Pinball FX feels like you’re trying to play pinball near someone holding a few dozen roman candles on a machine that doesn’t quite work right in a location that doesn’t seem to realize how slightly outdated it is. I’m a fan of digital pinball, having enjoyed the delights of titles like Last Gladiator Pinball on the Sega Saturn and 3D Ultra Pinball on the PC, but Pinball FX manages to take advantage of non of the positives a digital pinball game has over its more traditional counterpart and all of the negatives.

For starters: Only three tables? That’s weak, especially when you consider the tables presented. The tables have three themes: racing (Speed Machine), street/outdated urban/EA/whatever lifestyle (Extreme), and secret agent (Agents). Aside from the second table feeling like it was ripped out of 1992, with its horrid hybrid dance and hip hop soundtrack, the motifs aren’t that bad. The problem is that they are poorly laid out, overly busy, and not much fun. But for a $10 download, I would expect the table count to have been closer to 5.

All of the tables suffer from a love of busy board graphics, the dullest being Extreme and the most eye-searing being Agent, that makes it very difficult to follow the ball around. That isn’t to say that the boards don’t look good, they do and are in fact sharp and attractive, it’s that they are often too busy. Out of the 6 views available, only 1 is far enough away to make any sort of planning possible; the closer views might make it easier to spot the ball, but they certainly don’t make it any easier to plan routes. The goals given during the game are hard to distinguish among the random flashes and aren’t terribly exciting; unlike, say, Last Gladiator Pinball’s cries to appease the Emperor while you finish opponents off ala the vicious world of pinball. While some said 3D Ultra Pinball was a bit too gimmicky, I happened to enjoy that take on pinball because it took advantage of the medium, with animations and table designs that aren’t really feasible in this recent era of an arcade- and pinball-less world. All of the cool things 3D Ultra Pinball did are gone from here. Instead, the tables’ exciting features are more its graphics than its design. I did enjoy Speed Machine though, and Agents was more mediocre than poor; Extreme was just dull to play and a pain to sit through.

One of the oddest omissions is the ability to control the launching of the ball. The ability to control how fast and hard the ball comes out of its tunnel is one of the cornerstones of pinball strategy, and not allowing the player any control is bring damning – hell, 3D Pinball for Windows has more ball control. Tilt is available, but I didn’t find it overly useful; but then again, I rarely have. Another weird oversight is the inability to constantly see your score: instead of seeing your points shoot up as you play, your score is tallied on the same panel everything else – all of the challenges, warnings, messages – is displayed; yes, this is a fairly minor complaint, but I find that a permanent scoring spot acts as motivation and keeps it exciting. The tables are also said to get more complicated the better you get, offering an evolving challenge, but it’s hard to gauge that so I’ll just take their word.

If you’re reading this from your own system, then I recommend checking out Sierra’s PC pinball line-up. There’s a demo, naturally, but I can’t imagine it sustaining any of the curious for too long. Maybe with some extra tables Pinball FX will really take off, but with the additional cost of the extra content I would still say skip.

Download: Skip.