There’s a test chamber that you hit once to open, then again to select one of several different exercises. Once you’ve summoned both robots, the ball you locked earlier is released back onto the table for some multi-ball action in a clever nod to the duo’s co-op roots. You can unlock Atlas and P-Body by hitting specific ramps a number of times, then locking in the current ball to make the corresponding character appear on a platform above the field. What’s great about Portal Pinball isn’t just the sheer number of Portal 2 references it crams in, but how it weaves those references into the action in a genuinely fun and interesting way. When the game demanded I hit a specific ramp or target, it was dead simple to identify and execute, and that’s a surprisingly tough feat to pull off in a pinball game. Where The Avengers tables were cluttered with endless ramps and unclear objectives, Portal Pinball is visually coherent and intuitive. Where the Star Wars tables were muddled with needlessly busy artwork and text, Portal Pinball is straightforward and attractive. That’s in stark contrast to many of developer Zen Studios’ other themed tables, like the gimmicky ones built for Star Wars and The Avengers. The background on the floor is some simple-yet-attractive artwork depicting Portal 2‘s co-op robot buddies, Atlas and P-Body, that leaves the playing field clear enough that you’ll never lose track of your ball. Despite being filled with such exhaustive references to Portal 2‘s lore, Portal Pinball manages to maintain a clean and cohesive design. Portal Pinball is not some lavish recreation of an existing pinball table, but it is still absolutely lavish. That’s where games like Pure Chess satisfy, and where games like Portal Pinball focus instead on simply being fun to play. But trying to mimic a tangible experience like billiards, chess or pinball in digital form is tricky: visceral actions like frantically smashing the flipper buttons or knocking your hip against the machine to loose a stray pinball from behind a bumper are arguably futile to attempt to replicate it feels doubly so when you consider the often fickle fanbase these games appeal to. There’s always going to be that crowd that obsesses over all the little details, right down to the text on the scoreboard and the flipper accent color, with all the attention of an auteur pornography director trying to line up his million-dollar money shot. They’re surprisingly difficult to maintain and people just don’t seem interested enough for them to be worth the effort, so I’m willing to take pinball in pretty much any form I can get it these days. You don’t see genuine pinball machines around that much anymore.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |