To say Zen Pinball might in fact be the PSN sleeper hit of the year, is probably understating matters. Fact is, Zen Pinball is one of the most addictive, well thought out and beautifully presented packages we’ve come across in a while. Simply the perfect pinball experience.

What’s It All About?

Zen Pinball is the latest digital take on the classic past-time, giving players a choice of four tables to compete in a range of different modes. Each table varies in tone to the other; whether it be the automotive “V12″ or the Honda advert inspired “Tesla”. There’s no standout here - each is as glorious as the last with DLC promised for the future.

Zen Pinball costs £6.29/$9.99 from the Playstation Store and has a brimming list of features from 4-player online play to scoreboards and in-game video chat. It’s the complete package.

What We Liked:

• Presentation. From the very second you load up Zen Pinball and you’re taken to a gloriously rendered pinball table from which to select your game mode you know it’s special. The camera sweeps around the table as you select icons, and you’d be perfectly forgiven for being blown away before the game even starts. Then you load up a table and you know you’re going to have fun. The tables are chunky, gloriously animated and perfectly designed. LED animations complete the experience but everything from the sound, to the Marble-Run style design, to the flipping (pun intended - Ed) pause menu will have you invested. Second only to flower, Zen Pinball has some of the best graphics we’ve seen from the PSN.
• Community aspect. When you’re browsing menus or waiting for a multiplayer game to start, Zen Pinball wants to constantly keep you in the loop with the game’s community. Who’s having a multiplayer win streak? Who’s just got a high score? Who’s got the best score-per-second ratio? It’s nothing new, but it’s cute and it works in the scenario of a pinball game. The incentive to play better is constantly lurking, making Zen Pinball’s community not only ridiculously addictive, but attractively inviting too.

• Multiplayer. Not content with having an excellent range of tables, gorgeous presentation and a decent scoreboard mechanic; Zen Pinball also has a pretty decent multiplayer mode. The standard match is a well constructed “race-to-the-total” affair which punishes losing balls. It’s not exactly the most invigorating multiplayer type of all time, but in its fast matchmaking and lobby system we’re sure it’ll find a niche. There’s also “Hotseat” which is essentially a take-it-in-turns co-op type mode.
• Depth of features. So, again, Zen Pinball is hardly reinventing the wheel with its feature-set; but it’s the fact that it collects and collates all the best features of the Playstation 3 into one relevent place that make it so worthwhile. There’s video chat in the multiplayer, which occupies the upper-left corner of the screen. Custom soundtracks. Tournaments. Scoreboards. You name it, the game does it. And the key thing is, it never gets in the way. Zen Pinball is an excellent pinball game first and foremost, but it also has a range of well implemented features to keep you hooked.

What We Didn’t Like:

• Loading. We’re nit-picking. We admit it. But we hate down-time at the best of times, especially loading. Some of the tables can take a little bit too long to load up. Thankfully once they’re loaded you can keep playing on the table as many times as you want with no further loading to worry about.
• It’s pinball. We can’t deny the fact that Zen Pinball is in fact a pinball game. If for some crazy reason you don’t like super enjoyable pinball games then, well, this isn’t for you.
• The fact it might get overlooked. We think we’ve done a decent job telling you why Zen Pinball is good but even with our recommendation we can see this game flying by with little to no fanfare. Come on guys, it’s £6.29/$9.99. It’s not going to break the bank. We think you’ll really like it.

I bought it yesterday too.  I liked Pinball FX on 360.  Not as realistic as William's Pinball Hall of Fame on Wii, but much nicer visually.

The pinball tables in Zen Pinball are more interesting than the Pinball FX tables (Tesla table is awesome!), there are swirly parts of the table and magnetic saves like real pinball tables had (and are featured in Pinball Hall of Fame), which Pinball FX lacked.  Zen Pinball gives you the option to make it more videogamey by adding some new visual special effects like sparks coming from your ball (it's a nice effect, and adds to the feel of the game) and scores that pop up (which look ugly but are helpful in teaching you how to score good points on the tables).

Now I'm starting to wish someone would make a really nice crazy pinball game like Return of the Gator or Kirby's Pinball Land.

Just played the demo, seems kind of cool, but I am no where near a pinball fanatic. I'll keep an eye on it for now.

How easy is it to track the ball visually?  I picked up a dirt cheap pinball game on the computer a while back and was sorely disappointed to find that the screen always seemed half a tick behind where the ball should be.  Made it impossible to track the pinball.  Along those lines, how bright and easy is it to make out the pinball and the scoring lanes or pins?

Wow, cool!  Sounds like an ideal electronic version to me.  I'm at work, but when I get home tonight, I'll have to check out that demo.  Thanks for the input, Diamond and Tekmojo.

After playing the demo, that's exactly what I was wishing for, tables that are more crazy, elaborate with multiple screens. Also, I couldn't buy it if I wanted to, the UK psn has the demo but not thef ull game, and the demo doesn't have any option to unlock.

I went back and checked again. On Thursday, the last thing on the store was the demo. Now there's Bejeweled 2, a new Buzz pack and the full version of Zen Pinball. They must have done a second update. :) Still no Comet Crash though :(
I don't know if I want to splash out on it now that I'm playing Devil's Crush and it's a lot better than the El Dorado demo level on Zen Pinball. Tesla looks interesting but I can't test it without buying it :p

I'm really liking it.

While I like this to a certain degree, still think that Pinball FX & better still the Williams Pinball collection on the 360 have the physics a little better. Especially after playing tons of pinball in the past on a variety of real machines the Williams Pinball collection nailed the physics where the Zen pinball (which has some really interesting tables) ball has a bit of an arcade feel to it. Hard to put my finger on it exactly but compared to other pinball games the Zen Pinball feels like the playing feel has some wax on it where the ball moves a bit quicker. They're all good versions of pinball games worth playing if you enjoy digital pinball but there might be some period of adjustment as you get used to how each studio made the game.  
 
Hopefully with the next round of pinball from all 3 of these developers they continue the tradition of keeping pinball alive.