Epic Pinball: The Complete Collection

This happened to be my first PC Pinball experience when I bought a shareware disk at Radio Shack that contained the table Android. And then there was a used computer shop that was selling used games and some of these tables I was able to get Alacarte. And Blockbuster Video even carried these tables stand alone with a price if you rented certain movies you got the tables in a box for cheap. Point being, this is one of the most fun, yet challenging pinball experience you could ever play on your PC. It's not flashy with 3D polygon graphics or anything it's just fun , and fast paced and keeps you flipping like you never have before. The music composed for this game was spot on with each table created. It sounded like it uses one of those XM music modules etc. And the music works reliably too! I remember back in the day I had my old computer, it was a 486 SX 25 mhz computer and remember having issues getting the sound to work at any given time (Sound Blaster Settings in the config file on MS DOS Startup!) No more with this. Overall its a treat to finally have all these tables in one collection, it's something all generations of pinball players can enjoy, even the younger children out there who may be mesmerized by the ages of online games etc.

Yeah... not bad some of these tables. I played a lot of real pinball when I was a young delinquent, and I was real good at it on the good machines. Most of the tables in this game pi55 me off, they remind me of rip-off machines in real life. Down the guts or side too easy, weak flippers, dead bumpers, etc. I do like the way that different tables 'feel' different to play, some feel old, some more modern in their 'action'. Most of them are just annoying though. Games like Yoku's Island Express have a lot better pinball feel (note Yoku's is not pure pinball though, it's got a metroidvania story too). A few tables in this set are pretty good. I like the abstract 'Enigma' table the best, it's an unusual way to play pinball. I will play this occasionally. Worth a few bucks on special.

A Great Game, just what I was looking for, EXCEPT the table is too big for my screen and auto-scrolls up and down to keep the ball in view. The auto-scroll is too fast and too often and distracts from concentrating on the ball. So the ball drains - zip, zero, no score.

As a hit of nostalgia it's nice, and seeing some of the tables I could never afford (or 'find') back in the day is good to see, but it's not some forgotten gem. It holds up well for an hour or two, but there's not really a reason to come back to it given how good modern pinball games are. There's just not much complexity in each table. Would quite like to see a remake though, modern physics and 3d versions of these tables (with additional scoring mechanics, leaderboards, etc) would be awesome.

I played this back in '97 on my best friend's 486 sx-25 at lake Balaton. After almost 30 years I managed to beat my own record on my favorite table deep sea! Now my life is complete! :D