3-D Ultra Pinball: The Lost Continent

The Good
This was my first game in the 'Ultra Pinball' series and I loved it. I've played pinball games before. They're always fast and furious and have some sort of a theme to them. This is the first I've come across where the game has characters that are affected by the table you're playing. They're trying to cross the Lost Continent and each table represents a part of their journey. An early one is to hit targets to open the gates of a dam so that they can progress, another is to hit targets to save a pretty native girl, later you're clearing a path through the jungle and so on.

The game description says that there are 15 tables / levels and that they are shorter than the levels in earlier games in this series. This is my first Ultra Pinball game so I can't comment on the other games but I was surprised by how quickly I moved from one table to the next.

The music is bright, upbeat and can be turned down, or off, if it gets too monotonous.

This game has a feature I've not come across on 'normal' pinball simulations. If you don't do well enough on one of the later tables you have the option to drop back a level or to stay on the current table but sacrifice a ball.

The character dialogue is straight from a 'B' movie and is fun. It installed and played very well on my WIN XP machine.

The Bad
The game pauses while it shifts from one scene to the next, not a big problem and probably necessary given the machine capabilities when it was produced.

The big drawback is that you must have the CD in the drive in order to play the game.

The Bottom Line
Pinball with a twist! I can see this game staying on my machine for quite a while. It's the kind of fun game I would play when I've got, say, 15 minutes spare and I don't want to start a campaign on a major title, if it didn't have to go looking for the CD.