Pinball FX Review

About the game:
Pinball FX is as you might have guessed a pinball game.  It comes with 3 HD pinball tables to play on, has a total of 12 achievements worth 200 points, has single and multiplayer modes, and offers the ability to download future tables as downloadable content in the future.  Finally the game also gives you the ability to play using the xbox vision camera to control your pinball action.

Single Player: 6/10
Single player mode comes with 3 different tables, which function just like a expect a pinball table to.  You obviously can hit the ball with the flippers, you can use the thumbsticks to shack the pinball machine and there are various tasks to complete on the game, such as opening up multi-ball mode, or hitting the light up ramps for bonus score.  Personally I am a big fan of pinball, so I have really been having fun playing these tables, and my favorite at this time is definately the Agent table.  Based on the game description the tables apparently grow in difficulty as you get better at the game, obviously I havent done very well, because I have not noticed any real changes to the tables yet.

Multiplayer: 6/10
Essentiallly the same as the single player mode but its like going to the arcade dropping in a bunch of quarters and playing pinball with your friends, but with a small twist. I personally didnt get to play multiplayer yet, but looking at the game creation screen it looks like a race to the target score and you lose a percentage of points by loosing a ball. Interesting little twist there. Multiplayer gives you the ability to play against 3 other players on xbox live.  The game also provides leaderboards so you can see how your single player and multiplayer score matches up to the rest of the Live community.

Graphics/game play: 7.5/10
For a xbox live arcade, and a pinball game - the graphics are actually very stunning.  If you look closely at the balls, you can see the reflection from the ball, as well as the ball actually spinning if you hit it in a way that made it spin.  It isn’t like your standard game in which you travel from area to area, or various stages, you have the 3 tables and thats about it, but what is available looks pretty stunning.  The most obvious graphical change is on the agent table where a little bird flies and a full city lights up when you hit the proper targets near them. 

Achievements: 6/10
They split the achievements up pretty nicely I would say.  You have a few that are based on just normal gameplay, such as getting enough points, or scoring an extra ball - and they also have achievements based on the actual missions for the table, making it more likely that you will work at completing the actual missions that the table has to offer instead of the ever so popular “wack the ball and hope for a good score” approach.  There is nothing ground breaking in the area of achievements but at least they make sense, and are based on an actual task that requires you to do something harder then pushing down on the left thumbstick for example.

Value: 6/10
I always go back and forth of the cost of arcades.  I really am a big fan of the completely unique new content but some of them just dont hold the value after you finish the game.  For example, I relaly liked Cloning Clyde, but after finishing the game and all the achievements, I haven’t it since.  Pinball however, although it has specific tasks to complete on each of the tables, the tasks are simply to gain a higher score - so its always good for another spin at a later time. You however might think that 800 points (about $10) is expensive for a 3 table pinball game, especially if the downloadable tables prepared for the future are at an additional cost. 

In Short..
For pinball fans such as myself I think this is a great way to play some pinball without leaving your house, ok so its not the same as playing an actual pinball machine, but the more I think about it - finding a pinball machine these days isn’t the easiest task these days anyway. I like that I can fire this game up play a 3 balls of pinball, and just have a good time, unlike some other arcades even after finishing all the achievements you can still have a good game of pinball without feeling like you are playing a story you all ready finished.

I give it a 6.5 out of 10