Advanced Pinball Simulator

The Good
Very easy to play.

There's a back story about an evil pinball wizard who's gone amok and destroyed a village, caused a drought and created a volcano. You must - locate the spell book and open it - cast a spell, - rebuild the village, - hack through a forest, - put out the volcano and finally - destroy the wizards castle. In other words - hit all the right targets in the right sequence. The game features all the features you'd expect from a pinball game, there's a ramp, bumpers, spinners, a save ball feature, bonuses, there are letters to hit to open up other features.

There's a one, two or three player mode that I always like to use when I'm practicing.

The Bad
Oddly enough I missed the music. On modern pinball gales that's the first thing I turn down. Here, where there was no music, I missed it.

The sounds made when the ball hits a bumper just seemed wrong, think chimes from a xylophone rather than 'proper' sounds, so playing the game is a bit like listening to a wind chime in a strong breeze. It's probably expecting too much from a game of this age, but though you can balance the ball on the flippers, you can't aim it, say, towards the ramp. That kinda makes completion of the tasks largely a matter of perseverance rather than skill and that's what, sadly, spoils this game for me.

I can overlook the sounds, the simple top down view, overlook the simplified physics, and the slow flipper response, but when I feel that there's no skill, no way to beat the game other than just staying alive, a lot of the incentive goes

The Bottom Line
Like bacon without eggs or bread without butter. This game is playable, it has all the right features but something is missing. It is still enjoyable - just not enjoyable enough.