Whirlwind
Platform: Pinball FX
Stand Alone Release ($5.49)
Included with Pinball Pass
Designed by Pat Lawlor
Conversion by Zoltan Pataki
Released to Pinball FX June 8, 2023 Awarded a Clean Scorecard by The Pinball Chick Team
Real tables of Whirlwind are infamous for popping bricked ramp shots. Each of the Vices had MULTIPLE instances of triggering fly-overs in this digital pin, only instead of going into the chute, the fly-overs would get “captured” by the right habitrail, which almost always led to a drain. The ball returning to the playfield was nearly impossible to defend against when it happened. It would have no speed or momentum and limply fall straight between the flippers. At one point, it cost me a world record in the arcade mode. Well, you know.. missing the shot ALSO cost me it, if you want to be technical, BUT THE FLY-OVER DIDN’T HELP, and it’s made worse by the fact that Angela took that same world record the very next game.
Whirlwind feels like the last Pat Lawlor table that came out of his mad scientist laboratory that didn’t completely make logical sense, before whatever epiphany he had where he suddenly could do no wrong for a six year stretch. Funhouse? Now THERE’S a table that makes sense. Whirlwind has a roughness to it that makes you raise a skeptical eyebrow, as if to say “you thought this was going to be a lot better, didn’t you?” I think Lawlor thought this would be his magnum opus, and it’s not even close. In fact, it might actually be Lawlor’s least elegant table that doesn’t rhyme with “Chafe Whacker.” The three spin discs just don’t add as much anarchy as you’d assume they would. I feared the slingshots a LOT more than the discs. Thankfully, on the default settings, even an average player should be able to grind out an extra ball in a couple seconds just by shooting the right ramp a few times followed by one wide-open drop target. If you were an arcade patron in the late 80s/early 90s, I imagine Whirlwind seemed like an astonishingly generous pin, a rarity for this era. Of course, that’s lost in translation on the journey home, along with the famous fan topper that spins when the discs on the table do. You could do what I did and hold a portable fan to your father and sister’s face when the discs start spinning, but I don’t recommend it UNLESS you’re 100% certain your family’s threats to murder you in your sleep are empty.
Since Pinball FX’s physics seem to be tailored to block not-so-advanced advanced moves like post transfers, we were forced to use the cellars for right-to-left passing. I suppose it helps drill the shot into muscle memory, but it also brings into focus the problem with Pinball FX: it REALLY doesn’t want you to pass the damn ball from flipper to flipper. You know, like you can in real pinball. This is a table that NEEDS passing to work perfectly to maximize its playability.
Still, one has to cheer for the absolutely bonkers design. Two clusters of jet bumpers, each with its own “mode” attached to it (for lack of a better term). Three spin discs. One of the finest uses of a raising/lowering ramp. This is a really visually striking pin. Of course, the biggest issue with Whirlwind’s design is that it only requires you to drill three shots into muscle memory: the upper cellar, the ramp, and the bat flipper’s left ramp shot. Those three shots alone score all the jackpots, light all the “modes” and allow you to play around the spin discs, which were never really that big a risk in the first place. Well, provided you don’t hit the right slingshot. It’s a serial killer, that one. You can shoot the compass lights if you want, but completing the left ramp checks off those lights too. Not only that, but it relights the cellar lamp, which is the table’s driver that activates the modes. While the left ramp is a difficult shot, it’s also not as risky as some of those compass lights are. This was why my father refuses to go above GOOD for Whirlwind: it’s an overvalued shot that throws Whirlwind’s risk/reward balance off a cliff, and that’s even when it’s not the jackpot shot for multiball. It offers more bang for your buck to shoot it instead of touring the board, giving you the cellar light AND inching you closer to multiball. Remarkably, it never feels like a grind, though. Even if you only take those three shots, they offer enough variation and challenge to make this a fun experience.
Jordi on Table Effects: With Whirlwind, Zen did a great job of capturing the concept of getting caught in a storm. As the three disks spin, the effects get better and, crucially, they never block the view of the ball. This is how the special effects SHOULD work on all tables. Indiana Jones, I’m looking at your airplanes.
There’s been a recent patch that seems to have eliminated the ability to shoot the left ramp, aka the most difficult shot on the table, using the plunger. I was baffled when that was a thing before, because if that’s something you can do on a real Whirlwind, I must have never played on a properly maintained table. Well, that’s gone, and that’s a positive step. What isn’t good is Pinball FX’s physics, ever since the BIG physics update that Pinball FX3 did after I started covering digital pinball, seems to be tailored to prevent advanced pinball moves. Whirlwind is a table that absolutely requires being able to cleanly and efficiently do a post transfer. This is like the most fundamental “advanced” pinball move, so much so that my father had taught me how to do them by the time I was 5 years old. NONE OF US can do them consistently on Pinball FX. The ball gets too much weird, undefined spin. Where is that spin coming from? It makes no sense.
We nicknamed the right slingshot “Murder Inc.” This is arcade accurate, by the way. As big a problem as Zen has with overly-sensitive and violent slingshots in their original works, real Whirlwinds absolutely murderlize balls with the slings.
That’s what I think the most notable thing about Whirlwind is: it highlights why the current Pinball FX physics are even further apart from being lifelike than Pinball FX3’s were when I started covering pinball. Post transfers? Free catches? Alley transfers? Really basic “advanced” moves? SIGNIFICANTLY harder to do, if not impossible, and it seems to be tied to the ball’s rotation since it appears to have backspin and completely loses its momentum on a dime. This happens CONSTANTLY in Pinball FX and prevents even fundamental moves from being viable. The only possible explanation I could come up with was that it was done to beef-up the difficulty for professionals by taking away their “cheats” or something. Take that, Tarek Oberdieck! How else do you explain why, in 2023, Zen Studios keeps putting out tables with worse and worse physics when the technology running the simulations is getting better? Maybe they cut off their nose to spite their face (and pros) because someone saw the same handful of players on top of the leaderboards and panicked. Even if I’m wrong as to WHY they did it, they did it, and some tables suffer for it. Whirlwind certainly does, along with every Williams pin. But hey, I wish I could pass the ball in their recent Mandalorian table too, so even their original works suffer.
If you think the physics are murderous in Whirlwind, hoooo boy, just wait until we finish THIS review.
Meanwhile, they never updated the Star Wars Pinball collection on Switch, where I can literally feel the difference. I can pull off the same type of moves I do on a real table on there, despite the fact NONE OF THOSE WERE EVER REAL TABLES! It’s much more life-like! I switched back over to Pinball FX, tried fundamental passes, and the ball would just stop halfway and fall lifelessly down the drain. Another sign that they’ve tweaked the physics can be found in their Jurassic World build for Pinball FX, where the mode start sinkhole just lifelessly drops the ball literally right at the drain. I’m not talking about bad luck. I mean the mode start just sort of lets go of the ball AIMED directly between the flippers. It didn’t used to do this. Angela played three games of Jurassic World this week where, including ball saves, the mode start VUK threw an unplayable EVEN WITH NUDGE (and nobody seems to like Pinball FX’s nudge but they stubbornly refuse to improve it) in 75% of the times she hit it. This is what it looks like (sorry, we play in table mode).
Now, to be clear, Jurassic World is the only Pinball FX3 table that is so busted by the translation to Pinball FX that The Pinball Chick Team has no choice but to rate the table BROKEN. But, I still wish Zen Studios would completely overhaul their physics. We’ve all reached the point where we prefer Zaccaria, because we can actually pull-off the moves that you can really do in pinball. It’s 2023. Why is this not better? Why is Pinball FX’s physics REGRESSING towards feeling more like video pinball and less like a video pinball simulation. Is it to make it compatible with the (100% optional if you’re on a Williams table) enhanced graphics? Because in today’s Pinball FX, you can’t pass the ball. You can’t do live catches. Three physics modes and none of them feel right. That’d be impressive if not for the fact that it’s not as good as tiny upstart Magic Pixel’s physics? In fact, it’s not even really close anymore. Can I do a transfer pass? No? Then it’s not pinball. It’s video pinball. If Zen’s fine with that, cool. It’s not a deal breaker for us, obviously. The angles off the flippers and the ball speed MOSTLY are accurate. It’s just hugely disappointing given they were on the right track years ago, then the train went completely off the tracks. The ball behavior never feels right, and it used to. If their goal was to stop Tarek, fail. He still dominates the leaderboards for the Williams pins. He’s a good shooter, and that’s really the only aspect of pinball that Pinball FX is #1 with: shooting angles. My muscle memory from real tables works on Pinball FX. That’s 80% of the struggle in making realistic video pinball. But finesse? Do you know what the key to playing Whirlwind is? Passing. And what is ten times harder to do on Pinball FX today than the Pinball FX3 that I started playing video pinball with? Passing. You can do better physics, Zen, and I know you can BECAUSE YOU ALREADY HAVE! Cathy: GOOD (3/5) Angela: GREAT (4/5) Oscar: GOOD (3/5) Jordi: GREAT (4/5)
Welcome to The Pinball Chick Complete Buyer’s for Pinball FX3’s Williams Pinball Collection. We’re going to keep recreations separate from original tables at The Pinball Chick. This guide will be updated as quickly as possible (about a week or so after each set releases) to add every new Williams pinball table. This guide will NOT include the 1up Arcade Attack from Mars stand-alone 3/4 Scale Tables. That will be reviewed separately. Each judge considers the best version (Single Player Zen or Classic Physics) in their rankings.
Please do not copy or reprint this guide. This was the work of nearly a year and hundreds of hours spent across multiple platforms. Passages may be quoted, but otherwise, please link directly to ThePinballChick.com Pinball FX3 Complete Buyer’s Guide to Williams Pinball page, and not the IndieGamerChick.com post you’re reading now.
Pinball FX 3 Williams Pinball Collection DLC Pack Ratings
Based on the Average Rating of the Tables between myself, Oscar, and Jordi. All reviews are done by me, Cathy, the Pinball Chick.
#1: Williams Pinball Volume 1
3 Tables for $9.99 Certifications: Medieval Madness (Pantheon Certified), The Getaway: High Speed II (Pantheon Certified) BEST TABLE Cathy: Medieval Madness (#1 of 21) Oscar: The Getaway: High Speed II (#1 of 21) Jordi: The Getaway: High Speed II (#3 of 21)
Welp, this is awkward. Since I previously had Getaway listed as “Good” (not even Great), Volume 1 rested in the second spot, behind the Universal Monsters Pack. I’ve since put a lot of time into Getaway and come to see that I wasn’t just wrong, but not even in the ballpark. My revised rating is Masterpiece, putting it as one of three Pinball FX3 Williams tables in the Pinball Chick Pantheon of Digital Pinball, along with Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness. Speaking of which, it’s here and it’s my #1 ranked table. Weighing the set down is novelty table Junk Yard, which Oscar considers the worst table not named “Champion Pub” in all of Pinball FX3. Neither Jordi nor I hated it that much, or at all. It’s different, but we think it’s neat. Really though, the headline here is “TWO Pantheon tables for $10.” Yep, that’s why this is #1. SET RECOMMENDED
#2: Williams Pinball Volume 6
3 Tables for $9.99 Certifications: All three tables are Certified Excellent. BEST TABLE Cathy: Funhouse (#4 of 21) Oscar: Space Station (#2 of 21) Jordi: Funhouse (#5 of 21)
The first alpha-numeric table pack, and the first pack from Zen Studios that has a table never before (officially) converted digitally, William Pinball 6 statistically has the same scoring average (4.11) as Volume 1. Really, both packs are so good that you can’t go wrong buying either of them if you can only get one set. Me personally? Give me two historically amazing tables versus three simply great tables any day. Historically amazing is much harder to come by, let alone getting two in one $10 pack. Volume 6, meanwhile, has no agreed-upon weak links. I nearly dropped Dr. Dude to “Good”, but nearly isn’t doing. This is the only three-table pack where all three tables are certified excellent. Funhouse is worth the price alone, and while I’m not sure you can say that about Space Station or Dr. Dude, the boys might disagree with me. It’s your call whether historically excellent or all-around excellent is your cup of tea. It’s MY site, so #6 has to settle for 2nd place. SET RECOMMENDED
#3: Universal Monsters Pack
2 Tables for $9.99 Certifications: Monster Bash (Certified Excellent) BEST TABLE Cathy: Monster Bash (#2 of 21) Oscar: Monster Bash (#6 of 21) Jordi: Monster Bash (#2 of 21)
Not having a third “drag” table almost certainly elevates the Universal Monster Pack, but actually, I feel it’s deserving of a top spot regardless. Would *I* put it #1? No. But it does score a 4.0 among us. Given our wide variety of likes and dislikes, it’s saying something that these two tables scored well across the board. The highlight is Monster Bash, George Gomez’s genuinely heartfelt send-off to an entire era of Bally Pinball. Monster Bash is a table that anyone of any skill level can enjoy, perhaps uniquely so among late arcade-era tables. Creature from the Black Lagoon is a decent, unspectacular, somewhat over-rated bonus.. BUT a great table to practice low-angle shots on. In fact, that’s probably the best thing I can say about the Universal Monster Pack: veterans can enjoy it, but it’s a tremendous introductory pack to pinball as well. Come for Monster Bash, and enjoy your complementary Creature. SET RECOMMENDED
#3: Williams Pinball Volume 2
3 Tables for $9.99 Certifications: Attack from Mars (Pantheon Certified) BEST TABLE Cathy: Attack from Mars (#3 of 21) Oscar: Attack from Mars (#3 of 21) Jordi: Attack from Mars (#1 of 21)
Another pack that split our team. Attack from Mars is an incredible table. In fact, it’s the only table I describe as “perfect” even though I don’t have it ranked #1 (but Jordi does). I just can’t find anything wrong to say about it. The other two tables make for a much more interesting debate. Jordi and I disliked The Party Zone, with me rating it the second worst table. Dad actually liked it, saying that, yea, the game can be limited to two simple, forgiving shots. BUT that you’re rewarded for voyaging away from them to attempt higher risk stuff. Dad also thought Party Zone had educational value, teaching new players the need to nudge to get ahead.
Black Rose fared better. An incredibly tightly-packed table that introduced the Brian Eddy signature “centralized target”, it’s also one of the tables that debuted in Pinball Arcade but wasn’t done justice until Pinball FX3. The better physics makes this table such a joy to play. That is, when the outlanes don’t swallow up your multiballs right off the bat. Overall, this is one of those “buy the masterwork, get the other tables as a bonus” type of deals. How much you like that bonus depends on if you like the absurdly overly-simply Party Zone or the potentially fun but often unfair Black Rose. Anyone should feel perfectly fine with just Attack from Mars. SET RECOMMENDED
#4: Williams Pinball Volume 5
3 Tables for $9.99 Certifications: None BEST TABLE Cathy: No Good Gofers (#9 of 21) Oscar: Cirqus Voltaire (#12 of 21) Jordi: Tales of the Arabian Nights (#11 of 21)
A solid pack with a variety of tables that lacks a particular “highlight” but has not a sinker in the bunch, either. No Good Gofers isn’t much to look at, but the variety of shots and frantic modes make it a lot of fun, even for the Lawlor haters among us (ahem, Daddy). Cirqus Voltaire makes its digital pinball debut in a non-busted way (the Pinball Arcade version saw the ball skip rails) and can be fun when it’s not a grinding, frustrating slog. Finally, Arabian Nights is just a perfectly decent table that’s main complaint is unbalanced scoring. Volume 5’s main weakness is having two John Popadiuk tables and one Pat Lawlor table, meaning there’s nothing really here for the more conservative pinball fan. Or not. The fact that we all picked a different table for best-in-set really speaks volumes to the sheer variety offered in Volume 5. SET RECOMMENDED
#5: Williams Pinball Volume 4
3 Tables for $9.99 Certifications: None BEST TABLE Cathy: Red & Ted’s Roadshow (#8 of 21) Oscar: White Water (#5 of 21) Jordi: Red & Ted’s Roadshow (#8 of 21)
With Volume 4, we welcome you to the more polarizing sets from Zen Studios. Williams Pinball Volume 4 barely squeaked by with a 3.0 or “GOOD” average. This mostly owes to controversial White Water, which both Jordi and I rated BAD while my father, Oscar, went with GREAT. It’s on the top ten list for the Internet Pinball Database (then again, so is Tales of the Arabian Nights and Scared Stiff, neither of which are worthy of top ten all-time status). White Water’s issue is it’s one of the most prohibitively difficult tables ever made. One feature I wish Zen Studios had was the ability to access the “coin door” to mess with the features so my Dad and I could duel under our silly “Galactic Rules” (ten balls + ten potential extra balls + all hurry-ups and modes set to extra easy). Without that, all we have is a table that feels like it’d have a lot of potential if it had less bouncy slingshots, less hungry outlanes, and wasn’t so damn crowded. Roadshow’s sheer girth as the only SuperPin converted to digital by Zen Studios is a marvel, but the complicated rules might turn off many players. Hurricane actually has legitimate value as a table to practice shots on, but it’s also a bit of a slog. Nothing outright offends, and your mileage may vary on White Water. Volume 4 is worth getting but not as a priority. SET MILDLY RECOMMENDED
#6 Williams Pinball Volume 3
3 Tables for $9.99 Certifications: The Champion Pub (Certified Turd) BEST TABLE Cathy: Theatre of Magic (#5 of 21) Oscar: Safe Cracker (#18 of 21) Jordi: Theatre of Magic (#9 of 21)
By far the lowest rated set by our three-person panel, Volume 3 is the only set that failed to clear the “good” average and thus fails the recommendation of The Pinball Chick as a site. As an individual, I think Theatre of Magic is terrific and rated it a “Masterpiece.” That sentiment was not shared by my team. Jordi rated it “great” while Dad, not a fan of the works of John Popadiuk, considers it his worst table and awarded it BAD based on its lack of balance. Theatre is still by far the highlight of this set, which also features our unanimous choice for worst table in Pinball FX3 (and Pinball Arcade, for that matter) in Champion Pub. A table with literally no redeeming value, unless you want to stare at the pretty artwork. Safe Cracker is also here, and despite being perhaps the most bizarre Williams/Bally table of the DMD era, it’s actually pretty horrendous and didn’t earn a single positive vote from our team. Volume 3 is all about Theatre of Magic, and if you don’t like it, this is the easiest pass you’re getting in Pinball FX3’s Williams Collection and the only set that didn’t win us over. SET BARELY NOT RECOMMENDED
The Pinball Chick’s Pinball FX 3 Williams Pinball Collection Table Rating Index
Pinball FX 3: Williams Pinball Season One + Universal Monsters Pack + Volume 5 Total Tables: 21 Masterpieces: 5 Great: 6 Good: 6 Bad: 2 The Pits: 2
Special thanks to Steve Da Silva for his guides, which were very helpful. I’ve linked to them all.
THE PITS
#21: The Champion Pub
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 3 Type: Pick ‘n Flick TABLE FACTS 1998 by Midway Manufacturing, 1,396 Units Sold Based on a concept by Pete Piotrowski Art by Paul Barker & Linda “Deal” Doane Music & Sound by Rich Carle TRIVIA -Along with Cactus Canyon, one of two tables that had its production cycle halted by Midway as they transitioned to the Pinball 2000 system. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: The Pits (#21 of 21) Jordi: The Pits (#21 of 21) THE PINBALL CHICK CERTIFIED TURD Link to Strategy Guide
The Pinball Chick team disagrees often on a wide range of pinball topics. So, it really is telling that Champion Pub has twice now been our unanimous choice for the worst table in a collection of recreations. Champion Pub was ranked #100 out of 100 tables by all three of us in Pinball Arcade as well.
Sometimes you hear the concept of a game or a pinball table and you say to yourself “gee, that sounds amazing! I can’t wait to try it!” And then you actually play it, and you realize that what sounded amazing to you (and those who made it) could never actually work when done for reals. The Champion Pub is probably the best pinball example of it.
The Champion Pub has one of the most bizarre development cycles in pinball history. It has no lead designer, and the primary concept came from an engineer by the name of Pete Piotrowski. Piotro Pete was awarded several patents still in use in pinball today, but he wasn’t a game designer by any means. So the people of Williams came together to bring this idea of his to life. The result is one of the worst tables I’ve ever played, and one of the most notorious for breaking down. You don’t have to worry about that in the digital version, though there is a prominent dead zone smack dab in the middle of the table where marooning balls is a common hazard. In real life, you’d have to call an attendant to un-stick the ball, or accept a TILT in order to shake the ball loose. In Pinball FX3, the ball magically teleports to the chute to be auto-launched back onto the field. That’s nice, I guess.
At one point I launched a ball so hard off the ramp that shattering the glass would have been in play.
Pub is such a bad table. The layout is garbage. The fighting concept is extremely poor in execution. I landed head-shots that counted as body shots so many times that the boxing gimmick fails completely. This is also extremely unstable in Pinball FX 3. More than once, the game credited me with starting a multiball despite not having done so, giving me XP for doing so and even leveling-up the multiball boost. This happened once *after* I’d already gamed over and was entering my initials. Like the real table, there’s a gap that allows you to land live balls back into the starting chute, and this seems to trigger the multiball glitch. Since you can use a boost that gives you extra points while in multiball, it’s never clear if you’re scoring based on what’s really happening or what the engine THINKS is happening. Sometimes the camera wouldn’t do a close-up of the jump-rope or speed-bag minigames, and other times it would. It was never consistent.
Signature Mode: The Champion Pub’s boxer toy is a very ambitious concept. Too ambitious, as it turns out. Even on real tables, the censors couldn’t detect several direct hits that should count. Champion Pub didn’t get proper route-testing either, as Midway was nearing the end of manufacturing traditional tables. It begs the question: with holographic tables on the horizon, why wasn’t this idea saved Pinball 2000?
I feel horrible about this because Champion Pub has fans out there, and having a digital version of a rare table that’s hard to find in working condition (and would breakdown if you got it anyway) sounds like it should be awesome. In theory, this version should be better than a real table. All the fun of the original without any of the mechanical failure bullcrap. But the digital table is every bit as unstable and broken as a real Champion Pub machine. It’s the worst of the Williams tables, easily.
#20 The Party Zone
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 2 Type: Pick ‘n Flick TABLE FACTS 1991 by Midway Manufacturing, 3,862 Units Sold Designed by Dennis Nordman Art by Greg Freres & Jerry Pinsler Music & Sound by Dan “TOASTY!” Forden ALTERATIONS -Licensed music has been removed. TRIVIA -Characters and references from previous tables Party Animals, Elvira & the Party Monsters, and Dr. Dude and his Excellent Ray are all present. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Good (#15 of 21) Jordi: Bad (#18 of 21) Link to Strategy Guide
The Party Zone can booked at as part of an unofficial series of tables by Dennis Nordman that all have similar layout-concepts. Nordman specialized in the “Valley Style” where key targets are off to the side while the central playfield is empty. Party Zone’s twist on that concept is having a gigantic head plug up the center that may or may not insta-drain your ball. Well, that’s.. different.
Dennis Nordman is NOT my favorite designer, but he’s actually made some truly inspired works. Party Zone isn’t among those. In fact, Party Zone is the weakest Nordman you can get in Pinball FX3. The problem is you’re not truly incentivized to be bold or daring while playing it. Games of Party Zone can really come down to repeating two shots until the cows come home (the cows presumably have gone elsewhere to play a better table). One of those two shots is INCREDIBLY forgiving, to the point that you almost forget that there’s a completely unfair toy smack-dab in the center of the table that has a good chance of insta-killing your ball.
Signature Shot: Captain B. Zarr’s “select-a-song” has a novel, jukebox-ish feel to it. But, the kicker might throw the ball straight down the outlane or drain with no hope of recovery. The shot isn’t worth a lot of points, either. Shamefully, Party Zone’s signature shot is one you’re better off avoiding.
I’m sorry, but I’m of the belief that if you lock the ball on a target designed to score points and the lock throws the ball down a drain or outlane, that’s straight-up robbery. These were designed to cost $0.50 a play, after all. If you’re going to cheat players out of their balls, Nordman might as well of dressed-up like the Hamburglar and beat up school children for their lunch money with crap like that. And what’s actually here isn’t really that good. There are targets in the upper corners that are actually fairly easy to hit, especially the right one which triggers most of the modes of the game. In fact, the “comedian” shot has one of the most forgiving margins for error in DMD pinball. Really, Party Zone’s biggest crime is that it’s a lumberjack table. You can try higher risk shots, but the wood-chopping ones pay off enough that world records could be set just by repeating the same shots over and over and over and over and you get my point.
THE BAD
#19: White Water Member of the 7K Club
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 4 Type: Kinetic TABLE FACTS 1993 by Williams Electronic Games, 7,008 Units Sold Designed by Dennis Nordman Art by John Youssi Music & Sound by Chris Granner TRIVIA -The Bigfoot is modeled after designer Dennis Nordman’s appearance. -The truck seen on the backglass was based on Nordman’s 1952 Dodge. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Great (#5 of 21) Jordi: Bad (#17 of 21) Link to Strategy Guide
This is the one that gets me blown-up like Robert De Niro in the beginning of Casino.
Our resident curmudgeon Oscar disagrees with Jordi and me. He was delighted with White Water’s brutal, no-holds-barred take on the finesse-type table. Suddenly, all that leather and whips I found in Mom’s closet makes sense.
There’s two types of pinball tables: operator’s tables and player’s tables. White Water is an operator’s table. It’s designed to look pretty, lure in players, make money, and then kick players to pay up for more or let the next idiot pony-up. I consider myself a reasonably skilled player and even after putting a few hours into White Water alone, I still frequently had games that lasted under a minute. For all three balls. There’s no ball save unless you literally score no points. The left outlane is one of the most hungry I’ve ever seen. The orbits are narrow and too steep. In the normal Pinball FX 3 mode, most shots done towards an orbit will result in a straight-down-the-middle instakill if it’s anything but a full-strength hit. This is the one Williams table where I actually preferred Classic mode more. The physics aren’t as punishing. Plus, I’ll give credit where it’s due: the scoring is relatively balanced. Assuming you can, you know, actually keep the ball alive for thirty seconds.
Signature Shot: the iconic upper-right flipper shot is one of DMD pinball’s most notoriously difficult-to-master shots. That’s going to be especially true here, because Pinball FX3, like most digital pinball, has not quite mastered the plunger as of yet. My kingdom for a plunger accessory!
And the crap thing is, this SEEMS like it should be a fun idea. White Water rafting! Wavy ramps! Whirlpools! Robin Williams.. oh wait, that’s bigfoot. Bigfoot!! But, like The Party Zone, White Water is designed to look great but game over quickly. Dennis Nordman must have been an all-star with arcade owners for as often as he cranked out brutal but irresistible tables. It was suggested to me that you had to use the tilt on this table more than any other, but I *was* tilting and it didn’t matter for drain-shots. The problem is, Pinball FX3 has relatively weak tilting. Sure, it’s powerful enough to save from the outlanes. But there’s also a limit for how many times you can use that. Plus, many times I’d start a multiball only to have the VKU feed an unplayable house ball straight down the drain. White Water not having ball save is a crime against humanity. After a certain point, you just have to concede that a table isn’t fun, was never supposed to be fun, and move along. White Water should never have been ported to Pinball FX 3. It’s a table designed to cheat players out of quarters, and nothing more. Easily the most over-rated machine of the solid-state era.
#18: Safe Cracker
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 3 Type: Kinetic TABLE FACTS 1996 by Midway Manufacturing, 1,148 Units Sold Designed by Pat Lawlor Art by John Youssi Music & Sound by Dan “TOASTY!” Forden TRIVIA -Safe Cracker was developed under the assumption it would be based on the board game Monopoly. -Designer Pat Lawlor later did do a Monopoly-themed table for Stern in 2001. -The only “small body” table done by Williams/Bally in the solid state era. -Despite the flyer advertising 10 unique “Magic Tokens”, twenty different ones were made. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Bad (#18 of 21) Jordi: The Pits (#20 of 21) Link to Strategy Guide
“Let’s have a smaller table, but let’s pack as much crap into that smaller table as we would a normal table.”
Safe Cracker has its fans because it’s just so weird, but I really was just bored silly by this table. And that’s heart-breaking for me because Pat Lawlor is my all-time favorite designer. But, not every idea is a home run. Clearly Safe Cracker wasn’t, as operators weren’t inclined to order it. At 1,148 units, it’s his lowest-selling table (at least from his Bally era). In part because the table is significantly shorter than other tables, which makes it look kind of dumb when displayed near other tables. The other reason is because it runs on a timer instead of having three balls. Safe Cracker is a anomaly among pins. As one reader of mine put it, a niche of a niche. Combining pinball with a board game.. a very slow, very basic board game.. the primary draw to players was the idea that you’d win real collectible coins by playing well. Of course, that novelty is lost in a digital translation.
Signature Feature: The board game is extremely limited and based on chance. When I finally got to the center and got my first non-existent token, I didn’t feel accomplished. I felt like luck finally played out for me. I’d played rounds where I’d added tons of time extensions, but because the dice rolls didn’t work out for me, I didn’t make it to the center. The time I did happened during one of my less well-played rounds. By the way, getting the achievement for this table requires you to get all twenty magic tokens. It took me a full day of playing nothing but this terrible table to get that. On the plus side, I ended up #14 on the global leaderboard.
All that remains is a basic, bland, overly crowded table with nubby electro-mechanical era flippers. Safe Cracker feels like one of those higher-end toy pinball tables you spend $200 for at Christmas.. nowhere near arcade quality, but kids are dumb and won’t realize it.. then you watch in horror as your kids play a couple rounds, then never touch again. I’m not even exaggerating. It feels like a toy pinball table. The point of the table is really to move the action to the backglass, where the board game takes place. You roll dice, move spaces, and if you can make it to the center of the board, you win a real life coin. Only you don’t here. An animation of a fake digital coin falls and that’s it.
Signature Mode: “Magic Tokens” earned by reaching the center of the board (and very rarely via special rewards on the main table) can be spent on “Assault the Vault” mode, a timed multiball mode with a relatively complex scoring system. This opens up TONS of problems. Safe Cracker is too small and too packed to accommodate a four-ball multiball mode. Also, Pinball FX3 doesn’t segregate standard scores from Assault the Vault scores on the leaderboard. Thus, the only way to compete at all is via Assault the Vault, which makes the standard play a slog you work through only on the off-chance you MIGHT win a Magic Token. You can’t actually control winning or losing Magic Tokens no matter how well you play since the board game aspect is pure random chance.
I could totally get why this table would be so memorable to arcade-goers from the 90s. Not a lot of games rewarded you with actual, corporeal keepsakes you got to take home with you. The only possible reason to want to play Safe Cracker can’t translate to a digital recreation. So, like, why bother? This table sucks without it.
THE GOOD
#17: Hurricane
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 4 Type: Pick ‘n Flick TABLE FACTS 1991 by Williams Electronic Games, 4,400 Units Sold Designed by Barry Oursler Art by John Youssi & Python Anghelo Music & Sound by Paul Heitsch TRIVIA -The concept of a ball being transported via a basket contained in a reel (as seen in Hurricane and prequel Cyclone’s Ferris Wheel) dates back to 1935’s Barrel Roll. It works functionally the same here as it did 85 years ago. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Good (#11 of 21) Jordi: Bad (#19 of 21) Link to Strategy Guide
Hurricane is probably one of the better tables to build primary angles into your muscle-memory. Whether or not the clown will scare newcomers away, I’m not sure.
The finale of Oursler’s Roller Coaster Trilogy (following 1985’s Comet and 1988’s Cyclone) and, in my opinion, the weakest of the three. Hurricane is a good table, but in Pinball FX 3, it’s not a great one. Many Pinball FX 3 tables feel like the slope is too steep or the gravity is too strong in the standard mode with the specialized PBFX3 physics. That stood out so much more in Hurricane than any other table. I own a real Hurricane table. It’s not even remotely this hard to get the balls up the ramps or clearing orbits. I’d made flush hits that should have easily had sufficient enough force to climb the front ramp, only to see the ball stop just short of the top and come back at me. But, here’s the weird thing: EVERY ramp had this “YOU ALMOST HAD IT” phenomena going for it. Accessing the Ferris Wheel? YOU ALMOST HAD IT! Accessing the Hurricane roller coaster? YOU ALMOST HAD IT! Accessing the Juggler? YOU ALMOST HAD IT! It got to the point where only trapped tee-shots could ever hope to get the correct force needed. It didn’t feel on the up-and-up. Yea, this isn’t present in Classic mode, but (1) the physics are TOO rubbery-bouncy in any table’s Classic mode for my tastes and (2) you don’t get XP, boosts, or super powers in Classic.
Signature Shots: the Cyclone and Hurricane ramps are both hated by professionals for their ability to chop-wood on, but ideal for newbies wanting to drill commonly-used angles into their muscle memory. The Hurricane shot is actually deceptively difficult and mastering it is almost a rite-of-passage.
And, while we’re on the subject, you can’t post any high scores online playing in multiplayer. And that’s a damn shame because it means my Father (known here as Oscar) and myself are both global-leaderboard contenders, so we can’t duel each-other traditionally. Instead, we have to watch each-other play a full game. There’s really no reason to not have that. Heck, make a Hot Seat leaderboard if you have to.
Hurricane is one of the tables where you can’t really see the back of the table at all unless you use one of the cameras that follows the ball. I wish there was a better top-down view to practice on.
Anyway, it speaks to the potential quality of Hurricane that, even with YOU ALMOST HAD IT syndrome, the table is a lot of fun. Heavy on toys and gimmicks but with a layout optimized for casual fun. Professional pinballers (yes, they exist) hate Hurricane because you can easily “chop wood” (repeat simple shots and grind up points) and draw out matches. Also, Hurricane is easily the table that you’ll want to use the Skillshot boost on the most. You can post a top 500 global score just by having it, the Score boost, and hitting the skill shot all three balls. It worked for me.
#16 Creature from the Black Lagoon Member of the 7K Club
Featured in Williams Pinball Universal Monsters Pack Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1992 by Midway Manufacturing, 7,841 Units Sold Designed by John Trudeau Art by Kevin O’Connor Music & Sound by Paul Heitsch TRIVIA – The concept for basing the table on Universal’s Creature from the Black Lagoon was chosen after the decision was made to incorporate a hologram. ALTERATIONS -Mortal Kombat characters have been removed from the Pinball FX3 version. -Licensed music has been removed. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Great (#9 of 21) Jordi: Good (#12 of 21) Link to Strategy Guide
Thankfully, I can praise the art direction without feeling like I’m propping up a convicted pedophile. Yeah, Creature from the Black Lagoon is a looker. I absolutely adore the clashing, dulled colors. If there’s such thing as a technicolor table, this is it.
Combine one of the most clever themes with one of the most maddening layouts ever and you get Creature from the Black Lagoon. Designed by John “Horrible Human Being” Trudeau, my main problem is the right lane is blocked by a “transparent” whirlpool that’s isn’t actually transparent. I play the game muted and thus get no cues on when balls are being VKUed to the right flipper, so I’m kinda screwed by this choice. And what am I being screwed by? A feature that’s barely used. In dozens upon dozens of rounds, I only once was able to get into the whirlpool. Granted, doing so paid off huge and single-handedly gave me table mastery status and (at the time) a top 100 global score, but still, it’s a high visual price for a relatively barren feature.
My team struggled to agree on what, exactly, is the signature shot of Creature. Hypothetically, the multiball is it, but it’s universally agreed upon to be among the weakest two-ball multiballs in the sport. Move Your Car is easily the most exciting and white-knuckle, but the table isn’t driven by it. Really, Creature stands out by being so different from other tables of the era. It’s the only “anti-flow” table that actually kind of works.
You get there via a two-ball multiball that has no ball save attached to it. Activating multiball was no problem for me. But, the mode would pretty much end in under three seconds every single time I did so, with the very first ball taking a trip down an outlane no matter how I hit it. Creature has too many brickable shots to keep up with such an unforgiving setup. You CAN restart multiball once but that requires hitting the snack bar within a limited time. Damnit, I don’t want to get mad at this table. It sure seems like it should be tons of fun. But the drain is so huge it could be legally be described as a canal, the outlanes are too hungry, and Creature just plain frustrates too much. Good table, over-rated, next.
#15: Black Rose
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 2 Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1992 by Midway Manufacturing, 3,746 Units Sold Designed by John Trudeau & Brian Eddy Art by Pat McMahon Music & Sound by Paul Heitsch TRIVIA -Prototypes used black pinballs, but this idea was abandoned due to visibility issues. -Artist Pat McMahon created X-rated backglass art for less prudish European markets, but the art was never used. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Good (#13 of 21) Jordi: Great (#6 of 21) Link to Guide
Change what I said about Creature from the Black Lagoon: THIS is the prettiest table in Pinball FX 3.
Yep, this is a John Trudeau table. Yes, the man is a disgusting creeper. Developed alongside Creature from the Black Lagoon, Black Rose has all the hallmarks of a Trudeau design: maddening mulitballs that are designed to drain out before you get a chance to play them. A wide drain. Starving outlanes. But, Brian Eddy (Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness) co-designed it, and his design signature (a prominent central target) is along for the ride. Like the Darth Vader table in Star Wars Pinball, Black Rose is really notable for being a valley-style table, with an empty center for a playfield that runs the length of the board, with the primary target against the back wall and all other targets off to the sides.
Signature Shot: Black Rose’s broadside shot is the prototype for all Brian Eddy designs to come. It’s a low-percentage survival rate if you miss, but the concept works wonderfully and direct hits reliably feed the right flipper for a trap. Oddly enough, the broadside doesn’t drive the table’s scoring though. It feels disconnected from the rest of the flow.
And that primary shot is absolutely maddening. It’s crowded, but in one of those logical pinball-type of ways. Hitting the target spoon-feeds the right flipper the ball (just hold it for a trap and you’ll be delivered the ball safely every time). But, the wide drain and sharp angles makes nearly every other target super high risk. Actually, I kind of love it, but I don’t think it loves me back. Combine it with one of the most impossible video modes I’ve seen (walking the plank, which requires you to pump the action button, which nobody in my house could successfully pull off) and a cannon that, I swear, misses manage to drain out every time. Plus, there’s absolutely no semblance of risk/reward balance. Easy shots pay off huge. Difficult shots aren’t worth anywhere near as much as they should be. Black Rose has a fun swashbuckling theme, but I can’t help but wonder if this table would had instead been a 1995 – 1998 Brian Eddy design that had the same fine-tuned scoring balance his other works had.
#14: Tales of the Arabian Nights
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 5 Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1996 by Williams Electronic Games, 3,128 Units Sold Designed by John Popadiuk Art by Pat McMahon Music & Sound by Dave Zabriskie TRIVIA -Tales of the Arabian Nights is the first pinball table with a vertical magnetic diverter, which is used for the Genie shot. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Good (#17 of 21) Jordi: Good (#11 of 21) Link to Strategy Guide
Every single primary angle has a high degree of risk. There’s not a lot of tables that can say that.
Much like John Popadiuk’s soccer-themed nightmare World Cup, Tales of the Arabian Nights shirks the idea of calculated risk entirely. Both primary targets of the table are high-risk shots that spoon-feed the drain and necessitate quick tilting reflexes to truly master. Frankly, I never could get the hang of tilting. As a result, I probably said either “are you kidding me?” or simply moaned in agony dozens of times while playing Arabian Nights. It’s just too damn hard a table to truly be great. That you can’t even shoot main targets without risking the ball draining out can cause great rounds to end suddenly and very, very painfully. Arabian Nights is probably the most difficult good table of all the Pinball FX3 William recreations. That difficulty is not tempered with reasonable scoring balance. Don’t get me wrong: it’s fun to get tons of spins of the lamp, which can end up racking up massive points. The problem is you really can just chop wood by shooting at the lamp if you can charge its value up enough. The bumpers, ramps, and other shots don’t pay off enough. Tales has horrible scoring balance issues. Not as bad as Theatre of Magic, but then again, it’s not as fun either.
Signature Shot: while I think most would agree that the lamp is the most satisfying shot of TOTAN, the Genie drives the entire table. Unfortunately, it also often drives the ball straight down the drain with no possible hope of saving it. This is one of the few tables with Pinball Arcade’s version is superior. You can save the ball with a nudge so much easier.
And, frankly, I think it needs a little more time to cook. On a real Arabian Nights table, the magnetic field in front of the genie really shouldn’t lead to an instakill drain-out on players. In the Pinball FX3 version, you have about a 10% chance of a houseball when activating any mode. That number seems to increase when you begin multiball, as over half the time, at least one of the three balls (usually the first one) was unplayable upon being served. That’s especially damning on a table with an already extremely hungry drain and no ball-save for multiball. Arabian Nights also features some tight squeezes among its very cluttered layout. Shots based around using the lower portion of the flippers are among the most difficult shots of the solid-state era. And, again, they don’t really pay off enough to justify it. Arabian Nights is a legendary table, and while it still can be fun (and potentially more fun if the magnetic stuff is stabilized), the prohibitive difficulty muffles the enjoyment. Sometimes legends don’t live up to their reputation. Tales of the Arabian Nights is that type of legend.
#13: Junk Yard
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 1 Type: Pick ‘n Flick TABLE FACTS 1996 by Williams Electronic Games, 3,013 Units Sold Designed by Barry Oursler & Dwight Sullivan Art by Paul Barker, Pat McMahon, & Linda “Deal” Doane Music & Sound by Kurt Goebel TRIVIA -Junk Yard is the final table of Barry Oursler’s career. -Contains modes from other Williams/Bally tables Creature from the Black Lagoon, Attack from Mars, Addams Family, and Terminator 2. -References other tables such as Earthshaker, Dr. Dude, Safe Cracker, Who Dunnit, and The Getaway: High Speed II. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: The Pits (#20 of 21) Jordi: Good (#14 of 21) Link to Guide
I can just hear the pinball community now. “YOU MURDERED WHITE WATER BUT PUT JUNK YARD #7? JUNK YARD?!” What can I say? Guilty pleasure.
Junk Yard is based mostly around a single gimmick: a second ball that’s suspended by a chain that you whack to hit other targets. At first, a person might think the wrecking ball is all Junk Yard has going for it. And yeah, this is a pretty limited table. There’s no secondary flippers. It doesn’t have orbits to shoot combos. It doesn’t even have bumpers. From what I can gather, it’s one of the least popular tables among professional players, where matches end up slogging and players resort to chopping wood (shooting low-risk targets to grind up scores). Skill shot, extra ball, and Time Machine mode are all shared by a single, easy-to-hit target. It sort of has to, since the rear of the table needs enough room to make the wrecking ball gimmick work. This table shouldn’t be good.
Signature Shot: The wrecking ball is dumb fun. Yea, I totally get why pros hate Junk Yard, but this was easily the most popular Williams Pinball FX 3 table in my house among the less hardcore pinheads in the Vice family. At least until Funhouse came along.
But, I like it. In a guilty pleasure sort of way. Easy to get multiball, easy to get jackpots and super jackpots. A few video modes. A few roulettes. Even the backglass comes into play with random chance prizes that don’t totally destroy the balance. Is Junk Yard a finesse table? No. But it wasn’t meant to be one. This is a rare pinball table from the era where it feels like they knew the end was near and decided to just make the most wild designs imaginable because they might not get another chance to. As the finale to Barry Oursler’s esteemed career, he could have done worse. Well, unless you’re my father. Oscar absolutely hates this table. “Junk Yard is so bad that you have to believe Champion Pub could only be worse if it was trying to be, deliberately.” Ouch.
THE GREAT
#12: Dr. Dude and His Excellent Ray
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 6 Type: Sharpshooter TABLE FACTS 1990 by Midway Manufacturing, 3,983 Units Sold Designed by Dennis Nordman Art by Greg Freres Music by Chris Granner TRIVIA -Dr. Dude is the first table to offer a “family setting” in the operator’s mode specifically to tone down the language and themes. -Dr. Dude is rumored to have started life as a laboratory-themed sequel to Elvira & the Party Monsters, but it was felt it was too soon to release a sequel to table that would then compete against a table still being sold. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Great (#7 of 21) Jordi: Great (#7 of 21) THE PINBALL CHICK CERTIFIED EXCELLENT TABLE
Come on, guys! The Bill & Ted license was right there and would have pushed Dr. Dude over the 10K mark for sure.
God, this one hurts.. in more ways than one. I rated Dr. Dude “Masterpiece” for Pinball Arcade, one of the true surprises in the 100 table collection. In fact, Dr. Dude finished #11 out of 100 there. Here, it’s #12 of 21 as of this writing. Why the drop? Well, because the central channel in this valley-style table is, for lack of a better term, evil. Hmmm.. actually, maybe genocidal is a better term. You absolutely HAVE to shoot at both the R-E-F-L-E-X lights AND the “I” Exam, but any and all of those have a huge chance of the ball going limp and falling straight-down the drain. These shots go beyond merely high-risk. Without a proper defense nudge (which Pinball Arcade has and Pinball FX3 lacks), these shots are downright suicide missions. Ones you, again, MUST DO in order to play Dr. Dude well.
Signature Shot: The infamous parody of Bride of Pin*Bot’s billion-point shot, Dr. Dude’s Gazillion Point Shot is tied to an out-and-back ramp that feeds into a caged spin-disk called the Molecular Mixmaster. It’s a satisfying shot, but like every other shot in the Pinball FX3 version of Dr. Dude, it punishes you. Dr. Dude is second only to White Water as the most difficult recreation Zen Studios has done. It’s so hard that it’s almost mean-spirited.
Dr. Dude is still really fun, because there’s nothing quite like it. It’s a Sharpshooter on the basis that precision is rewarded above all, but the speedy, bouncy balls also make it flow like a Kinetic (you can’t even trap balls fed off VUKs) while allowing enough flexibility in strategy to feel like a Finesse table. It’s so weird, but kind of brilliant. The scoring system is unique and, yeah, you can chop wood. That is, if you want to chop the most dangerous, high-risk wood in pinball. Sure, go for it. What keeps it from masterpiece status for the whole team is the lack of defensive options and the tendency of multiballs to clear each-other out instantly. Dr. Dude and his Excellent Ray is excellent, but it should be historically so, and instead it’s merely exceptionally so.
#11: Cirqus Voltaire
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 5 Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1997 by Williams Electronic Games, 2,704 Units Sold Designed by John Popadiuk & Cameron Silver Art by Linda “Deal” Doane Music & Sound by Rob Berry & Dave Zabriskie TRIVIA -Cirqus Voltaire had the highest production budget of any standard Williams/Bally table, in part because mechanisms used in it were being tested for the Pinball 2000 initiative. -The only Williams/Bally table to have the Dot Matrix Display inside the cabinet, and only the second table overall (Capcom’s Flipper Football was first in 1996). -Cirqus Voltaire is the first solid state table with a disappearing pop bumper, though this feature existed as far back as 1958 with Williams’ Gusher. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Good (#12 of 21) Jordi: Good (#13 of 21) Link to Strategy Guide
“Let’s give the most expensive table ever a generic circus theme. And we’ll have the bonus points be themed like judges giving scores like in the Olympics, because we don’t know what a circus is. CAN YOU BELIEVE THE PINBALL DIVISION IS LOSING MILLIONS FOR MIDWAY?”
When you play the work of John Popadiuk, you could totally understand why silverball enthusiasts would give him money to make a limited edition table.. and then be crushed it didn’t live up to their expectations (and what they got wasn’t remotely close to finished) because it turns out it’s hard to build and release tables when you don’t have a big ass company like Midway actually supplying materials and facilities for it and a continuing paycheck depends on you actually finishing your work. I get it. Dude made some amazing tables when he worked for Midway, parent of Williams/Bally. Theatre of Magic, World Cup Soccer, Tales from Arabian Nights. All ambitious, and often wonderful pins. He even got tapped to do one of the holographic tables in the Pinball 2000 line: Star Wars Episode One. A case could be made that it was him, and not Pat Lawlor (or Brian Eddy, though I think he’s out of the running by virtue of only having three tables), who was the greatest pinball craftsman at the end of the arcade era of pinball.
Personally, I prefer the white-knuckle challenge of Lawlor’s work or the sheer elegance of Eddy’s catalog to the kooky mad scientist vibe I get from Popadiuk. But, gun to head, if I had to convince a non-pinhead that there’s more to pinball than meets the eye, I’d probably use Popa’s work first. And with Cirqus Voltaire, you can totally see (1) why he’s so cherished and (2) why Williams cratered around the this time. Adjusted for inflation, Cirqus Voltaire is the most expensive traditional pinball table designed to be routed (earn quarters) ever made. But, like so many post-Addams Family tables, it was prone to breaking down, and OUT OF ORDER signs earn no money. I’ve encountered exactly two Cirqus Voltaire machines in the wilds of the San Francisco Bay Area in my lifetime. Both were unplugged and wearing such signs.
Signature Shot: People remember Cirqus most for its Ringmaster. Well, that and lots and lots of neon. Dad heard that Cirqus Voltaire was a “fill-in-the-blank” concept that could have been tied to the 1996 Olympics, but a deal wasn’t reached.
That’s why you have to love Pinball FX3, and really the entire digital conversion revolution as a whole. While Cirqus Volatire is THE dream table many fans of silverball would love to own for real in their homes, it’s also a massive investment. In near-mint condition, CV will run you over $10,000, and if you lack engineering skills, you’ll be spending even more due to issues with the Ringmaster toy breaking down. Which it will. I imagine many a pinball dream has turned into a nightmare with a Cirqus Voltaire investment. It’s why owning Pinball FX3 makes sense to even the most starry-eyed would be pinball owner. 98.5% of the fun, only that missing 1.5% means you won’t ever spend hours giving a deep cleaning and waxing to a table, nor will you start banging your head on the glass when an inevitable mechanical failure happens.
Signature Feature: technically called the “BOOM! Balloon”, Dad calls this the “whammy bar.” Which shows the old age is getting to him, as this is NOT a bar. Actually, this is an example of perfectly placing a potentially chaotic element. Despite being a tarted-up pop-bumper, you’re unlikely to die using the BOOM! It also is finely turned in terms of scoring, and the extra ball you can use for it feels like something that’s difficult to earn. One of the last truly great features for any Williams/Bally table.
Speaking of which, like many late Williams tables, Cirqus is based around a primary toy target. In this case a green Ringmaster that, I swear to God, looks just like Flabber from Big Bad Beetleborgs. If you use the enhanced visuals, you’ll have the theme song to the song stuck in your head. Unlike Attack from Mars or Medieval Madness, the Ringmaster is off-center with a short orbit behind it. In theory, it should make for a faster-running experience. Instead, the opposite is true: Cirqus Voltaire is actually a slow, deliberate table based around simple angles and lots of multiball modes. And, it’s fun. There’s some weirdness I don’t get. The large ball on the left of the table feels gimmicky and just clutters an otherwise immaculate playfield. Of all Popa’s work, this one feels the least wacky and most simple. Like the rest of his resume, there’s also scoring balance issues that are further compounded by Pinball FX3’s boosts. But, really great table. One of the better recreations in Pinball FX3.
#10: Fish Tales Member of the 12K Club
Free to Download with the Pinball FX3 Launcher Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1992 by Williams Electronic Games, 13,640 Units Sold 17th Highest-Selling Solid State Table Designed by Mark Ritchie From a concept by Python Anghelo & Pat McMahon Art by Pat McMahon Music & Sound by Chris Granner TRIVIA -One of four tables (along with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Popeye Saves the Earth, and Doctor Who) with “Lightning Flippers”, 1/8 inch smaller flippers. -Fish Tales is the highest selling table converted to digital by Zen Studios so far. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Good (#7 of 18) Jordi: Good (#8 of 18) Link to Guide
Simple elegance. They really couldn’t have chosen a better table to be the freebie.
Designed by Mark Ritchie (kid brother of the legendary Steve Ritchie, designer of Getaway: High Speed II), Fish Tales is free for everyone as the sample Williams recreation table for Pinball FX3. Probably a good choice for it, too. It’s one of the best selling pins ever, at over 13,000 units made. I joked that Fish Tales was required to be installed in every tavern as part of their certification. I can’t imagine children of the early 90s would be interested in a fishing pinball game. Then again, one of my favorite launch-window Dreamcast games was Sega Bass Fishing. And I did basically use Animal Crossing as a fishing game..
Okay, point taken.
What strikes me most about Fish Tales is how simple it is. Clean layout. There’s no supplemental flippers. There’s no skill-shot with the auto launcher. There’s no complex step-by-step objectives. The targets are simple, the ramps and orbits have clear, easy shots. Maybe too easy in the case of the ball lock. It got to the point that I could very easily shoot three consecutive shots into it without breaking a sweat. Not that the rest of the table is easy. In fact, I died as a result of the multiballs that lock triggers. Still, Fish Tales feels like a table that brings the best qualities of the early 80s through the early 90s without any of the confusing, overly elaborate excesses.
Signature Shot: The boat’s horseshoe leads into one of the most intense but simple combo-shooting experiences in PBFX3.
The result is a pretty dang good game. And, like most other Pinball FX3 recreations, this is a solid port job. The biggest flaw in Fish Tales is that Mark Ritchie designed the table to use standard flippers, but the machine shipped with the infamous “lightning flippers” that are very slightly smaller than normal flippers. This was done at the request of UK operators who were pissed that players lasted three minutes at a table instead of under two. Many owners of real Fish Tales tables change over to standard sized flippers, since that was Ritchie’s intent and all the angles were based around them. But, Pinball FX3 offers no such option, and uses the Lightning Flippers despite them being a last second addition to the game to cave in to the demands of bitchy arcade owners. Do the right thing, Zen: give us normal flippers.
#9: No Good Gofers
Featured in Williams Pinball FX3 Volume 5 Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1997 by Williams Electronic Games, 2,711 Units Sold Designed by Pat Lawlor & Louis Koziarz Art by John Youssi Music & Sound by Vince Pontarelli TRIVIA -Rumors persist that a prototype that featured a gopher popping out of the center of the playfield existed, but no tangible evidence for it has ever been found. The whitewood (undecorated prototype) lacks this feature, and no function for the gopher exists in the scoring code. However, it is insisted by insiders that fifteen prototypes with a third gopher exist. -The Hole-in-One is the highest open-ramp shot in pinball. -Pat Lawlor’s final table for Williams/Bally. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Good (#16 of 21) Jordi: Good (#16 of 21) Link to Strategy Guide
Why not just spring for the Caddyshack license? It couldn’t have cost THAT much by 1997?
Pat Lawlor’s work isn’t exactly known for being newcomer friendly. No Good Gofers, his final table of the arcade era of pinball, is one of his more difficult tables, but also feels like his least inspired work as well. The whole situation is bizarre, because both Gottlieb and Williams made extremely similar tables based on golf that had gophers because they were trying to stoke a Candyshack vibe. No Good Gofers came out four years after Gottlieb’s Tee’d Off and is clearly the better table in every single way. But still, I get a strange “this isn’t really what I want to be doing” vibe from Gofers. Lawlor was coming off Safecracker, which had been designed to be based on the board game Monopoly until Williams dropped the license and he had to switch the theme around at the last second. I always got the feeling Gofers was a rebound table, like he was coming off the disappointment of Safecracker being unpopular with operators and not resembling his original Monopoly vision and his heart wasn’t into it. Plus, there’s been a persistent rumor (completely unverified) that Gofers originally had a large, animatronic gopher toy in the center that was vetoed halfway through development as a cost-cutting measure. If true, that means he dealt with two straight tables that got the screws put to them by Williams.
Signature Shots: the circle is Gopher’s iconic hole-in-one shot, which is technically the tallest open ramp shot in pinball. The star is the “putting green” which you tap in off a bat shot. Mastery of both these is essential to playing No Good Gophers well.
Whether it’s true or not, No Good Gofers is still a really fun table. Maddening, like any Lawlor pin tends to be, but fun nonetheless. It’s probably one of his faster tables, as evidenced by a VKU throwing the ball at the flippers like a baseball pitcher. But, the absurdity that a golf-based table would play very fast actually works. Even better, the difficulty is tempered with a lot of safeguards to assure fairness. Gofers has one of the more generous kickbacks of the late Williams era and frequent ball save activation. It’s a hard table that goes out of its way to be enjoyable, which is, frankly, the hallmark of Lawlor’s body of work. Well, that and modes. Lots and lots of modes. Do you know what the problem is when you make extremely mode-heavy tables? All but a small handful of them tend to make you wish you were playing the more scoring-heavy ones. It throws an otherwise balanced table’s scoring out of whack. This is further compounded by Pinball FX3’s scoring and mulitball boosts. It’s also one of his least pretty tables, in terms of layout and placement. Gofers is a lot of fun, but it also feels slightly phoned in and an underwhelming swan song for Lawlor. He was supposed to have the first of the holographic Pinball 2000 tables, but his Magic Blocks project was cancelled to devote resources to Revenge from Mars and Star Wars: Episode One. The man deserved to go out on a higher note than Gofers.
#8: Red & Ted’s Road Show Member of the 6K Club
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 4 Type: Sharpshooter TABLE FACTS 1994 by Williams Electronic Games, 6,259 Units Sold Designed by Pat Lawlor, Dwight Sullivan, & Ted Estes Art by John Youssi Music & Sound by Chris Granner TRIVIA -The final member of the SuperPin line, and the only one not based on a licensed property. -Red is voiced by Carlene Carter, daughter of June-Carter Cash and stepdaughter of Johnny Cash. -Rumors persist that Earthshaker originally was going to feature a construction worker’s head where the Earthquake institute was located, but Williams made designer Pat Lawlor choose between the shaker motor or the head, and he chose the motor while moving the talking head concept to his next table, Funhouse. Red & Ted acts as a sequel to Earthshaker and features two heads AND a shaker motor. -Briefly held the record for most expensive pinball production until being replaced by Stargate (1995 Gottlieb). REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Good (#14 of 21) Jordi: Great (#8 of 21) Link to Guide
I’ve always wondered if this was originally supposed to be based on a licensed property and the construction stuff was added when negotiations for something broke down.
1993’s Twilight Zone is wide(bodi)ly considered the greatest pinball table ever. Red & Ted’s Road Show is Pat Lawlor’s follow-up to it, and you’ve got to feel for him in the same way you feel for Francis Ford Coppola every time someone talks about anything he did after the Godfather or Godfather II. Once you’ve made anything that’s, according to fans and many peers, “the best ever“, you can’t possibly live up to that prior work again. Road Show doesn’t remotely try to feel like Twilight Zone. The only similarities are being part of the SuperPin line of gigantic wide body tables (in fact, Road Show is the final of the series) and being a mode-heavy experience. Lawlor has a reputation for making the most complex pins imaginable. This one might be more convoluted and confusing than even Twilight Zone.
Signature Shot: Ted (on the left) drives the table, and also drives you mad with their inane chatter. While the characters are supposed to stir memories of Rudy (from Funhouse), the way the Red & Ted heads are used just isn’t remotely interesting.
More than any other Williams Pinball Season 1 table, Red & Ted’s Road Show requires a time investment just to get a feel for what you’re supposed to be doing and how the massive volume of modes work. There’s over twenty, mostly named after cities. There’s a vast, wide open playfield with two nightmare-fuel ventriloquist heads that serve as the primary targets, but most of the modes are activated by shooting ramps and targets behind them. You know what? Just watch this video courtesy of Bowen Kerins and the Replay Foundation. It’s 33 minutes long. Yea, it really requires that much time to figure this thing out.
Did you watch it? LIAR! You did not! And you really should, because you’ll be expected to do all that. Is it fun? Well, yeah. I mean, obviously. I have it ranked as “great.” But Red & Ted has issues. The scoring balance is wonky, with some of the easier modes worth more points than harder ones (and hell, that’s before you factor in Pinball FX 3’s boosts). My Dad’s been on my case all year for rewarding tables that FUBAR the risk/reward balance, especially since that was the main complaint of my Nintendo’s Pinball review. Yea, that’s a legitimate complaint. What can I say? Nintendo’s Pinball isn’t fun. Red & Ted is. Theatre of Magic is. And there’s something about the SuperPin line that makes hitting high degree-of-difficulty shots feel so much more satisfying. My biggest issue with Red & Ted is there’s simply too many things to keep track of, with too many important elements based on chance. Multiballs have an uncanny knack for clearing each-other out. Maddening table, but oh so fun too. Also, I’m going to go ahead and say it: worst launcher/skill-shot ever.
#7: Space Station
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 6 Type: Sharpshooter TABLE FACTS 1987 by Williams Electronic Games, 3,804 Units Sold Designed by Barry Oursler Art by Tim Elliott Music & Sound by Brian Schmidt TRIVIA -Space Station is the first digital recreation by Zen Studios that has never had an official digital conversion. -This sequel to 1984’s Space Shuttle was a huge flop for Williams due to high production costs of the Space Station toy. -Prototypes featured a drop-target that was removed to shave costs from production. The target would have virtually been a blind-angle anyway. -At the moment artist Tim Elliott was drawing the space shuttles for the backglass art, he looked up at his TV to see the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Masterpiece (#2 of 21) Jordi: Good (#15 of 21) THE PINBALL CHICK CERTIFIED EXCELLENT TABLE
Nobody at Williams said it out loud, but let’s be real: arcade operators didn’t order Space Station because of the Challenger. Really, they should have re-themed the table, keeping the Station concept but adding Sci-Fi elements. The shuttles were probably depressing for arcade goers looking for escapism in 1987, even if it was released 23 months after the disaster. For many young people, it was their JFK moment, where the world got too real. Who wants to be reminded of that when you’re in an arcade?
While 1984’s Space Shuttle wasn’t an unprecedented hit by any means, its success bought the pinball industry valuable time and convinced arcade owners the medium wasn’t done yet. Williams especially had suffered a string of catastrophic commercial flops, with some of their tables outright hated by operators. Space Shuttle might have attracted players with a cheap plastic space shuttle toy, but it wooed players back to Silverball with its absolutely stellar gameplay. Without question, Space Shuttle saved pinball.
Signature Feature: while many would argue the Space Station ball-lock is the main feature, I’d argue that the stacked roll-over lanes are the key to successfully utilizing the roll-overs. The bottom U-S-A lights on the bottom multiply the value of the Stop & Score, aka the the hurry-up drop target & ramp that leads to the station. The 1-2-3 lights on top increase the bumper value AND re-activates the locks for multiball. Space Station is the ideal table to practice lane-switching since it features the best roll-overs in all of Pinball FX3. There, I said it. Someone had to.
The sequel would have nearly tanked it again, had Williams not just run off a string of global hits like High Speed, Pin•Bot, Comet, and F-14 Tomcat. Tables that feel like they’re taking gigantic steps towards what the sport would become during the DMD era. Space Station, in many ways, feels like it’s deliberately trying to slow the medium down and catch its breath. Hence, Space Station takes on the feel of an early-80s sharpshooter, with the focus being tight, precision shots and lots of lights and targets. The focus instead is on taking the target-shooting and refining the scoring to be as razor-sharp as humanly possible. Incredibly, a 1987 table thus manages to somehow feel like it’s paying tribute to a bygone era. Weird.
Notice something missing? Well, if you’ve ever cursed annoying inlanes, this is the table for you!
Speaking of weird, Oursler wasn’t totally against outright experimenting. Throwing players of all-stripes off balance is the fact that Space Station has no inlanes. Instead, the slingshots actually buffer the small outlanes. It makes a precision-shooting table dip its flippers to test the Kinetic waters. It never succumbs to outright chaos, but it puts it all on the player to prevent it from happening. So actually, this old-school feeling table takes quite a bit of getting the hang of. In the case of Space Station, it’s a successful experiment, though a lot of players hate it, and I can totally understand why. Multiballs are incredibly hard to keep alive and tend to clear each-other out, especially if you’ve already lost your kick-back. But, brave the lack of stabilizing inlanes and you’ll find one of the most inspired and fine-tuned tables of an entire generation. What generation that is, I’m not quite sure.
THE MASTERPIECES
#6: Theatre of Magic Member of the 6K Club
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 3 Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1995 by Midway Manufacturing, 6,600 Units Sold Designed by John Popadiuk Art by Linda “Deal” Doane Music & Sound by Dave Zabriskie TRIVIA -Originally the table was going to be based around famous magician David Copperfield and production started before even finding out if he was interested. Copperfield allegedly wanted too much money, but the concept didn’t require a famous name attached to it. -Theatre of Magic originally had a disappearing drain post, but arcade operators complained that posts led to extended play times and Midway mandated they not be used anymore. ALTERATIONS -Mortal Kombat references have been removed. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Bad (#19 of 21) Jordi: Great (#9 of 21) Link to Guide
Not to be confused with Capcom Pinball’s Magic. Speaking of which, Zen Studios has worked with Capcom in the past. God willing, we’ll get a Capcom PBFX3 pack that contains Pinball Magic, Breakshot, Big Bang Bar (less than 10 units made it into the open market), and Airborne. I’d pay $19.99 for that four pack. Are they any good? I don’t know. I’ve never played any of them. Even Breakshot. Here’s hoping!
While John Popadiuk’s story once he left Williams was, ahem, less than inspirational, Theatre of Magic has left its mark on pinball as one of the most popular and influential tables ever. I’m surprised operators allowed this to become such a big hit. A relatively easy (by the standards of the era) table based around shooting combos, Theatre of Magic is built for fun, with any quarters it ate being secondary to that. Theatre utilizes the magic gimmick to its fullest potential. This includes a heavy use of magnetic areas, including magnets that save balls from outlanes. It’s ambitious, and it works.
Signature Shots: Theatre of Magic’s tri-orbital layout drives the flow of the table while the magic box activates modes and contains the jackpot. It’s a high-risk, high reward design that changes as the game goes along. Both the magic box and right staircase reveal key shots. This is a table that begs to be explored. The most finesse-heavy of Pinball FX3’s finesse tables.
Theatre of Magic is a player’s table, and a genuine masterpiece. But, it’s hardly perfect. In fact, my ranking of it at #4, in the masterpiece category, was the source of controversy in the Vice household that led to a full-blown shouting match. I felt the the biggest flaw is the high-risk center orbit that, depending on the angle the ball enters it, can lead to a no-hope (even if you attempt to tilt it) instakill drain-out. My Dad, a pinball purist, felt that an instakill orbit was nothing compared to the utterly broken scoring balance. Simple orbits pay off too much. The multiball is too easy to trigger (even average players should be able to activate it every ball) and jackpots are too easy to come by. The biggest rewards in Theatre come from relatively easy shots. Also, there’s a video pinball mode on the dot matrix display that’s possibly the worst video pinball ever made. Why would you do a video pinball mode that bad on any real pinball table? Come to think of it, once we’re doing a video pinball mode on a video pinball game, we’re sort of through the looking glass. Ugh. But ultimately, it feels like a table designed primarily to be fun, not to make money. I can’t justify ranking Theatre of Magic this high, except to say that it’s insanely entertaining. Isn’t that why we’re all here?
#5: The Getaway: High Speed II Member of the 12K Club
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 1 Type: Sharpshooter-Kinetic TABLE FACTS 1992 by Williams Electronic Games, 13,259 Units Sold 18th Highest Selling Solid State Table Designed by Steve Ritchie Art by Doug Watson & Mark Sprenger Music & Sound by Dan “TOASTY!” Forden TRIVIA -High Speed and Getaway were based on the designer Steve Ritchie’s 1979 experience leading California police on a high-speed chase in a Porsche. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Masterpiece (#1 of 21) Jordi: Masterpiece (#3 of 21) THE PINBALL CHICK PANTHEON OF DIGITAL PINBALL MEMBER Link to Guide
Getaway is yet ANOTHER table that was notorious for breaking down in real life. Getaway had one of the worst fatal-flaws in all of pinballdom. Balls would get stuck under slingshots, which would short-out the MPU. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the owner’s manual had a misprinting that instructed operators to use a 48 volt lamp light instead of a 20 volt. Smart.
I didn’t get Getaway at first. I’d never played High Speed, the industry-altering table this is the sequel to. Frankly, Getaway’s design made little sense to me. It’s a sharpshooter-style table, no doubt about it. You absolutely NEED precision to hit targets and string together combos and make tight squeezes through orbits, or shoot the Ritchie-signature short-orbit loop. Great, it’s a sharpshooter! Duh! But, no sharpshooter ever has had such a live ball. In fact, while the target placement and scoring system are exactly what you’d expect from a sharpshooter, Getaway feels like a kinetic. Even accurate shots go flying, and missed shots could go anywhere! Not only are the balls lively, but they move so fast and test your reaction times. I suppose that’s keeping with the car chase theme, but still, it felt like the two styles clashed too much.
Signature Shot: Getaway’s supercharger is really a fancy temporary ball lock. But it also leads to some of the most thrilling moments in DMD pinball. To get jackpots, you have to put one or more balls in the super charger, which lights the multiball lock, now tied to the jackpot. It’s genius.
Having put dozens more hours into The Getaway since I first wrote this review, I’m not too proud to admit it: I was wrong. The Getaway II is absolutely stellar, and worthy of being the sequel to a table that brought pinball design into a new golden age. But, I also think it’s safe to say that many players, even good hardcore pinheads, might need time to “get” Getaway. It’s a difficult table where many of the targets that are necessary towards driving the score are extremely high risk. Well, assuming you miss, hence the necessity for precision.
The pace of Getaway is the stuff of legends. Shooting the orbits charges up your RPMs and also lights the Burn Rubble reward, which is surprisingly balanced as far as random awards go. I mean, besides the two random chances at extra balls, once of which can be snatched from video mode. Speaking of which, even notoriously anti-VM grouch Oscar gives props to Getaway’s video mode for being simple, easy to understand. I’m not totally sold on this being #1, and frankly, I’m stunned my scoring-balance loving Daddy can forgive the completely ridiculous Redline scoring. Nonetheless, the boys were right and I was wrong: Getaway is one of the best tables in Pinball FX3. There, happy?
#4 Funhouse Member of the 10K Club
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 6 Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1990 by Williams Electronic Games, 10,751 Units Sold 27th Highest Selling Solid State Table Designed by Pat Lawlor & Larry DeMar Art by John Youssi Music & Sound by Chris Granner & Jon Hey TRIVIA -Rudy is voiced by Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, who also voices Scorpion, Shang Tsung, and others in those games. -The clock featured in 1993’s Twilight Zone table was originally designed for Funhouse, but the feature couldn’t be finished in time and was held over for future use. -Funhouse is actually a remake of a 1956 table “Fun House” designed by Williams founder Harry Williams that featured unique “trap doors” under the gobble holes. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Great (#8 of 21) Jordi: Great (#5 of 21) THE PINBALL CHICK CERTIFIED EXCELLENT TABLE
Golly, Zen Studios keeps getting better and better. By the next generation, I expect the smell of Windex on the glass will be present.
There’s tables that sold more than Funhouse, and there’s tables from it’s era that are more remembered than Funhouse, and yet, no table from it’s era produces the warm feelings of nostalgia and a more innocent time quite like Funhouse. It’s the comfort food of the pinball universe. Which is kind of funny because Rudy, the giant ventriloquist dummy head voiced by Ed “GET OVER HERE” Boon, is one creepy S.O.B. But seriously, there’s no table that Gen Xers collectively celebrate as much. A table where they can list off exactly when and where the Funhouse they dropped their quarters in was. There’s always a sense of warmness in their cadence too. No other table does that to people. It’s warm and fuzzy in that sense.
So, no pressure in converting a table that does all that to digital, Zen Studios!
Signature Shot: Rudy is as iconic as any shot in pinball gets. But, this is one table with a famous shot that withstood the test of time. The bat shot to Rudy’s mouth is among the most challenging and rewarding in the sport. Plus, hearing the mouthy butthole scream “ahhhhh!” when you smack him is so satisfying. Then again, 9-year-old me was terrified of him, so he has it coming. The switch our tables were plugged into turned them all on, and once I stood at another table only to glance over and have Rudy talk at that moment.. let’s just say it was years before I was alone in that room again.
Well, congrats: you guys did it! Funhouse is one of the few early 90s tables that lives up to a towering reputation even in digital form. It has a high degree of difficulty and deliberately stresses players with one of the most maddening multiball drops in the sport. Yet, connecting on shots is breathtaking and pulling off the incredibly-difficult jackpot while keeping the other balls alive is a thrill like few other tables have. There’s something primal about mastering Funhouse, and my family got to experience that together. Myself, my father Oscar, and my 10-year-old sister Angela, traded the world record for Pinball FX3’s Five Minute Challenge Mode in the game several times. Dad beat the previous champion first (his first Pinball FX3 World Record), then I beat him, then Angela beat me (her first ever pinball World Record) before Dad regained his title. Finally, I took it back for a second time and have kept it ever since. Angela, meanwhile, has the highest five minute score recorded on a Switch. All of this in a 24 hour span, mind you, and all of us scoring MUCH higher than all other global competitors while my Twitter followers watched in disbelief. “How can you guys be so good that you’re trading world records AT WILL?” Well, we’ve played a lot of the real table. Still, it was magical while it was happening.
Surprisingly, we’re still the champions nearly a week later. I’m sure these won’t last much longer, but the 24 hours we spent playing hot potato with an actual world championship will stay with me forever. Thank you, Zen Studios.
Of course, that type of experience isn’t one that’ll be common among other players. But, what will be is the sheer elegance of Funhouse’s design and surprisingly fine-tuned scoring. The biggest knock I have is that Funhouse relies a lot on the plunger, but Pinball FX3 hasn’t exactly gotten the mechanics of the plunger properly adjusted to analog controllers. There’s a strong chance that Funhouse could move into the #2 or #3 spot on one of Arcade 1Up’s upcoming digital pinball tables that they’ve partnered with Zen Studios with, assuming they properly map the plunger. Funhouse would have passed Attack from Mars, at least in my view, with a proper plunger. The Steps shot is nearly impossible to clock without it, especially on Nintendo Switch. But that’s literally my only major complaint. Rest assured, gen-Xers: your favorite table is back and it’s still amazing.
#3 Attack from Mars
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 2 Type: Kinetic TABLE FACTS 1995 by Midway Manufacturing, 3,450 Units Sold Designed by Brian Eddy Art by Doug Watson Music & Sound by Dan “TOASTY!” Forden TRIVIA -Attack from Mars is the first electronic game with an epilepsy warning. -Despite what you’d think, Attack from Mars was not inspired by the Tim Burton film Mars Attacks!, which exactly a year after the table hit arcades. Nor is it inspired by the 1962 trading cards the film is based upon. -Attack from Mars and sequel Revenge from Mars were developed into a successful line of slot machines in 2011. -Artist Doug Watson also provided the voice and script for the Martians. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Masterpiece (#3 of 21) Jordi: Masterpiece (#1 of 21) THE PINBALL CHICK PANTHEON OF DIGITAL PINBALL TABLE Link to Guide
The real life table was the first pinball machine (and one of the first arcade games in general) that came with an epilepsy warning. My family has an Attack from Mars in our collection that has the strobe lights removed. Besides roughly eight-dozen tables not yet included, my #1 wish-list item for Pinball FX 3 is being able to turn off certain flashing lights. Epileptic people can’t play real tables if they have strobe lights (unless we buy our own), nor can we just go up to the operator and ask if they’re unscrew the lamp lights just for us. They’d be annoyed by it. Video pinball should be their ticket to pinball heaven, but nobody is including options for us. Yet, at least.
Brian Eddy is one of my favorite pinball designers, but the man only really led the design on three tables: Medieval Madness, The Shadow (based on the Alec Baldwin movie, itself based on an old pulp magazine), and this. All three are masterpieces in the annals of silverball. That the medium faded out just as Eddy was hitting his stride is one of the great tragedies of gaming. Attack from Mars is a wonderful table. One of the fastest, high-thrills pinball machines ever made. And one of the best in terms of layout. A clean, simple design with clear targets and simple angles. The challenge comes not from impossible shots but relying on players to feel the pressure of a high score as it draws near. Eddy understood that the best challenges in pinball are ones players put upon themselves.
So, what’s the problem with Attack from Mars? No seriously, I’m asking you. Because I left this part of the review blank for days while I finished off the other tables. I’m here right now trying to figure out a negative thing to say. I can’t. Attack from Mars proves perfection isn’t unobtainable. The scoring balance? Rock solid (even if the “count by hundreds of millions” shtick feels forced). The modes? Easy to grasp, difficult to master, with a perfect tempo. The theme? So much fun. I’ve heard player after player who has been buying these sets tell me that, going in, they thought it’d be Medieval Madness or Theatre of Magic they’d keep returning to, but it turned out that Attack from Mars was that game instead.
Signature Shot: the Saucer is one of the great targets in all of pinball. A brilliant concept executed to perfection. Attack from Mars is a close cousin of Medieval Madness. Replace the alien invasion theme with sword and sorcery and really, the two tables aren’t that different.
I hear you asking “so, why isn’t it #1?” Simple: there are two tables more fun than it. While Attack from Mars is genuinely flawless (one of only four games I feel you can say that about, along with video games Tetris, Portal, and an NES Homebrew game you’ve never heard of called Böbl), and one of the best pinball machines ever made, I feel, even at its fullest potential, Medieval Madness and Monster Bash are just more fun. I can’t stress enough: Attack from Mars is the perfect table. In fact, it should be the first table that everyone learning the in’s and out’s of modern pinball practices on. I just watched my nine year old niece get her first wizard mode. Brings a tear to my eye. But Attack from Mars also proves you can be perfect and still not the best.
#2: Monster Bash
Featured in Williams Pinball Universal Monsters Pack Type: Finesse-Kinetic TABLE FACTS 1998 by Williams Electronic Games, 3,361 Units Sold Designed by George Gomez Art by Kevin O’Connor Music & Sound by Vince Pontarelli TRIVIA -The final traditional pinball table to carry the Williams brand name, and the final traditional table completed in the Williams/Bally family (Cactus Canyon had development and production halted). -Released on the 9th birthday of Cathy “Indie Gamer Chick” Vice (aka The Pinball Chick, aka ME!). Hey, it doesn’t get more trivial than that! REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Great (#6 of 21) Jordi: Masterpiece (#2 of 21) THE PINBALL CHICK CERTIFIED EXCELLENT TABLE Link to Guide
It’s worth noting that the art for these tables aren’t 100% arcade authentic. Changes were made in order to assure an E rating, which in some cases Zen Studios was likely under contractual obligation to do.
Initially, I had Monster Bash #1, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt Medieval Madness is the most purely fun, perfectly-balanced real table recreated by Pinball FX3. It’s the table I’ll be going back to the most. And thus, Monster Bash wins Miss Congeniality, by a razor thin margin. It really only comes down to how darn precisely measured the scoring for Medieval Madness is. Monster Bash is slightly more chaotic, based around stacking modes, though unlike Medieval Madness, most of those modes don’t center around wacky multiball. Modes are super easy to trigger, and really, this is one of those zany fun tables Midway (under the Williams label) was cranking out at the end of the 90s. Like Junk Yard, there’s a sense of finality to it. The knowledge that Pinball 2000 is going to be the future, and win or lose, traditional pinball was dead for Midway. Monster Bash feels like George Gomez is personally thanking every fan of the sport for their loyalty with a balls-to-the-wall experience that simultaneously feels like every late-era table, though done in a way that feels one-off and totally original even twenty-years-later. Just.. wow. How the hell did he pull that off?
Signature Feature: Monster Bash is based around tons of stackable modes. In this picture alone, you can see the entrance to the Frankenstein multiball, the Mummy shot, the Bride of Frankenstein’s ball & chain orbit, and the Wolfman’s shots. Just off picture are two more monsters: the Creature from the Black Lagoon (a surprisingly difficult off-angle shot) and Dracula’s casket. Every single mode is huge fun, except maybe Wolfman’s. That almost NEVER happens in pinball, where there’s no stinkers in the bunch.
My top two tables have a lot in common. They’re player’s tables that feel like a love letter to every eccentric pinball trope. And stacking modes. Lots and lots of modes. Monster Bash is toy-heavy and built around triggering Monster Bash mode, where every single toy becomes active. If you’re playing in the standard mode and have unlocked the scoring boost, you’ll want to save it for this (and stack it with the multiball boost). And by God, this mode alone is probably the greatest multiball of all-time. Monster Bash isn’t perfect. Monster Bash mode is so central to gameplay that everything leading up to that feels more like an arbitrary checklist. I don’t get excited for the other modes the same way I do for starting anything in Medieval Madness, though they’re still all fun just as experiences. Also, that Phantom Flip is a pain in the butt. Not only does it often miss, but those misses can easily drain out. Call the Ghostbusters! Having said that, the edge still goes to Medieval Madness. The greatest mode doesn’t make the greatest table. But don’t let that scare you off. Bash is good enough to be worth the $9.99 pricetag of the Universal Monsters Pack alone.
#1: Medieval Madness
Featured in Williams Pinball Volume 1 Type: Finesse TABLE FACTS 1997 by Williams Electronic Games, 4,016 Units Sold Designed by Brian Eddy Art by John Youssi & Greg Freres Music & Sound by Dan “TOASTY!” Forden TRIVIA -Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live fame provides voices for The opera and cockney princesses. -Brian Eddy didn’t work on another pinball table until twenty-three years later, when Stern tapped him for their 2020 Stranger Things table. ALTERATIONS -Some artwork has been toned-down or removed in order to secure an E rating. REST OF THE TEAM Oscar: Masterpiece (#4 of 21) Jordi: Masterpiece (#4 of 21) THE PINBALL CHICK PANTHEON OF DIGITAL PINBALL TABLE Link to Guide
The best of the best. At least until Zen ponies up to do Twilight Zone. Well, assuming it’s even possible to do Twilight Zone justice in digital form. Pinball Arcade didn’t even come close, with their version finishing #26 of 100 tables (Great/Great/Great from the Pinball Chick team, for a table that is universally recognized as the best ever). No pressure, Zen!
What can I say about Medieval Madness that hasn’t been said? It’s one of the all-time greats. It’s one of the last great Williams/Bally tables. It’s designed for chaotic, flipper-mashing mayhem. It guest stars Tina Fey (no joke). This is a wonderful table. Like a more refined, idealized version of Attack from Mars that slows the action down (changing the table style from a Kinetic to a Finesse) with a Dungeons & Dragons theme. Which makes sense, since both are Brian Eddy designs. Same basic concept, really. There’s a large, primary target in the center of the field that you chip at. There’s simple orbits on the sides with easy-to-access loops. There’s tons of quick-to-activate modes. Really, it’s Attack from Mars on steroids: bigger, stronger, and slower. But slower in a good way. Really, Medieval Madness couldn’t have handled being as fast or as bouncy as Attack from Mars. It would have ruined the table.
Signature Shot: Medieval Madness’s drawbridge/castle shot is the last truly iconic shot the Williams brand would ever have. But, don’t mistake this for being a rerun of the saucer from Attack from Mars. While the concept is functionally the same, the actual drawbridge is every so slightly angled and it’s crowded by two absolute bastards of rails that completely change the risk/reward dynamic. You need to successfully destroy four castles to get the necessary-for-high-scores Battle for the Kingdom wizard mode. But, every single drawbridge shot will have you clinching your teeth hoping you didn’t wiff the shot just enough that it’ll fall straight down the drain. Medieval Sadness 😦
Medieval Madness’ greatest strength is that there’s no wasted room. Every single successful shot feels like the player is getting something out of it. Multiball modes stack. You can cycle through progress of different modes. The biggest issue by far is that the table’s primary target, the castle gate, is designed in a way where the ball has about a 30% – 50% chance dropping straight down the middle from a variety of angles. Which, frankly, is the exact same issue with Attack from Mars. There’s “smart angles” that you can take shooting it, but the margin for error of those angles is razor thin. Also, the super skill shot (which you do by holding the left flipper) is worth less for skilled players (irony) than a standard skill shot because it doesn’t give you multipliers for making it, and multipliers are a bit harder to come by than the points you get from the super skill. But, like I said, nit-picky, as you can tell from the ranking here. Any would-be pinball designer should study Madness in laboratory conditions just to learn how you properly balance risk-reward. Let it be said: no table of the dot-matrix-display era handles scoring better. Medieval Madness is a legend for a reason, and the best real table on Pinball FX 3.
Whirlwind
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#6 Williams Pinball Volume 3
Indie Gamer Chick 
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