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| | Gameplay
Sound
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Value
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| | Publisher: Runesoft  Genre: Arcade | | | Min OS X: 10.4 CPU: Intel @ 1660 MHz RAM: 512 MB Graphics: 64 MB VRAM |
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The user-chosen graphic options are actually very important to the way you play the game, so I'll go into some detail here as opposed to waiting until the "graphics" section of the review. Besides the usual resolution and detail options, you can also choose the type of ambient light, the level of reflectivity of the glass over the table (or you can choose no glass at all), the degree of motion blur, and most importantly, the camera options. You can choose either a fixed-position, top-down camera or a variety of moving cameras that follow the ball around. I'll tell you right now, following the ball around makes you feel like you're an embedded TV cameraman chasing a round, metal commando around a city designed by a drug addict. It's almost like a Pinball FPS and is pretty nuts. It definitely raises the excitement level, if you can handle it (I could, sometimes).The controls are as simple as you might expect; two flipper buttons, a ball launcher button, and buttons that emulate nudging the table left or right (and yes, you can tilt). Some of the game's graphic options (like the camera angle) can be adjusted mid-game with the function keys but most are only adjustable from the options screen. "So, enough with the background already," you say. "How's it feel?" Well, pretty good. The ball's physics seem realistic to me, although I will admit I'm no Tommy. The acceleration, deceleration, ricocheting and so on feel almost true, and the flippers, although they seem a little stiff, are mostly very responsive. In all, it doesn't have quite as organic and smooth a feel as some of the other recent pinball offerings out there, but to be fair, this may be a result of this extremely graphically demanding game running on my not-so-extreme off-the-rack 2.16 Ghz iMac. You will probably find, as I did, that you are drawn to one or two tables more than the others. I found the Monsters table and the Knight's Tournament table the most enjoyable, because of their more involving layouts, the fun voice accompaniments, and their resemblance to the previously-mentioned Haunted House and Medieval Madness games. Honorable mention goes to the Two Worlds-themed table (A clever bit of cross-marketing as this is the same company that makes, or at least markets, the Two Worlds RPG), which features a second penthouse level accessible through some devious flipper-work. Because this is of course taking place on your computer, the makers have added some features that could only exist in the virtual world: The ball leaves a trail of glittering sparks behind it at times, and you can unlock balls made of different, usually heavier, materials that exhibit correspondingly different ballistic responses. It's a fun idea, but they don't really take it far enough, in my opinion. It would have been fun to try playing with a lopsided ball, or a magnetized ball, etc. The ones in the game just aren't different enough to get too excited about.
In the so-called real world, when I stand in front of a pinball game, I am forced to guess at the combination of hits and moves that will unlock the multi-ball, award me an extra ball, and so on. The multi-lingual manual that comes with the game thoughtfully provides clues for achieving these goals on each table, which adds a certain mission-like quality and further depth to the game. In short, the makers of Dream Pinball 3D have done a very good but not quite brilliant job of bringing the late-period pinball experience to your Mac. Why only "very good?" The next few sections will detail some of my qualms about the game. GRAPHICS As noted, the three-dimensionality of the game is extremely well done. However, some of the rendering looks pixelated and blocky, and the gradients of curved objects at times look less like smooth curves and more like topographic maps. The reflections, shadows, and light flares look wonderful but sometimes just basic color variations look like something left over from the days of 256-color screens. And honestly, it's not just my computer-- these same graphic issues show up in the screens the manufacturer put on their website, which you would assume would be taken from the most advanced system available. And besides my gut feeling that all of this graphic splendor is making the game run a little stiffly, there are a few in-game rendering glitches that can be annoying, like your score frequently being replaced by yellow rectangles. However, to give the game the benefit of the doubt, these may be signs of my iMac reaching the upper limit of its capabilities.The over-the-top artwork splattered all over every inch of pinball games is a big part of their appeal, and DP3D doesn't stint on the tables, although some of the art for the backboards is quite literally sketchy, and looks unfinished. I suppose they thought no one would bother to look at the backgrounds once they started playing the game. In any event, rendering and unfinished artwork issues aside, there is a hell of a lot of eye candy in this game. It may be a mixed blessing, however, given the performance hit it creates.
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