Pinball FX2

It saddens me that over the years the popularity of pinball has fallen by the wayside. Let’s face it, unless you really seek out to find a pinball machine what are the chances that you’ll run into one at your local restaurant? Finding a good pinball video game is just a hard, either you’ll end up paying too much for too little, or the quality of the tables just won’t be there. Luckily Zen studios has your back covered with Pinball FX2 on the xbox 360.

Much like Game Room or Hasbros Family Game night, Pinball FX2 is a free downloadable platform that you can then pick and choose what tables you want to purchase, demo, and play. Our review codes came with the original 3 tables (Speed Machine, Agents, Extreme) and the 4 core PFX2 tables (Biolab, Rome, Secrets of the Deep, Pasha) each pack costing 800 MS points. All of the original tables and DLC from PFX will carry over for no extra price if you have already purchased them; they have also received some graphical and physics updates as well as new achievements to boot.

“But how does it play” you ask? Like a pinball machine… Surprise!!! What do you want me to say, the guys over a Zen Studios made a pinball game that makes each table feel real. There is so much more about this game that’s great, but the most fundamental thing about making a pinball game is making it feel like pinball and Zen knocks that right out of the park. Just like the real thing each table has hidden depth that you find as you play more and more. I swear that every time I play the four new tables I find something crazy, like a minigame where you fire cannonballs at a ship or a separate mini pinball table that opens up in the middle.

Notice how I said “the four new tables.” I had never played the original PFX and I didn’t check which ones were the new tables before I started playing. You can immediately tell the difference as soon as you start up a table. There’s not as much detail on the old tables, there’s more empty space where nothing interesting happens, and the designs just aren’t as elaborate and beautiful as the new ones. While I’m talking about negatives I might as well get what few problems I have with the game out of the way. The flippers don’t sound right. It’s a little hard to explain without you hearing it, but they just sound weak. Flippers have more of a thump, a thud, more bass. Even without saying anything, one of my friends right off the bat asked me why the flippers sounded weird. It’s a small complaint but here’s the good news, that’s about all I could think of to complain about.

PFX2 offers so much fan service to pinball enthusiasts by giving you the ability to use the operators manual and test and teak every part of the table to your hearts desire. Doing so will disable leaderboards, but it’s a nice option to give people who might really love this game. The social aspect of PFX2 is also surprisingly deep. Having online and offline multiplayer is fine and all, but the real fun is when playing by yourself, you’ll see a message pop up at the top of the screen telling you when you’re getting near other friends scores and when you pass them. That combined with your superscore, which takes all your score form all your tables and combines them together, makes me compelled to keep playing this game over and over.

Pinball FX2 has a pretty nice collection of amazing tables and it looks like Zen is going to keep feeding us with a regular stream of content. I know PFX2 has me hooked and I hope in the future we could get a selection of some licensed real tables as well. If you’re looking for a pinball game for the 360 the is the absolute best out there.