The Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection

[Groo The Perverted]

Anyone get this game? I just ordered it, and it'll be here on Tuesday. It's got trophies, but they're not mentioned on the Trophy thread. Someone should get on THAT! lol

Just like last year's standard definition editions, this pinball package is surprisingly top-notch. The disc contains several licensed machines out of Williams' line-up from the past three decades, each accurately recreated for play on the home console. At least half of the names should be familiar to anyone who's flipped a few silver balls in their day. Pinbot. Whirlwind. Black Knight. Funhouse. Space Shuttle. Even the lesser known ones should ring familiar: Gorgar, Taxi, Firepower, and Sorceror might not have been huge successes in arcades, but chances are you've dropped a token or two in them even if you can't immediately remember them. And for those who need a truly old-school pinball machine in their collection, Jive Time has that quaint mechanical design of the pre-microchip era. This HD update also includes three additional, later generation machines: Tales of the Arabian Nights, Medieval Madness, and No Good Gophers, all excellent pinball games back in the day and welcome inclusions to the Williams mix.

Developer FarSight has had some experience in virtualizing pinball with previous pinball collections -- the team worked on Crave's previous compilation from more than three years ago: The Gottlieb Collection. That experience really shows in The Williams Collection. The collection here is a great selection of machines, and each of them has been rendered in 3D using high resolution scans from the actual pinball table. The visual engine used in The Williams Collection runs at a slick 60 frames a second even when a triple multiball is in play. And the developers even employ a fantastic amount of camera options for those who want to get the best view of the action. The sound effects are also spot-on to their real world counterpart, from the raspy voice of Pinbot to the "kaching" of the mechanical bells from Jive Time.

What's more, the pinball physics – what truly makes or breaks virtual pinball – are extremely well done. The balls weight and gravity is accurately represented as it rolls around the playfield. The excellent physics engine is confirmed for those with true pinball prowess: traditional skills such as catching and flipper passing (quickly flipping a "caught" ball from one flipper to the other) can be pulled off with the same finesse as it's done on the real machine.