Pinball Hall of Fame
This is why well-done collections are such an awesome value.
Published: January 1, 2006
I’m going to try as hard as I can to avoid talking about Pinball Hall of Fame in the same way that I splurt out other compilation reviews. I’ll not bore you with the same “it’s so easy to make money with old-school collections by just emulating 20 games and slapping a $19.95 price point on it” schtick. It should be obvious that all handhelds – the PSP included – are more or less the dumping ground for 8-bit collections.
Pinball, though, is a different beast. For starters, it can’t really be emulated, not in the sense that old NES or Sega Master System games are. Replicating a good 70 years of pinball history involves modeling the tables themselves, building in a reasonable physics model for the ball and flipper and kicker parts of the game, and wrapping it all up with a presentation that doesn’t feel cheap – even if the game most likely will be.
Pinball Hall of Fame does this, and does it brilliantly. Sure, there are the occasional bits of wonkiness with the pinball physics, but they’re extremely rare, and for the most part you’re left with a wonderfully playable chronicle of some of the best pinball games to hit arcades. They aren’t the flashiest, and as much as I gravitated towards the tables that rocked massive, curling rails and huge LED screens for bonus games, it’s only now that I’m seeing how much depth and personality these games had.
PHF initially only gives you four tables that are unlocked for Free Play. To unlock others in all the game modes without using tokens, you’ll have to satisfy various table goals that can be something as simple as netting a set of points or as involved as actually running the full challenge that a particular table was set up for. This can be a massive undertaking, requiring plenty of study of the table layout and the nuances of how the ball can carom around under that big glass slate.
Every table comes packed with detailed instruction on how to play them; this means with enough review, you can learn what bumpers or gates open up a particular part of the table and thus keep you going. Because you’re stuck playing just four games (Genie, El Dorado, Victory and Big Shot) at first, the game can seem unnecessarily stunted, but once you start understanding the basics of each table goal, the game can open up rather quickly.
Completing the table goals is a simple affair on the first couple pinball machines, and unlocks other tables for free play. You'll also net a handful of credits, which are the only way to play any tables not yet unlocked by finishing the aforementioned goals. You'll net a few extra credits by getting your name on the high score list, but mostly it's a matter of building up credits by completing challenges and then pouring that cash into a new machine to learn what it takes to complete that goal. If you just want to barrel through tables, you can try the Challenge Mode, which sets you up with all the tables and forces you to rack up points before you can move on to the next one.
It's a plodding process at first, but it quickly becomes very, very addictive. The four tables offered at the start are all fairly varied, and they span a nice range of history. Some of the tables have an insanely high cost of play, and some goals (like Strikes 'n Spares' perfect 300 game) seem impossible, but it's really just a matter of practice, and the game coaxes you through that nicely.
This is the game’s double-edged sword, though. If you can learn to love the tables, learning how they work and then plugging away at the goals to unlock more stuff can be incredibly rewarding, but there’s a high cost of entry if you’re not into the first four tables – and a continual annoyance as you go back to them to build up credits to learn and unlock the others.
The others do offer a wide range of different styles, from the completely flipper-free Play-Boy from the 1930’s to Tee’d Off’s mutliball mode to the complete throwaway games of chance like Love Meter (which originally used a grip bar to “measure” your love factor) and Zolten, who dispenses advice on love or work or what have you – usually in a enjoyably condescending way.
Most tables also support a game sharing option, so you can beam a copy of the full table, complete with head-to-head Wi-Fi play against another person (though you can’t seem, just their score). It’s a small touch, but it actually helps extend the appeal of the game quite a bit more, if only for multiplayer games.
With the exception of a few tables where the ball can seemingly pass right through a flipper (though I never had it actually end the ball, it just sort of caromed around the bottom of the screen), the ball physics are quite solid too. Flippers and kickers actually have varying levels of bounce and response depending on the table. Gentle nudges are possible with the analog stick, but in the heat of playing, it’s painfully easy to tilt the tables. It could be argued that this was intentional, since a lot of tables are very, very tilt-sensitive, so it’s at least a solid addition.
The graphics, too, are certainly solid for a PSP title. Condensing down some of the smaller details for the PSPs screen results in things looking a little smeared – especially if you have the screen brightness turned down to save battery life, but the framerate is solid and the overall look – right down to the reflections on the glass that you can toggle on and off – is dead on.
The 3D front end for moving around from table to table does the trick (it’s modeled off the actual Pinball Museum in Vegas, so it’s not like they could go nuts on the design side), and the detail on the tables themselves is nice. Since the tables are presented in 3D, there’s an option to choose from multiple camera angles and zoom levels, and if you feel like goofing around with a full-screen view, you can rotate the whole mess so it fits vertically on the PSP, but this is mostly for show.
The sound design is similarly basic, but effective. There’s really only one actual “song” in the game, an instrumental cover of The Who’s “Pinball Wizard;” the rest of the audio is taken up with a bunch of ambient effects (you can usually pick out the attract mode announcements for other nearby tables when you’re playing) that include a handful of sound effects from early 80’s arcade games. The result is a light cacophony of arcade sounds, and it works great.
For $20, this is an impressively solid collection of tables. No, it doesn’t rock the modern ramp-heavy, LED mini-game-filled, pop-up shooting gallery-laden tables that are signaling the death knell for pinball machines these days are here (and, in a way, it’s a shame), but what’s here is an impressively solid set of games delivered with an either brilliant or frustrating credit dynamic. It’s certainly worth a look, and shows that a $20 doesn’t necessarily mean a game is pure crap right out of the gate.
Pinball, though, is a different beast. For starters, it can’t really be emulated, not in the sense that old NES or Sega Master System games are. Replicating a good 70 years of pinball history involves modeling the tables themselves, building in a reasonable physics model for the ball and flipper and kicker parts of the game, and wrapping it all up with a presentation that doesn’t feel cheap – even if the game most likely will be.
Pinball Hall of Fame does this, and does it brilliantly. Sure, there are the occasional bits of wonkiness with the pinball physics, but they’re extremely rare, and for the most part you’re left with a wonderfully playable chronicle of some of the best pinball games to hit arcades. They aren’t the flashiest, and as much as I gravitated towards the tables that rocked massive, curling rails and huge LED screens for bonus games, it’s only now that I’m seeing how much depth and personality these games had.
PHF initially only gives you four tables that are unlocked for Free Play. To unlock others in all the game modes without using tokens, you’ll have to satisfy various table goals that can be something as simple as netting a set of points or as involved as actually running the full challenge that a particular table was set up for. This can be a massive undertaking, requiring plenty of study of the table layout and the nuances of how the ball can carom around under that big glass slate.
Every table comes packed with detailed instruction on how to play them; this means with enough review, you can learn what bumpers or gates open up a particular part of the table and thus keep you going. Because you’re stuck playing just four games (Genie, El Dorado, Victory and Big Shot) at first, the game can seem unnecessarily stunted, but once you start understanding the basics of each table goal, the game can open up rather quickly.
Completing the table goals is a simple affair on the first couple pinball machines, and unlocks other tables for free play. You'll also net a handful of credits, which are the only way to play any tables not yet unlocked by finishing the aforementioned goals. You'll net a few extra credits by getting your name on the high score list, but mostly it's a matter of building up credits by completing challenges and then pouring that cash into a new machine to learn what it takes to complete that goal. If you just want to barrel through tables, you can try the Challenge Mode, which sets you up with all the tables and forces you to rack up points before you can move on to the next one.
It's a plodding process at first, but it quickly becomes very, very addictive. The four tables offered at the start are all fairly varied, and they span a nice range of history. Some of the tables have an insanely high cost of play, and some goals (like Strikes 'n Spares' perfect 300 game) seem impossible, but it's really just a matter of practice, and the game coaxes you through that nicely.
This is the game’s double-edged sword, though. If you can learn to love the tables, learning how they work and then plugging away at the goals to unlock more stuff can be incredibly rewarding, but there’s a high cost of entry if you’re not into the first four tables – and a continual annoyance as you go back to them to build up credits to learn and unlock the others.
The others do offer a wide range of different styles, from the completely flipper-free Play-Boy from the 1930’s to Tee’d Off’s mutliball mode to the complete throwaway games of chance like Love Meter (which originally used a grip bar to “measure” your love factor) and Zolten, who dispenses advice on love or work or what have you – usually in a enjoyably condescending way.
Most tables also support a game sharing option, so you can beam a copy of the full table, complete with head-to-head Wi-Fi play against another person (though you can’t seem, just their score). It’s a small touch, but it actually helps extend the appeal of the game quite a bit more, if only for multiplayer games.
With the exception of a few tables where the ball can seemingly pass right through a flipper (though I never had it actually end the ball, it just sort of caromed around the bottom of the screen), the ball physics are quite solid too. Flippers and kickers actually have varying levels of bounce and response depending on the table. Gentle nudges are possible with the analog stick, but in the heat of playing, it’s painfully easy to tilt the tables. It could be argued that this was intentional, since a lot of tables are very, very tilt-sensitive, so it’s at least a solid addition.
The graphics, too, are certainly solid for a PSP title. Condensing down some of the smaller details for the PSPs screen results in things looking a little smeared – especially if you have the screen brightness turned down to save battery life, but the framerate is solid and the overall look – right down to the reflections on the glass that you can toggle on and off – is dead on.
The 3D front end for moving around from table to table does the trick (it’s modeled off the actual Pinball Museum in Vegas, so it’s not like they could go nuts on the design side), and the detail on the tables themselves is nice. Since the tables are presented in 3D, there’s an option to choose from multiple camera angles and zoom levels, and if you feel like goofing around with a full-screen view, you can rotate the whole mess so it fits vertically on the PSP, but this is mostly for show.
The sound design is similarly basic, but effective. There’s really only one actual “song” in the game, an instrumental cover of The Who’s “Pinball Wizard;” the rest of the audio is taken up with a bunch of ambient effects (you can usually pick out the attract mode announcements for other nearby tables when you’re playing) that include a handful of sound effects from early 80’s arcade games. The result is a light cacophony of arcade sounds, and it works great.
For $20, this is an impressively solid collection of tables. No, it doesn’t rock the modern ramp-heavy, LED mini-game-filled, pop-up shooting gallery-laden tables that are signaling the death knell for pinball machines these days are here (and, in a way, it’s a shame), but what’s here is an impressively solid set of games delivered with an either brilliant or frustrating credit dynamic. It’s certainly worth a look, and shows that a $20 doesn’t necessarily mean a game is pure crap right out of the gate.