Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection Review

Over the years, subsequent simulations capitalized on advances in hardware technology to better recreate pinball tables. Last year’s Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection for the Nintendo Wii was the pinnacle of pin replication with its accurate physics, attractive graphics, and speedy framerate. Now, developer FarSight Studios have brought their splendid diversion onto the Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 platforms, offering a handful of improvements.

Each of the game’s thirteen tables are painstakingly modeled from the original machines: every plunger, bumper, drop target, and ramp is right where it should be, and behaves accordingly. With variations that range from the mechanized machines of the disco era to the 1990’s LCD-accented electronic pins, each table in the compilation responds accurately. Early diversions like Jive Time present a playfield with an uncluttered array of targets, while the more contemporary Arabian Nights offers a complex, multilevel table with plentiful scoring alleys.  Most pin sims display an intermittent cue that reminds the gamer that they are playing a digital recreation. Not so with PHOF– the ball consistently rebounds, spins, and accelerates accordingly.

The Williams Collection’s control set uses the controller left and right triggers to activate a table’s flippers, while the plunger is mapped to the right analog stick. Players can nudge each table with a tap of the left stick. Tilting a table is fairly difficult, requiring a rapid succession of nudges. Visually, the title veers close to photorealism, with high resolution table graphics, and well rendered toys that accentuate the modern playfields. PHOF’s sound effects are to be commended- from Gorgon’s Defender-era klaxons to the provocative voice samples of Medieval Madness, each machine sounds just like I remember.

While the developers did an incredible job emulating both the look of feel of the classic tables, a few quibbles exist. Two problems center on the game’s online leaderboards, which give a global ranking of each table’s scores. First, the leaderboards should be available from any machine’s menu. As it stands, you have to exit the table you’re playing, and then exit the arcade to check the standings. Secondly, no option exists to isolate the scores of your online friends from the rest of the world. Although PHOF offers a bit of controller kick whenever a bumper is hit, it’s almost unperceivable. An option for stronger feedback would have bolstered the title’s already powerful sense of authenticity.