I bought the game after seeing the movie, which was amazing (that's my review, 4.75 stars), and seeing this article, I didn't read the article. But I did read the title, 'Guardians of the Galaxy Pinball may be best table yet'. And boy did that title get me intrigued. I bought the Marvel Pinball App for $1 and it came with The Avengers table, I had to fork out another $2 for the Guardians table. It is worth noting that as of the time of writing this Marvel Pinball is free on iOS.
Now I have played a few pinball machines in my time, my father was a Pinball Wizard and my mother a Pinball Queen so I spent a lot of time playing them as a child. The only other digital pinball I played was Pokemon Pinball on the Gameboy Color, and that sucked major balls compared to the real thing. Shit I also played Sonic Spinball, but that is more of a spinball than a pinball so it might not count.
So how do the Marvel App Pinballs hold up compared to other digital titles I have played? It blows them out of the park. They look, sound, and feel exactly like a real table. Obviously they are smaller, and lighter, and portable; but other than that they are a true recreation of actual pinballs at a tiny fraction of the price.
While the Guardians of the Galaxy table is really good, and definitely worth the extra $2 there are some noticeable problems. The game starts with a Multiball, all the balls in the table come out at once and you muck around with them for a minute, this minute doesn't seem to affect the score too much, the highest I got from it was 2.2 million points. After the minute-multiball-mania, Peter Quill ( GuardianOfTheGalaxyMan) says that he needs his 70s inspired music and it is your job to hit a ball that launches at you into a specific ramp. This will net you an easy 5 million point headstart if you can land it. As well as the 5 million points you are also treated to a 10 second trailer with the title of the movie flying in space, it is terrible and takes away from the flow.
If you are trying for a high score you will need to repeat the minigame every time, all up it takes about a minute and a half, just to start a new game. It may be fun a few times, or every now and then but you could honestly just leave your phone on the desk until the real game starts and not really be penalised for it.
There are these cartoon figures littered around the table and they will dance around and spout typical pinball one-liners. Overall they add a layer to the game that could not exist on an actual table but there are certain point when they can get distracting. For example there is a skill game that has Peter Quill and Ronan (AntiGuardianOfTheGalaxyMan) shooting plasma at each other. Ronan also shoots plasma at your ball when he wants to vaporise it. It's fine if he wants to vaporise my ball, it's distracting when he wants to vaporise Peter Quill and it looks like it vaporises my ball. I have lost my ball because I thought it got vaporised only for it to fall down the guts of the table.
Those are my only two complaints. The stupid long intro, and the sometimes distracting nature of the cartoons.
I have spent the last three days playing this game. My thumbs are worn down and blistered from playing the game too much. I have probably racked up about 14 hours between the 3 tables I have. It is most definitely a fun game.
The ball feels like a ball, you never find yourself cursing the game for unfairly putting the ball in dire situations. You are always in control.
The music in the game is heavily inspired from 70s rock and it sounds amazing. It fits the tone of the movie by not being overly dramatic and by just being fun. It's the song in the trailer above if you want to hear it for yourself.
The voice-acting can get a little repetitive but the characters all have voices true to their movie counterparts. Quill will deliver one-liners differently than his movie counterpart but sticks to the tone. Groot is amazing, whatever he says in certain situations is exactly what he would say in a similar situation in the movie. Rocket, Drax and Ronan are perfect, Quill and Groot are obviously different voice actors, but it is a little harder to tell with Rocket, Drax and Ronan. Gamora was jibbed in this game though. She is told to wait in the ship at the start of the game, she tells Quill to leave his music behind and she sounds exactly like Peggy from Married With Children, otherwise she has no other lines in the game. Maybe a couple on her mini-pinball, but nothing worth remembering.
An amazing addition to this game are the Leaderboards. In the beginning (two days ago) I was always trying to improve my score, just for the sake of beating my score. Now I look at the scores of the world. Currently I am ranked 22nd in the world. It's a great feeling and now that I know I am competing against the world I can easily improve my score again.
The game is great despite its flaws. It is better value than buying a real pinball, it is better value than putting dollar coins into a pinball at the pub. So far it has cost me 30 cents for every hour I have played and the more I play it the better the value will be. If you are a fan of the old brick and mortar pinballs I recommend buying the game. If you hate digital pinballs, maybe don't buy it. If you think you will get your moneys worth out of it then you should definitely buy it. I bought it and I had no idea I was going to enjoy it so much. As a game I would give it 6/10, as a pinball I would give it 8.5 out of 10.
