Pinball Arcade

Pinball Arcade
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Publisher: FarSight Studios
Reviewed On: Playstation 4
Cert: 12
Available On: iPad,iPhone,PC,Xbox 360,Playstation 3,Playstation Vita,Android,Playstation 4

Do gamers still care about pinball? Maybe not, but its principles have been transported to beloved casual games. Pinball Arcade recreates dozens of popular machines from past decades. Each one includes a brief story of its lifetime before you fire the ball. The controls are standard two bumpers, and you can shake the virtual machine and look around it. This game says pinball is an "indelible part of Americana," and the genre is hypnotic, simple and unpretentious. It's also amusing to see detritus from the past (Elvira, The Twilight Zone, Universal Monsters). And it feels authentic. Much does get lost in transition from bulky, tangible machines to a small plastic controller. And while it's fun, there's only so much variation on pinball, with many machines having just cosmetic differences. Pinball Arcade is initially free to play, with microtransactions for groups of machines. pinballarcade.com