PlayStation 2

Flipnic: Ultimate Pinball

There've been countless attempts at video pinball over the last 25 years, but only a few are worth playing. KaZe's Digital Pinball: Necronomicon for the Sega Saturn is one, and now Capcom's Flipnic is another. But where Necronomicon earns its crown through peerless physics, table design, and presentation, Flipnic earns its through a wild streak of innovation, the likes of which has never before been seen in the genre. While it's not quite perfect, it's solid and novel enough to be worth a look for any open-minded pinball enthusiast.

On paper, pinball sounds like an endurance test of the most banal kind. In practice, however, the game is brought to life by the pings, dings, numbers, lights, and everything else that makes the player feel like they're somehow "winning." It's man and machine in noisy harmony, and it's great. Well, great enough to make us forget we're just flicking a metal ball up a sloped table-top for as long as possible.

First comes the annoyance of repetition (the visuals take a nosedive here, as does the gameplay). Then comes the frustration when you can't find the exit, which you want so desperately. It's impossible to relax, think it through and get to the end when you don't even want to bother finishing what you started. This may sound harsh for a game that I was previously praising, but at times Flipnic feels like two entirely different games. One is good, the other is pure evil.

Before Mario, Pac-Man, even Space Invaders, arcades were full of nothing but pinball tables. Many video games have tried to imitate the feel of a pinball table with static, one-screen game experiences. Now Flipnic takes pinball out of bounds with its lush and creative multi-screen pinball worlds!

Most console and PC-based pinball games really attempt to stay close to the real thing. And, for the most part, they've gotten pretty close. Flipnic might be a pinball game, but it's definitely no simulator. The twists and turns that the ball takes as it moves from playfield to playfield are larger in scope than anything a "real" pinball machine could do. This makes for an interesting, stylish take on pinball wizardry that's just fine, considering its budget price. However, the designs of the different stages are a little lacking.

My love of pinball kept me coming back for a while, but the whole thing really ends up feeling more like a novelty than a full fledged game, and a frustrating one at that.

This focus of objectives is my biggest issue with the game - for a title that is purported to be "ultimate" pinball, the pinball aspect seems to be merely a means to complete puzzles, which aren't deep enough to please puzzle fans. There are only four tables to choose from (and only the first table is really cool - the other three pale in comparison) and none of them offer a classic pinball experience. Merging pinball and puzzles isn't a bad idea, but the balance between the two aspects simply feels wrong.

There are four different levels, each are themed according to their names. Capcom has definitely taken the wondrous, fantasy route by giving all the levels a sort of magical charm. There’s not too much to the boards and their activity. In fact, nothing really cool ever happens in the levels. They make look amazing, but they come up short as far as the unlocking hidden routes or stunning visual surprises. Capcom was definitely going for the visual “wow” factor, but they seemed to have forgotten that the substances of the levels play a large part. The gameplay comes down to hitting the flippers, raising bumpers, and shaking the table (watch out, too much shaking will result in a TILT). You can even make the ball jump on certain rails to get coins for bonus points.

Like the arcade gaming scene itself, pinball tables have become an endangered species. This ancient ancestor of modern gaming, once the staple of arcades, bars, restaurants, and shopping malls is a rare sight indeed, unless you find a random collection of tables in video game form or in some dusty old establishment clinging to the old days. The former is the case in this instance, as Capcom USA has released a wholly original take on the old genre, with Flipnic: Ultimate Pinball. Originally a concept from Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., Flipnic is not your daddy's pinball game, but instead designed and fixed up for the modern era.

Still, the game isn't bad. But by and large it reeks of wasted potential and a general sense of trying too hard. If you're really hard up for a pinball fix, it's certainly a lot more budget-friendly than tracking down an actual machine. But chances are that this pinball simulation will mainly leave you longing even more for a taste of the real thing.

Where other pinball games are content to provide players with an experience that mimics their real life counterparts, there has always been the possibility of making something that transcends reality. For Capcom, that goal has been realized with Flipnic Ultimate Pinball, a pinball game that lets its freak flag fly in the wind as it offers up not tables, but environments. This is not pinball, but pinball deconstructed and mashed back together again into a bizarre new beast. It's an interesting promise, but in the end it's one that only manages to hold up its end of the deal for partway through the game before it gets to be more tedious than fun.

Pinball is gaming’s cockroach. Having reached its apex as the anchor of arcades in the 1970’s, this once-proud pastime gracefully took a backseat to the home console revolution of the 80’s and 90’s, presumably waiting underneath the technological refrigerator for the television lights to permanently go out, thus ushering in a new age of pinball dominance. Muahahaha!