Chris Ingersoll

Much like the arcades that once housed them, the classic pinball table is something that many of today’s gamers might not recognize, let alone appreciate. Their high degree of maintenance and large footprint make them less than ideal for most personal dwellings, which further pushed them into obscurity as the video game industry shifted towards home entertainment. The love of pinball born in the 70s hasn’t completely gone away, however; ever since the Atari 2600 the silver ball (or in that case, blue square) has appeared in pixelated form on pretty much every console and handheld, with varying degrees of success.

One such offering for Nintendo’s Wii console is Dream Pinball 3d from Southpeak Games. Featuring six virtual tables, Dream Pinball 3d comes off more as a demo of some pinball creation software utility than a serious pinball offering. Five of the tables contained on this disc are essentially interchangeable, nearly palette-swaps of each other with the ramps moved around and a different assortment of sounds. The sixth, “Amber Moon”, was originally created by a different studio for a Cyber Pinball World Cup of some sort, although it still seems strikingly similar to the other five. All six tables feature at least five flippers (“Amber Moon” has an astounding eight), multiball play, and the usual assortment of ramps and targets. They look impressive graphically, and the sounds aren’t any more obnoxious than those of an actual table, but they just don’t feel… well, real.

There are several factors contributing to this feeling of unease. The first and perhaps most apparent is the default camera, which follows the ball in play much too tightly, to the point of committing the cardinal sin of taking your eye off the important part of the table: your main flippers. As the ball zooms around the field the camera sometimes feels like it has no idea where it’s going next, leading to frustrating situations when a carom or downramp sends the metallic sphere rocketing between the flippers without you even being aware of it until it’s too late to react. Should you activate multiball on a table the camera pans back to encompass the whole field, but that’s just being considerate more than it is actually being any sort of good camera programming. The game features a total of seven different camera angles, but none of them are ideal.

There also seems to be some sort of issue with the actual ball physics, although I can’t quite put my finger on what, exactly. It could just be a side effect of the camera troubles, but the ball didn’t always feel like it was behaving the way I was expecting it to do. Flipper speed is another problem, as they are tighter than usual and reach their “on/up” position almost instantaneously; this is when I could even see the flippers in the first place, as they are often hidden behind other elements of the table and frequently emerge unexpectedly. For what it’s worth, less experienced pinball players might not even notice these shortcomings.

One aspect of Dream Pinball 3D that not even experienced pinball players can gauge, however, is its “ball change” feature. Once you’ve obtained a predetermined score, the game asks “Are you ready for ball change?” and the next time you shoot the ball into one of the table’s chambers it will emerge as one of six different materials with different ballistic properties. I personally didn’t really notice any difference, which is probably due to the above issues I had with the overall feel of the game. There are also four different difficulty settings, which affect the number of balls available as well as the duration of various timers; each difficulty has its own high score board so you don’t have to worry about your seven-ball “Easy” runs crushing your three-ball “Hard” attempts.

Dream Pinball 3D takes minimal advantage of the Wii’s unique control interface, using the Remote’s motion control to “shake” the table like in real life and mimicking pulling back on the plunger to put the ball into play. If you opt to use the Nunchuck, its sensor can tilt the table as well. Using the Nunchuck feels more natural, putting control of the left flipper(s) on the Z button while the right flipper(s) respond to the Remote’s B; these controls revert to the more traditional left on the D pad and the 2 button, respectively, when using the Remote alone (in its “NES” position).

Overall, Dream Pinball 3D is an accurate representation of what pinball has become in the “virtual” era. While that may be good enough for those who have never experienced a real pinball table, it simply tastes artificial and hollow to those who have. Making matters worse for Dream Pinball 3D is the fact that a more faithful pinball disc came out for the Wii approximately a month prior to its release that basically trumps it in every way: Pinball Hall of Fame — the Williams Collection. This unfortunate timing shunts Dream Pinball 3D firmly into the Rental category, especially for diehard pinball wizards.

Much like the arcades that once housed them, the classic pinball table is something that many of today’s gamers might not recognize, let alone appreciate. Their high degree of maintenance and large footprint make them less than ideal for most personal dwellings, which further pushed them into obscurity as the video game industry shifted towards home entertainment. The love of pinball born in the 70s hasn’t completely gone away, however; ever since the Atari 2600 the silver ball (or in that case, blue square) has appeared in pixelated form on pretty much every console and handheld, with varying degrees of success.

Perhaps one of the most faithful adaptations of real-world pinball ever, Pinball Hall of Fame — The Williams Collection (PHoF) for the Wii recreates ten classic Williams pinball tables spanning three decades of legendary machines. While none of their licensed tables (like their “Addams Family” table based on the 1991 movie) made the cut, the sampling we do get are indeed worthy of the title Pinball Hall of Fame, including “Pinbot”, a table that was also adapted for the NES back in 1990. Each table has unique features that distinguish it from the other nine, although some of the older tables like “Jive Time” and “Firepower” seem almost primitive compared to the later offerings like “Funhouse” and “Whirlwind”.

Of course, only four tables (“Taxi”, “Gorgar”, “Funhouse”, and “Pinbot”) are available for Free Play in the Practice Arcade when you first boot up the disc. You can pay credits to play on the other six, and can unlock them for Free Play for 100 credits; alternately, completing a table’s initial Goals will allow you to unlock any table you want for Free Play. Completing a table’s initial Goals also reveals that table’s “Wizard Goals”; completing those harder tasks unlocks optional features for that table, such as disabling tilt, applying various skins to the ball, or even turning on “Mirror Mode”, which reverses everything on the table! If you don’t know how to complete a given Goal, each table’s Instructions are available from the pause menu, which will take you on a narrated Power Point-like slide presentation that will show you every target and explain every indicator, sort of like a guided tour of the table. These instructions are an invaluable and awesome feature that I would have killed for when playing some of these tables in real life.

PHoF‘s other two modes are Tournament and Williams Challenge. Tournament mode is basically just that: official pinball tournament scoring for up to four participants, complete with leader board. The Williams Challenge pits one player against all ten tables, giving you three tries on each to achieve a minimum score, awarding you points based on your final score. Both of these modes count towards earning credits in the Practice Arcade and completing Table Goals, so a good performance or two can quickly allow you to unlock more tables for Free Play without ever spending an actual credit. These modes give the title more depth and coherence, elevating it from being simply a random collection of virtual recreations of real tables.

For someone who has played on the real machines, PHoF provides a nearly perfect translation to virtual pinball; the tables look, sound, and in some cases even feel like the genuine articles. You can tell that developer Farsight Studios put a lot of effort into making these collections of polygons as faithful as possible, right down to the classic slamming click when you break a machine’s replay score and reflections in the table glass (the latter of which can be disabled in the options). I experienced none of the questionable physics that I felt when playing Dream Pinball 3D, with everything reacting pretty much exactly as I expected. There was the rare instance of the ball sometimes passing through objects when things got crazy — sometimes even vanishing off the table completely (and being replaced in the plunger for free, thankfully), but that’s a minor problem. There’s even a “Call Attendant” option from the in-game pause menu that will reset the ball position for those rare — but real! — cases when the ball gets stuck on an obstacle and you don’t want to risk setting off the Tilt sensor getting it unstuck (which is what would probably have to happen in real life).

Further aiding in the experience is the superb “smart camera” that always keeps your primary flippers in view if there is any chance of the ball heading that way; when the ball is engaged in a cluster of jet bumpers or otherwise “safe”, the camera zooms in a bit to give you a better view of the action, and it naturally zooms out to encompass the whole table once the chaos of multiball starts. There are many other camera options available, but I found the default to be pretty much perfect and never felt the need to change it. I never had an issue tracking the ball even at high speeds, which made the game play smooth and enjoyable.

The controls are equally smooth, due largely to the inherent simplicity of pinball itself. The Nunchuck’s Z button mans your left flipper(s) and the Remote’s B takes care of the right. Motion sensing handles tilt responsibilities, and the C-stick works your plunger. The manual also mentions that the A button will activate “Magna Save” on tables with that feature (which is only the “Black Knight” table in this collection, although the in-game Instructions say to use the C-stick?). Finally, the – button toggles whether or not your score and other pertinent backboard information is displayed while you play, which can be distracting but is never obtrusive.

Bargain priced at only $20 where I picked it up (although some retailers apparently still carry it for $30, so YMMV), Pinball Hall of Fame — the Williams Collection packs an astonishing number of authentic pinball tables onto one convenient, easy-to-play disc. Every pinball fan worth his (or her) flippers needs to add this to their Wii library, especially if they have fond memories of playing the real machines contained within; this is one of those Wii titles that could be perfect for your “non-gaming” parents as well. Non-fans without pinball experience will probably find a mixed bag of experiences, but still an overall superior product to that offered by Dream Pinball 3D.

The latest incarnation of the Mario Kart franchise is an easy game to love and an easy game to hate, often in the same session. For every successful innovation, there seems to have been either something lost or something broken in the process. The net result is a paradoxical much-purchase AAA title that is far from ideal, especially for long-time fans of the franchise.

Let’s start with the outright positives. Motion-based control via the included Wii Wheel takes some getting used to, but is easy and intuitive enough to learn if you stick with it; fortunately, the game also supports GCN Pad, Classic Controller, and Remote/Nunchuck control options if you’d rather stick with what you know. Speaking of what you know, Mario Kart Wii (MKW) features 16 classic tracks picked from throughout the franchise in addition to 16 all-new tracks; the new tracks are all awesome and the older ones are just as solid as they always were… although they do seem a bit flat by comparison (especially the SNES and GBA tracks). The other major innovation to MKW is the option to race on motorcycles in addition to the usual karts; at first, the 50cc engine class is restricted to only karts and the 100cc only bikes, but 150cc allows both to share the road. MKW also introduces speed-boosting stunts that you perform with a flick of the Wheel/Remote/Control Stick any time you gain significant air off the game’s many ramps, bumps, or other conveniently/cunningly-placed opportunities (including a few tweaks to some of the classic tracks); bikes can also gain a quick boost on straightaways by executing wheelies, but can only achieve one stage of drift slide mini-turbo to compensate.

On the subject of mini-turbos, a major change made to the series’s trademark mechanic (ever since the N64 days) begins the discussion of MKW‘s mixed blessings. In MKW, you don’t manually charge up your turbos by turning in and out of a slide; instead, the charge builds up over time as you hold the slide, up to two stages on a kart. This change was mostly made to reduce (if not eliminate) the controversial advanced “snaking” technique that made online play on Mario Kart DS unfun for more casual players. Unfortunately, it also took some measure of skill out of the actual gameplay, which can be frustrating at the more difficult settings. Further making the upper difficulties a tedious chore is the addition of four extra karts to the Grand Prix mode. While twelve total racers might seem like a plus, in reality it just means that there are four more players’ worth of game-swinging items ready to be launched up your tailpipe; these items include all of the mainstays of the franchise plus a few devastating new ones like POW Blocks and and Mega Mushroom. The change in mini-turbos and the additional racers — and their lead-punishing items — combine to make 150cc Grand Prix competition a swingy, luck-based competition rather than one that rewards any kind of real skill. Fortunately, the 50cc and 100cc classes don’t seem to be as affected by this.

Bizarrely, Grand Prix mode wasn’t the only one affected by the change to a twelve-racer system. The classic Battle Mode has been twisted beyond recognition, with two teams of six going at it rather than just you and up to three buddies… with a time limit. The end result is a chaotic mess, with up to eight AI-controlled bots getting in the way, coming out of nowhere, and generally taking up space, whether you go with the traditional Balloon Battle or Coin Runners mode. Versus races can also feature AI bots, in either solo or team play, but at least there you have the option of disabling them as well as setting how many races you will use for your competition. This is fortunate, as unlike previous editions, Versus races are also the only way you can participate in anything resembling a two-player Grand Prix. Regardless of the chosen mode, MKW is still a blast to play with some friends over, although the loss of the ability to pull back the camera (last seen on Mario Kart 64, I believe) makes four-way split screen play somewhat inconvenient. Fortunately, it is no longer the only option for console-based multiplayer Karting.

The ultimate rationale behind this twelve-racer system is MKW‘s exceptional online play, which allows you to race against up to eleven human opponents, both with and without Nintendo’s ubiquitous Friend Codes. Online play is seamless and, in my experience, pretty much lag-free. I’ve raced with the full allotment of twelve participants, found myself in a one-on-one encounter, and run everything in between as players (and up to one “guest” per console) dropped in and out of competition between each race. Online Battle modes are also possible, and there is a limited sort of Tournament feature wherein Nintendo will send out challenges via WFC that you can take on at your leisure and upload your best time. You can also brush up your skills by downloading top-ranked ghost runs for your Time Trial practices, which includes ghosts from Nintendo staffers as well, or even submit your own ghosts for bragging rights and/or challenges of your own. Even better, if you have 70ish blocks free on your system memory, you can install a Mario Kart Channel that can monitor your MKW friends and challenges without needing the MKW disc to be in the system. If only they had thought of that option for Super Smash Bros. Brawl

In the end, and despite its lingering troubles, Mario Kart Wii continues with the franchise’s history of solid titles. The franchise that created the mascot-based racer pretty much perfected it on its first try, with each new iteration trying something different, whether it be three dimensions and analog control, tandem racing, or motion-controlled online play. While MKW is perhaps the most potentially-frustrating edition thus far, that doesn’t make it any less of an amazing experience.

Insecticide

April 9, 2008

A quirky future Earth where mankind’s rampant genetic engineering both allowed for the evolution of intelligent bugs as the dominant species (or to be scientifically accurate, class) and the de-evolution of humans into hyper-allergic “hominids”; a noir-style murder mystery containing a personal quest to uncover one’s forgotten past; and well-written, humorous, fully-rendered, voice-acted cinema scenes: this is Insecticide, an almost well-executed game. Its one glaring flaw that drags it down to merely Above Average is, somehow, the decision to use the DS as a platform for the unique blend of genres.

Insecticide features two distinct styles of gameplay. One of them, “Detective Mode”, is a point-and-click puzzle interface in the vein of old-school LucasArts/Lucasfilm Games PC classics like Sam and Max Hit the Road — which is fitting, as several of the programmers at developer Crackpot Entertainment list that and other such titles on their resumes. This is the type of gameplay at which the DS excels, with its two screens and stylus interface, and it should come as no surprise to learn that this mode is incredibly solid. There is no voice acting during this mode, sadly, but the humor is brilliant and the puzzles are creative; a few key objects may be difficult to pick out from the backgrounds, but that’s the kind of thing that makes this types of game work — call it the “Oh! Why didn’t I think of that sooner!” factor.

The other half of the game is “Action Mode”, which turns the game into a third-person 3D platforming shooter along the lines of Ratchet & Clank. These types of game are completely dependent on their control schemes, and the DS simply cannot provide quality analog control to make this anything less than frustrating. You have the choice of using “Button Mode” or “Stylus Mode” to control rookie detective Chrys Liszt during these sequences, but neither one is acceptable. Button mode (the default setting) had a chance, with lock-on aiming included to help you navigate, but the inability to customize your buttons forces you to use the R button to shoot and the A button to lock on, which is backwards to everything my hands want to do in this situation; the fact that Chrys automatically “sidesteps” — a jerky, hopping motion that you can enable when not locked on by holding L — when moving while locked on was also a hindrance. Stylus mode features such ill-conceived ideas as tapping the screen to jump and having to cycle through two pages’ of weaponry once Chrys has accumulated more than four guns. The only saving grace of Action Mode is the fact that you have unlimited lives, which is fortunate as you will be dying with obnoxious frequency no matter which way you try to control the game.

The controls aren’t the only issue with Action Mode, sadly. One stage sees Chrys infiltrating a stronghold after being stripped of all her weapons; it would have been helpful if it was mentioned that she was capable of unarmed combat at any point, but on every level prior to this she had a pistol with unlimited ammo, so there is no reason for you to know this. It’s possible that it was mentioned via on-screen text and I just missed it somehow, but that’s probably because the text was red against a largely-red background and flashed past too quickly for me to notice; it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that happened in this game. Additionally, the screens tend to be very dark (on my original non-Lite DS, at least), which can make discerning between a platform and a bottomless pit — or even a fall just slightly over Chrys’s very un-bug-like tolerances — a bit iffy. There are also the usual camera problems, but all of these are really minor when compared to the inability to reliably control Chrys at all for half the game — including three Boss Fights. You might get the hang of it eventually, or at least stumble your way through enough to clear the stages out of sheer perseverance, but you will probably never actually enjoy it.

I would love to see Insecticide done “correctly” on a console rather than a handheld (there is also a PC version), as just about everything else about the game, from the graphics to the sound to the concept, is rock-solid. If they find the time to add to the length a bit (by adding more Detective Mode scenes, ideally) that would also be a plus, as I was able to complete the game in a handful of hours — most of which were spent dying in Action Mode. I also wouldn’t be opposed to a sequel featuring some of the other characters in the 47th Precinct Insecticide Division, whom we only meet briefly in one Detective Mode scene. Overall, Insecticide works far better in concept than in actual execution, but the game is still fun on the whole and bonus points have to be awarded for at least trying something different.

At first glance, THQ’s Elements of Destruction (EoD) gives the impression of being a Rampage-style smashfest, with the giant monsters being replaced by powerful forces of nature like tornadoes and earthquakes. This is somewhat misleading, however, as the game plays much closer to a strategic puzzler complete with objectives, time limits, and limited resources. While this does not change the quantity of fun to be had in this original IP from developer Black Lantern Studios, it does significantly alter the quality, as the two genres tend to attract different types of gamers.

EoD follows a typical strategy-gaming progression, starting you off with the basics against minimal opposition and then slowly ramping up both your abilities as well as that of those trying to stop your quest for destruction. At first your only opponent is time, but before long the game will introduce drones that repair (or rebuild) buildings; those get followed up with buildings that will actually neutralize specific (or sometimes multiple) types of weather. To overcome these defenses, you will eventually gain access to five different types of weather, each with its own strengths and weaknesses that must be considered when plotting out how best to accomplish your given goals for the stage.

Right from the outset, this game is much harder than it appears to be, and that difficulty never really goes away. One carelessly-laid storm can quickly be sucked up by one of the defensive buildings, resulting in wasted time and — more importantly — wasted energy. You need energy to create storms, and you get energy by destroying things. The key is obviously to gain more energy from a storm’s destructive swath than you used to create the storm in the first place, but that’s not always so easy; the buildings that will produce the most energy are also usually the strongest, and are either protected by the anti-weather buildings or are (more often) those weather-sucking annoyances. It will take careful planning to negotiate each stage’s challenge, and that damnable clock is always ticking down.

Fortunately, the game’s difficulty is almost entirely by design and not because of unresponsive controls or a clunky interface. Just about everything is done via stylus, with the bottom screen having a series of icons on the right side for selecting a storm and indicators letting you know which storms you can create with your current level of energy. Once you’ve selected a storm, you either tap the screen where you want it centered or make a quick swipe to set it in motion. From there you can either let it do its thing on its own or redirect it as needed until it either runs out of strength or is eaten by a defensive building. You can scroll the bottom map either by using your stylus or, since that can be tricky with an active storm in the way, by using the d-pad. The top screen displays the overall map, as well as all your other pertinent information like energy level and time remaining. The only problems you are likely to encounter is when action is taking place on the right edge of the bottom screen, as your storm-selection icons may get in the way while you’re chasing down a drone or attempting to stop a storm from flying out of range.

Once I got past my initial desire to just smash stuff up (or, as suggested by the game’s cover, fling around cows), I found the challenge of EoD to be engaging. While some stages just felt unfair in the hoops I had to jump through in order to complete my goals in the time alloted, it was the same sense of “unfairness” that I’d encountered in Advance Wars or Fire Emblem games. Stages never felt outright impossible, but repeatedly had me thwarted as I slowly chipped away at them and figured out what needed to be done. Every hint of progress was another reason to re-attempt the stage, every oh-so-close failure just feeding the “one more try” reflex. If that type of game appeals to you, Elements of Destruction‘s original concept and unique feel should be worth your time.