Pinball M

Genre: Compilation / Pinball

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Alternating), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Earlier this year, when developer Zen Studios brought us Pinball FX, I was… bemused. Here they were releasing a new free-to-play pinball game on Nintendo Switch, when… they already had a free-to-play pinball game on Nintendo Switch, 2017’s Pinball FX3. The new game didn’t seem significantly improved over the old one, and overall there just didn’t seem much reason to even release a new game when they could just continue releasing new content for the old one. Worse, the new game wasn’t backwards-compatible with content from the older one, despite having some of the same tables. For pinball fans, getting tables that were in both games meant bloating up the space it took on your memory card just to have what were for all intents and purposes two copies of the same game.

When I saw Zen Studios was set to release yet another free-to-play Pinball game on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2023, the very same year, I admit I felt annoyed at what seemed to be a frustrating trend. However, unlike Pinball FX, whose reason for existing seems to be wanting, Pinball M is clearly designed with a purpose, and one that sets it apart from the other Pinball games that Zen Studios has released. As the “M” in the game’s title indicates, Pinball M is specifically about bringing players an M-rated Pinball experience, with its paid DLC tables including a selection based on horror films (oh, and also Duke Nukem).

Zen Studios runs with this theme throughout the game’s menus, playing overbearing music that seems like it could have come straight out on an 80’s Horror film (or the TV series Stranger Things), and with your introduction tutorial coming from a hooded figure with a deep voice. What’s more, each of the different pinball tables comes in a setting perfect for the topic matter – a table based on The Thing is in a room covered with snow, while Duke Nukem’s table appears to be outside of a strip club.

While the game revels in its horror theme, and its tables may be adorned with horror characters and spattered with blood, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this is itself a Horror game, as it’s pretty consistently campy rather than creepy. Ultimately, this may be for the best, as I am dubious how anyone would go about making a pinball game that’s actually scary.

As with Zen Studios’ prior pinball games, the presentation in this Compilation is excellent, with highly-detailed 3D visuals and sounds that do a good job of capturing the actual real-life Pinball tables while adding a bit of flair in the form of animated 3D characters reacting to your actions. In the case of the included Wrath of the Elder Gods table, this includes a wriggling tentacle instead of a plunger to launch your ball. This is joined by voices and sound effects befitting the table in question, though I felt the included Elder Gods table was too talky for its horror-inspired theme.

Okay, so let’s take a moment to talk about the included table. Overall, I would argue that this is one of the better free tables the series has offered, with plenty of personality and some good lane options to choose from, though I did feel like this table’s layout did seem to end up tossing my ball dead-center far more often than I would have liked. And of course the theme itself, clearly inspired by the cosmic horror works of H.P. Lovecraft, works quite well here.

Overall, Zen Studios once again shines through with an excellent Pinball game, though this time it’s a game that doesn’t just seem like a copy-paste of its earlier works. I think Horror fans will get a kick out of the tables on offer here, and so too will Pinball fans who aren’t grossed out by buckets of blood, slime, and creepy creatures. And as this game is free-to-play, I think that anyone who falls into any of the above categories would do well to download this game.

tl;dr – Pinball M is a free-to-play Pinball game with a focus on tables with an M rating, usually based on a Horror theme. The gameplay is excellent, but it’s really the presentation that sets this game apart as something unique among numerous other Pinball games on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: B+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Arcade / Party Game, Best New Free-To-Play Game

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