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Pro Pinball
  PS1PinballUC  
  opened by paleface at 20:25:02 08/31/03  
  last modified by paleface at 12:27:18 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=PS1; cat=Pinball; reg=NA]
           
The Pro Pinball series of ridiculously detailed virtual pool tables comes to the PlayStation with only one minor drawback: slightly lengthy load times. Of course, once you're on the table itself ("The Web") you don't have to worry about load times anymore. Gorgeously realistic high-res graphics, beautiful ball physics, and setting the DualShock's shoulder buttons as the flipper buttons makes for a great pinball feel.
 
"The Web" is a solid, somewhat plain table, with a well-placed side flipper, bumpers just where I like them, no major mechanical bells and whistles as found later in the series, and not even a real cohesive visual theme. As in the rest of the series, you can view the table from a wide variety of different pre-rendered angles.
 
Three things I wish this series had: first, analog button support (but of course this wasn't available until the PS2, so you can't blame them). Second, better music and much louder sound effects--for some reason the sounds are strongly muted (and the music annoying loud) so you have to lower the music volume drastically and then crank up your speakers to get decent sound effects. Third, table features that took advantage of the fact that this is a video game table and thus free from the laws of physics--give us some wild stuff! On the other hand, in a way you have to respect their obsessive dedication to simulating a real pinball table.
 
Unlike the later games in the series, this first entry does not have completely remappable controls or customizable table settings, but those will only matter to the most hardcore virtual pinballers (are there any such people?).
 
  paleface 03:35:55 10/03/04
           
Download added: table.jpg (26308 bytes)
  "Medium table view. Nice clear grpahics, the ramps are easy to spot."
 
This is my favorite in the series right now, it's got some very nice ramps and scoring modes, and the color scheme doesn't hurt the eyes. A few dead-drops can spoil the fun a bit, but I bet if I got better with Tilt I'd be able to avoid most of them.
    
downloads:
· start.jpg
· table.jpg
 
references:
· Mario Pinball Land (GBA)
· Pro Pinball: Big Race USA (PS1)
· Pro Pinball: Fantastic Journey (PS1)
· Pro Pinball: Timeshock (PS1)

 
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