For many years, Zen Studios has been making original video pinball tables for their Pinball FX and Zen Pinball outlets.  Now they’re tackling real life classic pinball machines in video form from the Williams and Bally lineups.  Volume 5 of this set includes three more tables, including my all time favorite pinball machine ever!  YES!  To play them, first you need to download the Pinball FX3 hub (available for most current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here).  And then you can buy and download table sets.

The Williams tables are handled a bit differently than the other Zen Studios’ originals.  First, you can play with either the Pinball FX3 table upgrade system or the original specs from the arcade.  And with a push of a button, you can switch visuals to make the tables look like the other Zen Studios tables with extra graphics, or the original way the tables looked in real life.  Also when you start a game, you get a full view of the machine with facts and history on each one.  In a way, I like this setup and gameplay better than the Zen original tables.  Maybe it’s because I’m more familiar with these tables, but I also felt the ball physics were better, too.

The three tables in this set are from the mid to late 90’s, and most are familiar to me because they were out and new when I was in college and visited a lot more arcades than I do now.  The first table I don’t remember as much, though.  It’s called Tales of the Arabian Nights.  Of course it’s based on the popular fiction stories, but for some reason I don’t have many memories playing it.  Although the spinning Aladdin’s lamp on the table seemed familiar to me.  When you play in enhanced mode, you can make the ball look like a fireball as you attack the evil genie!

The next table in the collection is No Good Gophers.  It has a golf theme with two wisecracking gophers that berate you at every turn.  Getting the hole in one shots is a lot of fun and satisfying, though.  I remember seeing this table EVERYWHERE back in the day, so it must’ve been very popular.  The last table is my absolute favorite pinball machine ever, and that’s Cirqus Voltaire.  It has a circus theme, obviously, but I just love the artwork on the table and defeating the ringmaster is a lot of fun and easy to do.  Plus one of the ramps has a great big neon light on it (I bet that was really hard to maintain in real life), and I just like neon lights for some reason.  Really made the game stand out, and I’m glad it’s on this collection and that I got to review it!

Kid Factor:

All Pinball FX3 tables are rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Language.  Nothing really objectionable on these tables that I could see.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the menus, but not necessary just to play.  Just pure, simple fun.

Tags: Game Reviews