I love pinball, in fact I grew up with a pinball machine in our basement. I’ve been a big fan of virtual pinball to and recently I came across Zen Pinball by Zen Studios.
And not only is it virtual pinball,but it also has available different Marvel themed tables, which in my book is a win-win.
When you first download and install Zen Pinball you get one table for free, the Sorcerer’s Lair and while it is a great showcase to how well the physics work and the possibilities of the tables, the real fun is in the additional tables you can buy.
I’ve picked up the Marvel tables and have spent several hours in each learning the different tricks and tunnels to go into. There are also additional tables that are not Marvel themed but for now I’m sticking with the Marvel tables.
A nice little touch, when you don’t own a tablet the screen is Black and White and when the table has downloaded the screen starts to fill with color.
The best part about virtual pinball is that you can do things that just aren’t feasible in the real world. Like when Wolverine and Sabertooth fight, it would be virtually impossible to recreate that in the real world.
In Avengers, different characters pop off and on depending on which ‘character’ ball you’ve selected.
On the Fantastic Four Reed actually stretches to reach across the table and Ben Grimm punches the ball, all things you can’t do in a real table.
Thor and Loki or the Destroyer duke it out while your pounding the pinball around the table, hitting the targets.
And in World War Hulk you get taken to a hole new table when you go into a special mission in the game.
Zen Pinball does a really good job of giving you different angles to view the table and it works in both landscape and portrait orientations. The tracking is one of the best if seen in virtual pinball.
My only complaint is the ‘scoreboard’ is small and hard to see and in fact you might be so concentrated on where the ball is you might not even notice it in the upper left until the end of the game. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if your going into Multi ball when you have the volume down and the way you put your initials in is kind of annoying but all in all I think they have done a great job.
As if you aren’t a Marvel fan or you are interested on other tables they do have a couple of other tables you can purchase Excalibur, Epic Quest and a recently released Tesla table.
As with any good game these days there are achievements that you can earn by completing different missions on the different tables. You can see your ranking based on the device, or if you up for the challenge you can see how you rate compared to the rest of the world.
There is an option to ‘Hotseat’ play, where you take turns passing the iPad between two players.
Zen Pinball is free and tables are $1.99 each available for iOS
