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Pinball illusions belongs to the now nearly extinct pinball genre. Despite its precursor games (Pinball fantasies, Pinball dreams) were just your average pinball games, PI sets a new quality to the series. To put it bluntly, in my eyes Pinball Illusions is the best pinball game in the world. Why? Read on...
First thing you will notice when starting the game is the music. It is, with a lack of a better term, perfect, and perfectly timed to the intro sequence as well (which aint bad either in its own right too). Furthermore, the awesome quality of music and sound effects carries on to the game itself too.
From the main menu you have access to four different tables (some of the past players might remember only three, this is because the fourth table, The Vikings, was only present in the CD version of the game). These are:
Each table being completely different of the others with its own style and layout, simply exploring out all the tricks, bonuses and modes is going to take a while. And to master them will take even longer.
The modes I mentioned are special mini-games on each table (you have first to activate them in certain ways), usually requiring you to hit certain bumpers and/or ramps within a set time to get a bonus.
Now, when it comes to graphics the ten year age of this game becomes slightly more visible, for it uses only a 256 color palette. However, the people who done them did a brilliant work, and so even with this limited palette the tables look very lifelike, sometimes feeling like you could reach on the other side of the screen and touch them.
If you want to play a match with your friends, don't worry - the game has hotseat multi-player mode, with up to eight players at once (taking their turns with each ball).
My rating: 5
Probably the best game of its genre, with gameplay, music and graphics still awesome despite its age. Definitely recommended both for die-hard pinball players and those who only play them every once in a while.
Keyboard controls:
If you want to reset the high scores, just delete the "setup." file from the game directory (that's right, no extension whatsoever).
FDD version of the game has been added, it solves the music problems some may experience and has more functions. It is available under extras.
Run the game through start.bat, straight illusion.exe will just tell you that it cannot find the config file and kick you back to DosBox, and even if you set it up, you'll have to repeat the setup every time you play the game and the high scores will not be saved. Certain command line parameters that were put in start.bat eliminate these issues. There are minor graphic glitches without impact on the gameplay. If a configuration change is necessary, delete the setup. file from the game directory and re-run start.bat.
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Click here for the Amiga version
