If you're eager to learn pinball, Microsoft Pinball Arcade is a great history lesson, as well as a good way to learn table navigation and scoring techniques. The producers of the game even went so far as to make you wait for the dials to roll/reset to zero before you could play another game. The newer tables such as Haunted House and Cue Ball Wizard use electronic font displays to show your score, while the older tables use lighted signs such as "2 million" in combination with rolling dials akin to automobile odometers.
What also elevates this game's style to above average is the faithful rendering of the back-glass scoring system from each table. Even when the table design is frustrating, you're going to find yourself aching to get the next bonus table feature just so you can hear some classic bell sounds you haven't experienced yet. Anything from a ball hitting a steel pin to the distinct sound of a bumper will make you sit up and notice this game amongst the myriad pinball titles out there. The one game element that really draws you in is the faithful reproduction of the sounds from all the tables. Sure the tables are old and give you a great sense of how far pinball has come, but with all the money Microsoft has, couldn't it spare a few more bucks to include great tables from manufacturers Williams and Bally? The result is a collection of tables that range from confusing designs such as Humpty Dumpty (with no bottom flippers, only outward-angled side flippers) to a classic such as Spirit of 76, which is almost a picturesque version of pinball from its golden years. However, what the variations in table design don't provide is an assortment of the "best of the best" that pinball has to offer. This resource is a godsend for novices who usually just pound the flippers in hopes of getting big points. To help you through all this, Microsoft's in-game documentation is an excellent reference source for understanding how pinball strategy works (how to flip and "catch" the ball) as well as giving complete layouts of the tables with descriptions of all the scoring elements within the games themselves. The layout of the varied tables requires a good bit of thinking while playing to make sure you nudge or flip at exactly the right moment. In pinball, you're basically playing "against" the design of the table so that the goal is to overcome the obstacles with a limited number of control factors (flippers, nudging, and plunger). The available variations in design guarantee that each table plays remarkably different from any other. Included in this collection are Baffle Ball (1931), Humpty Dumpty (1947), Knock Out (1950), Slick Chick (1963), Spirit of 76 (1976), Haunted House (1982), and Cue Ball Wizard (1992). The rest of the tables are from the succeeding decades, showcasing innovations in design and play. Microsoft Pinball Arcade attempts to simulate seven pinball games from manufacturer Gottlieb, the first being from 1931 when David Gottlieb designed the "first" pinball game called Baffle Ball. Because of Microsoft's decision to limit itself to one pinball company, Microsoft Pinball Arcade comes off as more of an interactive history lesson than a collection of good games. Before that, relatively low-tech pinball tables ruled the arcade floors, and now, Microsoft has turned the clock back even further to explore the unsought realm of historical pinball simulation. The Revenge of Arcade and Return of Arcade collections brought back classic '80s arcade games from a different era when video games first began to reveal the possibilities of electronic gaming.
Microsoft has done a fairly good job recently of reviving games for their nostalgia value.
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