It seems a subtle distinction, until you actually play the title. The ball doesn't act in any way, shape or form like it should, and the game becomes less predicting where the ball will go and more predicting where the game will pick the ball to go. Let's come out and say it: the ball physics in Microsoft Pinball Arcade are bad. You can play with more than one player, but that involves passing the GBC around, and who's going to want to play it with you? But when they don't act like they should, it's difficult to get into the game, and Microsoft Pinball Arcade suffers because of it. And I do like the fact that there's quite a wide variety of tables to be played. They range from the not-very-interactive (Baffle Ball) to the much more so-Spirit of '76 comes to mind. The boards themselves have no real options, although you can read some tips for each one that may help you score better.

The ball also seemed a little misshapen, a little too large for the boards on which it was bouncing around on. I routinely observed the ball passing through the paddle, much to my consternation. Holding the ball 'up' with the plunger so you can better aim a shot results in the ball rapidly ricocheting between two points, never stopping to rest. Pulling the plunger a certain amount always makes it land in the same location. The problem is that the ball simply doesn't behave like a real one. I'd assume that each game is pretty fairly represented in terms of features Haunted House has a rather bothersome 'upside down' subtable that drove me suitably bonkers, and the pachinko-style Ball Baffle is nothing like the later, more evolved versions of the games.Ĭontrols are simple enough, and you'll be launching and batting the ball around in no time. The different tables represent various pinball machines put out by Gottlieb over the years, from Ball Baffle in the fifties to the eighties' Haunted House. The ball physics are wrong, wrong, wrong, and while the five different boards are nice, there's no getting around the fact that the game just isn't pinball. And while Microsoft Pinball Arcade had promise, like its brother Best of Entertainment Pack the collection is ruined by poor implementation.

Game boy color microsoft pinball arcade