Tag: Zaccaria Pinball Pack 1 Review

Cine Star (AtGames Legends Pinball Table Review)

CINE STAR

If there’s such a thing as our favorite bad pinball table, then in the Vice Household, it’s Cine Star. I know now that we’re doing AtGames tables, we’re running through a few digital pins we’ve already reviewed before (Aerobatics) and yea, we’ve done Cine Star already. But Sasha the Kid needs the review practice, especially since I took the keyboard to freak out over Battle Deluxe. She kind of knew Cine Star wasn’t exactly a highly rated table, but we were curious, and she noticed the smirks as she stepped up to the plate. “Is… this it?” Yes Kid, that’s it. Cine Star is the definitive one-shot wonder. So what was Sasha’s insight? “It’s exactly like one of the Zaccaria Retro tables, only if it had a full Italian Bottom.” Actually.. yea, that’s a good description of it. Cine Star has one gimmick: a central spinner that scores between 10,000 and 100,000 points, along with a lot of clanking. The playfield is super tight, so the ball is going to bang around and make a whole lot of noise in the style of an old timey boardwalk pin. But, Cine Star is a lot less luck-based than a typical boardwalk because it has a standard layout, so you don’t have to relearn the entire sport just to play defensively. I still think it’s BAD. We all do, even the two GOOD voters. Jordi no longer stands alone with the sole positive rating (it is a good shot is his basic argument in its entirety). Sasha found it addictive and enjoyable, and she also insisted we were just plain wrong. “It’s not ALWAYS a one-shot table. If you get down to one or two stars, that means you’re one or two shots away from an extra ball. Those are SHOTS, and good ones!” Dad and Angela disagree and will never like Cine Star, and I’m not moving off my BAD rating, because I think lucky bounces will always factor in too heavily. But, I concede Cine Star isn’t REALLY a one-trick pony. Plus, we’ve always had fun dueling at Cine Star. Oh sure, my family whines about it, but we care who wins, and that ain’t nothing.
Set: Zaccaria Pinball Pack 1
Type: Electro-Mechanical – Real Table
Based on “Cine Star” by Zaccaria (1977)
Part of Zaccaria Pinball (Console/PC)
Vice Family High: Sasha the Kid “KID” 1,694,030 (Top 25 All Time)
Cathy: BAD (2 out of 5)
Angela: THE PITS (1 out of 5)
Oscar: THE PITS
Sasha the Kid: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Jordi: GOOD*
Dave: BAD*
Scoring Average: 2.0 –BAD
*Played on Zaccaria Pinball for Consoles/PC

Battle Retro (AtGames Legends Pinball Table Review)

BATTLE RETRO
AKA COMBAT RETRO

We’re typically in agreement that most tables that were originally from the infamous Zaccaria Retro Pack are garbage from a thankfully bygone era. With that said, the table formerly known as Combat Retro and now known as Battle Retro (because “Combat” is more famous as an Atari game) is technically the second best among those twenty-seven pins. It earned that thanks to an average rating of a whopping 2.66 out of 5, earning it an overall title of OKAY. Fun fact: with the exception of the highlight of that set, the genuinely awesome Mystic Star Retro, Battle Retro is the only table that earned even a single GREAT vote. That would be from Oscar, who thinks the AtGames version is even better than the video game one. “Having an actual table to physically nudge will help all the retro pins to some degree, but if they’re quality tables, it’ll really help them. Battle might be THE table everyone new to playing on an AtGames machine should use to practice nudging a physical table instead of wiggling an analog stick. Play this early, and get a feel for how hard you can and can’t nudge. Battle is perfect for it because it’s a key to high scores, but also because games go so quickly and the scoring is low. You won’t ruin a long game by overdoing it and TILTing. The world record probably took around five minutes. I can’t give it a MASTERPIECE because lucky bounces off the bumpers factors too much into the final score. But if you want to show off one old-timey 1950’s pin, show off Battle.” Sasha, Angela, and Dave all consider everything positive Oscar said to actually be a negative. It is a luck based table. Not entirely, but enough that you need a lot of it. If that’s not for you, stick to the EMs and Solid States in Zaccaria Pinball Pack 1, because Battle Retro is almost as good as the Retro tables get.
Set: Zaccaria Pinball Pack 1
Type: Electro-Mechanical – Rebuild
Design DNA: World Champ by Gottlieb (1957)
Part of Zaccaria Pinball (Console/PC)
Vice Family High: Cathy “IGC” 4,380
Cathy: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Sasha the Kid: BAD (2 out of 5)
Angela: BAD
Oscar: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Jordi: GOOD*
Dave: BAD*
Scoring Average: 2.66 – OKAY – 🥶POLARIZING TABLE🥶
*Played on Zaccaria Pinball for Consoles/PC