Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection review

Pinball is like a dinosaur to most of today’s gamers, who’ve become used to parent-horrifyingly realistic graphics, epic storylines, and massively multiplayer online worlds. However, those few who still dig on this old-school action would have to look long and hard to find a better deal than this lovingly handled compilation.

We’ll get the list out of the way first: You’ve got Black Knight, Pinbot, Gorgar, Space Shuttle, Funhouse, Whirlwind, Taxi, and Firepower – truly a great lineup. And Wii players get two more, rather obscure machines: Jive Time and Sorceror.

You might not recall all of these by name, but if you set foot in an arcade during the last 20 years, you’re guaranteed to know at least a few of these when you see them. Funhouse had the mannequin head on the playfield, Gorgar talked to you in bad English like a devil-horned Hulk, Space Shuttle had a little space shuttle model in the upper right corner. Yeah, it’s coming back to you now, isn’t it?

The games all look beautiful, especially on Wii, where the colors are especially vivid, and play quite well. More importantly, except for a slightly too-predictable path when the ball is kicked out of a few certain targets on some tables (like the center, spinner hole on Jive Time), that precious metal sphere moves pretty much exactly as you’d expect it too, with the proper weight and inertia.