I’ve been reviewing pinball games for well over ten years, side-by-side with Zen Studios’ releases, and I’ve yet to hit a stinker. This latest release is no exception! Williams Pinball Volume 8 includes a few of the most requested classics from the 1980s by fans of Pinball FX: Black Knight 2000, Earthshaker!, and to top it off, Banzai Run.
All in all, it’s a really solid list that will please both those nostalgic for these and those who have never even heard of them, thanks to the ease of play and fantastic presentation out of the three tables. Pinball FX and its predecessors are known for being packed with faithful recreations of the real things and these three tables don’t fall far from the tree.
I wouldn’t be able to pick my favorite out of them because they’re all super fun to play. The one I know most about thanks to over two decades of listening to pinball nerds is Black Knight 2000 and having never played it before, it was worth the wait. It’s got the boisterous that lends name to it standing on top of the table, throwing lightning bolts at the middle of the board, exciting ramps, and a quick and easy way of starting and completing missions.
Score-wise, Black Knight 2000 isn’t a billion-point table which there are a number of already in the Pinball FX catalog, and it requires plenty of skill and patience in order to get close to the top of the leaderboards. It’s a blast to play, really, a good test of your reflexes, with plenty of speed to boot.
Speaking of speed, Banzai Run is among the most unique tables in Pinball FX as a whole, not to mention Williams’ own. It was revolutionary once it was originally released thanks to such innovations as the “zap” alleys that put a lot of momentum on your pinballs and most importantly its vertical playing board, which acts as another playfield that acts as a dirt track for you to race your bike at. Challenging and with a completely different sense of physics, it’ll make you rethink the way you play pinball.
In practice, it makes Banzai Run the fastest of the tables I’ve ever played in the pack, but it’s surprisingly manageable, and the progression of play is one of the most fun that I’ve encountered, rivalling World Cup Soccer in terms of keeping a pinball at play and getting the most out of your virtual buck. It’s also a visually busy table, well presented in game form with lights and noises up the wazoo.
But it’s Earthshaker! that really brings it all home. I’ve played my share of pinball tables that rely on physical shaking of the playfield in order to provide another obstacle to the proceedings, such as the amazing Ultraman, so it’s especially amusing to get to see the precursor to it so lovingly translated to Pinball FX.
It makes smart use of the rumble feature on the controller if you are using an Xbox or PlayStation pad, and among all the ruckus going on, the shaking helps to set in a sense of danger every time it starts going, which is obviously the whole point of this table. It’s an exciting table for sure. I will be spending a lot of time on it since it’s an example of a table out of almost all of the packs that I wasn’t as familiar with off the bat.
Visually and aurally, all three tables are an absolute spectacle to behold. If you’re got an HDR-capable display, you’ll get a special kick out of that feature. All the lights and effects included on these tables do an awesome job at realistically portraying the actual real-life tables’ bulbs and their flashes. Those along with the models added in by Zen which make it all the more arcadey. I was particularly happy with how the sounds seem to be coming out of a speaker and not as clear as in a high definition device, a nice touch for sure.
As per usual, I hold out hope that Zen Studios will be able to get ahold of even more properties, including those from companies outside of Williams such as Stern and Gallob. So far, though, their picks have been excellent and Williams Pinball Volume 8 makes Pinball FX even harder to put down.
