Gameplay Sound    Graphics Value Publisher: Interplay    Genre: Arcade Min OS X: 10.5.8

Pinball Yeah! March 21, 2011 | Ted Bade

Pages: 1 2 Gallery

Click to enlarge

Pinball Yeah! offers four different tables, each with a significantly different layout, look, and feel. You can select to play any one of the layouts, and the futuristic A.i. layout actually brings you into the other three games if you open the pathways.

The four layouts this game offers are each very different from each other. Each offers its own music format, sound effects, and even feel of play. There are special effects with each game, unique to that game as well.

The previously mentioned A.i. layout is a futuristic option with multiple levels, a robotic sounding voice for comments and effects, and an electronica type of music theme. When you hit certain targets they burst into a spray of polygons. It has the look and feel of what a computer geek from the 1980s might envision for the future. There are several levels to play on, with tunnels to transport the ball up and holes for it to fall down. A barrier can be broken through to get the ball to the uppermost level. One treat from this game is to access one ball of play in one of the other three layouts. If the right combination of hits and targets occurs, you open a “wormhole” to another layout. Shoot the ball into it and the game loads the other layout and you get one ball of play there. This is a neat effect which is hampered a bit by the long loading times of the new layout as well as during the return to A.i.

Code runners has a very old style classic pinball machine feel to it. The sound effects are like those I remember from the lowest end pinball tables of my youth. The ball rolls down on what sounds like a cheap veneer wood, the bumpers sound like they have been used a lot, and there are even simulated wear marks in the table top. Only two paddles are used to bump the ball up the table as you try to hit the various targets to get a code developed.

Liquid Bread (Old Irish Pub) not surprisingly has the motif of an Irish Pub (sort of). There are pots of gold, the bumpers look like beer kegs, and a music track reminiscent of an old Irish tune. As you smack the ball up the table, near the bar there are several ways to “drink a beer”. After you have done this a few times, the graphics of the game become wavy and distorted, and the controls respond slowly, as if you were playing after three too many drinks (This is a pretty cool effect). Luckily, if you can get the ball into the peanut rack and “eat some peanuts," this effect goes away. Getting beers is relatively easy, but the peanut rack is a bit harder. A nice challenge here.

The final layout is called Pirates Cove. This has a more pirate/sailor design. Two opposing ships occupy the upper part of the board, with wooden planked walkways leading up to them, Above the ships are a Tiki volcano and a treasure island. If you get the ball onto one of the two ships, the sailors on that side fire it onto the opposing ship, where sailors or pirates act as bumpers and targets. On the lower sections, shark dorsal fins act as interference for getting the ball up the walk ways to the ships. A giant pink octopus attacks the pirates if you hit the bumpers correctly, which provides a replacement ball when you loose the one in play. The music is nautical in theme and a voice with a thick pirate accent comments during play with plenty of “Arrghs!” and pirate platitudes.

Pages:

1

2

Gallery