Video Pinball
Atari 2600
Nostalgia Factor:
My journey to review every game I've ever played takes me back to my childhood in the 1980s. My dad had an Atari 2600 in his basement. While I enjoyed the system and I can credit it to some of my first ever video gaming memories, I can't say that I was ever crazy about the system. Most games I would only pick up and play for a few minutes. I'd quickly get bored with the game and then move onto the next one. Video Pinball is the perfect example of one of these games. I'd put the game in. It would load up the pinball screen. I'd say "hey this is pretty cool." And then five minutes later, I'd be turning it off because there wasn't much to see or do in the game. Plus, I was never very good at it to begin with.
It's been a good 30 to 35 years since I've last played this game. Firing it up was quite a trip. Immediately, all the memories of the game that I had forgotten even existed came rushing back. Unfortunately, not all these memories were good ones. Let's see how the video game from 1981 holds up in 2025.
Gameplay:
I'm completely skipping over the usual "story" portion of my review, because this game has no story. You turn the game on, and you are immediately thrust into the pinball action.
It took me a second before I could figure out what I was supposed to do. I think there are different modes you can put the game in, to make it easier or more difficult. I couldn't figure it out, though. I will say that I was emulating the game, so I had no idea which buttons on the controller were supposed to do what. With each press of the button, the colors on the screen would keep changing, as would the numbers. But then when I would start playing everything would go back to normal.
You launch the ball into the field of play from the right side of the screen. The ball bounces around at random. Occasionally it will venture near your flippers, which you can use to knock the ball to the top of the screen and try to get the bonus items up there. Your goal is to keep the ball from dropping between the flippers and out of the field of play. If you've played pinball before, this should be a very familiar concept to you.
Where I struggled was with the actual mechanics of the game. 95% of the action was watching the ball bounce around. It rarely ever ventures by the flippers, and when it does, you have little control over where you are launching it. I played this game for about five to ten minutes and my initial reaction was: this sucks! I didn't remember the game being this unplayable from when I was a kid. I was ready to pack it up and give the game an F review score.
I turned the game off. I googled some reviews of the game online to see what other people were saying about it. I expected the game to get slammed, but most of the reviews I saw were positive. And I learned something, too. Apparently, when you are playing, you can "tilt" the table, which gives you more control of the where the ball goes. Many reviews were talking about the high scores they were able to rack up using this tactic. I decided to come back to the game and give it one more shot.
I'll admit, using the tilt features does make the game more fun. It gives you a better chance to collect all the items at the top of the screen. But mainly it makes it feel like you are actually playing the game instead of being a standby observer. I probably played the game for about twenty more minutes, exploring this new mechanic.
While I can say that it made the game more fun and saved it from a likely F score, I still didn't really get much out of the game. I wouldn't be surprised if I never returned to it again.
Graphics/Sound:
There really is not much to say here. This is an incredibly basic and primitive looking game. I can't say it doesn't have its charms. But yeah, I can easily see people taking a glance at this and saying "nope" and then not even giving it a try.
The sound is very basic, too. There is no music as you play. You only hear the same grating sound effects over and over again. It's rough. But like I said, it has its charms. Maybe only to people who grew up playing this when they were kids, but it has its charms.
Overall:
I'm glad I came back and played this game, if only for closure's sake. I'm also glad that I turned it off, waited a little bit, and then came back and gave it another chance instead of immediately writing it off as an F title. That said, this still isn't a great game.
I'm going to give it a passing grade, but just barely. I need to appreciate the impact that both the Atari 2600 and this game had when it first came out. I'm sure people were mesmerized by this. But let's be real. If this game came out today, people would laugh at it. I won't say it's bad, but it is not a particularly good game.
So while I can say that I'm glad I came back and played this, for the sake of 5-year old Danny back in 1987, I have to say that the game does nothing for me now. I suppose a testament in its favor is how it gets a better score than the last game I reviewed, My Friend Peppa Pig for the PS4. So old games like this can be better than new games. Sometimes.
THE GRADE:
D
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