Epic Pinball

Moby ID: 263

DOS version

Brought addictive pinball to the PC masses.

The Good
For pinball fans, Epic Pinball was a godsend - the fast-scrolling screens were a big improvement over the tiny screens of older PC games. The variety of pinball tables made for hours of enjoyment - if you got bored with one table, there were many more. Some tables like Deep Sea and Pangaea had excellent pixelled graphics.

The Bad
Even if "nostalgia" tables like Magic were reflective of gameplay at their time, they did get quite dull to play after awhile. I at least credit Epic for putting them in. Also, the music is perhaps a little "cheesy", at least compared to what the PC MOD-scene was creating at the time of its release.

The Bottom Line
If you've ever played the classics Pinball Dreams or Pinball Fantasies on the Amiga (or their PC ports), you will find Epic Pinball comparable. All these games have demoscene roots. Somehow, I just haven't found the more recent "3d-rendered" Windows pinball games as enjoyable, probably since they take a step backward in that the table doesn't move.

For the record, Epic developed two other pinball games: Silverball, similar to Epic Pinball except a commercial release, and Extreme Pinball, a sequel of sorts which was also released commerically (expect reviews for these two games in the future).

by Andy Voss (1861) on September 13, 1999

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