Pinball fans take note, Cowboy Rodeo has ported Digital Illusions’ classic Amiga pinball game Pinball Dreams to the iPhone and iPod touch.
Pinball Dreams was an extremely well received game when it debuted on the Amiga back in 1992. It took full advantage of the Amiga’s (then) powerful graphics hardware and offered a realism and playability rarely–if ever–seen before in a computer-based pinball game. A British reviewer of the Amiga version well describes the significance of the title on the platform.
Pinball Dreams was an enormous success; not only did it top the Amiga best-sellers lists, it’s also responsible for selling a sizeable number of Amigas at the same time. But what was it that made the game so different from other pinball games? Attention to detail: Pinball Dreams emulated the real pinball feeling like no game before it. The ball’s response is so much more realistic, the layout of the tables is carefully thought out and tied to the theme of the table…So careful were Digital Illusions to catch the real pinball feeling that the beautifully drawn tables (especially considering the colour limitation) even depict the screws that might conceivably be holding the table together. Add to this the great sound effects, the ability to give the table a quick shove (but not too much or you might affect the tilt sensors) and you’ve got a real classic. Unlike any previous game, you could really believe that there might be real pinball tables just like the four in Pinball Dreams.
Pinball Dreaming: Pinball Dreams [App Store] for the iPhone, like the original, features four themed tables, all of which are available to play from the start:
- Ignition: Rocket launch, planets, and space exploration theme
- Steel Wheel: Steam trains and the Old West theme
- Beat Box: Music Industry, Charts, Bands and Tours theme
- Nightmare: Graveyard, ghosts, demons, and nightmares theme
The tables are laid out exactly like those in the original but feature mildly improved graphics (thanks to the iPhone’s much greater color palette). The graphics are detailed 2D bitmaps shaded to suggest 3D. The developer provided us further details in this area:
Everything is basically 0.999:1 to the original Amiga version to the point that we ported all of it from the original Amiga 68k Motorola assembler source code that we got from the original coder, Andreas Axelsson – line by line.
Music and sounds naturally are all original. The only thing we’ve done is that we “remastered" the table graphics with more colors – you can play in the all-original graphics by entering the setup menu and selecting them from there.
Pinball Dreams features touchscreen controls; a tap to the left or right side of the screen activates the paddles and a tap to a newly emerged ball in the well fires it onto the table. A quick jerk of the iPhone gives the virtual table a nudge–but be careful, nudge to hard and it’s TILT city. Rotating the device changes the orientation of gameplay.
I am a huge fan of the original and its various sequels and, years ago, spent days playing them on various Amigas. I can say with authority that the iPhone version is actually more enjoyable than the Amiga original. All of the nice elements of the original are here, but in a far more convenient (pocketable) package. What’s more, while the iPhone and Amiga feature the same horizontal pixel resolution, the iPhone’s display is twice as tall (pixel-wise) as the Amiga’s, and so only slight vertical panning of the table is needed to track the ball on the iPhone (where the vertical panning in the Amiga version was extreme [video]).
All that said, it’s important to remember that this is a classic title from 1992. While it provides great gameplay, it’s visuals and table theatrics cannot compare to more modern titles such as ZEN’s Pinball: Rollercoaster for iPhone and Pinball FX for X360 or Crave’s Pinball Hall of Fame for PSP. And although it does have a retro feel to it, Pinball Dreams does not feel like “an old game." It offers fast, smooth pinball action that’s hard to put down.
Pinball Dreams has already seen a rather positive reception from our forum members, many of whom are now replaying an old favorite on their iPhones and iPod touches.
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meh
Wow! It sounds like Konami are trying to make the "pay for a beta" model legitimate!
Wow, that's... lame...
@ Man of Mystery
I agree, this just seems like eye candy without any real immersion. It appears gameplay will resemble that of Time Crisis. I'll pass, unless they price it really low and even then I'll still probably pass.
Hmmmm... looks like they should have asked me to make it...
Wow this sucks.
I owned this game for awhile on the PS3. It was really over hyped and after awhile I just didn't even want to play it. This actually looks a little more fun. If anything it's nice to see some bigger developers bring out iPhone apps.
I ended up trading in Metal Gear for for Fallout 3. On that note, I'm really looking forward to Bethesda's mystery application in development for the iPhone. If its as good as Fallout 3 or Oblivion it will be the #1 app in the App Store.
How could have Kojima disgrace the series like this.
They're just thinking iPhone users are casual gamers.
Even if they just ported the ngage version,
I would have been more than happy to pay the premium app price!!
it looks okay
another tap to shoot, LAME, wtf, als;kgh a;lhjfpiojaoiu AHHHHHHH,
that pisses me off soo much, the only people who take the iphone seriously are small devs who make really good concept games but not any detailed games, if you know what if mean
Least impressive iPhone game graphics I've seen.
^what are you crazy, or did you just get your sight back a few minutes ago?
these graphics are easily better than at least 75% of the apps out there, with all the really horrible free apps in the appstore
or are you saying something like mote-m has more impressive graphics than this
Yea, I definitely wouldn't say its the graphics here that are the problem. The graphics look perfectly fine from what I'm seeing. It's the controls that look (sound) pathetic.
Maybe Sony can port over Killzone 2. Now THAT would be killer!
The graphics look good, but the animation is meh.
Looks like Duck Hunt with robots.
pass.
Anyone who says the graphics are not impressive are crazy. These graphics aren't better than just 75% of the apps currently available. I'd say they're better than 90% of them. I'd still like to get more details on the actual gameplay. But so far, it's not a total letdown. As long as it's priced not more than 4.99, I think this will make some noise at the App Store.
Many of the big devs clearly underestimate these devices und just see them as another cheap marketing tool. And it's the small indi dev proving them WRONG!
@y.p.robot; agreed.
TareX Says:
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Least impressive iPhone game graphics I’ve seen.
.....LOL
Nice graphics, but the gameplay looks lacking.
... which pretty much sums up the whole MGS series.
Very unimpressive. The visuals look to be simple 2D backdrops with jerkily animated 2D sprite characters, and the gameplay... well that might have been fun 25 years ago.
Even the old Gameboy Colour got a much, much better version of Metal gear than this. If the iPhone is ever to become a real gaming platform it needs real games, not throwaway rubbish like this.
You guys are being way too hard on the game. Yeah it's not the "real" game we want, but it still might be fun
iPhone very nice.
BAD
As I said in my forum post, I wish Konami would have given us a top-down shooter like the first and second Metal Gear games. Given the power of the platform, they could have spruced up the graphics a bit and given some really deep gameplay elements. Don't get me wrong, I like MGS (have owned, played all of them multiple times), but I want a Metal Gear game WITHOUT as complex a storyline and WITH great gameplay.
To me, this will sell to those like Yomachaser who are looking to get the MGS4 story and don't have a PS3, and that's fine. I just hope that Konami takes this platform seriously and starts giving us games worthy of their title.
Again, Konami, isometric sneak/shooter, remake the original Metal Gear, SOMETHING where people feel their actually doing something ... and a guard that says "I fell asleep" as he's sleeping.
@Yomachaser
MGS is not praised because its a rail shooter. Also, being able to take cover does not add much to what we see from the trailer to match the original gameplay("feel") of the MGS series.
Search for the ngage MGS mobile on youtube.
(http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Then you'll learn what the iphone owners are missing out on.
Considering the fact that the iPhone is (supposedly) a much more capable device that's released much later...the disappointment just adds on.
I remember reading from somewhere that the developers of the MGS touch dropped the idea of a full MGS stealth game to cater to the iPhone users. Apparently we're the casual gamers who do not want to spend much time or think when playing a game on the go.
--Bad, Bad decision!!--
They're games that I want to be simple and quick fun. But, there's also games that I don't. I believe I speak for the majoriy of MGS fans that MGS touch should have been categorized as the later.
On a side note,
The graphic is bad cuz its nothing more than high resolution 2D sprites. Such art style may work for other games on the iphone, but just not MGS.
Well, of course it may work for this MGS dumb-ifying rail shooting version.
Don't get me wrong, this might be a decent rail shooter.
But I was expecting to relive the MGS I enjoyed on the PS2/PS3 on my iPhone.
Where do I click to buy?
How did you people expect this to be a full blown game?
The iPhone has NO BUTTONS.
Of course the Gameboy is a better platform for an MGS Game !
And to those who say MGS was always about graphics and not gameplay, wow! The first MGS on PSX had insane gameplay for the time, it didn't even compare to anything. So did the original Metal gear ! (Not the shitty NES version)
I still hope this one does well. Not because it looks good or anything, but because I still hope Konami and Kojima will come to their senses and give the iTouch/Phone platform upgraded ports of Kojima's two adventure game masterpieces: Snatcher and Policenauts. Especially the latter, which has never been translated from the original Japanese.
@Yomachaser
I hear you. But to be honest, I wasn't much of a fan of the Acid series either.
I guess my problem is having seen the "MGS Mobile" released for the ngage last year.
And by the looks of it, the concept definitely works on a phone albeit limited buttons/control.
(http://www.allaboutngage.co...
Looks good, but THIS IS LAUGHABLE: When you go to the "preview website" link provided YOU HAVE TO HAVE FLASH INSTALLED! I guess they forgot about the iPod Touch and iPhone folks, huh? Isn't this game AIMED AT THAT AUDIENCE (pun intended)???