If that's the best that your mind can conjure, then Dream Pinball really does what it says on the pack. For everyone else, it has six rather shabby tables that use little imagination, lack innovation and that fail to excite like Nintendo's own pinball games do. Not a nightmare, but you'll be wistfully wishing for more excitement.
You'll love:
- Pinball on DS!
- Six entire boards!
- "Crazy" themes!
You'll hate:
- Little imagination
- Lacks innovation
- Upsettingly pixilated
As of yesterday, July 23, 2012, TopWare Interactive announced the release of the pinball simulator, Dream Pinball 3D for iOS devices. The iOS comes with four tables, each having different themes and mechanics.
Dream Pinball 3D is a very good but not great attempt to recreate pinball at the height of its glory. The makers of the game chose to reach for graphic glory rather than imaginative gameplay, and the game suffers because of it at times.
Rick Healey writes "My rage is as vast as the infinite reaches of space, and seldom do I have a target so deserving as Dream Pinball 3D. I know, when you pick up something by SouthPeak Games, you're not about to pick up high quality. You're picking up something thrown together in a few weeks to justify a quick cash grab. I've come to terms with that. There's a reason I don't pick up their games until Best Buy is practically throwing it in my basket after picking up another volume of anime. So I have really low expectations out of Dream Pinball 3D. How SouthPeak manages to fall short of even those is impressive. It's like earning the gold medal at the Failympics – you just have to fail that much harder than anyone else.
Now, in theory, the concept behind video game pinball should be fairly simple. Make a video game approximation of a pinball table, make it competent in terms of both physics and table layout, and let players have fun. It's worth noting that, thanks to the Virtual Console and WiiWare, there are already three games proving quite competent at this task – Alien Crush and Devil's Crush, both originally for the TurboGrafx-16, and Alien Crush Returns on WiiWare. (And if you're willing to go primitive, the original NES Pinball is also available.) Not only is it possible to come up with a simple and engaging pinball game for the Wii, it's already been done three times. Is it too much to ask for SouthPeak to do it as well?"
