I am a person that loves video games, hands down.  In case you didn’t know that. But my all time dream and love is to own my own pinball machine.  Problem is, they are big and expensive.  And there really isn’t an alternative to having one…. or is there?

Farsight studios, one of the many companies known for working with pinball manufacturers has released a classic pinball “emulator” type of game for home systems. The games that they released were incredible to play and yes, addictive.

A few years back. Stern, one of the last remaining great pinball manufacturers that is still in business, went their own direction to publish their own version of the game with the Stern Pinball Arcade. This is what we are here to discuss.  And the playlist of the games are just incredible:

• Star Trek™ Vengeance Premium
• AC/DC® Premium
• Mustang® Premium ‘Boss’
• Harley-Davidson® / Third Edition
• Last Action Hero™
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein™
• Starship Troopers™
• High Roller Casino™
• Ripley’s Believe it or Not!®
• Phantom of the Opera™

We will start with the fact that there are a couple machines that I wasn’t very impressed with just because I found them to be difficult.  Starship Troopers and Last Action Hero to me, had to be thee most challenging table, which is ok for some but frustrating for me.  But don’t take that as a sign that they are bad games, because they aren’t.

But the cream of the crop of this collection has got to be a tie between Star Trek, AC/DC, and Ghostbusters.  Wait, that last one isn’t on the list!  When the collection originally came out, there was a downloadable code to get the Ghostbusters Premium machine when the machine was finally converted.  The worth was absolutely worth it.  Every bumper, ghost and annoying screams from the machine is all on this version for the Playstation.  I keep finding myself going back to this machine.  All I really needed to do was turn the tv to vertical and then play just as a pinball.  This was top of my list and one of the main reasons why I wanted to play the collection in the first place.

AC/DC, what can you say about this table?  On the real machine, I love it.  Everything that you’d expect from the band hype is on this table.  From being able to select the song that you want to listen to, which also happens. to start a level.  To theBell that you hit for a bonus.  It’s all there.  I never quite understood the purpose of the canon skill shot that is similar to Terminator 2, which is almost turning out to be a norm for a lot of machines.  But it was still a fun and I still stink at it.

But the PS4 version is as close to the real thing that you can get,  which makes it even more fun to play.  The music choices are still there as well as the bell and skill shot.  It’s things like this that make the game more worthwhile to play by being as exact as you can be.

Now this is just a review of some of a couple of the tables with the fact in mind that they all have something great to contribute in each table.

Challenge mode does seem to prove to be what it says to the title.  In this mode, you play every table but the Ghostbusters and are given a certain score to reach.  You get up to three chances to clear each challenge.  But if you fail the third time, game over, which is annoying if you have two tables left to play.  But it is still a lot of fun to play.

But what about the tilt factor?  Oh yeah, it’s there too.  For those who want to nudge the table to get the ball to shift to left or right, you can attempt it with the left analog joystick.  But like any other pinball machine, tilt too much and your turn is over.

In the end, it is not exactly the real thing, but it is darned close.  Although sometimes it is challenging to find the right camera angle to use on the table.  Most of the time, I tend to be up close, and when you have a multi ball, the screen will zoom out a little.

There aren’t as many tables on this collection like its predecessor which has a total of 22 tables.  But the original Pinball Arcade has a variety of pinball manufacturers involved.  What I am hoping for now is the ability to download newer tables that came out within the past year such as Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars and their newest release, Iron Maiden, which was released at the Midwest Gaming Classic in Wisconsin.  That would just rock!

Also to note, that this is also available for the Xbox One, for those who are about to rock!

Brad Feingold (118 Posts)

Brad has been a die hard arcade fan ever since he can remember. From the first time he played Space Invaders, to the first time he played Pacman, Brad has always had a love for video games. Hanging out at either the Great American Fun Factory in the mall, or spending the night in front of the glowing games at the local roller rink, he was always thinking about when he can spend the next quarter. He also worked at Babbages, which is now GameStop, for over six years. Mostly because they had a really sweet checkout policy on new products and great discounts. But since he had the Atari 2600, he has never looked back and owned some of the greatest home machines, NES, SNES, GENESIS, Turbo Graphix 16, GameBoy, Game Gear, Lynx, Playsation 1,2,3,4 and Vita, XBOX, Gamecube, and N64...just to name a few. Brad is also a reviewer for Mobile Beat Magazine as well as a freelance videographer, part time disc jockey, performing artist and photographer. But has a true love is for video games and Star Wars, as he is a member of the 501st Central Garrison. His ultimate dream is to own a fully working pinball machine and arcade machine. Difficult to say which one, but a Star Wars one would be nice start.