Pinball Dreams

Digital Illusions' pinball series in the early ninetees were a real hit! They featured beautiful graphics, dynamic and realistic gameplay, all kinds of tables and much more. Pinball freak or not, once you run this game you will be glued to the screen for hours :) You can even tilt the table. There are many "missions" hidden within each table, and new ones open up as you reach higher scores. I played this game oftenly, and I haven't unlocked all the missions, so believe me when I say that there is a lot of potential there :) Of course, I can't neglect the fact that the music and sound effects are simply fabulous! All in all, a mark of 5 for phenomenal graphics (bear in mind that this is 1992.), wonderful SoundBlaster sound effects and music, and generally for being probably one of the best pinball series ever to be published on PC!

Från den stunden du börjar spela kommer du att vara fängslad av vad som kanske är den bästa programmering som någonsin skådats på den lilla handhållna macka-pären. Sättet som bollen rör sig och reagerar är fantastiskt. Att beskriva ett spel som det bästa man sett är ett stort uttalande, men som flipperspel kan det helt enkelt inte bli bättre. Det kan jämföras med Tetris - det är (kommer bli) em klassiker!

Grafiken är bländande och likaså ljudet, men viktigast av allt. "The Real Thing" GÅR att återskapa på dator. Inte ett uns av originalkänslan har gått förlorad i denna version. Att man dessutom har konstruerat tre ypperliga "banor", som skulle ha varit värdiga riktiga höjdarflipper i de bästa lokalerna, gör ju också sitt till. Det ENDA jag saknar är "knacket". Tiden kan nu indelas i två epoker; en före och en efter Pinball dreams.

Stupendously compelling and a gift for all fast action pinball lovers. Pinball Dreams is mercilessly conveyed by the Amiga to keep you rooted to your seat and eyeballing the screen. Most noticeable is the realistic ball movement which is as fast and extremely smooth as the vertical scrolling of the table. As an authentic alternative to the genuine article, this will save you plenty of money. The only concern is the shortage of tables: a table editor for your own set-ups would have been useful but you can sure play a mean pinball on the existing four.

Spidersoft have done a great conversion here, especially with the ball movement - it is brilliant and at times frustratingly realistic. For some reason, though, the screen detail is not as impressive as it was on the Amiga, with some cross-hatch shading letting things down ever so slightly in places. And the sound really grates through a Soundblaster Audio card. It is like a Nirvana demo played through a Force 9 gale as heard by a deaf person in a noisy room. In other words, the samples are terrible: noisy and scratchy, and barely audible at normal volume. But still, it is an unmissable game, and one of the best videogame versions of the desktop game ever created.

More importantly, the gameplay feels great. The game's touch controls are responsive, and you can play in either portrait or landscape view, using classic graphics from 1992 or the much smoother stuff from 2009. We are well aware that six bucks is a fair chuck of change on the App Store, but we think Pinball Dreaming's worth it, so we're giving it a 3.

Die Gefahr, daß bei möglichst realen Flipperumsetzungen das innovative Moment vergessen wird, ist sehr groß und läßt sich nur durch Abwechslungsreichtum kompensieren. Die Jungs von "Digital Illusions" gaben zwar ihr bestes – haben aber noch keine optimale Lösung gefunden. Die vier Automaten, so unterschiedlich sie auch aussehen, unterscheiden sich spielerisch kaum und lassen ein wenig Abwechslung vermissen. Mah ja sein, daß Automaten in der Spielhalle genauso aufbegaut sind, aber ein Multiballbunker oder ähnliches hätte den Amiga-Flippern nicht geschadet. Trotz aller Kritikpunkte rangiert Pinball Dreams in obersten Bereich aller Computerflipper. Auf dem Amiga gibt's zur Zeit nichts vergleichbares. Nicht zuletzt wegen der famosen Musik, der korrekten Physik und der unglaublich hohen "Ich mach nur schnell'n paar Punkte"-Motivation.

Diese Flipper-Simulation ist der erste Teil der Pinball-"Triologie" des Soft- ware-Hauses 21st Century Entertainment, das sich durch diese Spiele einen Namen gemacht hat. Alle drei Teile (Pinball Dreams, Fantasies & Illusions) sind zuerst für den Commodore Amiga erschienen und später auf alle bekannten Computer- und Videospiele konvertiert worden...

Det är inte så mycket att orda om. Pinball Dreams har alltid varit et höjdarspel. Det känns visserligen inte lika fräscht längre (framförallt har de riktigt flipperspelen sprungit förbi Pinball Dreams för länge sedan, alla som sett något av dagens moderna flipperspel vet ju att de kan göra det mesta förutom att steppa) och den här Nintendo-versionen känns mer än lovligt hackig.

Pinball never really worked well on portable systems and Pinball Dreams is no exception. The boards are huge, but the game is a little slow. Plus, what exactly is that bat/snake thing on the one pinball board? I'm clueless!

Most of the tables are badly designed, the shot angles are erratic and the flipper control is sticky. There are three tables, but the graphics are really boring in each.

Pinball Dreams was a fun game for the computer systems, but the cartridge versions have stiffer competition to contend with. Even with multiple playfields, they don't have the spark or excitement of Crue Ball or either of Tengen's Genesis pinball titles.

By trying to give Pinball Dreams more with the three playing fields, the game actually ends up with less. It would have been better if Gametek had created one blockbuster pinball field instead of three marginal ones. The elements are all there, but the chemistry just doesn't hit the jackpot.