If you like superheroes and shiny silver balls then you must pick up Marvel
Pinball on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. The original game cost $10 and comes with
four tables, Wolverine, Spiderman, Iron Man, and Blade. There are also add-on tables with the
Fantastic Four, Captain America, X-Men, Ghostrider, and Moon Knight. Every table is unique, beautiful, packed with
vivid comic art and architecture such as Wolverine’s Weapon X chamber, the FF building,
Asgard, Hel, and Nifelhelm, battlefields, a Cosmic Cube, a dragon, and more. Fanboys can revel in the intense detail and
personality of every table; Cap’s table is pure, gritty WWII, Iron Man’s table
is red, gold, and futuristic, Blade’s table has a day/night cycle, gothic architecture,
cobblestone streets and a tenement.
Besides the main characters standing and posing as 3-D models on the
table there are iconic villains, Mysterio covered in smoke taunting you and
floating around, Hobgoblin can come out in his glider and throw pumpkin bombs
to switch up the game, Sue Storm can erect force fields to stop you ball from
being lost, Wolverine will jump over and battle Sabretooth in minigames that
require you to shoot specific targets.
It
is amazing how the tables vary and how the geography of pinball machines makes
it a different game for every table.
Spiderman’s table has twisting ramps and complex skill shots, Wolverine and
Ghost Rider’s tables are less complex but no less fun. The music and voice acting can get annoying
and repetitive. For some reason someone decided every hero voice had to be deep
and cheesy and every villain screechy, but those thing can be turned off. The table sounds are great and the pinballs
move with weight and near perfect physics, but since it is a video game the
physics can be changed up by you in a menu or in game during certain modes. There can be a lot going on at one time with
the pinball, models on the table, pixelated and animated score screen, but
familiarity, the opportunity to change the camera angle, and a default screen
that shows every inch of the table help with that. You can play alone or with up to three other
players and it’s a blast.
Zen
Studios dedicated themselves to pinball and comics, every inch, every sound is
connected to the comic’s mythology from texture to animation from archetecture
to character models it feels genuine. I
even enjoyed the tables of characters I never followed in comics. The tables are gorgeous, the gameplay diverse. Neophytes to pinball wizards will enjoy the
game, and comic fans will stand agog basking in the beauty and faithfulness of
the subject matter.
At
the time of this writing the original games, Fantastic Four and Captain America
tables are on sale for $2 a piece which is a steal!
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