Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure review

Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure is good enough to belong in a museum. Unfortunately, it’s priced that way, too.

Advancements in pinball have been driven by technological innovation- most notably when the industry moved from electromagnetic machines to solid state pinball in the late 70s. Similarly, the Pinball FX franchise has enjoyed evolutionary growth since its 2007 debut. But across three iterations, the developers’ own ambitions proved every bit as significant as advancements in hardware.

When the Budapest-based developer released its first digital simulation of pinball, tables were all original creations based on broad concepts, like racing, skateboarding, and spies.  But within a year, the studio started adding licensed properties to their unique tables, spawning add-ons like The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and Street Fighter II Turbo. These may not have been real-world tables, but at least they didn’t feel completely generic.

In 2018, Zen announced that has secured the rights to several Bally and Williams tables. What followed has been a procession of simulated machines, each curated in a three-table bundle. With the release of Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure, the studio has launched a premium-priced recreation of Mark Ritchie’s 1993 widebody table. Historically, it’s notable as the first machine to incorporate Williams/Midway DCS Sound system, allowing the game to use sound clips from John Rhys Davies, who played Sallah in the first and third Indiana Jones films.

Revisiting the table virtual demonstrates its virtues. While there’s no skill shot, scoring opportunities are found on the table’s ‘Adventure’ sub-playfield where players use the flipper buttons to tilt the section, guiding the ball over eight rollovers. Fling the orb into either orbit and you’ll witness the steel sphere careening across a wireway, earning up to 11 million points for each loop. Meanwhile, A-D-V, E-N-T, and U-R-E drop targets dare you to knock them down; it will take some precision to nail all nine.

Indiana Jones offers twelve play modes inspired by the first three films in the series. These are triggered by hitting the ‘start mode saucer’ placed at the end of a short tunnel. These range from a knight asking you to choose between chalices to a comical animation and sampled burp when the “Monkey Brains” mode is activated. While the faux-LCD animations might seem archaic, there’s a certain nostalgic charm to them.

Perhaps the table’s most rewarding trait is how generous it is with multiball. There are four different ways to put multiple spheres in play, with Eternal Life Multiball tasking you with juggling six balls simultaneously. Pleasingly, you get thirty seconds of ball saver to hit as many switches as possible and nailing all of them earns a hefty billion-point bonus.

While some tables might present a couple of scoring targets at any given time, Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure inundates players with objectives. As such, play can be less about hitting a specific target but prioritizing your next goal, making Dr. Jones’ pinball escapades feel rather distinctive.

Undoubtedly, The Pinball Adventure is one of Zen’s best tables and a dazzling demonstration of the studios ability to recreate actual tables. Like the developer’s previous efforts, you can play with novelties like animated figurines, ball trails, and pop-up scoring or opt to turn these off for a more authentic game of pinball. But it would be amiss to not talk about price. Certainly, there were a lot of licensing fees, with everyone from Paramount Pictures to Harrison Ford likely earning a small percentage. However, Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure is 50% more expensive that a three-table bundle. As much, it’s an immensely enjoyable simulated machine. But it’s an artifact from pinball’s golden age, that’s priced for elites instead of for recreational raiders.

Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure was played on PC
with review code provided by the publisher.