1.00 in quarters), but the charm is lost in translation. So, we weren’t sure if this is supposed to represent the drive-in screen or not. If that’s not the case, how the hell did they do a drive-in theater theme without a screen as a target? It’s not shaped like a movie screen! No projector either except as the REPLAY animation in the DMD. They didn’t take the concept as far as they could have.

That two-shot circuit is sort of indicative of a much broader problem: all the shots are good by themselves, but they just never flow harmoniously together. There’s absolutely no rhythm to Creech, and if you feel that’s important to pinball, chances are you’ll quickly lose interest in it. That happened with Sasha. My niece thought the table was okay at first, but the more she played it, the more she grew bored with its repetitive modes and a pace that can be described as leisurely. Our resident expert, professional designer Dave Sanders​, calls Creature from the Black Lagoon “boring.” Even though I’m voting GOOD, I can also see how someone might not like it. Creech is a table that’s less than the sum of its parts, even if a couple of those shots are very well done. I normally don’t like toe shots, and Creech has two of them. I should hate that, but the attached stakes and relatively sparse required usage make them worth shooting. And yet, all shots exist as an island unto themselves, with little to no flow to any other shot. That’s probably why the ramp modes are based on repeating one shot, not consecutive shots. The table was built to accommodate a set-shot style, and not quick combo shooting.

Sasha on the Creech Cup: My least favorite element of Creature from the Black Lagoon, besides the bumpers, is the cup that hangs over the right flipper lanes. I don’t understand why this is even here. Why would a designer trade so much visibility for such a little-used element that isn’t all that satisfying to begin with? I could understand if the Cup tied to other modes and got more usage. But that’s not the case. The Creech Cup is a fully optional shot tied to a high-risk ramp. Shooting the ramp adds too much chaos to the area over the drain during multiball. I’d rather have had a standard spinner charge the multiplier. Actually, I’d rather had no scoring multiplier at all, as it wrecks the already messy scoring balance.

And yet, it’s popular. Really popular. I think it’s the simplicity of the game design combined with an all-time great theme. People LIKE Creech. People you wouldn’t expect. It’s especially weird that Oscar gave Black Lagoon the highest score of all of us. He claims to cherish scoring balance and famously hates Theatre of Magic on the grounds of its scoresheet. Oh, delicious irony, because Theatre’s scoresheet was drafted by none other than Jeff Johnson, whose first table was.. Creature from the Black Lagoon. ♫ IT’S THE CIRCLE OF LIFE!! ♫ Dad justifies his rating of GREAT for Creech because of the shot selection. “How are we rating a table we all agree is made mostly of enjoyable shots so low?” Well, because we actually don’t agree on it. Jordi and I are sort of on the same page as Dad in terms of enjoying the shots themselves, and I personally like the strange glide the ball has.

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Meanwhile, Angela is in total disagreement on the shots being good at all, even on their own. Dave agrees with her, and neither are entirely sure what we, or anyone, sees in Black Lagoon. Both think it’s a fundamentally unexciting pin. And you know what? They’re not wrong even if I still find it to be okay. What EVERYONE agreed on is that the wide flipper gap is cruelty for cruelty’s sake and that the scoring balance is just awful. The jackpots and super jackpots are so overvalued that they almost negate everything else, including a fully-charged MOVE YOUR CAR. Since the sequence that gets you the jackpots has a random one in three chance of being made entirely out of low-risk shots, that’s not cool. And, we all agree that Creech has no cadence to it. We’ve forgotten who coined the phrase “Anti-Flow” to describe Creature, but it still fits. The highlight of this review was the debate we had amongst ourselves over its value and quality. Say what you will about Creature from the Black Lagoon, but few tables invoke a more lively discussion among pinball fans quite like it does. Perhaps that’s why it’s become the legend that it is!
Cathy: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Angela: BAD (2 out of 5)
Oscar: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Jordi: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Dash: BAD (2 out of 5)
Elias: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Dave: BAD (2 out of 5)
SASHA: BAD (2 out of 5)
Scoring Average: 2.65 – OKAY AT BEST
❄️POLARIZING TABLE❄️
N00b Factor: Creech has easy to learn shots with modes that typically require only one shot be repeated until time runs out. The most difficult aspect comes from its wide flipper gap, but because the shots are simple and easy to master, this might be more ideal for learning how to work with a bigger flipper gap than, say, Fish Tales. Creech’s multiball requires a relatively complex sequence of shots to build towards the super jackpot.
Verdict: A solid next-step-up for n00bs ready to learn set-shooting and working with a larger drain.

VICE VERSUS

The added VFX to this build are some of Zen’s best. Subtle. Non-evasive.

Like our main review, Creech’s dueling status is polarizing. One aspect we disagreed on was how fun it is to watch others when it’s not your turn, which might be the most important element of a good competitive table. Angela and Sasha both agreed the low-risk shots make this a snooze to watch. Well,  unless their sister/aunt can’t hit a single shot to save her life, since they were cackling their malicious little heads off while I missed every toe shot for an extended run of three long balls. On the other hand, I enjoy watching Creech because this is a table that really puts modern pinball fundamentals to the test, and the rejection-heavy left ramp generates plenty of OOOHs and AHHHs from on-lookers. It’s certainly not the best game for exciting close matches. Creech is a streaky table where you tend to be either on or off, and so most games end in blowouts. We had plenty of those during this duel, including two world records that my father wasn’t here to see.

GAME ONE – CLASSIC
Cathy: 547,147,700
Angela: 1,681,814,880
Sasha: 395,425,380
WINNER: Angela (1)

GAME TWO – PRO
Angela: 134,290,960
Sasha: 87,350,780
Cathy: 78,466,790
WINNER: Angela (2)

GAME THREE – ARCADE
Sasha: 442,814,210
Cathy: 3,926,036,350 (#7 All-Time)
Angela: 702,142,860
WINNER: Cathy (1)

GAME FOUR – 200 FLIPS CHALLENGE
Cathy: 328,707,690
Angela: 455,397,650
Sasha: 1,882,396,590 (New Xbox World Record)
WINNER – NEW XBOX WORLD CHAMPION: Sasha (1)

GAME FIVE – ONE BALL – BEST OF THREE BALLS
Angela: 137,592,770, 108,977,340, 173,283,090
Sasha: 276,353,560, 27,465,320, 150,357,610
Cathy: 166,985,020, 150,850,460, 5,758,931,220 (New Xbox World Record)
WINNER – NEW XBOX WORLD CHAMPION: Cathy (2)

GAME SIX – FIVE MINUTE CHALLENGE
Sasha: 183,527,470
Cathy: 261,724,380
Angela: 351,738,530 (#25 All-Time)
WINNER: Angela (3)

GAME SEVEN – DISTANCE CHALLENGE
Cathy: 301,176,090
Angela: 500,864,000 (#8 All-Time)
Sasha: 387,835,280
SERIES WINNER: Angela 4 – 2 – 1

Duke Nukem’s Big Shot Pinball: (Pinball M Table Review)

Duke Nukem’s Big Shot Pinball
Platform: Pinball M
Set: Death Save Bundle ($19.99)
Individual Price: $5.49
Designed by Grego “Rockger” Ezsias
Originally Released November 30, 2023
❄️🔥POLARIZING TABLE🔥❄️

Insert any Duke Nukem quip HERE. I’ll do it: “I’m an equal opportunity ass kicker.” Now just repeat that every time the ball touches something.

Right off the bat, I need to inform you, my beloved reader, that none of the Vice Family are Duke Nukem fans. That doesn’t mean we’re against the franchise. It just doesn’t interest us. Taking it further, Oscar and Angela have no experience at all with the games (Dad might have played 3D at some point but only briefly). Having been squirted into the world in 1989, I was born at the wrong time to really care about the IP. So, we all deferred to Dash, our resident Duke Nukem fanboy. He both enjoyed the pinball layout Grego Ezsias and the team at Zen Studios created AND he also believes that Duke Nukem’s Big Shot Pinball canonically fits alongside the rest of the franchise. In other words, he could believe that this was an official release by Duke’s creators. Jordi, also familiar with Duke Nukem, agreed. From the theme integration to the call outs to the modes: this could be a legitimate stand-alone Duke Nukem release and it’s unlikely any fan of the series wouldn’t believe it. It’s a fitting tribute to Duke Nukem 3D and if you’re a big fan, what’s here should be authentic enough that you’ll feel at home. So, I’m just going to focus on the pinball stuff.

Unique among Zen’s pins is that Duke Nukem has no traditional driver. The Cinema shot is low-yielding as its own thing and has a mini-mode attached, but we were mostly using it as a dumper to safely gain control of wild balls. Lighting the D-A-M-N letters off the right ramp and shooting the toilet scoop starts modes, but you’re given so much freedom to explore the layout that it never really feels as if you’re being queued into the modes. Odd.

With the exception of Dash, the main issue we all took with Duke was the ball return. Whenever the ball transfers from the bumpers to the main playfield, it goes through a hidden habitrail before exiting out underneath the DAMN ramp. And it returns at an angle where the ball sort of lobbed carelessly. It’s so off-putting. It’s treating a pinball return the same way a slob wads up trash like hamburger wrappers and casually throws them in the general vicinity of a garbage can, unbothered by whether or not they actually go in the can. It never comes out at the same speed or trajectory, and since the ball inevitably hits the slingshot, the probability that any returned ball could become unplayable is higher than any made shot should be. The fact that the design specifically drops the ball into the highly lethal left slingshot is incredibly frustrating. There was no rational or logical benefit from any design perspective for having it do this besides punishing players for wanting to play the table in the first place. Hey, if Zen wants pins to be less fun than they can be, I suppose that’s their god given right, even if I don’t get it.

One of the three main modes (Kick Ass and Chew Bubble Gum) is a glorified video mode that pays homage to the Duke Nukem franchise. Aliens will pop-up in one of four stations, and you have to use the flippers to aim and the action button to fire three shots into each. In the main mode, you have to kill twenty aliens (8 in the first phase, 12 in the other). Not only does it take forever, but none of the Vices EVER failed at it. Not once. In fact, all three of us quickly reached the point where we didn’t even take damage. I should note that Oscar, normally the member of The Pinball Chick Team who whines about video modes, actually enjoyed Bubble Gum the most. Taking it further, he declared that this is what solidified his GREAT rating. Whatever floats your boat, Pops. But again, it’s a video mode that takes 60 total shots to finish. SIXTY. Holy crap. What is wrong with Zen’s new crop of designers? Did they not get enough attention as children? Did the cool kids dunk their heads in toilets and this is revenge?

The sad thing about the sloven ball return is that Duke Nukem would be a difficult enough table without it. Killer slingshots that spoon-feed the brutal outlanes are just the start of it. Duke Nukem is a brick-layer with high risk angles and cardboard targets that crowd the drain. Now granted: if any video game franchise’s theme lends itself to a design that feels like it’s trolling players, it’s Duke Nukem. But we put more time into this pin than any pin we’ve ever reviewed, and we still couldn’t really make any progress. Even after 50 combined hours and multiple world records set by the three of us, the amount of things we didn’t experience with Duke Nukem is staggering. As of this writing, I’m the arcade mode World Champion and we have three other first place standings on challenge leaderboards, but we were never able to complete all three modes in a single game. In fact, none of us defeated the second boss. We never opened Ready For Action multiball. My father and I never once earned a single extra ball (Angela earned two EBs over the course of 100 or so games). FIFTY HOURS. WORLD RECORDS. How is it even possible we didn’t come halfway to finishing the three main modes in a single game? Well, it’s because even if you clock the difficult angles and drill the shots into muscle memory, eventually the ball return WILL kill you. You can only get lucky so many times. When you reduce your table to dumb luck, it becomes impossible to finish or even come close. Duke is a table where random chance will ALWAYS supersede skill.

The radioactive symbol’s spin disc is the highlight of the table, in my opinion. It’s a clever idea. Balls that land in the black zones will be fed to VUK and count towards a random award. Balls that land in the yellow zones will instead be released into the bumper area of the table. Good idea. I sure wish it didn’t require six spins on the right zones to do anything.

The Vice Family is probably Zen Studios’ best case scenario for players. A family that shares a love of the sport and competes with each-other, all three of whom are capable of challenging for world records. We’re far removed from the best players, but we ain’t slouches. If we couldn’t do these things, who exactly are these tables designed for? Zen’s original tables these days rely on mind-numbing grinding combined with made shots still having the potential to kill you because the ball return is done in a way where it might be unplayable. Presumably their design team thinks this is the key to engagement, since mobile games are about mindless grinding and random odds. But, like.. it’s pinball, gang. I know I sound like a broken record, but your best sellers are adaptations of old Williams/Bally pins that might be hard (nobody can accuse Indiana Jones, Twilight Zone, or Addams Family of being too easy) but they don’t require players to practically earn a bachelor’s degree in that table just to experience everything.

After completing each mode, you have to charge up the left spinner and then shoot the toilet scoop to activate “boss fights” which feature cardboard targets, the big one of which takes roughly fifty billion hits to kill, give or take. It’s actually over a dozen hits combined for the minions and big boss. While it does have a ball save attached to it, the ball save is going to come out under the damned DAMN ramp, again reducing your survival to random chance. If Duke Nukem has a feature that COULD have been fun, you can bet your sweet ass the designer made it require so many hits that it becomes a joyless slog. You can also shoot the toilet scoop to use a gun, but this feature is incredibly confusing and frankly underwhelming. The targets are there, but we’re encouraged to shoot elsewhere? Huh?

I originally had Duke Nukem as GOOD, agreeing with everyone else that Duke has a fun, downright frisky layout with nice ramp placement, a unique and memorable skillshot, and genuinely thrilling side-targets. It’s a damn fine layout, besides the way the ball return is handled. It even incorporates zone-style design by having the bumpers being completely segregated from the rest of the table. Even more striking is that Duke Nukem doesn’t feel like it’s aping Williams or Stern. It’s the rare Zen original pin that feels genuinely original. Even though the flow is left-side heavy, it avoids having the feel of a table that’s been cut in half, like A Samurai’s Vengeance suffered from. And Oscar would disown me if I didn’t single-out the fine-tuned scoring balance, which my daddio was positively swooning over. It’s so precisely balanced that it would have made the late, great Lyman Sheats proud. Don’t take my rating to imply any lack of talent. They DO have talent. So much that the problems Zen has with forced grinding and dickhead ball returns are much more frustrating than they should be. If they had no clue what they were doing, it’d be excusable. They’re so good at making pins that the faults are inexcusable.

Yet another continuing problem with Zen’s originals is that they include mini-fields with gaps so wide you could drive a steamship through them. Seriously, it’s remarkable how they’ve gotten into these company-wide bad habits. Grindy modes. Harbor-sized flipper gaps. By the way, Zen, a drain pin doesn’t help when the physics of the mini-table make the ball feel limp. Duke being accused of having limp balls seems like the type of thing that would make him fly into a rage, but I’ll take my chances.

Saying that I know Zen is capable of better than this is an understatement. Duke Nukem’s Big Shot Pinball has a layout so awesome that it should have been a cinch for a GREAT rating from me, and really, MASTERPIECE should have been in play. It has everything I like in a layout. It’s telling that none of us even considered MASTERPIECE. That was ruled out really early. I don’t know why anyone would make such a great creation and then destroy it by discouraging table exploration like Duke does. The multiball modes seem fun. I wish I could justify going for them, but activating them takes so many hits and requires you hold your breath and hope the ball return doesn’t screw you over that it’s not worth attempting. Grind. Grind. Grind. Why on Earth do you want people to have to shoot targets so many times to accomplish ANYTHING? I don’t get it. Imagine you were golfing and you sank a long putt, but instead of that being a good thing by itself, you then had to spin a wheel where there’s a 20% chance the hole would fire the ball into the closest water hazard and force you to start over. That’s how Zen’s original tables have been lately, and I’m sick of it.

Duke Nukem is left-side dominant. In 50+ hours of playing, to the best of my knowledge, none of us got the random award from hitting the targets behind the spinner 100 times. Yes, ONE HUNDRED HITS. The bumpers were equally bad. They’re laid out in a way where the ball just goes dead and rolls lifelessly to the lethal ball return hole under the DAMN ramp. Zen, seriously, it would be so easy to salvage this. Sure, the ball return is busted and you can’t fix that, but just cut the requirements for modes and hits the bosses need by at least half. Don’t want ANYONE to finish this shit? One or two players in the entire world see the wizard modes on any given Zen original, and you think that’s a good thing? Because it seems to me average or casual players would consider it so far out of reach that it’s not even worth exploring. How likely do you think they are to recommend your pinball games to other people? Probably not very likely.

I’m done rewarding these grindy tables with positive reviews. Enough with modes requiring so many shots to finish that it’s practically sarcastic. Enough with requiring an entire lifetime of devotion just to see everything a table has to offer. Do you want to unlock one of the multiballs? Well you have to shoot the spinners a couple dozen or so times AND light the C-O-O-L targets and.. oh you already drained out? Too bad. Want a random reward? Well you have to shoot the toilet scoop ten times (without starting any other modes) and then shoot the.. oh, you already drained out? Too bad. Want to start “I’m the Cure” mini mode? Well you have to shoot the black colors on the spin disk 6 times then hope the wall randomly wiggles enough to get 60 hits on the NEST targets to light the.. oh you already drained out? Too bad. Enough is enough. Look at the leaderboards. Those scores are pretty low. Clearly you didn’t want anyone unlocking much, so hey, you didn’t unlock a positive score from me. I’m rating it BAD.

As of this writing, this is the highest score ever recorded for Arcade mode, one of two primary play modes. The previous high was Angela, using an entirely different strategy. That’s reassuring. The best thing I can say about Duke Nukem is it offers enough flexibility that multiple different strategies are viable. Angela chose to charge-up the two-ball multiball and just repeat it over and over. Of course, the score Angela put up that I beat required an absurd amount of grinding that, by her own admission, was the least fun way to play. “Hey, I’m the world champion though so HAH.” She’s going to wake up to find that’s not even the case anymore, as I literally just put this up before publication.

Again, I’m the lone hold-out here. Everyone else, despite their frustration with the same stuff I’m whining about, had fun. A really good theme, excellent layout, satisfying shots, and fine-tuned balance really do make Duke stand out in a crowded field. For all the bitching you just sat through, even I had fun. I mean, up to a point, but every time I started really enjoying the table, Duke went back to obnoxious grinding and random chance deaths. I just had one of my best games. I was hitting my shots. I couldn’t miss, really. I set a new world record. But all three balls drained from the ball return hitting the left slingshot, which sent the ball into the right slingshot, which sent the ball directly down the left outlane. It wasn’t just three times, either. IT WAS FIVE TIMES. Twice I had protected the left out lane with a kickback. It didn’t matter, because eventually you have to give up skill and simply cross your fingers. When I did, the result was predictable: ball return, left slingshot, right slingshot, left outlane, dead ball. I’m done. Five outlanes in one game where I couldn’t have shot better. Duke Nukem pinball doesn’t want to be fun. It wants to be a troll. One of the best layouts Zen has ever done and the final product is more obsessed with being a prick than it is being fun. Zen, if you want your original pins to require a marathon of shots to make anything happen, that’s your prerogative, and I’ll never understand it. This isn’t pinball. It’s a war of attrition.
Cathy: BAD (2/5)
Angela: GOOD (3/5)
Oscar: GREAT (4/5)
Jordi: GOOD (3/5)
Dash: GREAT (4/5)

South Park: Super-Sweet Pinball (Pinball FX Table Review)

South Park: Super-Sweet Pinball
Platform: Pinball FX
Set: South Park Pinball ($9.99)
Included with Pinball Pass
Designed by Peter “Deep” Grafl
Originally Released October 16 2014
Awarded a Certificate of Excellence by The Pinball Chick Team

Keep in mind that our team’s fandom of South Park as a show is all over the place. Dad (Oscar) and Dash are 100% complete lifetime non-fans. Myself and Jordi are lapsed fans, while Dave is somewhere between the two groups. Only Angela is a modern “never misses an episode” fan of the show and even has viewing parties with friends. Some of us factored in the theme, others focused on the table. One odd note is that Zen is just weeks away from releasing Pinball M, their M-rated Pinball FX spin-off (oh.. hey, I get the name now), but this South Park is rated E 10+ by the ESRB. There’s not even bleeped cussing in here. Weird.

South Park’s tables being returned to Pinball FX after a six year absence is proof positive that all bets are off with Zen Studios. As if getting the World Cup and Indiana Jones licenses didn’t already prove that, now they’re bringing back their long-lost Pinball FX2 pins as well. South Park: Super-Sweet Pinball is probably their most famous pre-PinballFX3 pin (it’s either it or Plants v Zombies). It’s back, and it plays well with the new Pinball FX engine. Super-Sweet pinball is a smooth-flowing finesse table only somewhat held back by a brutal difficulty combined with modes that demand too much perfection in what is an imperfect art form.

The Vices (that would be myself, Angela, and Oscar for those keeping track at home) have put 30+ hours into Super Sweet Pinball. For all the whining you’re about to endure, we all really enjoyed it. However, some of the angles are too impossibly risky. Chef’s door is a whole other level of “WHY DID YOU STICK THAT THERE?” mind-f*ckery. Unlike Dash and Angela, I never considered moving off my GREAT rating. The risk/reward balance is too screwed-up for that.

Super-Sweet isn’t entirely an original table by Zen. Hold a mirror to the layout and it’s a close approximation to Stern’s Simpsons Pinball Party. I don’t know if that was meant to be a “Simpsons Already Did It” joke or not, but given that Ant-Man is a mirrored version of Theatre of Magic, probably not. The similarities are mostly superficial in nature, though South Park does take after Simpsons with multiple highly stackable modes. Unlike Simpsons, you can’t go into the settings to adjust the hurry-up times. The biggest problem with South Park is how damn unforgiving it is. It’s not enough to activate the modes. The modes have to be finished to achieve the S-O-U-T-H-P-A-R-K lights that are the ultimate object. That’s nine modes, with three additional modes (one of which is a grindy multiball). Finishing four of them lights an extra ball, but even on our third day, it wasn’t all that rare for each of us to finish games with only one light (typically it was the Kenny light, which is a lay-up). And, we really don’t suck at pinball. Hell, I’m the reigning Arcade mode world champion on this table at the time I’m writing this, and I finished that game barely halfway there. They’re a LOT of work just to get started, THEN you have to.. you know.. beat them!

The Stan and Kyle scoops are deceptively hard shots. For Kyle, if you have a gentle roll on the right flipper, a backhand is a relatively safe option. Stan? Not so much. If there’s a low risk angle for it, we haven’t found it. Annoyingly, despite being a very high-risk shot, Stan’s hurry-up is too short and very undervalued relative to its difficulty. Really, the only value it has is it gives you the S light. Lighting four of the S-O-U-T-H-P-A-R-K lights will light the extra ball target. My suggested order is Kenny, Sarcastaball (which has an additional extra ball attached to it), School Bus Multiball, and Manbearpig. You can sub Stan’s Hurry-Up (annoying as it is, once it starts, it’s one shot to complete) for any of those. The Vices NEVER successfully completed Kyle’s mode (Mr. Hankey Multiball) or Chef’s mode. Not once.

Let me pick an almost random example: the School Bus Multiball. To get it, you must shoot the school bus ramp NINE times. You must then lock four more balls shooting the same ramp. THEN, you must complete the shots for all four of the boys AND sink the balls back in the bus ramp you had to grind nine shots out of to begin with. I’m fairly sure that you need to only lock one of the balls to get the “R” letter, but either way, this is massive grindy time investment. I can’t stress enough: the most successful pinball tables of all time kept their “doors” lit whether or not you were successful in the mode or not. That’s the kind of pinball that generated the biggest success the medium has ever had BY FAR, so why wouldn’t you do that, Zen? You have 110+ tables on Pinball FX, and you expect HOW BIG a time commitment towards “git’n gud” at them?  Kyle’s requires you to get the K-Y-L-E lights, then 3 locks on the sarcastaball-ramp, THEN you have to get a super jackpot in multiball. AND IT’S ONLY WORTH A MILLION POINTS for that super jackpot.

The super skill shot is quite risky. I had a lot of shots go straight down the drain off it. You should have the ball save lit, but still, it’s a bitch. When this target isn’t standing, it’s replaced by a TV target that requires you to hit it.. I’m not making this up.. 247 times just to light an extra ball. Come on, Zen. Now you’re just straight-up trolling. It’s worth noting the “episodes” you get from hitting this add to your end-of-all bonus as well. If I shoot a target 247 times, I expect the table to gain sentience and eat me. Though actually, at one point, I had an EB light that I couldn’t figure out where it came from. It’s entirely possible it was from this.

Compare the relatively low scores of the other modes to the T-I-M-M-Y mode, which is NOT for one of the letters but yields the highest scores. By far! Timmy’s easy-to-get lights are along the flipper lanes. After lighting them, you have thirty seconds to go nuts on a single shot next to the Kenny loop. Use the left flipper and a cherry-bomb shot, and you’re gold, OR, you can use the bat flipper. Yep, the best target in the game can be shot from both the left primary and the bat flipper, and boy, does it score points. You only need to hit it once and you’ve got a cool million points, and it adds another million every time you repeat it. Do the TIMMY shot twice, and you’re made three million points. Three times? Six million. Four times? Ten million. And so forth. And so forth. You can grind that one shot, 30 seconds at a time, and still score hundreds of millions of points. You can use this as an excuse to light the C-A-R-T-M-A-N lights, since that shot feeds you a softball for the bat flipper to shoot the TIMMY shot. Oh, and if you miss it off the bat flipper? You’re either hitting the Kenny Loop, Randy Ramp, or if you’re way off, you’re hitting the J-I-M-M-Y lights for the kickbacks! It’s so badly balanced. My arcade world record right now is probably 40% to 50% made of that one shot. That’s not balanced. I should note my father disagreed with me all weekend about how low-risk it was, since the Timmy target is a cherry bomb shot straight over the drain. I almost never lost a ball from it. He’s just plain wrong.

Assuming the mini-table doesn’t glitch out on you and ruin your game (and it might), you’ll want to get good at it since the extra ball light is that cow up at the top of it. The biggest pinball mistake Angela will ever make is letting me see how she cracked the super skill shot. Here’s how: let the ball “settle down” on the right (lower) flipper before flicking. It should bounce off the target and roll around the goal post. Grind this up to a 10 million point level and then complete the super skill shot on the main playfield to light an extra ball. Takes practice but I can now do it almost every time. It’s HIGHLY clockable. The balloon part? Not so much. Another tip: don’t shoot the tethered balloon directly. Use the same strategy as I stated above and DO NOT shoot the balloon directly. ANY contact with the balloon will light the S-A-R-C-A-S-T-A-B-A-L-L lights, even if it’s on the return. Now, when the balloon is cut loose from the tether, sorry friend, but you’re on your own. I sucked at it.

Will someone in charge at Zen Studios tell their table designers to tone it the f*ck back, already? Because the tables aren’t better for demanding this much commitment out of them. The tables aren’t ever more fun because of the repetitive grinding. They’re less fun. Nobody is going to devote six months towards one table to get good enough to get the wizard mode. Look at how few people are posting wizard-level scores on Zen Originals versus Williams pins (that don’t require endless grinding with no forgiveness for failure) and ask yourselves which tables people are having more fun with? I know I’ve been whining about this a lot lately, but it’s an issue. People aren’t finishing these tables. GOOD PLAYERS aren’t. That’s not a virtue.

This screenshot alone is PACKED with incredible shots. Dad coined the Kenny loop a “shoelace loop” or “The Ritchie Shoelace” which is a close cousin of “The Ritchie” as seen in tables like Black Knight, High Speed, etc. Oh, and Kenny is probably the easiest letter on the entire table. Or, you can shoot the Randy loop, which is a bit tougher and activates the super-grindy Bat-Dad mode. Or, one shot on the Randy Loop also lowers the blimp to activate Sarcastaball and grant access to the mini-table (where an extra ball can be nabbed). OR, you can get the T-I-M-M-Y lights and then shoot the Timmy vertical target, which is potentially the most valuable shot on the table. Finally, the J-I-M-M-Y lights that activate the valuable kickbacks are just under the Randy shot, though it’s nearly a blind-angle off the bat flipper.

Now, with that whining out of the way, I should probably note that we all loved the layout for South Park. Of all the “super difficult” Zen originals, South Park is probably neck-and-neck with Clone Wars for having the best transitional flow. While South Park is absolutely packed with modes and mini-modes, the transitions from shot-to-shot are smooth regardless of what modes you’re aiming at. And, unlike Whirlwind, we could use post transfers to great effect this time. You’ll need passing for this one, as the key modes are timed. Cartman’s Anal Probe requires thirty spins of the spinner in sixty seconds (approximately four flush shots), and at that point, you’re only halfway there. You then have hit three UFOs in thirty seconds. Manbearpig is ten shots, then a straight-shot up the middle, THEN collect six piles of gold, THEN one final cherry bomb up the center. Bat-Dad is the hardest by far. You have to shoot a high risk cardboard target to “throw a jab” which ticks off a little bit of his health. To “throw a haymaker” and do extra damage, after hitting the cardboard target, you have to very quickly connect on a follow-up flashing light shot. I have no idea how many times you have to do this. We never came close to finishing it. We never finished the Chef’s mode. They were too high risk, and it made more sense to shoot the TIMMY lights for maximum yield.

The Terrance & Phillip themed bumpers are incredibly violent and, when their mode is charged-up, high-yielding. Angela at one point banked nearly ten million points off them in a single shot based solely on pure blind luck of getting the ball jammed between them. There’s also a Lawlor Path between them that acts as Stan’s Hurry-Up shot, as well as additional Canadian Multiball and Manbearpig shots. However, it’s a very high risk shot, and the bumpers, fun and profitable as they can be, may also murder your ball via the right outlane or even a drain plunge. I held my breath every time.. which feels oddly fitting for fart-themed bumpers.

The big question is “can non-fans enjoy South Park?” I actually think it might be true of both non-show fans and non-pinball fans. Don’t mistake my usage of “super difficult” for being “impossibly difficult.” It’s not that bad. Actually, South Park: Super-Sweet Pinball is an incredibly fun table. Strangely generous too. Take the Cheesy Poof bag, for example. It’s the score multiplier and it’s right next to two necessary shots: the left Manbearpig/Canada/Cartman orbit and the school bus ramp. If you brick either of those shots, you get rewarded with the Cheesy Poof bag, which is fairly low-risk to hit. In fact, the entire left side of the table is so tame and workable that it’s practically gentle. You’d never imagine that South Park is a steel ball serial killer. Oh, it is, and it can be maddening in how many different shots can kill you. But, while I still firmly protest how much work Zen expects people to do to earn wizard modes, all credit where it’s due: it never gets boring, at least with this table.

Cathy’s, who took the crown from Angela, who took it from Cathy.

Cathy: GREAT (4/5)
Angela: GREAT (4/5)
Oscar: MASTERPIECE (5/5)
Jordi: GREAT (4/5)
Dash: GREAT (4/5)
Dave: MASTERPIECE (5/5)
CERTIFIED EXCELLENT BY THE PINBALL CHICK TEAM

A Samurai’s Vengeance (Pinball FX Table Review)

A Samurai’s Vengeance
Platform: Pinball FX
Set: Honor and Legacy Pack ($9.99 MSRP)
Designed by Zoltan “Hezol” Hegyi
Awarded a Clean Scorecard by The Pinball Chick Team

For a newcomer’s first designed table, this really feels like it would earn a student an “A”. Really, it’s only compared to other original works in Pinball FX that a Samurai’s Vengeance falls a bit on the bland, conservative side. But, it falls HARD on that side, so much that it nearly missed out on a clean scorecard.

I hope new designer Zoltan Hegyi and Zen Studios don’t take this the wrong way, but A Samurai’s Vengeance felt sort of like a Zaccaria table. Which isn’t to knock Magic Pixel’s pinball stalwart either. They’ve put out many fantastic tables. What I mean is that Samurai’s Vengeance takes a generic theme, hits every single cliché to go with that theme, stretches the mileage one would expect you could get out of it to near breaking point while somehow not managing to include one single memorable shot, and yet the end result still ultimately ends up being a decent table. Sorry for the run-on sentence. Samurai is so by-the-books that it doesn’t feel like your typical non-licensed Pinball FX release. Maybe that’s a good thing, and for the record, I’m a-okay with busting out all the conventional themes and tropes. It’s pinball. If you can’t be unserious in a serious way, you’re doing it wrong.

The lack of memorable modes or shots does sting quite a bit here. Like so many Zen tables, a lot of Samurai’s problems come down to modes feeling like a grind. In the course of our dueling, which usually involves dozens of games, we never once activated the Random Fortune. It requires you to shoot the Torii gate a whopping eight times. Why would we even do that when all the important shots for the modes are on the other side of the table? We can spend our time grinding up a random award that may or may not be worth the effort, or we can shoot the swinging door katana sword or the spinner to grind up our strength, and then try to start a mode. We know the modes have value. The other side is a massive grind. The multiball requires four balls to be locked, and that’s if the ball lock is even lit. The risk/reward wasn’t balanced properly, because none of us wanted to shoot that side of the table at all. It was too risky when we know that completing the modes yields a final tally of ten million points plus all the scoring that leads up to it. If you’re going to grind, grind the modes, right?

A Samurai’s Vengeance is one of those tables that makes me wish, once again, that Zen would move away from these slow, multi-tiered modes and instead try to replicate the style of pinball’s most profitable and successful era of the 90s. There’s a reason why their most popular tables are recreations of arcade tables from that era: that’s what people like about pinball. A Samurai’s Vengeance has massive pacing issues beyond just requiring so much grinding. When you start a mode, there’s about a fifteen second delay between the mode start and the ball reaching the flippers to start playing again. Mind you, there’s no animation for this. It just takes that long to load. We’re NOT going to get invested in the characters of a pinball table. We’re invested in shooting targets. Now, having got all that out of the way, A Samurai’s Vengeance has good flow, no really offensive flaws, and even a couple gags that gave me a chuckle. I said “oh, you bastards” when they happened, but I also laughed. Will you remember it when you finish it? Not at all. Is it decent enough while you play it? Yep.
Cathy: GOOD (3/5)
Angela: GOOD (3/5)
Oscar: GOOD (3/5)
Jordi: GOOD (3/5)
Dash: GOOD (3/5)
**CLEAN SCORECARD**

Pinball FX: The Addams Family – The Pinball Chick Hurry-Up Review

With over one-hundred tables at launch, I have a lot of work to do to get Pinball FX’s content up. I also have to wait for my team to put their scores in. So, I’ve come up with the concept of a Hurry-Up Review. This is a quick look at the tables as the Vice Family plays them. And, what better table to experiment with this format than Addams Family? We’ve already reviewed the Arcooda version, which we awarded straight Masterpiece rankings for. Of course, that’s a premium priced build designed specifically for those with full-fledged digital tables. This is the version of Pinball FX that works on PlayStation, Xbox, and Epic Games (standard non-table view only), and will be updated when the full team’s scores are in.

We’ve also reviewed the standard Pinball Arcade build. The big news is that Angela and myself flipped our previous rankings from the standard Pinball Arcade build. She awarded that build Masterpiece status, while I said it was Great. It’s the opposite here. Angela dropped her ranking based on how bad the Thing Flips is at shooting. Yea, a real build isn’t completely accurate either. But, the Pinball FX version is an especially poor shot. It seems to be most accurate if you play in “Arcade” mode, which has a larger ball and feels more like Pinball Arcade. In Classic mode, I started ignoring the auto flipper and took to firing the ball myself. In Pro mode, the table is so steep and the ball moves so fast that the flipper doesn’t even shoot automatically. It’s a significantly more difficult shot to make in Pinball FX. Angela’s strategy of charging up the swamp shot and grinding-up her score (apparently the same strategy used by tournament players) was thrown out the door. It’s why Dash, who would inclined to rate Addams Family MASTERPIECE, dropped his score all the way down to GOOD. The left bat flipper desperately needs fixing. I prefer to shoot manually anyway, so it didn’t bother me. I’ve never been good at shooting it to begin with and prefer to work the doors for my score. Sorry, Sis, but your strategy is boring.

Christopher Lloyd needs them big bucks, so he’s once again absent from the table. The rest of the cast is here.

The big question for me was the magnets. I’ve been wondering how Zen Studios would handle it for a while now. My congratulations to them for NAILING it, as you can now easily overpower them with a trapped shot if you know the right angles for the Seance and Multiball. Yea, they’ll absolutely screw you sometimes, but, so the does the arcade table. While it does feel like a gotcha, I’ve always felt that it’s a gotcha in service to the table’s risk/reward balance. My father agrees with me, which is why he’s awarded Addams Family GREAT, a jump over his score of GOOD for the Pinball Arcade version. Oscar really didn’t like the floaty physics of that build. Those are gone now. Pinball FX isn’t a perfect platform by any means. Backhands are still a bit too hard, but otherwise, this has pretty dang solid physics. Oscar expects a full table-mode will jump to MASTERPIECE, and Angela thinks if a table mode makes it easier to shoot the Swamp, she’ll jump to MASTERPIECE as well. I’m already there. This is the best translation of Addams Family I’ve played that’s not designed specifically for high-end digital tables.

The right bat flipper is one of the hardest to clock in all of pinball. It feels very accurate here.

Addams Family is the definitive 90s pinball table. Multiple shots that are a cinch to drill into your muscle memory, like the Thing Scoop, the electric chair, the Lawlor Trail between the chair and the bumpers. BUT, the easiness ends there. Addams is a punishing table, but, it never stops being fun. I love how it’s a table that incorporates everything seamlessly into the natural flow of the game. I love how every single mode is intense and exciting, with not a stinker in the bunch EXCEPT maybe Cousin It, which is a weird shot and always has been. Otherwise, the modes are splendid. And, has there ever been a better wizard mode than Tour the Mansion? Addams Family feels more grand and super than any of the SuperPins. It’s this strange miracle of a table that I still can’t believe exists. It’s not like the movie was a huge hit, which is why it’s always so amusing to me that this became the biggest selling solid state table ever made. Imagine any other product tie-in for the 1991 Addams Family film becoming the best-seller EVER, of all-time. If the best selling action figure was Gomez in his smoking jacket, you’d be like “huh? How’d THAT happen?” With the pinball machine, it’s easy to understand how it became the biggest seller ever. It’s brutally difficult to learn, so players will have to keep pumping quarters into it, which makes arcade owners happy. BUT, once you get the hang of it, it’s still a beast, where a good game can turn on a dime. Hopefully this time, it’ll not be delisted again.

SCORES
Cathy: MASTERPIECE
Angela: GREAT
Oscar: GREAT
Jordi: TBD
Dave: TBD
Dash: GOOD