I’ve been playing a lot of Zen Pinball 2 on my PlayStation Vita lately thanks to a few new virtual tables. Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing Marvel Civil Wars, Star Wars: Boba Fett Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Each of them are housed within the Zen Pinball 2 shell, so you need to download the main game then purchase the tables individually.
What I like about Zen Pinball 2 is that whatever you own on the PlayStation 3 is playable on the PlayStation Vita. This cross-platform play certainly increases the value of your purchase. With solid physics and attention to detail, there is no match right now for virtual pinball.
The Marvel Civil War table is based on the recent Marvel comics universe event. This table, muck like the comics, pitted Captain America and Iron Man as the figureheads off Superhuman Registration Act. Iron Man is for hero registration, running super heroes as government agents, and Captain America is against it, wishing to keep identities secret and civil liberties intact.
Here we get a similar situation. A horrible event splits the super hero society in two and players will navigate a sort of storyline by knocking the pinball around the table. As with all the tables Marvel Civil War is fast. Part of this has to do with the screen size, but the way the tables are built the gameplay is simply fast.
As the ball careens around a television screen incorporated into the table broadcasts plot points from the storyline. Various events are tied to where the ball hits and how often, and this is where the skill portion comes in. Unfortunately, for as clever as the plot devices are, the table’s ramps, bumpers and whatnot are placed in a way that makes the game feel almost like you’re not in control most of the time. It’s not a bad thing, and this table can certainly be enjoyed, but Marvel fans that have a little bit more skill in pinball will get more out of it.
The three Star Wars themed tables are sold together in one package, and are very much worthwhile. These play like some of the best pinball tables ever created, and the Star Wars themes only serve to make them even better.
My least favorite of the three, and this is a marginal assessment, is Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The table begins with an opening crawl introducing the scenario. the television series is based on. With 4 flippers two of course at the bottom and two evenly situated about 2/3 of the way towards the top and plenty of ramps, this table has a lot of vertical play.
What I don’t like about this table is the lack of interactivity. There’s plenty of action, but the other two tables simply have more going on. Maybe it’s just the source material from the television show, but the audio clips don’t pack as much of a punch as the other two tables to. I really want to stress, however, that this table is still highly enjoyable to play.
Next up is Star Wars: Boba Fett, utilizing the iconic character as a theme for a table. This one will have Fett himself occasionally fly up. Various missions have players trying to master their skills with the flippers. This is a table with plenty of action and interactivity. There’s only three flippers on this table, so it is a bit more challenging, and rewarding.
Plenty of nice touches are included on the table, including a Sarlacc Pit for the ball to descend into, Han Solo in carbonite and more. I think, however, the table includes more lines of dialogue than were ever actually said by the character in the whole of the films.
My favorite table of these new ones is the Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. This table really makes good use of the film. Darth Vader is a massive presence on the table, four flippers help to control the action, R2-D2’s top is a bumper, and there’s no shortage of audio clips.
This table is filled with all sorts of nice touches, such as the Hoth generators used to guide the ball at the top of the table. When Vader says “I have altered the game, pray I don’t alter it any further,” try not to chuckle.
The graphics are sharp, the controls tight, and in short Zen Pinball 2 delivers everything you would want in a video game version of pinball. These new tables are certainly well worth purchasing for Marvel and Star Wars fans, as well as those just looking for some solid pinball table action.