Pinball FX has been steadily getting new tables lately, and for the most part, they’ve been great additions to its ever-growing library. This time, two licensed properties join in on the fun in the form of Goat Simulator and the all-time classic comedy movie, The Princess Bride. How do those stack up against the rest of Zen Studios’ offerings?
Quite well, really. While neither of the two could be called revolutionary in terms of design or visuals, they are both great tables that offer fun mechanics and aren’t all that hard to figure out the ins and outs of. The Princess Bride in particular is of very simple table design, instead leaning on the nostalgia of its presentation which makes use of original voice clips from the film, as well as quick video cuts for its score display.
The structure of play in that table goes for a more straightforward approach, having you hit specific targets and paths so the activities based on the go-to-go of the movie can be accomplished, and in that, it works decently well. When compared to other tables based on IP that hasn’t really seen any action in a while, I would say Princess Bride is worthwhile, but a tad lacking in overall longevity.
As for Goat Simulator, its table is as close as you can get to playing pinball while following the little that there is to a plot for one of those games. The table itself has some neat ideas, such as having the player constantly power up the “goat tower” in the middle, shooting balls with different effects at it, all the while having to worry about side objectives.
Visually, it’s the most interesting of the two by far. It’s a cute approach to the otherwise insane hodgepodge of questionably designed characters and levels from the games that it’s based on, offering the aforementioned balls that come in a variety of skins, with sadly little to no impact on gameplay. I like the way the farmer that’s included makes things more lively, by commenting on what’s going on through hilarious voice clips.
Even though these new tables won’t exactly blow you out of the water and completely turn you around in case you’ve been down on Pinball FX, they are in fact nice additions to the bevy of DLC already available for the game. Now, Zen has stated that their next release will start a new wave of Williams tables, so here’s hoping those will help provide the much needed push for them to get the game out of its current rut with its established fanbase ever since it was released a few years back.
