Balls of Steel (Windows)

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Description

After Epic Megagames' two releases Epic Pinball and Extreme Pinball, Apogee finally got their own pinball game in late 1997, Balls of Steel. It features five testosterone-packed tables, each with its own theme, missions, and special bonuses. Like the Epic games and the classic "21st Century" pinball games on Amiga, BoS has a top-down scrolling screen, with an animated dot matrix display at the bottom. It also features a full-table view. Very high scores are awarded with a "powerball" end bonus mode, and could be posted on the "WorldScores" net site (no longer available). Being a Windows game, all tables boast high-resolution graphics.

This game was included in Encore's "Pinball Madness 2" collection in 1999.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "BOS" -- Common abbreviation
• "Balls of Steel: Pinball on Steroids!" -- Tag-lined title

Part of the Following Group

• Replay (GT / Infogrames / Atari) releases

User Reviews

Pinball as addictive as any 1st-person shooter.

Andy Voss (1875)

Critic Reviews

Adrenaline Vault, The (AVault)	Feb 08, 1997		90
Mega Score	Apr, 1998	90 out of 100	90
Imperium Gier	Oct 10, 2001	8.3 out of 10	83
PC Games (Germany)	Jan 07, 1998	80 out of 100	80
Computer Games Magazine	May 07, 1998		80
GameStar (Germany)	Jan, 1998	78 out of 100	78
GameSpot	Feb 23, 1998	7.5 out of 10	75
Power Play	Jan, 1998	73 out of 100	73
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	May, 1998		70
PC Player (Germany)	Jan, 1998	66 out of 100	66

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Trivia

Devil's Island Pinball

A sixth table, Devil's Island, was made but not included with Balls of Steel. It was finally released in early 2000 as a seperate product - not an add-on. Also, it was distributed by Expert Software, rather than Apogee or GT Interactive.

Pinball Wizards

Pinball Wizards is actually a project group of Apogee. In 1997, Apogee decided not to develop/release games under their own name, but rather specialized divisions of themselves. Most of their new releases have gone under the roof of 3D Realms, but Pinball Wizards was created for Balls of Steel (after all, it's not 3D). As of 2011, the Pinball Wizards name was never used again.

References

The table "Mutation!" features catchphrases of C. Montgomery Burns from the TV Show The Simpsons done by a very similar voice.

References: Duke Nukem

The first appearance anywhere of a pinball machine named "Balls of Steel" is in level 1, "Hollywood Holocaust", of Duke Nukem 3D. Since 3D Realms and Pinball Wizards are both divisions of Apogee, either this early appearance inspired the actual Balls of Steel product or was a leak / early promotion of their pinball video game that would come out of the pipe nearly two years later.

In any case, the references went both ways, as Balls of Steel includes a Duke Nukem 3D-inspired table, with ramps and bonuses named after Duke enemies (octabrain, pig-cop) and power-ups (jetpack, HoloDuke). Icing the cake is the recording of original Duke-y quips by Jon St. John, the official voice actor for the Duke Nukem character.

Information also contributed by Dmichal and Pseudo_Intellectual

Related Web Sites

• Apogee/Pinball Wizards official homepage for Balls of Steel (Very informative, info on the game, screenshots, shareware demos, patches and more )
• Wildfire Studios official homepage for Balls of Steel (Includes information about the game, screenshots, patches, and cheat codes)