Greets all. This may be somewhat off topic, but here ya go.
Part 1: SNES pinball
Part 2: Saturn pinball 1 & 2
Part 3: More SNES & PSX pinball
Been picking up some odd (for me anyway) games lately. Quite a
few moons back the wonderful Matt B. turned me on to the
existance of a kinda sequel to the pinball games we all know and
love, Alien and Devil's Crush. I finally found it: it was released for
Super Nintendo, and is very very good, IMO. It's called Jaki Crush,
and it's loosely based on japanese devil/monster mythology. Play
is very similar to Devils Crush, with very familiar bonus rounds but a
very different main board. Play is about as fast, with control that
seems about as tight and flippers that have to date never launched
my ball DOWNWARDS as if it were magnetically stuck to the
flipper.
Also picked up a couple of pins for the Saturn. Now I totally hate
real life pinball, so I was quite a fan of the two TG pins 'cause they
weren't at all realistic and despite their flaws I found it enjoyable to
rack up the occasional decent score. There is another pseudo
sequel called "Fantastic Pinball: KyuTenKai" from Tecnosoft which
is very cheerfully animated with all maner of anime-styled
characters. You can pick one of three, and each becomes your
ball, with different characteristics capabable of different board
triggers. Bonus levels are fun, and at least a little different from the
standard TG fare. Graphics are overly cute with bright colours,
scrolling backgrounds, rabbit-girls, devil boys and a skeleton band.
Wildly cute, to the point of whimsical nausea, unless that's your
kind of thing. And girls whose booblies get wobbly when you bonk
'em with the ball... That's all good. Oh, and when your ball powers
up you get a great "Fox Trax" style trail behind it.
The last one is a bit of an oddity. Personally, as mentioned, I can't
stand real pinball. Hate it. Love the playful stuff. But this... This is
changing me around. Necronomicon, by Kaze, for the Saturn.
Stonking good fun. This is the game that makes your Saturn's
audio chip scream with joy. No more low-rate samples, no more
fearing to turn up the volume 'cause it reveals noisy sounds. The
boards don't scroll (bleah) and the graphics don't sparkle and flash
any more than a real table (gah) and there are no bonus levels
(ugh!). But this game kicks some serious ass. Stunning sounds,
amazing graphics (ALL HIGH RES!) and dead-on ball physics. I
can't get enough. I'm torturing myself writing this instead of playing
it. Apparently there's a prequel called Last Gladiator, but I've yet to
find it. That's next on my list.
Over the last month, since the list server and my ISP couldn't get
along, I've picked up a few new ones. I found Last Gladiator and
peronally I think it sucks. We're lucky we got a sequel! I also
found an early SNES pinball by Kaze (same as LG and
Necronomicon) which blows very serious chunks. The multi-ball
(all two balls) slows the game down to the point where it's a
punishment rather than a reward. There's a further sequel to this
one which I've yet to try.
Also tried DragonBeat for PSX. CRAP! Don't bother. =)
Lawrence.