Pro Pinball: The Web

Usually it's pretty hard to get excited about the prospect of previewing a Pinball game for the pc - let's face it, we've seen tons of them. 21 st Century alone has released about a million of the things, inspiring countless other software houses to get in on the act, the latest of which is Empire Interactive.

But before I get to the one very good reason why Pro Pinball deserves your attention above all the other games of its type, I first want to point out that having seen a fair amount of it, I'm now in what I'd consider a good position to judge it. My first encounter with the game was at the ects, where I spent an hour on the Empire stand playing it (and drinking lots of rum, which the Empire team insisted downed in one every time. Poor me, eh?).

I saw it again during a meeting here at the PC, and after a couple more hours of playing it, looking at it, and asking interesting questions about it, I managed to while away three hours down the pub talking about the bloody thing (and er, getting a bit pissed). So if you're going to ask anyone about Pro Pinball, come and see me, okay?

Sound sense

Anyway, back to the reason Pro Pinball reaches the parts that other pinball games don't reach: the soundtrack is absolutely bastard groovy. Even if the game itself was crap (although as you've probably gathered by now, it's damned good), you'd still want to play it just from hearing the soundtrack. What you hear while you're hammering away at the flippers is not crap country and western rubbish, nor is it '50s dance music or pleasant and polite pop stuff. Oh no. Instead it's good old-fashioned ass-kicking rock 'n' roll, courtesy of Bruce Foxton (remember The Jam? Hey, how could you possibly forget?) and Jake Burns, both playing for the new-look Stiff Little Fingers. To be honest, with guys like this supplying the sounds, there's no way you can go wrong.

In addition to all the super music, you also get a pretty neat pinball game to play around with too. The visuals are silicon graphic-tastic, with multiple viewing angles and stupidly high resolution of up to 1024x768 with over 32,000 colours - and all this at a ridiculously fast 60 frames per second. There are several different game modes, including Space Station Frenzy, Bike Race Challenge, Fast Frenzy, the Ultimate Showdown, and lots of hidden features and arcade games besides. For those of you interested in the 'proper' pinball bits in the game, you'll be pleased to know it has three flippers, two ramps, loops, orbits, targets, grab magnets, drop targets and... and., lots of other pinbally things as well.

In summary, Pro Pinball is a greatlooking game with lots of features and a superb soundtrack. I confidently predict it will blow the competition away when it comes out at the end of this month.