Stern Pinball Arcade

Genre: Compilation / Pinball

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Stern Pinball Arcade is a free-to-play app to play Pinball using various Stern-produced tables you can purchase via paid DLC. It was released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2016, and Nintendo Switch in 2017. This game is a spin-off of The Pinball Arcade, a similar Compilation that includes some Stern tables along with others, though some of the tables available through this Compilation are not available in that title. Yeah, this is unfortunately overly-complicated.

Making this even more complicated is the fact that while this game is free-to-play via digital download, players can also opt to buy a European-released physical release of the game, though I the word “physical” is largely a misnomer here, as this release only contains a digital download code for the game along with eleven tables… though being a foreign release, you’ll have to set your Nintendo Switch’s region to Europe to make use of the download code.

Of course, there is something to play here even if you don’t want to spend any money – the game includes the table Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, based on a critically-panned 1994 Robert De Niro and Kenneth Branagh film, with this version slightly altered from its original release for licensing purposes.The table features some good gameplay physics and a moving Frankenstein’s Monster statuette that flings multiballs onto the table, with songs and sounds derived from or inspired by the film. It’s a fun nostalgia piece, though most who will enjoy that nostalgia these days are those who played the original pinball table rather than the mostly-forgotten film. I should note that this is the same table players get for free in The Pinball Arcade, so if you’re looking to get a free pinball table, you only really need one of these two games.

The presentation in this Compilation is generally pretty good, with detailed 3D visuals and sounds that do a good job of capturing the actual real-life Pinball tables. Maybe it was just me, but I felt the visuals in this release were a bit faded compared to The Pinball Arcade, but otherwise good.

In the end, I would say that if you have a Nintendo Switch, unless you also own The Pinball Arcade, you might as well download this game – after all, it is free, and what’s included in the free package is decent. If you do own The Pinball Arcade, this release may still be worth it if you want to also purchase some of the unique games only available among this game’s slew of paid DLC. Either way, what’s here isn’t bad, but this game’s release is unnecessarily confusing in numerous ways.

tl;dr – Stern Pinball Arcade is a free-to-play Compilation that includes one free Pinball table, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, and the ability to buy others via paid DLC. Even if you’re not a big Pinball fan, if you own a Nintendo Switch you might as well get this since it’s free (unless you also own The Pinball Arcade, which contains the same free table). And if you are a Pinball fan, you still have some other good tables to peruse via paid DLC, though unfortunately not as many as were previously available.

Grade: B-

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