The Punisher: No Mercy<\/em> may not have been a huge success as ZEN Studios<\/a>\u2019 first crack at a multiplayer FPS, but the Hungarian dev house has proven to be a whiz with pinball games. 2007\u2019s Pinball FX<\/em> was a rousing game of virtual pinball for the Xbox Live Arcade, and so too is its recent PSN counterpart, ZEN Pinball<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

ZEN Pinball<\/em> comes with four snazzy pinball tables spanning a wide range of themes, from the inside of a car engine on the V12 table to the ancient ruins of the Eldorado table to the tribal magic of the Shaman table to the inventive Tesla table inspired by famed inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla. You can also throw down an extra $2.49 for a bonus DLC table themed after Street Fighter II<\/em> \u2013 this one turned out to be my favorite!<\/p>\n

All five tables are balanced and intelligently constructed, each offering unique challenges, bumper, ramp and flipper layouts, ball-save contraptions and appropriate audiovisual effects capturing an authentic arcade pinball experience you can enjoy from the comfort of your home sofa. On the V12 table, for example, you fling your ball through various engine compartments and hear plenty of squealing tires and revving motors along the way, while on the Tesla table you aim to complete experiments and watch as your ball interacts with various mechanical gadgets and gizmos.<\/p>\n

More importantly than the table designs, ZEN Pinball<\/em> is powered by the most accurate ball and flipper physics I\u2019ve seen in a pinball video game to date \u2013 my pinball experience isn\u2019t too extensive, mind you, but I have played quite a few pinball titles over recent years to draw comparison to. The ball zips and bounces around with a realistic weight and velocity — unlike many other pinball games I\u2019ve played with balls that either bounce around too rapidly like rubber bouncy balls or slowly float around like bubbles — and when you flick a ball with the flippers you feel the tactile connection of their impact, especially with a rumbling DualShock 3 in hand. <\/p>\n

ZEN Studios really showed a focused attention to detail with ZEN Pinball<\/em> as well, going the extra mile to include small features that make the game truly shine. Things like seven different camera views, a neat table panning feature you can use to zoom in close and explore every nook and cranny of each table by holding down the Square button and titling the controller, an option to tie table nudging to quick controller shakes (a worthwhile use of the Sixaxis for a change!), custom soundtrack support, the ability to save your progress at any time, an in-depth Operators Menu you can use to tweak the inner workings of each table, and a helpful countdown timer that provides a safety net when you resume a paused game \u2013 instead of the action picking up immediately after you unpause, you are taken back into the game and a timer counts down from three before the ball starts moving again.<\/p>\n

A lot of attention also went into the multiplayer mode. Multiplayer probably isn\u2019t something you expect from a pinball game, but ZEN Pinball<\/em> shows that it can work. If you think you have what it takes, you can compete against up to three other players online or in a local hotseat mode, with leaderboards in place to track your scores and period online tournaments to participate in. Online, all four participants play at the same time and race to reach a set point total before everyone else, and if you\u2019re feeling brave enough you can hook up your PlayStation Eye and video chat with the other players during live gameplay. After I played against some dude kicking back in his recliner with naught on but his tighty-whities, though, I wasn\u2019t too keen on this particular feature anymore!<\/p>\n

Other than seeing some strange things over video chat I never want to see ever, EVER again, I can\u2019t find anything negative to say about ZEN Pinball<\/em>. It embodies everything I expect from a great PSN game: it\u2019s fun and easy to pick up and play for a few minutes at a time, yet addictive enough to where you\u2019ll often find yourself playing for more like a few hours at time compulsively trying to top your high scores and unlock each table\u2019s four trophy challenges. Video game pinball doesn\u2019t get much better than this!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pros:<\/strong>
\n+ Diverse, balanced and intricately detailed table designs
\n+ Superb ball and flipper physics
\n+ Fun multiplayer mode
\n+ Lots of camera choices, customization options and other subtle features<\/p>\n

Cons:<\/strong>
\n– May see some scary things over video chat<\/p>\n

Game Info:<\/strong>
\nPlatform: PS3 via PSN
\nPublisher: ZEN Studios
\nDeveloper: ZEN Studios
\nRelease Date: 5\/14\/09
\nGenre: Pinball
\nESRB Rating: Everyone
\nPlayers: 1-4
\nSource: Review code provided by publisher<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Punisher: No Mercy may not have been a huge success as ZEN Studios\u2019 first crack at a multiplayer FPS, but the Hungarian dev house has proven to be a whiz with pinball games. 2007\u2019s Pinball FX was a rousing game of virtual pinball for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49,180,3,1725,1726],"tags":[696,737,6070,6665,6666],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4953"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13590,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions\/13590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}