I’m really pleased I get to review Zen Pinball. I’m talking genuinely, smile smeared across my face happy about it. Why? Because not only do I love pinball (and subsequently, pinball games) but I also have been blessed with… wait a minute, didn’t I already write this review?
YES! Yes I did. Well, okay, credit where credit is due it’s not quite the same game. It’s another Zen Studios pinball game, only this time setting sail on the shores of the Playstation Network. This is Zen Studios’ first voyage onto the PSN, so the back catalogue which Pinball FX 2 had is not applicable here. But to Zen Studios’ credit they didn’t just copy and paste all the tables from the XBLA game and knock off for the weekend. Zen Pinball has four brand new, unique tables to admire and plenty more already promised on the horizon which is a courtesy rarely shown when it comes to similar games which cross platforms.
Luckily for my poor, sore, crippled writing hands I can copy and paste a paragraph from Pinball FX 2’s review and knock off early for a weekend:
“There are online leaderboards, which not only keep track of your friends’, and the world’s highscores on both the table and across the game – but also keep you posted mid-game about how many points away you are from beating the next highest score. It’s a fantastic way to keep you playing, because every time your silver ball of hope bounces at the wrong angle and falls off the screen, you’re busy screaming bloody murder at the box in the top left saying: “You are… 40 points away from beating that guy you sat next to in high school. Who you never really liked, and clearly isn’t as good as this game as you are,” or at least words to that effect. It even gives you a trash-talking message option. BE-EE-AYE-YOOOO-TI-FUL!”
I cannot label this game as absolute perfection. The gameplay, graphics, sound, design and leaderboards I most certainly can, but the game as a whole I cannot. This is sometimes labelled as a PSN standard (which I don’t accept) but the loading times are ridiculous. The first time I loaded up a random table it took nearly 40 seconds to load the single table. That may not sound long but it really is. Stop reading this now and wait 40 seconds – I can almost guarantee that you’ll give up after 20 seconds of waiting. This minor hiccup aside though, Zen Pinball is the best (and admittedly, only) pinball game on the PSN and definitely worth dedicating the hard drive space to if you’ve been in waiting for a good pinball game on your big black box.
Yeah. That's definitely a pinball table.
This isn't. Wait, no, sorry. This is as well.
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