Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection review

If you're still into the shiny, silver ball, you'll want this playable time capsule

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Thankfully, the game gives you a ton of instruction on how to play each table – and they’re guaranteed to be more intricate than you think. Controls are easy, as you’d expect: the shoulder buttons work the flippers and the analog sticks handle the plunger and gently bumping the sides of the table if you see the ball heading for trouble. It is, however, a big letdown thatboth Wii and PSP versions have two tables, Jive Time and Sorceror, that this version does not. How tough could it have been to include them all?

But the big letdown is that this game, like its predecessor Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection, forces you to unlock several of the tables before you can play them. When you start, four of the machines are set to Free Play, but the rest require credits to play. You start with 20 credits (up from zero in the last game), and earn more by completing goals, such as getting a high score or activating a multi-ball bonus, on each table.

The problem is, it takes 100 credits to unlock Free Play on any of the remaining machines, so you’re sorely tempted not to spend any credits playing them until you have 100 and can unlock it permanently – and credits simply don’t come easily enough.

There aretwo additional ways to unlock Free Play on the remaining machines, but they're not ideal either. You can spend credits to play a table, and if you complete all its regular table goals while doing so, it'll unlock the table for Free Play. But you're spending the same credits it takes to juust buy the table, so you could find yourself stranded. Finally, there are super-tough "Wizard" goals for each table, unlocked when you achieve the normal goals. Complete those, and you can unlock a different table for Free play. But that's a mammoth undertaking.

We get that this is supposed to be a player incentive, but it’s too punitive. Give us more unlockables like the mirror mode and different ball graphics – those are bonus items we don’t mind working to get. But let everyone, regardless of skill level, have the tables you’ve written on the back of the box with no strings attached. They paid for them.

Mar 24, 2008

More info

GenreSimulation
DescriptionLike a pinball museum in a box, except better looking and with more tables than it’s ever had before. Pinball fans should run, not walk, to pick this up.
Platform"Xbox 360","PS3","Wii","PSP","PS2"
US censor rating"Everyone 10+","Everyone 10+","Everyone 10+","Everyone 10+","Everyone 10+"
UK censor rating"","","","",""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
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Eric Bratcher
I was the founding Executive Editor/Editor in Chief here at GR, charged with making sure we published great stories every day without burning down the building or getting sued. Which isn't nearly as easy as you might imagine. I don't work for GR any longer, but I still come here - why wouldn't I? It's awesome. I'm a fairly average person who has nursed an above average love of video games since I first played Pong just over 30 years ago. I entered the games journalism world as a freelancer and have since been on staff at the magazines Next Generation and PSM before coming over to GamesRadar. Outside of gaming, I also love music (especially classic metal and hard rock), my lovely wife, my pet pig Bacon, Japanese monster movies, and my dented, now dearly departed '89 Ranger pickup truck. I pray sincerely. I cheer for the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. And behind Tyler Nagata, I am probably the GR staffer least likely to get arrested... again.