Gottlieb Pinball Classics (Wii) Review

We weren't quite sure what to expect when we slotted Gottlieb Pinball Classics into the system. Though it's not always the case, as Brain Training might prove, budget titles are often unimaginative and generally look like a lack of thought has gone into them, but that isn't what you've got here. Where we expected a plain and cheap looking title screen, near immediately you are shown the area in which you will be playing, a fair looking bar room with rows of pinball tables. There's a possible explanation for it looking like it's had some effort put into it, though: rather than being rushed just for Wii launch (as System 3's other budget launch title, Super Fruit Fall, looks like it was), it fits into another common Wii game category - it's a Playstation 2 port. Oh well.

The whole point of Gottlieb Pinball Classics is that it is showcasing decades of pinball machines by...Gottlieb, unsurprisingly. There are ten pinball machines in total, a couple of which are models that never actually made it into full scale production or even past the prototype stage, and on top of that there are a few other oddities that Gottlieb made as bonus extras: a love tester machine, a fortune teller (give him your star sign and an area to tell you about and he'll 'consult the stars' and give you a cryptic clue back that could apply to as many different situations as your imagination likes. Just like a real fortune teller, then.) and a pinball/card game hybrid machine without flippers, where your role is simply to unleash the ball and hope that it goes into the right slots to give you a decent score. As well as this, you get some more random little extras, such as what amounts to little more than an advert for a website about a pinball museum and a 'tour' of the Gottlieb factory (it's just a slide show of black and white pictures, but a nice touch for fans all the same.). On top of that, each machine has a little history given before you play, and it's all voice acted. Points for effort.

Controls have been a worry for Wii ports so far. Luckily, pinball games don't tend to have many controls to muck up by attempting to put motion controls in unnecessarily. There was the worry that something gimmicky might be put in, such as moving the nunchuk and remote to use the flippers, but thankfully the urge has been resisted and the control scheme is one of the more natural ones given to a pinball game thanks to the form of the Wii controller. Shoulder buttons on the nunchuk control your left flippers and the remote's B button controls the right, the ball unleashed with a pull back and release of the analogue stick. Where the developers have been tempted by the Wii's features is for tilting the table, and it works wonderfully. Flick your left hand to nudge it left, the same for the right. Take note, Wii developers: you don't have to go over the top to use the system well. With your hands separated and moving to shove the table about (not too much, mind), it feels much closer to playing actual pinball than many other games have come.

Thankfully there was apparently no desire from the developers to put random music into the game, and so everything you hear is supposedly an exact rendition of how the tables actually sound during play. It's nothing special graphically either, though there are some brilliant touches such as scuffs on the metallic balls and optional reflections which add the glass pane to the top of the cabinet and gorgeously reflects the backboard of the table. Mainly though, this is all about the game, and we suppose whether you'll enjoy this will much depend on whether you like pinball in the first place or not. It's difficult and cruel as only pinball can be and all seems to be represented well on the physics side, with balls frustratingly getting jammed (particularly in the aforementioned card-pinball hybrid, as it's not possible to tilt and free the balls there) or trickling down and out accurately in an ever so annoying anti-climax after a high scoring run.

The selection of tables is excellent overall, though there are a few that we would've preferred were left out. Elderado isn't very good, for example (it has a lack of things to aim for and parts of the table all merge into one thanks to a restricted, mainly green, colour palette), but we'll be damned if the squirrel-obsessed multi-ball-based prototype-only Goin' Nuts isn't a manic box of fun. Black Hole is also one of the more fun pinball tables we've ever tried out, with a multitude of flippers and an odd bonus section that sees the ball descending further down in the table into a window, where instead of flipping up you must flip down and stop it going out of the top and back into the main area. Something that irritated us though is the lack of a universal scoring system; we recognise that they're all entirely different tables, but in some you only have to score in the hundreds to get a high score, while others require many millions of points to even get a look in, meaning sometimes it'd seem like we were doing well only to be told we'd completely missed the mark in terms of score.

It’s not going to win prizes, but it tilts (groan) towards being a solidly average title. However, we’re saying that as people who aren’t particular followers of Gottlieb pinball tables – we imagine for them it will be absolutely fantastic, though we wouldn’t think as good as playing the real things. Even as a budget title, £30 - £35 is too much, but well worth a ‘flick’ if you see it cheap.